#like I am a woman FROM the U.K. with how bad that look gets me

[twostepstyless]

He’s so fit it’s not funny

[aeolianblues]

Honestly if one of the first things everyone knew about me was that I spent 35 years pining for one woman, and later said woman and her daughter because she married a long time ago, then forget the fact that she inspired a lot of my poetry, I would simply burn it all and bury myself from the burning embarrassment of being such a loser.

But such was the life of William Butler Yeats.

Every one of them had a Life eh? TS Eliot too— fascinating fear of decay and mortality. You see it in his work etc etc, but he also left his wife when she fell mentally ill, for a younger hot thing— some 20 y/o when he was in like his 40s or 60s. We see you running away from facing the inevitability, man, a profound line about death doesn’t change that.

So it’s fascinating to read their works with this background context available to you, it’s such an insight into the human psyche. You know I’ve talked about this a little before, on how we sort of look to our poets and songwriters for answers, to help make sense of all the madness, and without fail, they happen to be some of the most flawed human beings in history. Or in less intense cases, they don’t have the answers we seek from them. It reminds me again of that interview with Grian Chatten from Fontaines D.C., in the NME back in 2022. He’s a poet for the modern day, I’ll grant him that easily. He convinced me recently that lyrics can work quite well standing alone as poetry and not come off as naff or aloof, or can still feel quite prescient and not pretentious or removed from the live setting in which they will be performed, making eye contact with you in a sweaty theatre (slowly getting larger, pleased to see, with the U.K. and Dublin arena shows planned). They can still connect with the loud guitars and drums pounding behind them.

He said to the NME, in light of Dogrel and his painting of a Dublin life, presenting you with the characters, the contradictions, the scenarios lived in his Dublin, his portrayal led to people turning to him for answers, when I think what you and him would both know deep down is that you’re really looking to him for a depiction of your world in the words that hit the soul, in a way that romanticises the moments you want to remember, and can beautifully frame the injustices of the bad ones. Not answers. Just a painting.

He said, people are looking to me for answers. What the fuck do I know?

Same as it had always been, hasn’t it? He doesn’t have answers. Yeats didn’t have answers. TS Eliot didn’t have answers— despite his vivid depictions of loss and decay, he still couldn’t deal with the thought of it himself. But all it does do, is let you read a work through the lens of your own life, and then look at it again through the eyes of a complex human being, the poet. It’s an option that is available to you. Some people do subscribe to ‘death of the author’, but if you’d like to explore the mind of someone who isn’t you, if you aren’t afraid to feel uncomfortable, different, or in the skin of a very different person, it’ll open you up to new thoughts, which don’t have to be yours.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, don’t be afraid to read something you don’t agree with. Bad thoughts aren’t contagious. You can approach someone else’s work knowing it’s a complex read, and that can be an intriguing and insightful read. However, I am absolutely not going to be putting this post in any poetry tags, because I don’t think most people on the poetry canon side of the internet will appreciate me calling one of the crown princes of 20th century Irish poetry and literature a loser. Lmao.

[nitannichionne]

If He Was Your Fan, Chapter 59: Prerogatives (A Henry Cavill Fanfic)

Chapter 59: Prerogatives (Henry POV)

CHAPTER 59: Prerogatives

NOTE: Thanks for your support and input, especially last chapter!

(Henry POV)

I lay in bed, looking at her. I made it priority to wear her out last night:

“Aaahhhhh!” she screamed as I drove her hips up and down an my cock. She gripped my shoulders, her head falling back riding out the previous orgasm. “I can’t—”

“You can,” I growled, turning her under me. My tongue snaked to her mouth, moistening her dried lips and the insides of her mouth. I went down on her again and she let out a whimper. We both moaned as we felt her passion flow again. “Ah, that’s it.” Her hips raised off the bed and I crawled between her legs, nibbling her torso on the way back up, and aligned my hips with hers again. I rubbed my meatus against her slit, kissing her neck.

She gave a kitten cry as my tongue surged inside her mouth, my cock thrusting into her at the same time. The sound struck the base of my neck and lit a path down my spine, making me ache to pound her again. How I loved hearing that sound, feeling her body become pliant in my arms but feeling her fingertips rake my back deliciously as her sex pulsed and pulled me, her eyes half open as if under a spell…my spell. Doesn’t she know what that does to me?

I sigh, blinking back to present. I am trying get it. She wants to establish her own identity in this new life here in the U.K. She didn’t see it coming, and she wants to try to start anew, get her bearings, as it were. I understand.

But I DON’T understand why she has to do it this way. I am being selfish, and I know it, but I barely care, I think as I lick my lips watching her. Yet I do care about her and how she feels, and I am going along with this. Did I sweep her off her feet? I must have not done a good job. She seemed stable the whole time we were together in all three film sites.

I hate games. Is that what this is? It’s hard for me to believe that. Our relationship started so differently from most. Our whole history is different from most. And I have never ever had a woman be so understanding of my quirks, like my gaming and such. She seemed fine when I went to work, didn’t even show a bit of insecurity until…until I put it there…damn, am I still paying for that?

And I gave her my ring! How can she question everything when she is wearing my crest on her finger? She had to know I was working up to popping the question. I looked down at the one she gave me. She thought it wasn’t good enough. How can she think that?

“Henry?”

I look at her. I’d been quiet too long.

She looks dejected. “Can we just…go outside awhile?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah, in a bit.”

“Oh, okay,” she nods, but she looks like she’s going to cry. “I’ll take Luna out. You bring Kal, alright?”

“Yeah.”

She gets Luna’s harness, and she, thinking she is part dog, trots over to be leashed. I can’t help but smile at that. “Okay, then.”

The second she’s alone, I get on my phone. I see all these numbers I’d conveniently blocked out—actresses and such, women I could call up. I slowed at Emma’s.

I call up my brother. I can’t believe I’m calling him. As the line rings, I realize how serious I am about her and how much I want to truly understand and not lose her.

“Hold on,” he says. “Let me get this right. She wants to not move in with you yet?”

“No.”

“Oh, she might be a proper lady, Henry.”

I roll my eyes at that. “She is.”

“No, you know what I mean,” he chastises. “She wants to establish her own status.”

“She wears my ring.”

“A ring, or the ring?”

“The ring.”

“Well, Good Lord, Henry, the horse is out of the barn!” he is quiet for a moment. “Did you ask her? Does she know what that ring means?”

“No.”

“Henry!”

“Good Lord, you sound like Mum.”

“No, she’d probably hit you in the back of the head with a paper,” he mutters.

“You’re not helping.”

“She loves you, and she wants to make a name for herself before you change it. She wants to be sure it isn’t proximity but really a desire to be together. She wants other people to at least have reason to feel that way too. Good enough?”

I sigh. “Good enough.”

“I kind of like her already.”

“She’s American.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Told Mum?”

“Met Mum online.”

“Well, well, well,” he teases. “When are the rest of us going to meet her?”

“Soon.”

“Good man,” he encourages. “Remember, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind—”

“--And a man’s prerogative to change it back,” I finish with my brother. We have a laugh. Mum always hated that quote.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I hang up and look at Kal. “Well, I guess that’s that, Kal. Let’s go.”

We join her and Luna outside. She looks worried. I can’t help but soften. She wants my understanding.

“So, tell me about this place at Stella’s,” I exhale.

“It’s in Brixton, not far from you,” she says hopefully, her eyes widening. “It’s a studio.”

“Small?”

“I don’t know, but it’s furnished and I can still afford it even with the pet fees.”

I look at the stars in the sky, the Northern Lights beginning to fade. For the first time I hold to the fact that they are still there. I take a deep breath. “I can help you settle in.”

“You will?” Painful relief crosses her features as she leans into me.

I drag her to my side. “If this is what you need, pet, but I want you to know that ring means something to certain parts of society.”

She is quiet for a moment, and swallows hard, looking at the ring on her finger. “Should I give this back—”

“No,” I say flatly. “And you can take my ring off my cold dead hand!” I earn a laugh from her. I gather her close. “I don’t fully agree, my love, but if this is what you need—” I was cut off by her pulling me down for a kiss. It was tender and vulnerable, tasting of tears.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

We look at the skies. “They are fading.”

“They’re still there,” she whispers with a shrug. “They’ll be back. We’ll be back.”

“We should camp next time.”

“No plumbing?” Her eyes widen. “No thank you.”

i couldn't help but laugh at that, and honestly I couldn't agree more. We finished our playtime with Luna and Kal and head inside. We ate all of our leftovers and curled in bed that night, warming each other. Snow and rain had fallen in the time we were here, only to melt and warm again. “Brixton.”

“Yes, Brixton,” she whispers. “It’s not Group A, but I can afford it and Stella says it’s nice. I know it’s not the most desirable area.”

It dawns on me that she is afraid of London, really afraid of it-the society.

may be in middle middle and you are upper, and I know that I think your line was Baronet but now Gentry, and that I am…well, essentially, no one to that, but…”

“I assure you, it’s not as strict as you think.” I look into her eyes and see real fear.

“Well, your father is in finance, so he still has the status, your brothers are in professions that adheres to the same—”

“And I’m an actor, love.”

“Line and wealth, Henry.”

I chilled at her words. She was truly afraid of not being considered good enough. And what’s more, she really thought I cared. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispers, framing my face in her hands. “but what of James Bond? What of the Knighthood?”

I laugh, albeit nervously. “Knighthood?” I pull her on top of me. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Do you really care about all that?”

“I guess the real question is, do you?”

The question hung in the air. “If it comes, it comes, darling.”

“And if the door is closed without consideration?”

“If I do great works that improve or enrich over time, I can be considered.” I tell her.

“Like Durrell?”

“Among other things.”

“I want to be an asset to you—”

“You already are,” I pull her down and squeeze her for a hug. “Good God, woman.” I pull her back, looking at her. “You are beautiful and brilliant with a heart bigger than the skies we’re under. That’s why I love you.” I slap her arse. “This bum doesn’t hurt, either.”

“You’re so bad!” she playfully slaps my chest, making me laugh.

I take a deep breath. “I will back you, whatever you do, pet. I see you need this now.” But in my eyes it was far from necessary.

“Thank you,” she whispers in my ear, hugging me. “thank you for understanding this.”

I hug her close. I hug her as if she is all I have. I hate that she feels this way, though there may be some truth to it, but it will be so subtle that she shouldn’t notice. Smart as she is, I should have known she would. But I have never felt like this before. I get the feeling she hasn’t either. It means something-we mean something…

@mistress-of-ward @nuggsmum @messyinsomnimaniac @jencanbeyouryengeralt @sweetdreamsofgelato @mary-ann84 @omgkatinka @the-soot-sprite @viking-raider @keanureevesisbae @henryobsessed @summersong69 @sunshine96love @michelehansel @thelastsock @tumblnewby @tenaciousneckpartypainter @rn7rocks @daydreamin83 @ruthoakenshield @musicartmayheminmyheart @kaatelyynn-blog-blog@forallthebrokenheartedthings @alphacancrii @liquorlaughslove @designerwriterchic @tamychm @nikkilynn303 @circesgirl1 @xoxohannahlee @pixie88@fckdeusername @maan24 @kaatelyyynn​ @october505​ @absentmindr​ @introvertedmouse​ @sassy-pelican @griscka75

[skarsgard-daydreams]

Voices Carry

Ch. 1: “Keep it Down Now”

[ Eins | Zwei | Drei | Vier | Fünf | Sechs | Sieben | Acht | Neun | Zehn | Elf ]

Description: Merkel accepts a job to smuggle a young woman out of East Berlin, and it turns out to be more than he bargained for.

Warnings: strong language, references to violence, poor grasp of the German language, possible historical liberties, probable sexual content in the future

Notes: This is the first chapter of a longer story. Let me know if you want to be tagged for future installments. The song referenced below is “Anarchy in the U.K.” and if any of the German is not clear based on context, I can add translations.

It started with convincing their stout little grandmothers to smuggle in copies of the latest Sex Pistols records from the West. Merkel, then seventeen, was the one who thought to disguise the records as copies of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. It was a perfect plan—at least until his own grandmother wanted to play the record one evening as his family enjoyed a few drinks after dinner. Everyone had been stunned when they were treated to the thrumming electric guitar and Johnny Rotten’s shamelessly punk declaration, “I am an Anti-Christ.” Merkel’s father had snapped the record in half and hauled him upstairs to deliver a beating that, to this day, easily eclipsed the worst ass-kicking he’d ever received in his chosen profession. His father’s talents had been wasted as a postman, Merkel often said with a wry grin when he told the story.

Next came subversive Western novels and VHS tapes of movies and television that were verboten in the East. These were too dangerous for anyone in Merkel’s crew to risk their grandmother, so they recruited American college boys who got conservative haircuts and dressed up as businessmen, carrying the contraband in special briefcases with hidden compartments so they could later go home and brag about how they were doing their part to fight the communists.

Merkel figured they got off on it. Maybe they all did. It was a game in those days, of cat and Maus, suppression and rebellion, action and reaction. By the time he was twenty-two, they had begun to smuggle people. They weren’t just playing punk music in underground garages and running the streets of East Berlin with ink-dyed hair and grungy leather jackets anymore. Now lives were on the line.

They spent years perfecting their techniques. They modified vehicles to conceal a person in a secret compartment so tiny that someone as tall as Merkel couldn’t dream of squeezing into it. When smuggling wasn’t an option, they resorted to forgery instead—falsifying passports and travel authorizations in an old warehouse on the outskirts of town. But staying on top of the constant changes to the documents needed to cross the checkpoint was a battle, one which required an extensive network of contacts willing to provide them with intelligence and supplies.

At twenty-five, Merkel would now be completely unrecognizable to the greasy little punk he’d been when he started playing this game. His survival depended on remaining cautious. The sort of people he ran with weren’t rebellious little boys any longer. They were either assets or liabilities, loyal to each other in theory, but in practice, more loyal to their own self-preservation than anything else. Merkel knew it was only a matter of time before he was betrayed by one of his friends and declared an enemy of the state. He planned to be long gone before the Stasi came for him.

~

It was on a frigid morning in January that he received the call. The heating in the entire building—one of those Brutalist blocs that began to look dilapidated the moment they were erected—had been out for the past week. Merkel had taken to sleeping fully clothed for once, wearing three pairs of socks and a knit cap pulled down so far over his head it could’ve doubled as a sleeping mask. The phone echoed in his sparsely furnished apartment. Merkel stirred under the mountain of blankets and groped blindly on the nightstand. His fingers were stiff with cold as he closed them around the telephone and yanked it to his ear.

“Ja?”

Bastian was already telling him to meet at their usual place in ten minutes.

“Nein,” Merkel argued. “Zwanzig.”

He heard Bastian scoff. “Fünfzehn.”

Merkel hung up without another word. He groaned as he rolled out of bed and padded over to the bathroom. The hot water had been out all week too. He vaguely wondered if his landlord was trying to freeze him out. Even though Merkel paid his rent on time every week and was always polite to the man and his wife, he’d once made the mistake of coming home with his shirt collar soaked in blood. “Nosebleed,” he’d tried to explain, but he could never figure out if Frau Werner had believed him. Merkel splashed his face with the freezing water and changed into some fresh socks and a clean shirt before he donned a large blue overcoat and headed downstairs.

The street was nearly empty this late in the morning. Merkel tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat and crossed in front of the ruins of an old bombed out building, heading down into the spiderweb of tunnels that made up the S-Bahn. Ten minutes later, he was across town, sitting on top of a short metal filing cabinet and warming his hands with a mug of foul coffee in a dingy warehouse with Bastian.

“I thought I said fifteen minutes,” Bastian complained. He was a strapping young blonde man with icy blue eyes. Merkel liked to tell him he looked like the Aryan ideal come to life. Bastian liked to tell Merkel he looked like a bug-eyed ogre.

“I never agreed.” Merkel smirked over the rim of the ceramic mug and took a sip of the bitter drink. He wondered if he could convince Sonja to let him take a hot shower at her apartment later in exchange for that Bowie record she’d been asking about.

“Johannes König contacted me.”

“The writer?” Merkel confirmed. He recognized the name immediately. König was an infamous playwright who’d had several productions shut down by the state for promoting Western ideas.

Bastian nodded. “He found out his house is bugged and he thinks they’ll be coming for him soon.”

Merkel maintained a neutral expression as he listened, though he wondered where Bastian was going with this. They had an unspoken rule that once someone was under intense state surveillance, they weren’t getting out. At least not with the help of Merkel’s crew. They couldn’t risk their entire operation for one Dummkopf who’d been careless.

“König knows he’s done for,” Bastian said, sensing his hesitation. “He wants us to move his daughter.”

Merkel made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “We’re not babysitters.”

“She’s in her twenties,” Bastian interrupted. “And he’s offering us a lot of money to get her out as soon as possible.”

“We can’t move anyone until Sunday,” Merkel argued. He had a bad feeling Bastian was going to suggest they do something stupid because he wanted to fuck this girl.

“We can hide her until Sunday,” Bastian said with a shrug. He definitely wanted to fuck this girl.

Merkel shook his head. “No, she’s on her own until we have a car or a passport.”

His friend took out a thick wad of cash and slapped it on the filing cabinet. “This is König’s down payment,” Bastian said, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned. “He’s offering us four times this amount if we do it.”

Merkel took the cash in his hands and counted it quickly. He sucked his teeth, narrowing his eyes at Bastian. “How many days is it until Sunday?”

“Drei.”

Merkel swore. “Scheiße.”

German Glossary:

Dummkopf - dummy

Scheiße - shit

@skrsgardspam​ @b-afterhours​ @emmyrosee​ @flowers-in-your-hayr​

[almostperfectshark]

Well Guys,

Where do i even begin to start... My life has been hectic, wild, and absolutely crazy these last few years. I dropped everything I had in Michigan at 18 years old and moved to Montana for a guy who i actually happened to meet on this website. Tumblr... Who knew right? I’m sure there’s probably a lot of you that have found love out their on this website and if your happy I’m happy glad it worked out for ya but sadly it didn’t for me. You know that feeling when you meet someone online who you instantly vibe with and have conversations with and it feels like you’ve known each other for years?? That’s the kind of feeling I had when I met this person. I won’t drop his name because to this day he continues to “stalk” me. He manages to find all my social media platforms no matter how many different emails I used he finds all of them.. I of course skyped him and made sure he was who he said he was or so I thought.. He was real physically but emotionally he was completely different if that makes sense. We talked for hours upon hours day and night every spare second we had so I ended up moving to Montana and I’m a Michigan gal so that is quite a distance. I left everything I had behind my family, my friends my college I was enrolled in and about to start, my drivers license ,EVERYTHING. Prior to me flying out to Montana he talked about a poly relationship and I have been in a poly relationship in the past so I was thinking about giving the okay but didn’t give the okay to him yet. Not only does he show up with two random strangers I’ve never seen before or knew their names wouldn’t you want to pick up your partner alone and not with two people she doesn’t know? Well we get in the truck after I grab my bags and of course I’m wanting my first kiss with him but it’s kind of awkward to share that moment in front of some strangers ya know? So we get to the house and I can’t stand it anymore so I finally lean in and kiss him and look behind me to hear them say “Don’t stop because of us” that was a little weird. We go inside and his mom is still awake poor thing ( I honestly miss her so fucking much) she introduces herself and hugs me and welcomes me. We go into his room in the basement and do our thing the next day goes by and I start to become good friends with we’ll call her Sara so we get on the topic of the best sex we’ve ever had and she tells me the best sex she ever had was with my bf and he tries to deny it and I threaten to go back home since I haven’t even been there for two fucking days he begs me not to so I decide to invite Sara over to confront him in front of me and she does and she ends up making him tell the truth he then proceeds to cry hysterically and starts telling me he doesn’t want to lose me and ends up punching a wall in rage and probably self disappointment they leave and I decide to forgive him even though this happened the day before i got on the plane. I was already half way across the map and wasn’t willing to give up and make a fool of myself for some guy I met online. He changed for a little bit before I moved out there he was a manager at Sonic but when I showed up he wasn’t working anymore so I took on the reigns at that point of bringing in an income. At first I started at a sporting goods store and I loved it I miss that place so much it was such a cool and rad place sadly it closed down because we were a sister store and we weren’t bringing in enough income to their liking. From there I moved on to a organic grocery store and that place was boujie as all hell, at first I thought they were all nice people but lord does that change It’s kind of funny and sad at the same time how much people can change within a matter of seconds. Most of the items in that store didn’t have barcodes to scan you had to remember individual numbers for every damn thing every piece of candy,nuts,fruits,veggies. There was a girl who came in every single day who helped get me the job she worked in the medication department super sweet girl actually named Sara lol but not the same sara as above. She would come in every single day crying this woman would bust her ass at this place and she was a manager and never got a higher recognition for any of the shit she did ever they literally treated her like garbage. She was the only one who would help me with any questions I had unlike my other manager who thought she was all that and a bag of chips. She was from the U.K. her name was Fran this woman was a fucking bitch one of the most two faced people I have ever met in my life. This woman would literally have her cashiers me or the other closers ring up a bunch of groceries for her and put them in bags and then she would carry them to her car and told us she would pay for them the next day well guess what she never paid for them and she continued to do this for days so I started asking the other cashiers who she had do it as well and they said that she checks herself out... that seems a little fishy why don’t you trust us doing it? Do you go back and delete items? I think she started to catch on because this woman threw me under the bus every single chance she got about me not wiping my belt down which I did and how I didn’t wipe down all the bins down good enough. She found every excuse to write my ass up and I got tired of it I was tired of coming home and crying everyday. So I called in and quit. My partner at the time had a couple disability’s but nothing that prevented him from working he claimed he filed for disability but alas never did even after 5 years. At that point guys I was fucking numb my heart sank to my chest every fucking feeling I ever had for this man was starting to deteriorate and fast. I didn’t find this out until after we got married. Yes married.. trust me I know I should’ve known better I should’ve thought twice but he was my first love and trust me I have learned my lesson. He also loved pills anything that could get him high he would take pills, shrooms, acid, he’s tried a couple questionable things. This guy was so addicted.. I just wanted to feel numb I wanted to get out I caught him talking to other women multiple times I wasn’t perfect either and two wrongs don’t make a right but I never physically was intimate with anybody. He got me hooked on pain killers bad we would do them everyday together and that’s the only thing that kept me going from the emotional abuse and the fucking trauma it’s inflicted on my mental health.  Thankfully I’m a little over a year sober. The most shocking thing that has ever happened to me in that marriage and the point to where I felt like I was shit on the bottom of his shoe was when we needed help bringing in an income so we made an ad looking for a roommate. Big mistake, We found someone almost immediately my partner and I are attracted to both sexes this guy wanted to grab dinner with him and meet him in person. I was never invited and I told him I wasn’t comfortable with it because the messages this guy was sending him were very very flirtatious. He ends up taking his friend Jesse with him he goes to the bar and comes back quite fucked up along with the guy to check out the room who happens to keep rubbing on my fiancee at the time. I was not liking this shit at all so I started screaming at him to get the fuck out of my house since I’m the one who pays all of the bills and mind you we also have other roommates upstairs who are absolutely amazing. What does my fiancee do at this point? He locks me in our fucking bedroom my roommate comes downstairs and asks where I am and finally gets this guy to leave. We eventually got our own place because I thought that would help again nope it was only a couple streets down from his moms house too. My family finally after years decided to visit me and it was a flight or fight instinct and I was done. Packed what I could in a backpack told him I was going back to visit with my family and kissed my dogs one last time and when we were almost to Michigan I told him I was done. Please don’t give me any shit about the way I left I honestly didn’t have any other choice I was out of chances I was out of efforts I was drained. He continued with the “I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come back” how it’s going to be on my hands he even went as far to send me photos of blood all over a back seat of a car that looked like a murder scene he found on google. I deactivated his phone and he still tried to contact me through email etc. We are currently going through a divorce and I pray to god he signs those papers and lets me move on. If you read this I appreciate you so much and thank you for taking the time to read this I have many more stories to go if you’re interested about anything else. My current partner, my family, my life now anything and I will write about it. Thank you again.

[vanessakirbyfans]

The six actresses also candidly discuss what outsiders get wrong about acting, juggling work and family and how #MeToo has changed the culture for the next generation: "We're getting all the bad stuff out of the way."

A fiesta grandmother. A persecuted jazz icon. A grieving mother. A sexual assault avenger. A pioneering scientist. A girlfriend scorned.

On a mid-December morning, six actresses behind some of the year's most dynamic performances came together for The Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable: Hillbilly Elegy's Glenn Close, The United States vs. Billie Holiday's Andra Day, Pieces of a Woman's Vanessa Kirby, Promising Young Woman's Carey Mulligan, Ammonite's Kate Winslet and Malcolm & Marie's Zendaya. The group, who gathered via video conference from homes and sets in L.A., Montana, Atlanta and the U.K., discussed the business side of acting, their weirdest pandemic habits, the dangerous Hollywood misconception about creative genius — and the fact that "how women's voices are being received [is] the biggest thing that has shifted."

Let's dive in. What's the most surprising thing you learned about yourself during the pandemic?

VANESSA KIRBY I learned a lot about silence. I hadn't realized quite how much "doing" I was doing. Somehow I hadn't quite realized that, when you're still, it's just as present, you know what I mean? And I think it's taught me to do less. I don't think anything else would have taught me that in the way this year has done.

KATE WINSLET I became, and still am, actually, utterly obsessed with sweeping my kitchen floor. But down to the point where if there's just even dog hair, and our dog is a golden retriever, so it's blond hair, but I've got this microscopic vision where I can see the dog hair gathering in tiny little cracks, between the dishwasher and the sink, and I'll be like, "There's dog hair, somebody, quick, get me the broom." I've just become obsessed. And I didn't really care about things like that particularly before. Don't get me wrong, I like to run a nice home, but sweeping the kitchen floor? I mean, who cares about that? So I've become a bit strange about the kitchen floor.

ZENDAYA For me, it's that I never really got to know who I was without work. I've always been working. I started working when I was so young, and I've always just had a consistent thing happening in my life. I just had never spent that much time with myself. I was like, "What makes me happy? What do I like to do other than work? Do I have any hobbies?" I basically get to do my hobby for a living. So it's like, "What else do I even like?" Facing that was interesting for sure.

What is something people often get wrong about acting?

WINSLET I've been doing this job now for, I realize, 27 years or something. I can't quite believe that, but I do find myself getting almost agitated when I feel I have to explain just how hard the job truly is … I don't think people understand that preparation can take up to four, five, sometimes even six months depending on the kind of role you're playing. And also how absent, I think, you are from your family. Even if they might physically be with you — which, in my case is nine times out of 10, I'm fortunate that they are — but emotionally I know that I'm gone. I'm just not there, I'm not just Mummy, I'm not just Ned [Smith]'s wife ­— suddenly, I'm this other being. And I do find that part quite upsetting sometimes, and I wish I had more of a balance with that.

CAREY MULLIGAN There's a bit of an idea, and maybe more even within the industry, that to make something great, people have permission to behave badly, the idea of someone being a creative genius … that they are so inspired, there's a required level of darkness or unpleasantness that goes along with that, that you need to put up with. And I think people get away with bad behavior because of those reasons. In my experience, some of the most incredible people I've worked with have just been also the most delightful. So that's kind of a common misconception, that there are people who have to behave badly to psych themselves up at work, or that the process is just sort of utterly miserable. I think you can work really hard, but ultimately … the attitude on set should be one of warmth.

ZENDAYA It also is a business, which is something I've had to learn as a young person. Because often you get into it just because you love it, and you just want to be creative, and you just want to do the fun stuff, but it is also a business. There are contracts involved and a lot of things that don't necessarily contribute to the creativity or contribute to this idea of the freedom you think you'll have. I have been learning that as I grow up that there are bigger entities involved … money people … I often encourage young people who do want to do this to read your contracts, be aware, have those conversations, ask as many questions as you can, try to get advice from people, because it's easy to get stuck in a bad situation. And having that knowledge is really, really important.

GLENN CLOSE A lot of people think that anyone can do it. And of course, there have been documentaries and even some movies of people who are not trained as actors — I think that can happen in movies. I really take my craft seriously, and I think people don't know what they're talking about when they think that anyone could do it. I once had a brain surgeon who was the father of one of my daughter's middle school friends … He asked if he could come over and pick my brain about something. And so I said, "Sure," and he came over and he said, "I find being a brain surgeon depressing, I really want to be an actor."

WINSLET Oh my God.

CLOSE And it was all I could do to not throw him out of my house. He said, "But I have to make a living, so how do I do it?" It was astounding to me that he would have such an ignorant idea of what acting was. So I think, for longevity, it is a craft, and I take great pride. There's always something new to learn every day, but it is something that really does count. When you task yourself with becoming, looking through the eyes of another person and telling a story that will have emotional impact, that is craft.

Andra, how did you go about finding the voice of Billie Holiday?

ANDRA DAY Well, first she is very familiar to me just because she is my foremost musical inspiration. I worked with this amazing dialect coach, Thom Jones … Through the breath, that was a huge thing. I remember him always talking about, "Where it is coming from? How is she breathing?" And the emotional part of it as well, too. I look at Billie Holiday's voice as a scroll. And on her voice is written her entire history, every time she had been raped, every time she had been hit, every time she had victoriously sang "Strange Fruit," every time she smoked a cigarette and every time she slammed heroin or did a speedball. Everything is written onto her voice. It was also important for me not to do an impersonation. And that's something [director] Lee [Daniels] spoke to me about, too, we don't want to impersonate her, but sort of bring me through her. … I feel the same way about acting, that not everyone can do it. To be honest with you, I did not think that I could do it, and I'm still a little on the fence about it.

I don't think after seeing this film anyone will have any question about whether you can do it. Let's talk a bit about physical transformation for a character. Glenn, in Hillbilly Elegy, you're physically transformed. How did finding the look of that character help you?

CLOSE I began personally not wanting to be distracted by my own face. I wanted to have very subtle differences so that it was an experience, that you get into the full hair and makeup and costume, and there she is, because she's very different from who I was. But we started with a portrait of Mamaw and just the glasses, the hair, the ears, I changed my nose a little bit. And it was very, very finessed work to make it subtle enough that it wasn't me, but not so … I didn't want people to say, "Oh, there's Glenn Close with a really bad nose." That took a lot of wonderful collaboration coming up with that. We had video, we talked to members of her family who were incredibly generous in talking about her. And I asked just very specific questions: "How did she walk, how did she hold her cigarette? How did she sit? What did she wear?" which is basically what you see in the movie. She was very much a larger-than-life character. "What was her atmosphere when she came into a room?" I mean, all those kinds of things that just was a slow buildup [from] the moment you walk on for hair and makeup, and you feel that there she is.

MULLIGAN With Promising Young Woman, [director] Emerald [Fennell] is very intentional about building a world that felt very enticing. You wanted to build a film that you wanted to see, not something you needed to or should see. Part of the way that Emerald first presented the film to me was this Candyland environment that you're in and that Cassie lived in that in the way that she clothes herself. She's somebody who is very practiced at living with her rage and her sadness and her grief. She's figured out that hiding in plain sight and looking like someone who's functioning, people tend to leave her alone. It's very deliberate that she has candy-colored nails and blond hair. First of all, she looks very unthreatening, so no one would ever suspect that she's about to destroy a life, but also she's someone that you don't need to check on. You can leave her alone … Her main everyday look was just a way of saying, "I'm absolutely fine. You don't need to look at me because I'm just generic, and a girl, and you don't need to take me seriously." Because we so often trivialize the way girls and women clothe themselves. It was just a very easy way of putting up a boundary between her and the rest of the world.

WINSLET Everything about [Ammonite subject, paleontologist] Mary Anning is so, so held and so internalized. I had to learn how to do quite a lot of acting with my posture, or the back of head, or the backs of my hands, or just sometimes my eyeballs. I had to really find a different rhythm for myself, because I'm a very animated person … The longer that you do this, the more familiar audiences become with your mannerisms and how you are or how you sound. I just try to remove everything of myself, and there were days when I would think, "Well, did I do anything or did I just do nothing today?" And it would be really disconcerting, but just finding a completely quiet, physical stillness and heaviness to Mary came hand in hand with the costuming of her and the look of her and making her hair a little bit gray and having no makeup.

Vanessa, you have a harrowing, more than 20-minute childbirth sequence in your film. Can you talk about what that was like to shoot and how you prepared for that?

KIRBY It was kind of terrifying, because I haven't given birth or been pregnant before. We have seen so many deaths onscreen, we've rarely seen birth … I ended up writing to a lot of obstetricians asking if they'd let me come in and shadow them. One said yes, so I went to a hospital in North London and was on the labor ward for many days, which was quite unbelievable for me. I learned a lot from the midwives about what the whole birthing experience is like. One afternoon, my very last afternoon at hospital, one of the midwives came round and said, "Oh, a woman's just come in and she's 9 centimeters dilated. And I'm going to ask if she'd mind you watching." I just thought, "There's no way in hell she's ever going to agree to have some random person sit in and watch this really sacred moment of her life." But she did, she said yes, and so I got to sit with her and watch her go through six hours of … I mean, it was just probably the most profound afternoon of my life. I never, ever could have acted it without watching her, because I saw her go on this unbelievable journey, and I saw the animal in her take over. And it was only because of that, really, that I then felt like maybe I had a chance at attempting it. When we came to it … it was so physical and it was such a primal body thing. We did four takes the first day, two the second, and I think the fourth one is the one in the movie. It was a bit like doing a play, really, where once you're on, you're on, and you can't stop. And there was something magic about that, because you couldn't spend any time doubting yourself, you just have to do it.

Zendaya, when you were making Malcolm & Marie, it was really in the height of the pandemic. Can you talk about how working in that environment shaped how you worked and how the set functioned?

ZENDAYA Obviously, we wanted to do everything as safely as possible, so we created a bubble. I was putting my own money into it, as was everyone else. We were living in a hotel that was empty. It was just us, because everything was shut down. We were in the middle of Carmel, and we shot in this home that was in the middle of nowhere. We weren't allowed to leave for obvious reasons, and in that time of quarantining together, we were allowed the time to work on the material. When we got there, the script was only about 70 pages, and there wasn't a third act. Through that process of every day just being together, sometimes in a parking lot, just working through every moment and having these really long discussions about ourselves, our characters, relationships … Being able to have that time, that space with each other to figure it out, was really, really helpful. And really not having any other distraction, just being in it every single day.

We only had two actors, a very small, small crew. So we're all doing like four different jobs. I'm doing my hair and makeup and using some of my clothes, trying to remember my continuity because we don't have any ADs or scripties [script supervisors] or anything.

Vanessa, you've been shooting the Mission: Impossible sequel. Is there a lot of pressure to maintain safety on these big sets? How does it feel different?

KIRBY My sister's an AD. She started on a movie in the summer, so I kind of learned from her what the new parameters would be and how to navigate. And I was so hopeful when she went back, actually, because it was a funny feeling, I think, for everybody suddenly seeing cinemas closed. All the people that you love and you work with are unable to work in so many different capacities, including my sister. It gave me a lot of faith. But, I mean, you get used to it. There are obviously many guidelines, there are masks and lots of testing and things like that. But it gives me faith in the resilience, actually. And I feel like we will get through it — I can't wait for the day when cinemas are going to open again.

I was skeptical when the #MeToo movement began that there would be any kind of lasting change for women in Hollywood. But now we have more female directors, we have intimacy coordinators, Harvey Weinstein is in prison. Some things that I thought I would not see have come to pass. I'm curious, what has been the biggest change for you, personally, since the #MeToo movement started?

WINSLET The thing that is shifting in ways that will absolutely be long lasting is how women's voices are being received. There is a space that has been created for a younger generation that is going to be safe. My daughter is 20, and she just came into the industry about a year and a half ago. And what's wonderful for me, as her mum, is just watching her have a courage of conviction and self-belief that is just unwavering, because she's entering a time when we're clearing the shit away from them, these girls. These girls are going to change the world, and they're going to be strong, and they're going to be powerful, and they're going to be fucking amazing. And that is because we're getting all the bad stuff out of the way for them and all they will know is to use their voice in positive, powerful ways, to lead with compassion, to be strong role models and friends. And that, to me, is the biggest thing that has shifted.

This is the decade of women championing and supporting other women without judgment. This is happening right now, and that has come as a result of the mass united swell that has emerged from #MeToo. We've all come together, everyone is holding hands and walking in the same direction. And, for me, that is the single most exciting thing that is coming out of the awfulness of the past five years and those extraordinary women coming forward and sharing their painful, awful stories, and the horrendous Harvey Weinstein. The time now is about leading in a different way. Young women being able to lead with courage — in a way that I feel I certainly didn't have, that sense of courage and companionship with my peers, in a way that I think #MeToo has done for this generation of women.

This year, we saw the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement globally. And at the time it happened, a lot of media companies were issuing statements, making large donations. Do you think there will be lasting changes from that movement as well? Three years from now, will we be talking the way we're talking now about #MeToo in terms of concrete things changing?

DAY My hope is yes. And I hope that it spawns lasting change that moves faster than it has moved in the past. I'm hoping that this is an uprooting of this idea of, "OK, pace yourself, we need to make sure we make people comfortable." That's really not how you achieve lasting change. We can't survive like this, we will not survive. It ends in what? Our destruction, it ends in war, it ends in just unrest.

That was one of the things even on set, there were a few moments that were really quite disturbing, for the cast and me. We were shooting a movie that takes place in the '40s and in the '50s. And there were moments on set that we realized, "Oh, wow, that has not changed." It may have transformed, it may look a little different, lynching looks different, but it's not changed. Truth is going to be a huge, huge, huge factor in seeing lasting change, and sustaining, and transforming, and changing a generation.

As Kate talked about, with the younger generation, I think they have such a need for transparency that will actually be very helpful. Part of doing the movie, the Billie Holiday story, was that the truth of her story had never been told, because the truth of her story was intentionally kept from the public. The respinning of narratives for people of color, or for marginalized people, or for women, has been a constant technique of oppression. And I think that's going to be hugely important moving forward: We have to pop the top off of these things. And we have to tell the truth about them, and understand the scope of certain groups of people, people of color, why the scope of their pain has been minimized or retold.

The retelling of these stories also has to do with telling the truth, some of the gritty, ugly truth about maybe some of our heroes. We have to say, "OK, this isn't for the purpose of destroying people, but we need to know these truths so we can actually move forward and not repeat them."

CLOSE I just have to say I'm sitting here and I'm so inspired by what everyone has been saying. It's quite overwhelming, it's so articulate and so beautiful what everyone has said.

WINSLET Well, we've got you to look up to, Glenn.

CLOSE I can't tell you, it's very moving to me to hear all this. I've been an actress for 46 years, and when I think of the change, the monumental changes that in my short time that I have witnessed, the expectation is going to be phenomenal when we finally can get back to doing what we are here to do. I think there's going to be an overwhelming amount of stories and new ways of telling stories.

What will you do differently in 2021?

MULLIGAN The first thing that came into my mind was that I'm going to go to the theater as much as I can, and the cinema. As soon as we can, I'm going to sit around people and watch something together with them. It just shocked me how much I missed that. I watched a medley of musical theater on television a couple of weeks ago, and it just made me cry. I just want to be a part of that. So it sounds quite trivial, but I think that is something I'm looking most forward to.

WINSLET You know, I never give time to myself at all, really, I don't. People will so often say to me, "Oh, you need to get a massage." And I think, "What? Don't got time for that." So actually, I just have enjoyed, quite honestly, just going really easy on myself. If I had a week where I think, "Oh, I've probably had too much toast. Oh, well." Or, "Oh, well, maybe I should do some more exercise. Oh, maybe I'll do that next week." I'm just kind of learning to go, "Oh, it doesn't matter." It doesn't matter. Life's too short, just enjoy this time, and it doesn't matter about all that crap. I think I'd like to hang on to a bit of that, actually. Because it's easy in this job to have to live by certain disciplines, whether it's just sleep patterns or times that you eat, for example. And actually just letting go of all of that has been really such a joy. Not enforcing any degree of sort of stress or structure on stuff. I've loved all that. So I hopefully I'll carry that on.

CLOSE I came here where I live now [Montana] because my three siblings are here, and I had spent my whole adult life away from them. And we're now in the same town. So, for me, work is so I can come back home. It's kind of changed things, it's not like I'm waiting at home until I go to work. It's really, really valuing the work, because it means that I'll be able to come home.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

[news4dzhozhar]

Muslims are very rarely depicted in movies, and when they are, it's usually as a stereotypical terrorist, what Oscar nominated actor Riz Ahmed calls a "dangerous trope." Having spoken out about this issue for several years, he's been looking for hard data. Now's he got it. This week, The University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative came out with the report he asked for. It's titled Missing and Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies.

USC's researchers combed through 200 popular films from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand from 2017 to 2019. They found that only six of them had a Muslim in a co-leading role, and only one of those was female. Of the nearly 9,000 speaking parts, fewer than two percent were Muslim. And there none in animated movies.

"Being confronted with the hard stats themselves was in a way shocking to see how bad it was," Ahmed told NPR. "Just the extent of Muslim erasure, the extent in particular of erasure of Black Muslims, and Muslim women, it was really shocking."

The report pointed to several examples, including the film Hotel Mumbai, which featured Muslims as terrorists. Movies such as Aladdin depicted Muslim characters only in the past. Other films portrayed Muslims as outsiders or subservient to white characters. In 2017's Wonder Woman, the character Sameer had to play up a stereotype. He later complains about his limited opportunities. "Not everyone gets to be what they want to be all the time," he says to the superhero. "Me? I am an actor. I love acting."

Ahmed and the Inclusion Initiative also worked on the study with The Pillars Fund, a foundation for Muslims in the U.S. The group's cofounder and president, Kashif Shaikh says that while the Muslim community is racially and ethnically diverse, it's rarely shown that way in movies. He said Hollywood has created and reinforced dangerous portrayals.

"When you are constantly depicting Muslims as terrorists, there are consequences to that," says Shaikh. "It's easy ... to now dehumanize us."

YouTube

Shaikh says his group is not necessarily calling for only positive portrayals, but he advocates for more Muslim roles with nuance. That includes more LGBTQ roles, or those with disabilities, like Riz Ahmed's character in the 2019 film Sound of Metal.

In a video announcing the USC study, Ahmed said he was one of only a handful of Muslim actors who get to play Hollywood roles that are "either non-Muslim or unremarkably Muslim."

"I ask myself if I'm the exception to the rule, what must the rule be about people like me? What must the unwritten rule be about Muslims, a quarter of the world's population and their place in our stories, our culture and their place in our society, if any?"

Ahmed recalled having been interrogated at an airport after he appeared in the film The Road to Guantanamo.

"I recoiled when that MI5 agent said 'did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?,'" he recalls, saying he'd much rather be acting than be a poster boy for this issue. But he says he realized later he had to speak up.

"Maybe I did become an actor to be seen and portrayed with empathy and dignity, to be seen as fully human as much as any other character."

The report includes a "blueprint" for Muslim inclusion: solutions for film studios, film schools, and philanthropies. The Pillars Fund is awarding a new fellowship for Muslim artists. Ahmed is also teaming with Mahershala Ali, Ramy Youssef, Sana Amanat, Karim Amer, Rosa Attab, Nida Manzoor and Jehane Noujaim. They're challenging film companies to secure deals with Muslim creators and to "sunset" the old tropes.

[ingek73]

Meghan Markle: The Unofficial Patron Saint of Daughters With Toxic Fathers

DADDY DEAREST

Daughters dealing with difficult fathers are connecting online and cheering Meghan Markle on, as her father Thomas Markle uses interviews to try to emotionally blackmail her.

Mandy Velez

Assistant Managing Editor

Published Feb. 04, 2020 4:42AM ET

OPINION

Thomas Markle was recently on the British television show Good Morning Britain, complaining about his favorite subject, estranged daughter Meghan, and how unfairly treated by her and Prince Harry he feels.

“You do acknowledge that doing interviews will not make it easier?” anchor Susanna Reid asked Markle.

“There is no other way to reach them,” he responded, the “them” being his daughter who does not want to talk to him and his son-in-law. In other words, she’s “no contact,” which means quite literally no longer making contact or accepting contact with a loved one. It’s a move that is well-known in the world of toxic relationships.

Not many people understand why a child would cut a parent off, least of all, it seems, Piers Morgan, Reid’s co-presenter and Meghan Markle’s U.K. media agitator-in-chief. Glazing over his colleague’s questioning, he chimed in and attempted to garner empathy for Markle, asserting that Meghan and Harry cut Thomas off for missing the wedding because “they just didn’t believe your health problems were so bad you couldn’t fly.”

This weekend, Sun Online reported that Meghan and Harry don’t want Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, to become Thomas’ “pawn” after he revealed he had written to Doria to ask if she could help reconnect him with Meghan.

What a mess—and a triggering mess for me and many other women.

After the Good Morning Britain interview, I immediately logged onto Facebook and made my way to the group I’m in for daughters of narcissistic or toxic fathers. It’s a place of refuge when I’m feeling uneasy or tasked with dealing with my own father’s hurtful behavior.

It’s a place where thousands of women or women-identifying people from around the world, from teenaged to middle-aged and older, can openly ask for advice or just vent about the troubled relationships they have with their parent. Other members lend their support or advice in the comments, which can range from heart emojis to YouTube videos and educational articles. When I got there, there was already a thread about Markle’s comments. The comments ranged from rage to disgust to hurt for Meghan.

I do not know the reality of the situation between Thomas and Meghan, I admit that—but in how he has treated Meghan publicly I feel a strong personal echo of what it is to be a child targeted in such a way by their parent. I am far from alone.

Markle’s attacks against his daughter have gone on for a while, at least publicly since he pulled out of her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. And, lately, it seems they’ve been a lot more frequent. In the same week he spoke with Piers Morgan—adding that he did not believe she was subject to racism as a royal in the media—he accused his daughter of “cheapening” the royal family and a week later threatened her with weekly interviews until she loved him again. The group has followed it all.

We’re familiar with the tactics of our abusive fathers that mimic Markle’s, whether we are in contact with them or not. We know the feeling of having someone who is supposed to love you the most respect your boundaries the least, and use emotionally manipulative tactics as Markle has (like when he says he misses his grandchild or asks for money) to get you to have a relationship with them again.

We have been lied to, gaslit, trash-talked, and guilt-tripped by either the toxic parent or by those around us who just don’t get it. Like Meghan, many of us have been told we’re the wrong ones for protecting ourselves or to just get over the pain they may have caused us, because they love us, and isn’t that enough? We are asked: why are we trying to hurt them? And if that doesn’t make us come “back,” we will be sure to regret it. And also, if we don’t, they may die—and their death will be our fault.

“He’s making very public what should be a private conversation. At the end of the day, when boundaries are being violated, it can definitely qualify as abusive. It’s a bad lesson on how to be a parent”

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and author of works about toxic behavior including Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, told The Daily Beast that while she can’t diagnose Markle without knowing him, his actions line up with attributes of toxic behavior.

“He’s making very public what should be a private conversation,” she said. “At the end of the day, when boundaries are being violated, it can definitely qualify as abusive. It’s a bad lesson on how to be a parent.”

It is likely the reason that myself, and others in the group, feel the pain so deeply as we watch this all play out. It’s like we’re watching our own lives on a much larger scale. The same week I watched the Piers Morgan interview, my own dad texted me from a fourth new number in an attempt to reach me, despite me asking him for some space.

I’m not the only one. One woman from the group echoed what many replied in the comments of stories on the Markles: that he reminds her of her own father.

“I get anxious when reading or hearing the degrading things he says about Meghan and Harry. It’s all too familiar,” she told The Daily Beast. She explained her own father behaves in ways that are degrading or disrespectful of boundaries, and allegedly threatens her when things don’t go his way.

Another says her experiences make her empathetic toward Meghan: “I understand how hard it is to deal with a situation like this. I grew up with a man just like him.”

The Markle relationship is one that triggers us, but also helps us feel seen. Daughters of fathers with narcissistic traits struggle with issues like anxiety and depression at a rate higher than our peers without a toxic parent in the picture, due to both the abuse and the silence that comes from the shame associated with the subject.

Dr. Stephanie Kriesberg, Pys. D., who has experience studying and counseling victims of narcissistic parent and child relationships, called the daughters who carry this burden “a secret society.”

“[Toxic fathers] can look very different in public than they do in private. Plus, our society doesn’t endorse the idea that we can be critical of our parents,” said Dr. Kriesberg. She didn’t want to comment on Meghan, specifically, but made a broader point: “Society doesn’t expect a woman who says, ‘I’m not inviting my father to my wedding.’”

The result? Daughters of toxic fathers like me grasp at any chance to feel like someone gets it. The situation between Meghan and her dad has triggered us, but at the same time, made us feel so much less alone. Though all fathers who exhibit narcissistic or toxic traits have different styles of abuse—from the silent treatment to threats—Dr. Kriesberg says the common thread among their daughters is rejection. And those of us who experience it find healing and validation in each other, and though she may not know it, Meghan.

A week ago, in a Meghan Markle thread, everything came to a head when a group member officially dubbed her our patron saint: The Patron Saint of Daughters of Toxic Men.

The more Markle chooses to speak ill of his daughter, the more I empathize with her. This, in turn, helps me empathize with myself. The toxicity in the language Markle uses toward his daughter has made me see that abusive family dynamics, whether they stem from mental illness or not, does not discriminate. It’s not the fault of the victim of such abuse in parent-child situations; it’s simply the luck of the draw. Sometimes, the person who draws such a card is a princess.

Meghan is not perfect and neither am I. No human being is. There may well be some very valid criticism of her behavior, of how she and Harry have managed their royal lives, and how they have exited from their royal duties.

“We want to feel our experiences and our choices to protect ourselves are valid. Without saying a word, Meghan gives us that”

But watching her face the onslaught of slights from her father is painful for those of us tied to this special kind of parental emotional abuse, who are desperate to find others who understand. We want to feel our experiences and our choices to protect ourselves are valid. Without saying a word, Meghan gives us that.

She didn’t choose to be a very public image of what family toxicity looks like and I’m not 100 percent sure that is how she views the situation—Lord knows she already wants to shed elements of the royal role she has.

But as long as her father lashes out, I will continue to cheer Meghan Markle on, as will many other daughters. With her as an example, we will grow the strength to deal with our own fathers and whatever fallout that decision may bring. We will discuss the interviews that trigger us and relate to the behaviors we find familiar. And, for once, we will not feel alone.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Descendants 3 (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the day the movie first airs in the U.S, I am not sure when it airs over here in the U.K. but I managed to see an early screening of it, so if you have not yet seen Descendants 3 don’t read on until you have.

General Reaction:

Okay, I am divided by what I think about this movie given that it is the third and most likely final instalment to the Descendants franchise.

On the positive side, having watched it days ago, Descendants 3 left me feeling happy with the overall movie and with a grin on my face as the first two instalments did.

On the other side, I do feel the promotional material for this movie, aside from the final TV spot, was either misleading or kept the main plot points hidden which may or may not deviate fans away from it.

Having said that, I had a positive outlook going into the movie and finished it with a positive outlook still. So I guess it depends on your outlook going into the movie is what you will end up getting out of it.

Now on a more serious note, I do have to say that Descendants 3 also carries the weight of being Cameron Boyce’s last film project since his tragic untimely passing a couple of weeks ago. For this reason Disney cancelled the premiere of the movie as a sign of respect and while it was too close to the movie first airing there was no time to add-in a special mention to him but for those that know there was a tinge of sadness with watching his performance.

On a more movie-related note though, as I said I felt the trailers and TV spots set up a trio of trouble for our heroes with the combined forces of Hades, Celia Facilier and Uma, however at the last minute the TV spots teased “a new mysterious villain” who everyone guessed as soon as they saw the promotional and it turns out she is the main villain of the movie.

I just feel that with Maleficent and Uma in the first two movies there were legitimate threats that weren’t redeemed in the movie, here it was a case of simply “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and one of my favourite lines in the movie was from Hades saying “So one of yours turns bad and its just a misunderstanding, but one of us do something bad and we’re locked up”, because it makes sense.

I do get the moral of the movie with not judging a book by its cover which has really been the theme of the franchise, because the V.Ks end up being heroes and an Auradon kid becomes a V.K, albeit temporarily. But it does seem as if Disney are trying to push the fact that everyone can be redeemed and being evil is really just being misunderstood.

It does tie into the whole nature vs. nurture argument which is actually a concept in life that I am happy a movie franchise aimed at kids is attempting to teach, but rather than showing both sides they are simply showing that anyone can be redeemed, maybe with the exception of the main four’s parents.

Also the songs in this movie as a whole I don’t feel are as strong as the previous two movies, however the choreography in the musical numbers is on point.

Characters:

Alright so I am going to go through these characters in categories of the main five, the Auradon Citizens and the Inhabitants of the Isle.

As always, these will be ranked in order of my favourites.

Main Five:

Mal:

Once again the focus point was on Mal, I believe for good reason as she is the one who has shown the biggest struggle between her V.K. and Auradon sides.

Here this takes another step here as while in both the first two movies she is more leaning towards her V.K. side, here she seems to be wanting to turn her back on the Isle for the majority of the movie.

Not only does her decision to permanently close the barrier to the Isle after promising all the V.Ks still on the Isle that they would be back to bring them to Auradon kind of fly in the face of what she has believed up until now, but you could tell the decision she made was tough for her to make and Dove Cameron does sell that.

However, I do not understand why she then didn’t tell Evie that at least the plan was going ahead never mind the fact she came up with it, she just made it seem like it was a possibility that once she was queen she could overrule.

I was firmly on Evie, Uma and Celia’s side when they turned on her after she revealed that she lied because she effectively made empty promises to people (in Uma and Celia’s case anyway) who didn’t trust her because she had turned on the Isle but then promised to take down the barrier siding with the Isle only to reveal that she lied therefore siding against the Isle.

In regards to Mal’s outfit, I stated in my promo picture reveal that I thought her hair wasn’t as good as Descendants 2 and I didn’t understand why it changed colour again, I understood it from Descendants to Descendants 2 because she changed it with a hair spell and then Dizzy restyled it, but here it just seems like a longer thinner version of her first look.

However, I did blame the dark image for making her hair look blue, and I actually found it interesting that after the VKs left the Isle the magic of Auradon ignited Hades’ ember which seemed to not only give her back her magic but also her hair was noticeably blue, or at least highlighted, not as blue as Evie’s but still blue.

Speaking of her father, this is kind of why I want another Descendants movie because we now know Mal has two parents, but we don’t know who the father’s of Evie and Carlos are or the mother of Jay. I liked showing how, even though he was an absentee father, the rapport between Hades and Mal was still there.

For instance, while Maleficent is known for more formal wear and gowns, it’s interesting that Mal’s VK looks throughout the franchise are kind of similar to Hades’ style in terms of being very punk rocker. You could say that’s the same for all VKs but I saw more similarities in these two looks as father and daughter than I did in Mal and Maleficent’s styles aside from the fact they were purple.

Her relationship with Ben goes up a notch here as not only do they get engaged, which I guess was teased in Descendants 2, but also she takes on more queenly responsibilities such as deciding to close the barrier for good but then changing her mind and tearing it down.

Speaking of her dragon form, I loved seeing more of dragon Mal and the fact it seems so natural for her now since the battle with Uma in Descendants 2. Not only did I like the line of wishing she could fly over the sea to scout for Uma but also the fact she seems to use her dragon form for battle more openly now then her magic.

There was one point at the start of the climax in the movie when I thought Maleficent was going to return because when she started sing “My Once Upon a Time” you saw the archive footage of them in battle from the first Descendants which I thought may indicate her reviving her mother for help as she had lost all hope, but sadly not which I feel is a mistake.

Her being friends with Uma again I do kind of like, because even though fans of the movies who haven’t read the books don’t quite understand the extent of their history, the movies have done quite well in showing the aftermath between them and the fact they were friends and should be friends.

I did find it interesting that she kept the ember at the end of the movie, was that supposed to indicate her needing to use it again in the future or was it just Hades giving up the power?

Dove Cameron does a fabulous job as always in this role, she is definitely a leading lady and I feel deserves more recognition for what she does with the role as do the others in my opinion.

Carlos De Vil:

Carlos has been my favourite character throughout the franchise, it is his role in the first movie that pulled me back in to the Disney Channel Original Television Shows to watch Jessie.

While I do think his role could have been bigger here, the scenes he had did still move his character forward, particularly with his relationship with Jane.

I am still not a fan of the fact that Dude can talk, yes he ate that truth gummy thing but surely that should only allow the eater to tell the truth temporarily before it passes, for a dog’s digestive system not only should it have passed by the end of Descendants 2 but also technically it should have killed him.

I did really like how invested he was with his relationship with Jane, having his friends helping him organise her birthday party and being very protective over her birthday cake...which everyone seemed to eat before Jane even saw it.

I do think the script and Carlos both missed a trick with his birthday present of that Jarlos necklace. While Jarlos is the ship name that fans have used for them since they got together in Descendants 2, the pink bow on it I felt wasn’t right for Jane, maybe a blue magic sparkle or something to represent her being the Fairy Godmother’s daughter or even him being Cruella De Vil’s son.

When it came to the team-up between the V.Ks, the fact they kind of paired Carlos up with Harry I felt was apt. Not only because I feel both of the better guys of the respective teams, but also because I feel Cameron Boyce and Thomas Doherty are simply the better team-up.

I did like Carlos’ outfit in this movie, it was definitely in-line with the motorcycle-like attire that he had in the first movie. I did however feel like his hair wasn’t as good as the other V.Ks and sometimes seemed all over the place.

At the end of the movie when the Isle merged with Auradon, the fact both Jane and Dude were worried about meeting Cruella, yet Carlos was more concerned about revealing he plans to become a vet was great character growth for the potential future of the character.

Unfortunately, Cameron Boyce’s untimely passing I feel signals the end of the Desxendants movies because I don’t see how the movies can continue without Carlos. However, as I said Cameron has not only given a great interpretation of the son of my favourite Disney villain, but also revitalised by love of Disney.

Evie:

Evie was really trying to be the voice of reason again in this movie, but unlike in the second movie when she was trying to block out their history on the Isle, here she was wanting to give the V.K. kids on the Isle the same opportunity as they had.

I am not sure why she didn’t clock onto the fact that Mal was at least considering closing the barrier permanently, I mean you could tell from Mal’s face that it wasn’t good news and I know there is such a thing as blind loyalty and the two are like sisters but that’s what made the betrayal so personal when she did find out.

However, I will say that she got over it pretty quick, I know she was turned to stone so it wasn’t as quick in the context of the movie, but from the looks of things Evie and the boys were going to walk away from Mal before the stoning happened yet once they were freed there was no comeuppance or retribution.

I know it’s supposed to be a kids movie and I am probably looking for more depth than I should, but I don’t think it’s right to teach kids that if they lie about something they know will hurt their friends, that telling them will make it better but your friends will get upset first.

Also, as with Descendants 2 I don’t know if this is intentional, but I love how Kenny Ortega put a Michael Jackson spin not only on Evie’s singing and dance moves but also her outfit. If we’re talking Disney-related then it’s more Queen of Hearts than Evil Queen but also there are accents of Michael Jackson’s thriller outfit.

Evie also probably had my favourite song in the movie which was “One Kiss” just because it reminded me of Cinderella’s song “On the Steps of the Palace” from Into the Woods and I did almost want it to be in that slowed-down real-time setting.

Sofia Carson may be the one of the main four I knew least, and still do as I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else, but she portrays the reformed daughter of the Evil Queen very well and has also matured in both her looks and acting throughout the three movies.

Ben:

Alright so in my past reviews I’ve been very indecisive over my thoughts on Ben and I have to say...I’m still not completely sold on him. I preferred him in this movie to the other two definitely and that was half Mitchell Hope’s performance and half the facial hair he gained after being cured of his beastly side.

Yes the trailers gave us a glimpse of him following in his father’s footsteps and the makeup on him was fantastic, it almost makes me want to see Beast as a beast again because I loved this short scene.

I did originally believe that Descendants 2 was foreshadowing him being able to transform into a beast as Mal can a dragon and Uma can an octopus but the fact it was a spell also made sense for the context of the movie.

Also I am very happy that Ben finally apologised to Audrey, because one thing to remember which is partly why I side with Audrey in her motivations, is that yes Mal enthralled Ben for her evil means but then after he was cured of that he should have at least shown some remorse for how he treated Audrey or at least at that cathedral apologised to her.

Again with that beard, I don’t know if Mitchell Hope grew that rather quickly in this movie or if it was fake, it looked real, but anyway I thought it suited the character rather well and I was actually sad when after they were freed from the stone spell that the beard went as well.

Also Ben was actually funny in this movie and not awkwardly forced funny but actually Mitchell Hope showed some comedy here, yes it was mostly reaction comedy but even the scene when he was playing catch up with Uma and her crew helping the good guys out and everyone was telling him to forget about it for now was funny.

Do I believe him as king? No because the only regal decisions made in this movie were by Mal and the only thing he did was tell his dad not to interfere, so I guess that’s why I’m undecided because I still don’t see him as a leader, I see Mal as a leader, I see Uma as a leader, but I don’t see him as one.

Also, I thought it was a little bit cowardly of Ben to let Mal take the full fallout when she confessed about lying about the barrier. Yes one could argue that it looked like he was going to try and reason with Evie before they turned to stone but he didn’t even stick up for her.

Overall though Mitchell Hope impressed me in this movie, his singing was better, including that little throwback to “Did I Mention” which when stripped back and sung by the actual actor actually sounds quite good.

Jay:

Yes Jay is last, I am sorry if it seems like I hate this character but someone has to be last and he didn’t actually do much in this movie.

I was positive about him in Descendants 2 because he had that great arc with Lonnie of accepting her on the fencing team and finding loopholes in the rules, but Lonnie wasn’t in this movie and Jay I feel doesn’t have anymore growth in him as a character.

I did find the bromance between him and Gil quite fitting but again I refer you back to my promo picture discussion where I stated they’ve styled the two rather similar, and in actual fact they are rather similar.

Both have a naivety about them that they make up for with being brawny. But Jay at least has a brain but it isn’t actually used here. The women are running the show and Jay’s only good idea in the entire movie was to get Carlos to calm down Ben beast.

There’s not really a lot more to say about him for the movie, his outfit was pretty much the same as the previous ones, I do not understand where his hat has gone because it was a distinct style choice.

Auradon Citizens:

Audrey:

You know what? Audrey’s plot in this movie actually makes her absence from Descendants 2 organic to her overall story arc. Not only does it make sense for her to want to get away from Auradon Prep after what happened in the first movie, but also to see Mal live her life after how she stole it would drive someone who is a teenager to do drastic things. Then when you throw in the fantasy magical element then you have the good girl gone bad story but with a more threatening turn.

I also understood her makeover in the movie as she was pretty much copying Mal’s villainous look to a degree. The dress and the cape and everything I also really liked.

Although, when the staff was calling to Audrey, did anyone else think it was Kristin Chenoweth’s voice? There were so many missed opportunities for Maleficent to return in this movie and all of them wasted.

But anyway, speaking of styling, when Audrey was in her normal appearance, I loved how her hair was blonde but highlighted with pink and blue in reference to Princess Aurora from the original animated movie whose three adoptive fairy aunts kept changing her dress from blue to pink.

I will say that I thought Audrey’s villainy started off very strong. Not only turning Mal into an old hag...yes slightly petty and not lasting but still, also bewitching the suits of armour which was a pretty good tactic.

I did however think that once Audrey retreated to the Fairy Cottage and was simply just watching the action from scrying through her scepter, that all she then did was grunt and scream...From her cottage she failed a couple times to either trap or defeat her foes and yet never approached them herself, it just seemed slightly odd.

Her rendition of “Happy Birthday” by the way while she put Jane’s party to sleep was very nice to listen to I have to say, and the effects of the purple smoke putting the kids to sleep made it that much more intriguing.

I get turning Ben into a beast because, without the water from the enchanted lake, the spell is I am guessing like the old hag spell and irreversable, but I didn’t get why she simply cursed him...why not turn him to stone? Why not bewitch him to love her as Mal did...she went from a teenage lovebird to a woman seeking power by any means.

Her holding Celia hostage to draw Mal out I thought was both a good and bad moment, firstly they’re both at least the same height so Celia should have easily overpowered her physically but also Celia is the daughter of the Voodoo man so Voodoo vs. Witchcraft.

Like I said before, I agree with Hades about how easy it is for the good guys to forgive Audrey whereas the actually villains they judge guilty without trial. Yes she showed remorse for what she did and she and Mal and Ben did make amends but she wasn’t exactly tricked into doing what she did and she either put the citizens of Auradon to sleep or turned them to stone.

Then there’s her relationship with Chad, I don’t like Chad but as a guy I felt very bad for him in this movie. Yes he’s a bit of a sap and a tool but at least in the first two movies he was simply vein who in the second movie was fawning over an absent Audrey, here he was exactly what he said he would be which is a lackey and the only reason he did that was to survive.

This resulted in Audrey locking him in a cupboard and then after she turns good again, she doesn’t apologise to Chad and even seems to move on to her next fella, this girl is supposed to be a teenager and yet she’s acting like a young adult half the time.

Overall though Sarah Jeffery did a great job at playing the villain, her singing/rapping was also rather surprising and I feel she did a lot to boost Audrey’s character development.

Jane:

Jane surprised me in this movie in just how smart she was, yes it was really only two scenes that she was intuitive in but for a supporting player to take on that responsibility, was great for her as a character.

Yes she has showed steady growth throughout the movies first going from timid “ugly” girl to friends with the popular kids and getting Carlos as a boyfriend, now...on her birthday, when Audrey arrives and tries to ruin everything, Jane has the insight to remember what the powers of the Enchanted Lake were like and so dove in to avoid Audrey’s sleeping curse.

She then equipped herself with the water most likely believing she’d need it again and uses it to cure Ben from his beastliness. I really enjoyed her character here.

Also I felt her relationship with Carlos progressed organically, there were different relationships on different levels here and because out of the core three they’re the newest it makes sense that they’re lowest on the developmental scale but you can tell they’re a good match.

So yeah Jane, I love Jane, it’s hard not to love Jane because she is a product of the Fairy Godmother’s goodness as well as her own life experiences. Brenna D'Amico I believe catches this very well and while she maybe isn’t a breakout star here I still think she has a good career ahead of her from this.

Doug:

What the hell was with Doug’s hair, I thought how he looked in the first movie was both very Dopey, even though the dwarfs are bald, but also very geeky which Doug’s character is supposed to be. However then they grew it out slightly in the second one which I thought was okay but here...he looks more like the Beast after turning back into a human than King Beast or Ben do.

I would love to know if that’s his actual hair, he looks more like a musketeer than the son of Dopey. It wasn’t so much a problem for the character, although it did seem to be one of two things that involved him in this movie, but particularly when he had it in that ponytail he just looked ridiculous.

It was very funny but also very cruel of Doug to be asleep I believe for the whole of Evie’s “One Kiss” song, even when she pulled him up and was dancing with his unconscious body he still remained asleep.

I did like the uncertainty Evie had over her love for Doug, even though it is very obvious that he has loved her since he first saw her, I don’t know why there was an uncertainty because like “Jarlos” I think these two are a very good match.

Zachary Gibson has been a great inclusion to this franchise, not only spotlighting one of the seven dwarfs with being the son of Dopey, but also helping Evie find her good side.

Chad Charming:

Like I said before, I actually felt sorry for Chad in this movie, but then I couldn’t feel that bad for him because he literally asked to be Audrey’s lackey...so what was he expecting when he disobeyed her.

Yes okay they could have pushed it further and shown he maybe has claustrophobia or has been psychologically scarred by the experience he went through, but really it was just played for comedy.

Jedidiah Goodacre was exactly how he has been the last two movies, I clump him and Gil together a lot with Jay just being slightly higher because the two of them really impact the movie in the same minor way.

Parents:

So I’m stretching the definition of parents here slightly and including Queen Leah who is Audrey’s grandmother.

Judith Maxie was once again a great addition here as she was in the first movie, she also showed some good character development both in being the strict grandmother who effectively pushed Audrey into her wicked ways but also showing she can be forgiving of Mal from their encounter in the first movie.

But on a negative, I do not understand why they couldn’t cast Princess Aurora herself because the fact that when Audrey was practically dying at the end of the movie, how can Aurora or Phillip not be there, even the three fairies. I loved this version of the Queen Mother but to see a race-bent Princess Aurora would have been interesting.

King Beast and Queen Belle actually got some comedy in here, I loved when Ben and Mal got engaged and Belle was elated to finally get a daughter, it’s interesting that the daughter of Maleficent is going to be the daughter-in-law of Belle but it’s a good match.

Fairy Godmother I think has run out of steam slightly as not only do I feel she was simply running through her greatest hits from the past two movies but also, she spent the most of the movie as a stone, so it’s hard to say she did anything impressive because she was just her.

Inhabitants of the Isle:

Uma:

I love China McClain as this character, her Carlos and Harry are probably my three favourite characters of the entire franchise. I love the way she’s styled, I love her attitude, her singing, her story, everything about her.

We all knew she was returning in this movie, and while it wasn’t a trio of terror as I thought it would be, she was still a rather prominent threat before she actually returned with Mal and the palace guards constantly on the lookout for her.

After the core four (plus Celia) escaped Hades and the Isle, when Uma emerged from the sea in her cecaelia form, I was so happy. Yes I know it was majorly green screen but she just looked amazing.

Then when she appeared on land, going from the pirate captain look she had in Descendants 2 to the Sea Witch styling she had here was a great progression and I loved her talk about what she’s seen since the end of Descendants 2.

This is why Uma is such a relatable character, because she represents people in run down neighbourhoods or communities who want to fight for their people to have a better life, because Uma wants overall is the the kids of the Isle to have he same privileges as the core four have.

Her relationship with Mal in this movie was elevated from Descendants 2, as it was a situational alliance to begin with but soon progressed into friendship because of the history between the two.

However, as I said before, I understood why Mal’s betrayal made Uma turn on her, not in a villainous way but in a hurt way because she was genuinely starting to see them as friends and Mal effectively was stringing them along.

But I did like it when Mal turned dragon to fight Audrey and Uma arrived to fight by her side and help her reignite Hades’ ember. The friendship was there and you could tell Uma wanted it but also to save face.

I also just loved the sassiness of the character, when Uma came up with a plan but Mal dismissed it because she was in charge but then later when she decided to go with her plan and Uma said “This sounds an awful lot like my plan, just saying” I loved it so much, even the little punk moments that she had were just organic to the character.

I don’t know what her relationship with Harry is supposed to be, I know it’s supposed to be the case that Harry dumped Mal for Uma but aside from being her first mate and obviously devoted to her, Harry’s never shown any romantic interest until the end of this movie.

Also, even though I don’t necessarily need a Descendants 4 for this, I love the idea of Uma potentially now being the Castilian of the Isle of the Lost, by which I mean that while Ben and Mal will be King and Queen of both Auradon and the Isle, Uma could still be the ruler of the Isle reporting to Mal.

As I said, I love China McClain in this role, you can tell she like everyone else enjoys what she’s doing and it shows, it shines through so well.

Harry Hook:

Harry is just completely nuts and I love him for it. I genuinely think that while it was established in Descendants 2 that Harry was a little bit of a wild card, here he was almost unhinged but in a good way. It was kind of like a teenage Joker type of character, think Jerome on Gotham.

When he and Gil escaped the Isle by diving through the barrier, I loved the relief they had when it actually worked, and when Uma arrived it was a relief for them because now not only did they have an ally but also effectively protection.

Harry really spent a lot of this movie in the background but he was so good in the background. Not only were his little comments made about the core four really funny but also his observations were just very laissez-faire.

I swear he flirted or tried coming on to every single female teen in this movie, even Uma who again I am not sure as to the nature of their relationship, but he flirted with Jane, Mal, Evie, and Audrey right at the end. I am not particularly happy with that last point but I digress.

Also, there has been a recurring underline theory since Descendants 2 that Harry and potentially Gil are LGBT characters, in Descendants 2 there was a photo released from the “What’s My Name?” performance where Harry and Gil are sharing a kiss on one of the tables. Well here, Harry refers to Jay as “gorgeous face”, so there is every chance Harry may be bisexual.

I’m not saying the franchise needs an LGBT character, but it would be very progressive particularly if a VK was said character.

I do like the fact that even though you can tell he likes being bad that he was at least open to the idea of being good, possibly the least open of all three pirates, but open nevertheless.

Also his styling I loved in this movie, yes it was kind of missing that Captain Hook vibe that his style had from the second movie, but interesting it had essence of Hook from Once Upon a Time.

Thomas Doherty was again brilliant in this movie, I love him as a villain, I love him as the character and his interactions with the other characters were on point.

Celia Facilier

I feel the same way about Jadah Marie as Celia Facilier here as I did when I first saw China McClain in her guest role on Wizards of Waverly Place.

I thought Celia was a fabulous and fierce addition to the cast, not only in the way she is styled but right from the start you could tell what her motivations were, money and power effectively, and the rest just fell into place rather easily.

She kind of became Mal’s protege particularly when they had to return to the Isle and faced Hades, because of Celia working for Hades, but also she definitely seemed to look up to Mal as a role model.

Also her friendship with Dizzy was very cute, not only are the daughters of Drizella Tremaine and Dr. Facilier an unlikely friendship but also it just made for a nice side-story of seeing the new VKs adjust to life in Auradon.

I would have loved to have seen more Voodoo from Celia, once she was in Auradon she would have had that power and I was really hoping she would use it. Aside from a couple of tarot card readings that she did at the start of the movie, there wasn’t a lot from Celia other than being Mal’s sidekick.

It was interesting to me also that, while she was promoted as a new threat in the movie which didn’t transpire at all, she did seemingly team up with Uma and her crew a lot. I get they’re all from the Isle and not very trusting of the core four but she and Mal seemed to have some connection so I just found that a tad weird but also it at least showed Uma care for her.

Also the line she had when talking to her dad saying “I’ve got friends on the other side” was brilliant as yes we didn’t get the shadow people here but Celia was referring to the other side being Auradon so it worked wonderfully.

Much like I knew China McClain had great potential when she appeared in Wizards of Waverly Place, I believe the same for Jadah Marie, I see her even following the same path as China McClain and hopefully she got some tips from her in this movie.

Hades:

Alright so this is the one I was the most nervous about because the original promo images, for me, did not work at all.

However, Cheyenne Jackson is so charismatic, so likeable and so good in anything he’s in that he makes a rock ‘n’ roll Hades work. From his first scene you could tell that not only did he enjoy being this character in this world but also he never really made it ridiculous.

The fohawk eventually grew on me. I think after being desensitised to the promo images and trailers it became more natural and also it is rather a creative way of not spending the movie’s budget on continuous blue flame hair. Also I did like the fact he could only light up his hair when he was holding the ember in Auradon.

His outfit I thought worked rather well for the world of Descendants and the fact these villains have all been redesigned with the grungy punk style. As I said when talking about Mal’s outfits as well, I feel their styling are more similar then with Maleficent’s.

Speaking again of Maleficent, it’s interesting to think of Hades and her being married at one time, it’s especially funny because if anyone remembers House of Mouse years ago, there was an episode where Hades spent the episode trying to get with Maleficent and eventually it worked...that could have easily been a prequel to this.

However, even though she was mentioned a couple of times by Hades and Mal, I want to actually know where she’s gone. At the end of the movie the core four run back to the Isle to see their parents but we don’t know if Maleficent is human again let alone back on the Isle.

Back to Hades though, and even though he wasn’t in the movie as much as I think fans thought he would be, the scenes he was in were great, I especially love the fact when Ben met him at the end he turned into the protective father threatening the daughter’s boyfriend which was hilarious.

There wasn’t a lot wrong with the character to be fair, Cheyenne played the part very well, his singing and dancing was very fitting for this version of the character and I thought him squaring up to Beast at the end was great.

I maybe would’ve liked to have seem him try and cut a deal for his freedom at the end after saving Audrey but things worked out anyway so it’s all good.

Gil:

Compared to Descendants 2 I thought Gil improved as a character here, I think maybe that’s because we saw him and Harry redeem themselves through spending time with Jay and Carlos.

As I said with Jay, their bromance was kind of expected as the two are very similar in character but I thought it actually helped both of them. I’m not sure how I feel about Jay taking a gap year for the two to go travelling but I guess if it’s something they want to do then more power to them.

Again, as with Harry, there is a question mark over Gil’s sexuality and I feel in this movie he does show so affection towards Jay. Whether or not that is simply in a bromance way or maybe he’s hoping for me I don’t know and I won’t judge, but the shippers I imagine will be going in hard with these two from this movie,

I did like that he volunteered to go with Jane and Doug as their protection because, let’s face it, he may not have brains but he certainly has brawn and this is where he is useful.

I also liked the comment he made when Ben was revealed as a Beast and Gil mentioned how Gaston told him that Beast didn’t handle pain very well...little bit of an understatement there because Gaston tried to kill him but I found the line funny.

Dylan Playfair I feel does a good job here, I like how he showed such child-like wonder with Auradon from the smallest thing like berries, I know Mal had the same thing with strawberries but that was rooted in the prequel novel, this was just Gil being Gil and I liked that.

Dizzy Tremaine:

I was a little bit disappointed with Dizzy, even though I thought she was still a great character I thought her arc from Descendants 2 was left out of continuation here, Yes okay, we know who Dizzy is and her connection to Evie in this movie from that movie, but she has less development here than Celia, who I get is a new character, but they teased Dizzy coming to Auradon at the end of Descendants 2 yet she is treated just as importantly as Celia and Smee’s sons.

Also, after leaving the Isle, she doesn’t really have anything to do. I mean yes she has those moments with Celia but her friendship with both Evie and Mal from the second movie is practically gone here because she is left on the bench.

I still think Anna Cathcart does a good job as the character and she is very likeable as a child actress, but from the first time we see her in Descendants 2 she is definitely not a VK in the traditional sense but simply a victim of circumstance.

Parents:

Then with the parents, all three are new, four if you count Hades, but I like all three as they seem accurate both to the original source material and their kids in the movie.

Jamal Sims pulls double duty here not only as co-choreographer with Kenny Ortega but also having an acting role as Dr. Facilier. I have to say, as much as I loved Daniel Francis in the final season of Once Upon a Time as this character, this is definitely closer to the animated version he is based on from The Princess and the Frog.

I was rather impressed that they seemingly race-bent the Tremaine family as Lady Tremaine being Asian, and by extension Dizzy of course, was not exactly a necessary change as these movies are quite diverse, but I feel a substitute for the movie not having Lonnie.

Smee did absolutely nothing really in this movie, he didn’t speak, he was barely in it, and really all he did was see his sons off to Auradon...who also did nothing by the way which is why they don’t get a section here.

Songs:

Alright now lets get to the songs of the movie. Overall I have to say this is probably my favourite soundtrack of the three movies, I genuinely believe both in seeing Descendants 2 and going into this, that I didn’t think they could stick a landing but surprisingly they get better and better.

As with the past two movies I am going to talk about them in order of my favourites.

My Once Upon a Time:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the course of these three movies, it’s that Dove Cameron can sing. She may not have one of these power ballads every movie as in Descendants 2 she doesn’t but with both “If Only” in the first Descendants and now this, I just love slow but powerful vocals.

I also liked it that like “If Only” the song served as flashbacks but this time it was throughout the trilogy leading up to the beginning of the song. It’s the fact that the lyrics resonated so much with Mal’s story throughout the three movies.

It’s also a great message of Mal saying “Yes this is currently my story with my friends and fiancé hating me, but I want to take a new positive turn in my life”. It’s a great way to say that the individual is capable of changing their story if they want to.

I thought also that the fact the scene went straight from this empowerment song into a battle was quite apt as she has the motivation and has the drive to know what she has to do not only to save her loved ones but also to save Auradon.

I’m a sucker for the big emotional songs of a movie if they are sung well and the lyrics have a meaning to them and that is why this song for me is number 1 despite the fact that every song in this movie is so good that I often change my mind daily as to which is my favourite.

Do What You Gotta Do:

This is why you get Cheyenne Jackson, which is why I thought they gave Maleficent a song in the first movie because Kristin Chenoweth is also a broadway legend. However, while there are still some childish moments in the number at least it seems to fit this character.

I loved how this song laid out the dynamic between Hades and Mal as a father and daughter. I thought the rock-like style for Hades was very appropriate and although I have never heard Cheyenne sing before he was in his element here.

I found it funny that Celia was the backing vocals for the song and seen coming out from where she was apparently hiding almost every time she was singing.

I also thought the lyrics helped kind of progress the story with Hades defending being an absentee father and Mal trying to get him to hand over the ember.

My favourite line is when Mal sings about how Hades was a bad dad, Hades simply responds with “I steal souls, were you expecting flowers?” Because it makes absolute sense for the character.

Dove Cameron can sing anyway we know this from the last two movies, but combine her vocals with Cheyenne Jackson and somehow it works a better than Evil Like Me.

One Kiss:

Alright so, I said before that I would have loved this sequence to be like “On the Steps of the Palace” from Into the Woods sung by Anna Kendrick. In that sequence, everything around Cinderella becomes frozen while she sing-debates whether or not to flee from the prince or not. This was great because it was literally showing us what was going through Cinderella’s mind at the time.

Here, if they had done or even made it so it was that type of sequence, because if it had been then I would have felt better about Evie doing a 2 minute 30 song and dance number while they had Audrey as a pending threat to think about.

Also, it is hard to tell if Doug is actually under the curse or just faking so that Evie will kiss him and prove that she loves him. I did find it funny when he either faked it at the end because it at least gave him something to do but come on, she had his apparent unconscious body draped over him while she was dancing at one point before dropping him on the table.

Now while this wasn’t as much of a Michael Jackson tribute as “Chillin’ Like a Villain”, Sofia Carson still had the dance moves and this choreography, like a lot of the production numbers of the movie, was on point.

But also, as much as I love the lyrics of the conflict in Evie’s head, a lot like Anna Kendrick’s Cinderella, one of my favourite points in this number is the cut-backs to Mal and Uma who were chorus-lining much like Celia was doing during “Do What You Gotta Do” but the different looks both characters were giving during the lines “One Kiss” with Mal looking eager and Uma just going “Come on get on with it” to the point where at one point she’s just checking her manicure during one of the “haoo haoo!” moments before Evie runs outside before just going to Mal “should we go?”

Night Falls:

So this isn’t “It’s Going Down” but it is this movie’s version. Not only is it the song that has Mal, Evie and Uma all together in quite a harmonious riff throughout the latter half of the number, but also this is definitely the point of the movie where I lost my s%$t with the movie because you had a dancing suits of armour and at one point Dude jumping up in the air and apparently clapping.

I know it’s for kids but that is the point in the movie when I actually did not know what I was watching.

I did like the suits busting a move to be fair, especially as they were mirroring the VK on the podium.

It was also a great number to again show Mal and Uma’s rivalry, “This is my crew, but this is my squad” is each VK trying to take ownership of her respective team yet they are both trying to do the right thing for Auradon.

Don’t get me wrong, I do kind of wish the guys maybe got solo numbers and I know Ben did in the first movie which I did not like, but Mitchell Hope can sing, as proven here, Cameron Boyce and Thomas Doherty can also sing, so I do wish they had the chance to because here they were in the chorus only.

Good to Be Bad:

The opening numbers have all been high-energy VK power, and I loved how we started back on the Isle as opposed to Auradon like Descendants 2.

This is the only song I knew about going into the movie because it’s the only video I think they released and I wasn’t originally crazy about it, but it a grower I must say because after hearing it a couple of times on that video I was 

Queen of Mean:

If you had told me that not only would the daughter of Sleeping Beauty be the movie’s villain but also basically wrapping during her transformation, I wouldn’t have believed you. But sure enough Sarah Jeffery does, which was I guess another insentive for her to return after skipping Descendants 2 because while she had a minor line in the final number of the first movie “Set It Off”, this is completely her number with no one else singing.

Again, a lot like “One Kiss”, it’s all about that inner conflict in Audrey’s head which leads her to taking obviously drastic measures as she literally says “Everyone loves Mal, Mal’s a villain, so if they want a villain as a queen, I’ll be the worst”.

I loved the reveal of her transformation when she did turn, but I don’t know exactly how she did. She hadn’t taken the staff yet and was in close proximity to it but didn’t touch it yet. So is the queen’s crown magical?

It is a great villain revealed song and a great match for the character of Audrey, as she is basically saying how she tried to be the good girl but that wasn’t enough for the kingdom so she is now going to be evil and rule with vengeance. It brilliantly sets up her story in the movie and it’s a great musical choice for the movie.

Break This Down:

This is probably my favourite ending group number, while “Set It Off” was very high energy and “You and Me” was very low energy, here was a perfect balance of the two.

I loved how it started with Mal and Uma basically singing to each other and then became about the Auradon VKs and the Isle VKs before simply becoming about everyone.

The song is very much about breaking down literal barriers that divide people which is obviously in reference to the barrier coming down.

The dancing on the bridge with everyone felt very much like a school disco it was that high energy, and I haven’t obviously attended school discos in 15 years but it reminded me of that feeling.

It was a very catchy number, I like how almost everyone got a chance to sing at least one verse. I think maybe Dylan Playfair and the supporting Auradon kids didn’t but otherwise all of the main kids did which was great.

Happy Birthday:

Alright so these next three are either minor songs to the movie or in the end-credits. “Happy Birthday” is obviously not an original song to the movie, but Sarah Jeffery delivers such a sultry performance and the visuals of her cursing Jane’s party flows with it so well that it is just a very nice scene.

Dig a Little Deeper:

Literally 30 seconds of this song is heard over the end credits, largely because “Bring This Down” plays over most of the credits. I have listened to the full version though and have to say, The Princess and the Frog is so underrated in terms of a movie, the songs and bringing that New Orleans vibe to Disney. While China McClain isn’t from New Orleans or even playing a character from that movie, I am glad she got the chance to perform it like she did “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in Descendants 2.

Did I Mention:

Everyone knows this is my least favourite song from the first movie, but fortunately it is only redone for one verse, stripped back with I believe Doug playing acoustic guitar.

Here’s the thing, J. Lewis is a great singer and the fact he got the role of Mitchell Hope’s singing voice after being a contestant on The Voice is a good gig. But Mitchell Hope singing this number is so organic and natural and sweet that. while I get Hope may not be the most confident singer which is why Lewis has stepped in for both Descendants and Descendants 2, I’m glad he was able to sing himself here.

Recommendation:

Alright so even though the movie has almost been out for a week, I will still say that I feel this movie and franchise has been a great escapism for people to just turn off their brains from the trials and tribulations of every day life.

Now yes, for kids who may not know what is to come in their respective futures, this is simply a great movie to enjoy. It’s fun, it’s colourful, it’s action-packed and it has great songs. But for adults who either enjoy the franchise or watch it with kids, they’ll be able to be drawn back into when they were kids growing up with Disney.

It’s been a great journey, as I say I don’t see it continuing due to the untimely and tragic passing of Cameron Boyce, but the trilogy we have I think is enough and a great legacy for him to leave behind.

Overall I rate this movie a 9/10, there are moments story-wise where I feel it could have been stronger and if Maleficent had returned it would have been a 10 for me but I’m not taking away too much from the greatness that this movie is.

So that’s my review of Descendants 3, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

since they were all hatstalls, can i tell you which houses they were all hatstalls on blease

Okay I’m using this as an excuse to basically write about all of the queens hogwarts houses 😂

Rules:

1) I’m going off the show version of the queens, NOT the fandom versions. I’ve linked a set of headcanons from a while back that links in better to how people in the fandom probably see them all. Don’t come at me saying that Seymour should be in hufflepuff. Show version of Seymour doesn’t belong there.

2) even though a queen could belong equally in two houses, in the end she has to be assigned to one and one only.

3) this is my opinion. Feel free to disagree

ARAGON, BOLEYN AND SEYMOUR: I’m grouping these three together, because I think that they were all hatstalls between gryffindor and slytherin. In the end, they all end up in slytherin.

Reasons: these three are all portrayed as being incredibly headstrong, uncompromising, passionate, silver toungued etc.

But most of all, these three queens are all incredibly ambitious and they want to win the competition so badly that they’ll do anything to do it. Aragon and Boleyn have to be kept apart by Cleves (in the U.K. tour run) while Seymour literally grabs Howard’s ponytail. They have constant low-blows to one another and are even kind of cunning in certain circumstances (e.g Boleyn putting her arm around Howard when she knows that being touched distressed Howard). Plus, these three queens have some of the meanest lines and are basically at everyone’s throats throughout the entire competition.

Yes, there’s some qualities of other houses in each of these queens. Seymour’s love for her son is very hufflepuff-like, while Aragon and Boleyn’s quick wit and clear intelligence is a ravenclaw thing. But just because you have SOME qualities of one house, it doesn’t mean you’d belong there. And I genuinely think that, in the show, these queens are all slytherin. (I’m not saying all slytherins are bad, it’s just that these qualities are associated with slytherin).

CLEVES: hatstall between slytherin, gryffindor and hufflepuff. Ends up in hufflepuff

Reasons: Look, if Cleves was really a gryffindor or slytherin then I genuinely don’t think she would so quietly accept the fact that she’s basically been deemed disqualified from the competition. Yes, her boasting about her wealth and fantastic life could be seen as both Slytherin and Gryffindor traits. I’m not saying a slytherin or gryffindor would never step down, I’m just saying that Cleves does so with only one word of half-hearted protest. A gryffindor would be too headstrong to do this and a slytherin too ambitious to lose the competition so easily. But a hufflepuff would.

Plus! Cleves is also shown to be a peacemaker throughout the show, physically putting herself between Aragon and Boleyn to stop them fighting one another, calling on Parr when it’s “her turn” (i.e Fair play). She is also the first stop Boleyn from continuing with “wearing yellow to a funeral” and she seems to have a lot of patience with Howard, refusing to insult her at any point in the competition. She’s just so level headed and chill the whole way through the competition. Cleves, to me, just fits into hufflepuff so nicely. I do agree that she’s probably a gryffindor/hufflepuff hybrid, but again, she has to go into ONE house.

(Also her patronus is a capybara fight me)

HOWARD: hatstall between ravenclaw and hufflepuff. In the end she gets put into ravenclaw.

Reasons: Howard is definitely show to be sort of shy in the show, for example putting her hand up when it’s her turn and looking to Parr for assistance when the other queens are arguing when it’s supposed to be her turn. Her also refusing to insult anyone until they insult her would also be seen as kind of a hufflepuff quality. But Howard is shown to be just as intelligent as any other queen in the show, having two jokes dedicated to historical knowledge and also being the first queen to understand what Parr meant. I don’t know...I just love smart, bookish Howard so much.

PARR: also a hatstall between ravenclaw and hufflepuff, but she ended up in hufflepuff

Reasons: again, Parr is portrayed as a very intelligent woman throughout the show, talking about her career as a writer and showing her as wisest of the bunch.

BUT I think that Parr is probably the most empathetic out of all the queens. She NEVER insults another wife, even seeming distressed when the other queens go for particularly low blows with one another (e.g the miscarriages). Plus, she never retaliates by insulting the others, even though all five queens gang up on her at once, showing her incredible patience. Even though she hates the competition, she tries to make it as fair as possible by forcing the other queens to give Howard her rightful turn at a song. And empathy, patience and fair play are all big hufflepuff qualities. And she’s the queen that encourages unity, another thing that hufflepuffs are known for. So yeah, even though Parr would have been perfectly suited to Ravenclaw, I think she’d belong more in Hufflepuff (sorry I feel really strongly about this one because I am also a hufflepuff and Parr is my favourite queen so 🙃)

Link to the other headcanons with the fandom versions of the characters (please someone show me how to do that cool thing with links on tumblr this looks so bad 😭)

https://we-stan-six-the-musical.tumblr.com/post/184850959270/maybe-this-has-been-done-before-but-what-are-the

[wickedlittlewordsmith]

By the time I get around to posting this, it will already be after midnight for me, which means that it’s the start of a new year and a new decade. I originally wasn’t going to write this post. Normally I write at least one self-reflective post a year—though not necessarily on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day as it will be—but this year I thought I’d skip it since I’ve admittedly not been in a great mental space these past six weeks or so.

Then I did something ridiculous and nerve wracking (for me, at least) and completely out of character for me simply because I knew it would be uncomfortable. I shared pictures of myself both in a giant group chat with a bunch of people I don’t really know but who seem like genuinely wonderful people. (That’s you, RQ Discord peeps. Just in case any of you are here and all that jazz.) And then I shared pictures of me from 2009 and 2019 on Twitter just because. That’s it. I simply wanted to do it for myself, to continue putting myself in positions that make me slightly uncomfortable, and to do it on my terms.

I don’t have a lot of twitter followers, so I’m not super concerned about posting pictures there. (You can take your Panopticism and shove it, Foucault. I don’t care if you’re right right now.) The few friends of mine who know and follow me on there are cool and really supportive, so I’m okay with it. And I’m okay with linking things here because, well, again, it’s under my terms.

Anyway, one of my dearest, closest friends saw the tweet and messaged me on Discord about how much happier I look now than I did back in 2009 and how my whole mood has improved. And despite compliments making me uncomfortable and struggling with another depressive cycle due to extreme anxiety, I easily and honestly agreed with them.

I am happier.

Such a simple sentence to write. Three words; that’s it. Yet it’s not something I thought I’d be able to say and mean it—genuinely mean it—if I’m being completely honest.

So I got to thinking of everything I’ve been through since 2009.

In 2009, I was 19, turning 20. I was in a relationship that I hadn’t realized was abusive and toxic at the time. I was barely making it through community college, bored and restless because I didn’t feel like I was being mentally challenged by the classes I took. I had an extremely teen rebellion “Fuck you!” attitude, an extremely fragile sense of self, and was on the start of my first major breakdown.

The girl I was back then was so damn naïve. She had no idea what we’d go through to get to where we are today. She wouldn’t be able to wrap her mind around the fact that I’m currently single by choice and happy about it. She’d think my actually following a foolish dream of getting an MA and eventually a PhD is dumb as fuck. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what life with mental illnesses like GAD and c-PTSD would be like.

And yet here I am.

These past ten years have seen me survive a 9 year abusive relationship that started when I was 18. It’s seen me suffering an extreme mental breakdown at 23, abusing alcohol because I didn’t know that I was struggling with anxiety and PTSD related panic attacks every night like clockwork. It’s seen me lying to everyone about how I was doing, how my relationship was going, and what I had planned for my future. It’s seen me barely scrape by with a decent enough GPA to transfer to a somewhat local university and then half-ass a bachelor’s degree. It’s seen me in a year-long struggle with depression and anxiety followed by me fighting to regain a sense of self and pulling myself up and putting myself back together with mish-mashed pieces that didn’t really fit, only to break again when I finally ended the abusive relationship and had to deal with months of harassment in-person and then even longer with my ex stalking me and harassing me and my family online. In the span of a year, it’s seen me end a relationship, lose a friendship with the woman I’d considered my best friend for years, and having to put down my pup who’d honestly gotten me through so much of these hellish events.

There has been a lot of bad in my life, especially this past decade.

But you know what? It’s also brought me a lot of really great things, too.

I got into the Master’s program that I wanted. I got to work with the professors that I loved and knew would not only challenge me but also encourage me. I got to teach my first college-level English course on my own, which only reaffirmed the fact that that’s exactly what I want to do with my life. I’m currently working on finishing up my thesis and have a 3.9 something GPA because I am finally engaged and invested in what I’m learning.

I’ve also made a lot of great friends, both through the internet and in real life. Hell, despite having really bad anxiety and some really fucked up, self-deprecating thoughts and a severe case of imposter syndrome, I managed to spend almost a week up in the woods with a bunch of my friends from work, and I actually enjoyed myself. They’ve all helped me get to where I am today, and I couldn’t be more grateful for their presence in my life.

And that’s not to mention that I have three amazing nephews and a charming niece now! And sisters! Which, okay, probably sounds a little bit weird to be excited over, but when you grow up with 5 brothers in a terribly patriarchal and near misogynistic household, it’s pretty cool to realize you’re not the only female at family gatherings, minus your mom.

I’ve also finally admitted to people that I want to pursue a PhD in the U.K. and have not only told my family about it but have actively been doing the things that I need to in order to apply and hopefully enroll in. it’s nerve wracking to think I may be going to a whole new country—continent, even!—for this, but it’s exciting as fuck, too.

So overall, the last ten years have been a wild ride with lots of highs and lows (mostly lows), but I like who I’ve become. I really, truly am happy with who I am right now. I’m not perfect. I’m still a fucking walking disaster in human skin, basically, but I’m happy. And that’s a ridiculously delightful thought, even if my brain is trying to sabotage it, and I can’t help but feel proud.

I’m nervous to see what this year brings. I don’t even want to begin to think about these next ten years. But you know what? I’m still going to work on being the best version of me that I can be; I’m still going to do things that terrify me; I’m still going to continue learning and expanding my own horizons; and most importantly I’m still going to be me.

[whatdoyouexpectthistime]

Blood Spatter - Part 8

Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4: Part 5 : Part 6 : Part 7

________________________________

It’s with both joy and dread I approach the exterior of Pale. Jazz on one side and that pathetic excuse for a vampire on the other, I should feel at least half way supported, but the fact is I’m heading into the storm otherwise known as Sebastian.

Knowing all I do now, this will be far from smooth sailing.

“Relax,” Kiril instructs.

In my peripheral vision I see his hand lift like he might have placed it against me, but it drops to his side again.

“Just shut up and make sure you don’t aggravate him,” I drop flatly, side-stepping a little closer to Jazz.

“My very presence aggravates him,” he points out, and I hardly disagree.

“There’s a bit of that going around,” I grate, and Jazz takes my hand.

“Don’t leave my sight,” he volleys coldly, and at this I stop and look at him.

“I am not your pet,” I tell him sternly. “And since you made it perfectly clear I’m not girlfriend material, you’re only my shadow for as long as it takes to break this spell – then, you can rid yourself of any concern of me.”

“Twenty minutes and you are tearing at your skin like a deranged junkie,” he points out, and while he’s right, it doesn’t excuse giving me orders, nor the tone in which they are issued.

“Just sit your ass in a booth and don’t move,” I tell him. “I have a business to run and I don’t need a supervisor.”

“Jazz?” a female voice inquires, and all eyes turn to where Selina has come out to open the club’s front doors. “Jazz and Miho! You found her!”

The young woman’s excitement is palpable, though in honesty we don’t know each other well. I can only think it’s transference: Sebastian’s constant worry.

“Yep, found her,” I confirm, linking arms with Jazz and approaching with a smile.

“Seb’s going to be thrilled,” Selina grins, holding the door open for us, and her smile only widens as she spies Kiril who follows in our wake.

All the scents, the sounds of Pale wakening in the evening, serve as a momentary distraction from the impending clash I anticipate. Sebastian will be glad to see both me and Jazz, but not the one stalking my trail. Luckily, there are no patrons.

And that is even before our regular employees demand explanations, or at the very least a recount of our ‘holiday’.

If I don’t take control, I just know I’m going to end up repeating myself a thousand times, and I want our return to be a celebration, not the continuation of a particularly challenging day.

Of course, Sebastian demands the full force of my attention the moment he lays eyes upon me, even more so when Kiril makes a point of standing close at my shoulder, but the rise of my hand calls everyone gathered to silence.

“We’re back, thanks for your patience and the warm welcome,” I declare, and the smile on my lips is genuine.

It feels odd.

Yet a bit sad.

“No doubt Mieke and Sebastian – along with all of you - have done an excellent job in our absence, and for that Jazz and I are both thankful,” I continue, avoiding Sebastian’s gaze altogether, because in them I know there are questions I shall not answer here.

Well wishes and a little bit of jealousy precedes my path upstairs – how lucky Jazz was to win a vacation; how glad they all are we’re back and all is explained – but the moment Sebastian closes the office door it’s like a guillotine beheads the joyful atmosphere.

It rolls across the floor and comes to a stop at my feet.

“Lottery vacation? That’s the best story you could concoct?” Sebastian scoffs.

Clearly, he’s having difficulty deciding who to glare at because his stare dances between Kiril and me. Jazz seems to be spared his ire.

“Not everyone needs to know the ins and outs of our personal lives,” I point out, trying to keep the irritation from spilling out; it is – after all – not all on account of him.

“I’m not everyone,” he counters quickly, finger-pointing in a stabbing gesture. “And I know who he is, and his persisting presence here is not only bad for business, he’s bad for you.”

“You are welcome for my assistance in the safe return for your friend,” Kiril pipes up, and it’s obvious he’s doing it to add fuel to the fire.

“Were it not for you and yours no doubt she’d not have needed saving in the first place!” Sebastian blurts.

Immediately I can see him calculating ways to explain what he means without revealing the truth.

“And, pray tell, what are me and mine?” Kiril drawls, approaching the other man until I hold my arm out to stop him.

“Ruthlessness,” Sebastian spits. “Dangerous, provocative manipulators who get what they want at the expense of others – you’re not wanted nor welcome here so take your…”

“The invitation of Miho and Jazz would suggest otherwise,” Kiril notes airily, not attempting to force his way through my flimsy barricade.

He’s getting what he wants.

Again.

“Stop it, Kiril,” I snap, giving him an ineffectual shove.

“Stop what, Sparrow?” he smiles infuriatingly.

This time the shot is at me, a bullet with a message on it aimed at centre mass; Sparrow may have begun as some teasing term of endearment, but now it sounds like a way for him to disconnect.

“Look, Sebastian,” I level, trying to keep my calm, trying not to sound condescending. “I know you don’t like the guy, but for the time being he’ll be hanging around.”

“Why?” Sebastian challenges, shifting his feet.

Obviously, his anger is riled by this. The suspicion in his eyes begins to burn.

“What did you do?” he hisses at Kiril, his fists clenching in warning a physical confrontation might be imminent.

“Other than offer my wealth and resources to find Miss Mann? Nothing,” Kiril answers glibly, even though that isn’t entirely the truth.

“Miho,” Sebastian prompts, sliding forward and slipping his fingers against my throat, tucking his palm against the underside of my chin.

The slight pressure he exerts there tells me he’s looking for something very particular.

“What are y…” I begin, but he stumbles away before I can finish thanks to the solid shove Kiril applies to his chest.

A rush of joy floods my system but is quickly dampened by the reality that Sebastian now looks ready to throw punches.

“Stop it!” I shout, planting myself between them. “Enough of this school yard bullshit, just calm the fuck down!”

Glowering fiercely between the two men, I can only pray they don’t push back. Knowing what I do of them both, it’s unlikely I could stop a brawl. Luckily, I’m not on my own.

Jazz finally leaves the window she’d been staring out of and comes to stand a little way in front of me.

“And what have you got to say for yourself?” Sebastian charges.

“You were worried, and I’m sorry for that,” Jazz says slowly, attempting to de-escalate the situation. “And I’m sorry for putting you and Miho in a tough spot…”

“I’m more concerned about the ‘tough spot’ Konstantin Lambert has put you in,” he volleys, his voice low, “and whether Miho was actually able to save you at all.”

“From?” Jazz exhales in exasperation, but Sebastian calls her bluff.

“You think I don’t know a fledgling vampire when I see one?” he barks, and this rhetorical question hangs sharply in the air, a neon sign advertising the blood-sucking cat is out of the bag.

“Maybe I thought you’d be able to put our friendship before the secrets you’ve been keeping!” she snaps back, all calm eluding her.

“If only I could find a way to commercialise this drama,” Kiril thinks aloud, and all eyes fix on him.

“I’d like you and Jazz to give Sebastian and me a chance to talk in private,” I declare firmly, anxious Jazz’s temper might boil over into something else. “We’re not making any progress like this.”

“If Mr. Ross can be trusted alone in your presence,” Kiril baits, amused.

“Get out,” I direct curtly, pointing in the direction Jazz has already stomped. “Do your job and keep an eye on her.”

Surprisingly, Kiril offers no further barbs and even shuts the door gently behind him.

A new silence suffocates the room, until Sebastian asks the question he has wanted to since the moment he saw me return with Kiril.

“Did he turn you?”

“No,” I reply honestly. “And he never tried, despite having every opportunity to do so.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why, Sebastian?” I scowl, spreading my hands. “And what’s with the accusatory tone, huh? If anyone should be pissed off she was literally left in the dark about vampires, it should be me!”

“So, I should have just shown up for shift one night and said, ‘Oh hey, Miho, did you know half a dozen vampires are regulars at Pale?’ Ironic, right?” he drops sardonically. “I’m sure you’d have believed me.”

“You don’t know what I’d have accepted,” I hiss, beginning to pace. “We’ve been friends for how long? Were intimate how long? And you’ve known about vampires, for how long? No, let me answer that – long enough to find a way to convince me!”

The end of my exclamation is punctuated by the dramatic throw of my hands into the air.

“So, what about how you came upon this knowledge in the first place?” I grunt breathily, hands moving to hips, eyebrows raised.

His lips part, but when no sound emerges for several seconds I go back on the attack.

“It’s a pretty simple question, Sebastian,” I prompt. “All other things on the table…”

That’s a lie.

“It’s in my blood,” he replies finally.

“What is?” I push.

“I’m a hunter,” he admits finally, and I have to think Kiril had known this and chosen not to tell me.

“Explain,” I huff, and Sebastian sighs, running a hand over his face as if in fatigue.

“It’s an inherited thing, very old in its origin,” he expounds. “Hunters are, or were, monster slayers, tracking and destroying creatures that prey upon humans.”

“Were?”

“Things are far more complicated, political now,” he elaborates. “It’s different all over the world, but here in the U.K. the governing hunter body and the vampire leadership have a treaty in place that restricts the activities of both sides, providing rules are upheld by both sides.”

For a moment, I process this.

“No harming humans? No staking vampires at will?” I pose, and he confirms this with a nod. “So you take orders from this ‘governing body’?”

“Uhm, not exactly,” he reveals awkwardly.

“Explain,” I say for the second time.

“Like every organisation it has a mission statement, goals and practices, and after many years in services to questionable ideals, I decided to extricate myself.”

“So you’re a lone wolf,” I surmise. “What is it that you disagree with so much?”

“It’s complicated,” he answered, the same answer for the second time.

“Look, I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he continues. “But right now I’d like to discuss Jazz.”

“She’s not for hunting,” I assert defensively.

It’s a knee-jerk reaction I can’t help.

“No, no - Jesus, Miho, of course not,” he rushes. “But she is a vampire, yes? Which one was it?”

Forcing my muscles to relax, I respond.

“Konstantin,” I disclose. “She - they - swear it was a mutual decision.”

“And how much do you know about them? The Lamberts?”

“Enough to know Jazz is in deep shit if Konrad ever finds out,” I mutter, finally turning away from him with a heavy sigh.

“And you…” he impresses. “Which is why…”

“I should stay away from Kiril Lambert?” I pre-empt. “Yeah, well, it’s complicated.”

Yeah, how do you like a taste of your own evasive medicine?

It’s with this thought I realise how pointlessly adversarial this conversation has been. Yes, I’m angry he didn’t tell me about the vampires. Yes, that he is a hunter like Kiril says I am, adds one more layer of complexity to the situation I’m stuck in, but making an enemy out of Sebastian isn’t going to help me in any way.

So, I try to let it go.

“Look, Konstantin needs to focus on keeping his father happy, so for the time Kiril has taken on the role of mentor for Jazz,” I tell him, moving to the window to look down into the club.

Below, Jazz is chatting at the bar with a couple of customers. She looks happy, smiling and laughing, and for a moment I can almost forget the mess we’re in.

“I’m not blind,” Sebastian exhales, close behind me. “Lambert looks at you like an object in his collection, a possession.”

Before responding, I scan for the object of Sebastian’s ire. There Kiril sits in a booth - he is not alone. Like a flame he’s drawn beautiful moths to him, women with long legs and commercially perfect bodies, pouty lips and swaying hips.

My teeth clench against the jealousy that raises my temperature.

“And that look on your face…” Sebastian adds.

“It’s disdain,” I fill in. “I know what he is. I know what he does, and I know the dangers. But for now, until Jazz is fully capable of functioning as a vampire without hurting anyone, Kiril is a necessary evil.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” he whispers, his hand coming to rest in the small of my back. “Everything I’ve done has been to try and protect you, even though it may not seem like it.”

“Yeah, I know,” I murmur, quashing the urge to throw him off. “I just want to get back to some semblance of normal.”

But the fact is, normal has been redefined. There is no going back to ‘what was’.

Sebastian is caught between giving me space and wanting to hover, and I feel as if he notices my every glance at Kiril and his bevy of bimbos. Each time, his worry deepens, his hate congeals, but there is nothing I can do about it.

“Hey!” Selina chirps, plopping down on the barstool at my right elbow. “You’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that.”

“Wrinkles are the least of my worries,” I chuckle, swinging around to face her. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Having an open bar is awesome,” she grins, her cheeks flushed with a few too many drinks; I’m surprised she isn’t slurring.

“Don’t drink me out of club and home,” I say, envious of the innocence in her expression. “You want to remember your time here.”

“I know, I will,” she nods. “Remember, not drink too much,” she adds, giggling intermittently. “But what I really want to know is what the deal is between you and Hottie Mc Armani-pants over there.”

Hopefully, Kiril didn’t hear that.

“Don’t make that face,” she pokes, attempting to squish my cheek, but missing by a comfortable margin. “You and he have been making bedroom eyes at each other since you came down.”

There is a denial on my lips, but she’s probably right.

Despite his rejection.

Despite feeling wronged.

Kiril and I cannot help but feel attracted to one another no matter our true feelings.

“I suppose there’s no accounting for taste,” I quip, trying to throw her off any further inquiry.

Selina simply changes.

“What about my brother then, hmm? I thought you two were screwing.”

“We were screwing, yes,” I respond, and I see Kiril look over, his head tilted a little.

“Were?” Selina persisted. “You kick him out?”

“It’s not like that,” I sigh, letting a little of my irritation slip out. “I’ve just had other things to think about.”

“You going to screw him again?”

“What are you? His pimp?” I laugh.

“Matchmaker maybe,” she grins, leaning over at me. “You guys are cute together. I know he’d do anything for you.”

Her pupils are dilated, so dilated, in fact, I can hardly see her irises at all.

“Selina, did you take something?” I inquire, studying her more closely.

“Stop trying to change the subject!” she protests. “Seb looks tense; you should loosen him up, you know, now Jazz is back and everything is fiiiine.”

“Who’s fine?” Sebastian pipes up, appearing behind his sister to look brightly at me.

Brightly is the wrong word.

Cheeky, maybe.

“Your sister isn’t,” I point out. “She is high, and I want to know who supplied her in my club.”

“Pfft, I am not,” she scoffs, but I’m done observing her; now I’m sure. “Come on,” I prompt, getting to my feet and taking her arm. “Point out who gave it to you. Right now.”

“Hang on a minute,” Sebastian reasons, moving around. “Selina wouldn’t…”

There is no denying it, however, when he also gets a good look at her face.

“Take her upstairs,” I instruct. “Mieke can check the cameras while Jazz and I look for anyone else who’s taken something.”

There is no disagreement from him, though Selina protests as she is herded away.

“Perhaps if your head of security was not so preoccupied ogling you, he would have seen the drug dealer in your midst,” Kiril states, close at my shoulder, and I cannot suppress a shudder of desire.

“I don’t need your commentary,” I spit, despite the urge to lean back against him. “I have work to do.”

He just needs to leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone, or I’m going to crack and surrender my dignity, but he just can’t help himself. His hand falls on my shoulder, so hot I want to melt even though his sin is cold, and my shoulder reflexively relaxes beneath his touch.

“God damnit, Kiril!” I bark, whirling around to slap his arm away.

“Yes, Sp…”

My nickname stalls on his lips and I feel a mix of disappointment and triumph; his instinct was to use the pet name, but his stupid pride forces it down. Pride, or whatever it was that made him throw me away like garbage.

“Yes, Miho,” I grate, slathering smugness over my ongoing hurt. “Stay out of my way, or you’ll be the vampire I kill for my awakening.”

It’s an outrageous lie, not even a bluff, but it hits where it is meant to.

 Kiril clicked his tongue, a sneer forming in the wake of Miho’s departure. He’d pushed her away – their lust for one another was born in magic after all – and though it had been his choice, it left a sour taste in his mouth where he’d rather have the taste of her.

Irritably, he set his sights on the crowd and began to sift through the throng of gyrating bodies. Locating the origin of the drugs would not be difficult, and he was certain he could identify the perpetrator before Miho and her people could. There were down sides to being a vampire, but the benefits were many – in this case, given Selina Ross’ symptoms, those with elevated heart-rates and heat signatures beyond the wildness of dancing, were clear victims.

But he wasn’t interested in them.

“You, however,” he murmured, zoning in on an individual seemingly like all the others.

No one paid Kiril much attention as he slipped through the gyrating bodies, and sidled right up to his target unnoticed.

“You and I need to chat,” he whispered into the attractive man’s ear, one hand on his forearm.

A flicker of anger sparked in the man’s eyes, but it died swiftly, and his expression softened as Kiril’s thumb brushed against his skin.

By the hand, Kiril led the man across the club, careful to avoid both Miho and her security staff, before letting him out the rear service exit into the dumpster-lined alley.

Click.

He hit the brick wall solidly when Kiril swung him and let go, collapsing in a daze onto the wet asphalt.

Kiril had no words for him; a warning would be pointless when the guy would be dead soon.

“What the hell, man?” the drug dealer sputtered as he pushed up on his elbows, but he was met a moment later with Kiril’s boot stomping against the middle of his chest.

Ribs began to give way.

“Kiril!” Miho barked, bursting through the door, fierce and demanding. “Stop!”

“I will handle this,” Kiril sniffed, satisfied by the snapping sensation beneath his sole.

“You will not!” she opposed, grabbing his arm and attempting to pull him away from his victim. “This is my club – get off him!”

Though she could not make him budge, Kiril was forced to divide his attention a little, especially when Miho began digging her fingernails into his clothing.

“Miho!” he roared in frustration, frustration that she had interrupted his kill, frustrated she didn’t appreciate what he was doing for her, and frustrated that the heat of her physical attempts against him stirred a different yearning.

This combination burst a rarely compromised bubble within him.

He lashed out, and with a swiping motion threw Miho away.

For several seconds she was airborne, flailing in a graceless arc before slamming into the rusted metal side of a dumpster. Flakes of dark blue paint rained down where she landed in a winded, gaping slump, silver dancing in her eyes.

“Damnit,” Kiril growled through his teeth, ending the drug dealer with the precise crush of his heel against the man’s throat.

Blood wafted from where Miho was struggling to lift her chin from the ground - sweet and potent – a call perhaps stronger than the witches’ magic that bound them.

Groggy, dizzy, her whole body crying out, Miho fought to remain conscious and to make sense of what had just transpired.

“Miho? You out here?” Jazz queried, joining the grizzly scene only to gasp.

Miho in a heap.

Kiril approaching her slowly.

Instinct kicked in – not that of a vampire, but that of a sister – and Jazz blurred past Kiril and adopted a shielding posture.

“Don’t,” she snarled, teeth snapping with all the ferocity she could muster.

She was fully aware Miho was bleeding, but some things could transcend the thirst – even that of the newly turned.

“Go back inside,” Kiril commanded, but this only caused Jazz to double down.

“How about you fuck off,” she retorted with rhetorical savagery. 

“She is bleeding,” he pointed out. “And you are not entirely in control of your bloodlust. The chance of you causing her harm…”

“Harm like this?” Jazz persisted, helping Miho to slowly sit up while not for a second taking her eye off Kiril.

“It was an… accident!” he roared, his fingers flexing like they were itching to lash out and Jazz saw as much.

“You go and deal with that,” Jazz instructed, pointing to the dead man further up the alley.

Working his jaw, pressing his tongue against the ache of his fangs, Kiril finally moved away with a rumbling curse.

“Can you get up?” Jazz murmured to Miho, who continued to groan.

“Think so.”

With help, leaning heavily on Jazz, Miho managed to get upright, but was swiftly filled with a flush of nauseating warmth. The world tilted one way and then the next, leaving her muscles watery and weak.

Keeping one eye on Miho and the fledgling, Kiril made a quick call then snatched the dead man’s wrist before dragging him carelessly toward the alley’s mouth.

He wanted to be with Miho - needed to know she was okay - but more feverishly, he needed her to understand he never meant to hurt her.

Self-loathing took him completely by surprise. He tried to chalk it up to the witches again, but something gnawed deep down where he hid painful and undesirable truths.

That Jazz might lose control over her bloodlust was another very real concern, but he dared not call upon Konstantin to manage her, lest his relationship be discovered.

There was far too much time for him to think after Miho and Jazz had disappeared, too much time alone in the dimness to contemplate the bloody smear against the dumpster.

Before conscious thought emerged, he’d reached out to touch his fingertips to the wet, already cold. It beckoned him in a way he did not think Jazz would be able to resist. There was no one to see, no one to know if he tasted - just a little - but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Master Kiril.”  

The feminine voice cut through Kiril’s thoughts despite its low tone, soft but with an undeniable undercurrent of steel, subtle yet definite, resolute.  

“Finally,” he muttered, tipping his chin in the direction of a sleek sports car crouched under the streetlights of the main road. 

Liana’s silhouette was visible emerging from the dimly lit interior of the driver’s side door, while a pair of dark eyes peeped through from the back seat, large and wide against a pale round face, over a small mouth hanging slightly open.  

“It has been some time since you have called us for this purpose,” she noted, stepping silently through the shadows to where Kiril stood and glancing past him to the cadaver. “Could you perhaps not damage people so severely? Kai will learn nothing about the trachea from this… mush.”

“Excuse me for not providing pristine corpses,” he snapped. “This was not planned. Just get rid of him, I have somewhere else to be.”

“You will explain yourself,” she told him plainly but he sent her a look that said she should not push.

He didn’t linger, left the clean-up to Liana and her assistant, who waited at the rear of Kiril’s Jaguar, ready to receive their cargo.

With it wrapped in a body bag, Liana carried it effortlessly down the open street in plain view of the public, but she knew what passers-by would see, and it wasn’t a murder clean-up. Though he was out of sight, Kiril’s illusion persisted, shrouding Liana’s grim task in the visage of an empty London road.

“He didn’t tell you what happened, did he,” Kai stated, helping to fold the body into the narrow confines of the trunk.

“When he has time, he shall,” she assured.

“And Miss Fujiwara?” he persisted.

“I did not see her, but I am sure she is at the centre of this.”

“Hmm,” the diminutive vampire mused. “We need to find a solution more expediently. I’m worried.”

“About?” Liana prompted, closing the trunk and motioning Kai to return to his seat.

“Kiril, how he is with her,” Kai admitted.

When Liana had settled in the driver’s seat, her charge continued.

“He… kisses her -  I still find such a thing disgusting - then tells her no, but is desperate to be near her yet doesn’t drink from her? Why? This behaviour is quite illogical, especially for one of such stature as he.”

“Is your seatbelt fastened?” 

When Kai nodded, Liana put the car into gear, once again admiring the low, smooth purr of the engine matched by the near effortless handling of the vehicle as it pulled into the traffic flow.  It was when they were well onto the thoroughfare home, that Liana glanced into the rearview mirror and picked up on Kai’s earlier query.

“What makes you think illogical behaviour must be exclusive to those of a certain stature, Kai?” 

Her tone was almost dry, only the barest lift of one eyebrow an indication otherwise.

“My father may be an unacceptable parental figure, but he is king of the United Kingdom,” Kai explained. “As his second son, does it not behoove Kiril to behave with more… um… more…”

“Decorum?” Liana thought, filling in the blank as Kai struggled to find the word he was looking for. “Consistency?”

“Be more… respectable,” Kai finished finally, and Liana couldn’t help but laugh.

“Not a word I would use to describe him,” she chuckled. “Not now or ever in my knowledge of him.”

But that wasn’t entirely true - she knew he came across as irresponsible, even delinquent, but beneath all the bluster and bravado, Liana had witnessed Kiril do great things for honourable reasons. She had some insight into why he was the way he was, but this was not the face he showed often.

“As far as we know, Miss Fujiwara is not responsible for the spell that binds her to Kiril, so she does not deserve to be treated so discourteously,” Kai asserted, and Liana smiled.

Proud of her ward’s attitude.

“The emotions they are being forced to feel are complicated,” she explained. “And Master Kiril is not used to… being attached.”

In the emergency department of Royal London Hospital, Miho was seen relatively quickly as her scalp continued to bleed.

While this was rectified, Jazz found it impossible to remain, the bloodlust growing in ferocity every second she lingered. Everywhere, there were sources that baited her hunger, invading her senses - and while she had resisted the urge to jump Miho, she knew she couldn’t hold out indefinitely. 

In the park outside she fidgeted with her phone, waiting for Sebastian to  answer her text message, dying to send one to Konstantin. When Sebastian did reply, it was with a flurry of abuse - not at her of course - but at Kiril for whom he also blamed Selina’s ‘trip’.

Meanwhile, Miho was literally getting her head examined to clear her of skull fractures. As she held her breath as instructed, she played the scene in the alley over in her mind.

“Did I really forget vampires are monsters?” she asked herself, trying her best to ignore the hollowing of her stomach the longer she spent away from Kiril.

“Miss Fujiwara, please try your best not to move,” the radiology technician requested.

“Sorry.”

But it was a pointless apology, when a second later she felt a sharp snap. It sounded all throughout her body and sent her reeling, slumping from her seat to the linoleum, much to the alarm of staff nearby.

Their voices were muffled, drifting in a sparkling miasma and fading tingle of her skin. Even the throbbing of her head took a backseat to the blurry, floating disconnect between her body and consciousness.

“Dying?” she wondered.

Then pain rushed back in a jarring torrent, and she blinked furiously sideways at the nurse beside her.

“...ujiwara?”

A murmuring groan was all she could manage in response, but amid the burning in her head she could not help but notice the absence of something.

“Kiril,” she croaked tearily, but he was gone, no sense of him remaining, no emptiness. “I, I’m okay.”

Sceptically, the nurses helped her back up and began checking her vitals, before continuing with the x-rays. 

Miho, meanwhile, searched inward, seeking out remnants of Kiril in her flesh and mind. Though she knew no magic, she was sure the spell that had bound them together had - for some reason - been broken. Perhaps Liana had discovered the cause and managed to counter it, but it came so suddenly, without warning, and if she was honest with herself, she thought they’d have at least warned her.

Surprisingly, there was alarm. 

Though being bound to Kiril had caused her heartache and physical pain both, not being connected to him now felt altogether wrong.

It persisted as they talked at her, reported there was no fracture but they’d like to keep her in for observation given her ‘turn’.

“No thanks,” she declined politely, offering the doctor and nurse a lean  smile.

Of course they protested, and made her sign a waiver before allowing her to leave.

On her phone, Jazz had left her several messages, including where to meet her.

“What will happen now?” she wondered, slowly crossing the face of the hospital. “He had to stay with you before, even after… but now he won’t have to.”

With the spell broken, that concept should not have bothered her, and as she realised it did, she stopped.

“Fuck,” she dropped, gently touching her temples.

She had definitely not intended… to collapse into unconsciousness.

But that’s what happened.

Part 9

[thatyorkshireguy-blog]

It’s About To Get Chile

My apologies for the graphic photo that i’ve chosen to lead with here, but it just about sums up the emotions of the last 12 months and what i’ve put my body and mind through just to achieve what was required! To keep on going! 

For my first blog post I’m going to have to hang my ‘Yorkshire plums’ out a little and bear my soul to you. So apologies, but it’s going to one of some length (giggedy) for me to be able to give you a full idea of my story and who this blog is aimed at. 

My name is Liam Grady and i’m a 35 year old marketing and communications specialist. 

I am a born and bred Yorkshire man.... Doncaster in South Yorkshire to be precise. 

Here’s the big one........ in less that 3 weeks time, I will be moving my entire life to Chile, South America. 

Why? But of course people....I move for love... for a beautiful chilean woman called, Fran Díaz Abeleida.

(Here’s the night we first met in London)

I met Fran in September 2017 when I was working down in London for just three days. Turns out Fran was on the last two days of her trip around Europe and making her way back home to Chile.  What were the chances we would be stopping just one street away from each other in England’s capital during that time? Crazy to think about! 

Well after two incredible evenings with this lady, I headed 170 miles via car back up north (The land of Yorkshire Puddings and more friendly folk) and Fran headed 7500 miles via a plane back to South America, not knowing if we were ever going to see each other again. 

The face that you actually see in the one above with Fran was taken at a time when my life may have been at my weakest, from a mental health point of view. During this stage of my life I wasn’t happy with who I was as a person and I’d hidden that fact through the bottle and party lifestyle for many years.  I always loved the people in my life and loved the ‘job’ that I did as a communicator......I was just missing something in my life. I didn’t respect myself - I will elude to what contributed to this downfall further down the story. 

As dramatic as this sounds, just a few days after meeting Fran, I could have killed myself or someone else as not for the first time id stupidly drink drove my vehicle. The ‘straw that broke the camels back’ as they say, was when I nearly crashed my car into my house mates car, and my own house. I felt so lost and I didn’t know what the problem was to be able to fix it. 

After some very harsh but ‘said with love’ words from a few friends, I decided to take an even more dramatic step and actually fight to survive....and this very much ended up being in the literal sense. I’d been training in martial arts over the years, on and off, very much off... more than on! 

However i found emotional and physical comfort whilst I was training at a place called Charles Martin Martial Arts for a charity fight in 2016. It helped me very much, and it was a team mate that turned to me and said I should fight properly this time.

I thought this person was crazy, as anyone will tell you who is in the fight game, that preparing....even for an amateur fight in K1, Muay Thai, Boxing or MMA is one of the hardest things you will do in your life. You have to change everything.

In November 2017 my life changed.....

For two months I started to train three times a week and i’d told my coaches of my issues and where I wanted to be and how much I wanted to change. I knew this was going to be difficult but I had no choice. I needed this. 

At the same time I’d been talking to Fran over text and voice calls for a few weeks but i’d started to feel like it could be a bad focus of my attention or that there maybe no point in this communication, because how could we ever see each other. 

I remember ‘THE PHONE CALL’ with Fran. I told her that I was concerned nothing would happen, or how could it even happen for a while given the circumstances.  It was Fran’s turn to motivate and inspire me, as she was absolutely gutted that I didn’t think ‘the relationship’ would go anywhere and she proceeded to at first be very upset... but then the next 15 mins turned into one of the most beautiful talks i’d ever had. 

I couldn’t believe this beautiful South American was willing to take a risk on me and at least try to make something work between us. 

At this moment I stopped being a ‘wimp’ (not the best word but one I described myself as at that point) and I really started to fight.

Fran then took a huge step and booked a flight to see me in February for a two week break. I couldn’t believe it. But I still didn’t feel like I was anywhere near good enough or right for this woman. I also needed to dedicate my energy to this person as she lived so far away and to stop me from being tempted with other life distractions that made me hate myself in the first place.

So the training went from 3 days to training between 5-8 times a week. I was dedicated and so focussed and proceeded to change much in my life. My energy levels towards work improved and my whole outlook and positivity started to raise to places id never even been. I was actually starting to like to the person I was turning into. 

February 2018 was approaching fast and both myself and Fran were very anxious, scared and excited about seeing each other. Although we had spoken pretty much every single day since we met each other, we hadn’t seen each other for over 6 months and we had only met each other twice in person!  Yet again, this seems a little crazy doesn’t it. 

That day came when Fran took another 7000 mile trip. I will never ever forget she arrived on that train and looked at me. Our eyes both welled up and I knew at that moment I was already dreading the point of her leaving. We had the most incredible two weeks together. 

Doncaster isn’t the most beautiful of locations in the U.K (according to most) but during Fran’s trip we had some of the worst snowfall in recent times and it added something so magical to the two weeks. 

Awesome hey? 

Fran left during the first week in March and although devastated I just knew I wanted to be with her so badly but I also.... I knew realistically I might not be able to see her for some months to allow me to save up enough money to make the trip happen. 

April 2018 had arrived and so had my first fight. Everything I had worked hard for was here...my moment ... everything was set up beautifully. My opponent was over 15 years younger and was coming fresh from a victory.  What happened next I wasn’t expecting....

During that 1st round of my first fight I was absolutely rubbish and my opponent battered my for the first 2 minutes. I wondered what the hell I’d done. But one thing in life I had discovered is that I always had a big heart and it would take a lot for me to actually give up.  I might not have had the skills my opponent possessed but my mind and heart had become that of a warrior. 

Although physically shattered just after the first round, I came out the second like a totally different guy. I ended up winning that second round landing a good sweep and a good right hand which had my opponent rocked back. It was however too little too late and over the fight my opponent won a well deserved decision. That first fight taught me so much. 

After the fight was over I felt an emptiness inside and over the course of the next few weeks I could feel myself slipping back into my weak points because I didn’t have training or my beautiful Chilean with me.  It wasn’t long before I quickly realised that I needed to be with Fran ASAP!...but in her country and not in mine. I needed a change of everything. I just had no money to get there. 

My job that I was in at the time only paid me enough to cover my bills, just get by each month and it didn’t give me the mental or physical freedom to use my skill set to its full potential. 

In order to get me to Fran I know I needed to do two things, change something with my work life and go back to training straight away with the view to fight again. 

During June and July I did everything I could to improve my life. Work hard during the day in my normal office role (Communications Director), train hard for two hours every day straight after work and then any spare time I had would be dedicated to helping others with their social media/marketing - FOR FREE!!!! I wanted to pay my time forward with the hope that deep down something would come back to me. 

This is exactly what happen...

At the start of July, i’d produced a document on social media for one of the business members at a co-working studio called ‘Helm’. From that one document caused a ripple of actions. 

I’d received a call from the founder of Helm, a good friend and contact, Liam Swift. He asked whether i’d like to do a presentation on social media at the next ‘Doncaster Digital’ event, which takes place at the Helm studio every month. 

I agreed and put together a presentation that was true to myself and something that could help many businesses understand more about their social media channels. This event turned out to be one of the best attended Doncaster Digital events with over 40 different businesses attending my talk. 

(Here’s me giving the talk on that night at the studio and one quite happy straight after - I am the one jumping higher than the rest as you can see!) 

So I was told it went very well indeed. 

Actually....my phone would not stop with texts and calls of support that night. At around 11.00pm, Liam Swift dropped me a text message to say that there was a couple of people in the room who were watching very closely and that I may get a text in the morning from a business regarding help they required. 

The following morning I received a text message from the founder of football coaching brand, Mini Kicks. He wanted to meet me to discuss a potential opportunity about working with them and them helping me on my mission to get to Chile. This had me very intrigued.

I received that text message at 9.30am and by 12.00pm I was having lunch with the Mini Kicks founder. 

By 12.45pm I had received a job offer that again was a turning point in my life and by 2.30pm ....i’d handed in my notice and effectively quit my other job that day.

The offer at that time was just too good to refuse. It was only a short term solution but it allowed me to achieve what I needed to straight away and give me the freedom to build up a personal brand before I left for Chile. 

It is the first time, hand on heart that I have ever......ever shed tears of pure joy and emotion.  I phoned up Fran, burst out crying and just said....”I can come to Chile”. I just couldn’t believe this opportunity had happened! 

If truth be told I wanted to just fly there and then but I couldn’t leave the country until I had done a few things. The first was fight again and that came last month in October, and the second was to be a best man at one of my closest friends weddings. This happened last weekend. 

My life was finally coming together but I was still having to manage money and effectively start my own business and go solo again. 

Fran even came to see me again in September for a few days which although she became very unwell during her time here - literally as she landed, it was a chance to show her what a person I could be in times of illness. It was just great to be with her! 

How much can one person try and achieve in just a short space of time?

Ok, so now it was fight time once again! I’d trained so hard for this next fight, physically and mentally took me to places I hadn’t been, but due to a bad injury suffered in August I wasn’t able to do any sparring. Which was bad news for me because in October I fought an absolute beast of a guy.  I also had to come down to 70kg which I was 77kg when I started this journey the November before.  

Again fight day came, and with my closest friends and family there to watch, it once again seemed that everything was set up to go out with a bang and leave as a hero.  

We were ready...and I had unfinished business. 

From the first bell I wanted to show that i’d improved...and I had. I was calmer, better on my fight...just better all round. However i’d been matched up once again with a very powerful and skilled guy.  He caught me with an uppercut that badly broke my nose and for 10 seconds he knocked the sh*t out of me....and he went for the KO.  On shakey legs, I managed to quickly back off and then out of nowhere I landed a right of my own which then rocked my opponent. The commentators were going mad.  Another moment i’ll not forget.   

In fairness my opponent took the first round just on the better shots landed but we both exchanged some great punches and kicks which made it a great fight.

Then came a defining moment which I believe my friend and one of my corner men, James Hartley, put better on Facebook - which i’ll share with you now (Again another read, but it’s hard for yourself to put into emotions).

James’s (gent in the lovely shirt haha) word’s really capture what I went through on this journey of self discovery, on a journey of doing what I had to do to be a better person not just for Fran, but mostly for myself. I’ve had a crazy 12-18 months! 

If I didn’t love myself, how could I ever allow myself to fully love someone else or allow them to fully love me. 

To just bring it back to why I was in the mental state I was at the start of this story.....

Over 8 years ago, I ended up losing my best friend in a car crash and my dad through cancer, within 6 months of each other and all I did was pack all that pain up and pretend like it didn’t matter. Hiding tough times through drink and a party lifestyle, which was absolutely bullshit and I allowed that to start destroying myself from the inside out.  Up until I met Fran and my love for martial arts, I just never knew how to love properly....and thanks to both of those things, I now can.  I am so excited about life and in less than three weeks I will be flying to Santiago, Chile, to be with my lady.  

My mission is to make her happy, save lots of street dogs and help other people, whether that be in business or just in life. 

I wanted to share this story because it gives you an idea of if you truly want something, if you’re truly willing to improve yourself and get to where you need to be in life, it becomes fight or flight and you have to fight for what you want.....you have to!  And I did and will continue to do so.  Don’t hide grief and pain, and do lean on people for support, they give you the strength when you least expect it. 

Although this is quite a personal post, I want the people and brands that I will be working with moving forward to know the type of person that they are working with and I truly hope it helps people discover that they can achieve anything they want. 

Oh, I ticked of the best man duties as well....that was last weekend and it was one of the best days of my life, and a memory that will stay with me forever. 

So cheers to you U.K. Leaving my country, my life and especially my friends will be the hardest thing i have ever had to do, maybe even harder than my fight journey. But it is easiest the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.

Thank you so much to my friends and family who have supported me along the way.  A huge thank you to the people at Helm and at Mini Kicks.

One of the biggest thank you’s has to go to my coaches and team mates at Charles Martin Martial Arts, I don’t think they truly realise what an impact they have had on my life and how much it truly as changed.

Of course the biggest one goes to my girlfriend, my partner and the reason I am moving country...... Fran. You inspire me to be better for both you and for myself. I can’t wait to see you in three weeks time. 

And Chile....I am coming for you! 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I know it was long (giggedy) but I am grateful for your time. 

Forever humble...

Liam Grady

That Yorkshire Guy. 

Please share this with anyone who might find this helpful and please follow me on Facebook and Instagram - just follow ‘THAT YORKSHIRE GUY’  - I will be sharing my entire journey via Instagram and I am hoping to collaborate with some amazing brands on this journey. Please get in touch on my IG page or lgrady83@gmail.com. I will get onto this more on my next post. 

[seecourtneytravel]

October 5th and 6th, 2018 (Friday and Saturday)

Cebu, New Friends, Excursions

When I went to bed in the hostel, I just laid down and was still in my day clothes. As mentioned before, some idiot from our 8 bed dorm turned off the AC. Maybe it was too cold but I woke up burning up inside early in the morning.

After the AC was turned back on, I kind of layed in bed for a little bit. I looked up the nearest gym available. For some reason it’s so refreshing to me to go to a gym in a different place. I found they had anytime fitness around the corner and I was pretty much jumping for joy inside because I’m a member back home.

I wasn't really interested in having breakfast first so I left with just my phone and headphones. Anytime fitness was literally around the corner in the top floor of a four story plaza.

I walked in and went to the front desk. I said to the woman working, “hi, I’m an anytime fitness member in the states and don’t have my key fob, can you look me up?” She looked pretty resistant off the hop. She immediately said “sorry, we can’t look you up here. But you can pay 500 pesos for a day or 3000 pesos for the month.” I was taken aback. I told her I am already a member and paid that in the states monthly already. I said, “I’ve gone to anytime fitness in other countries and they could look me up. This is the first time I’ve ever had issue because anytime fitness happens anywhere anytime when you’re a member.” She half ass looked me up when the flag on the search box was still showing the Philippines. It said “not found.” She then asked if I had ID. I showed her my license and passport on my phone. She said it wasn’t enough. I told her to get the manager.

The manager came out and had a disappointed look on his face as he introduced himself. I told him the story and he said “Sorry, but if you don’t have a key fob you can’t come in.” I told him I wasn’t expecting to be near an anytime fitness in the Philippines. He then went back to saying that even foreigners always have their key fob when they come and asked me why I didn’t have mine.

The argument had my blood boiling. I then showed them my bank statement that I just had money withdrawn from my bank account October 1st from the company. They said it still wasn’t proof. Then I said what if I had my dad take a picture of it. The manager said he would need to see a live video. I was thinking you gotta be kidding me.

I called my dad on Facebook messenger and it was already 11pm for him. He got up and looked in my room and found my one set of car keys. I had to inform him he had to go on the hunt for my other set that had a purple key fob on it. I felt bad, I made him look in my car, in my bombed messy room, and it took him a while before he stumbled upon them on my dresser.

I showed them the live video of my dad holding up my keys in the camera. Then they said “well what’s the number on the fob.” I asked my dad and he said needed to find a magnifying glass because the numbers were so small. He hunted all around the garage and found it with some digging. I gave them the number and the 1 hour or so ordeal was done. It was principal I went through that because I’m a paying member. They finally let me workout after all that and I killed a great workout. People probably think, “you’re in the Phillipines why are you stressing over the gym.” I’ve kind of lost my gym mojo since being here. It was like I found my home when I saw their was an air conditioned, non polluted, clean gym to go to. And I had a membership!

After the gym I went back to the hostel where they had some cheap food options. After I ordered I saw Anna. Anna was one of the girls from last night that was sitting in a different group. I asked her what her and her friend Carys were doing for excursions. Anna said she would ask Carys and come back in a few minutes while I was eating.

Anna is from Scotland and Carys is from the U.K. and they just arrived to the Philippines. They are also nomads in their 20’s. Anna’s travel stories are incredible, she has has spent five years working in and out of many countries. It makes me feel like my moments of traveling in a country for a month is the equivalence of me going from NY to Canada for a week. She can actually say she had lived in places like New Zealand and Vietnam.

They came back to the table and Carys was extremely hung over after last nights shinanigans. They both arrived earlier in the day and started drinking many hours before I arrived. Anna and I encouraged Carys to maybe put something in her stomach. She ordered an oatmeal and a smoothie but was unable to touch it. She excused herself to go to the bathroom. When she came out she was all smiles and was much perkier. She was able to take in some of her lunch.

We sat at the outdoor picnic tables for what felt like hours of just talking. Once we decided on a tour I told the front desk. I excused myself from the girls so I could walk around the area we were in and maybe find a nail salon.

After walking for a while, I couldn’t find A nail salon anywhere. I did stumble upon a massage spot. For only 250 pasos, I experienced the most painful foot massage of my life.

I got a message from Carys while I was walking back that they were going to go to a cafe bookstore called “books and brews.” I replied yes and was almost back at the hostel. When I got back they were already ready and we headed out.

We made it to the bookstore through a random restaurant alley. It felt like a New York City speakeasy. I ordered the soup and sandwich with a latte. The other girls also ordered a hot latte. It was funny because we all shared that we were normally all or nothing when it came to having drinks. I typically don’t drink alcohol much at all. It doesn’t interest me to have “one or two beers.” I’d rather have coffee or water. Depending on the crowd, my surroundings, the atmosphere, and most importantly, how conversations are going- all depend if I dip into the “I’ll have a blue moon.”

I urged the ladies I had to go back because I had to use the bathroom and the toilets there didn’t have rims. It would be okay if I just had to pee, but I couldn’t squat for like 5 minutes straight for other duties. Filipinos must have quads of steal.

Also, I was supposed to meet Kevin out later. He said there was a table that Blui reserved. We left the restaurant and I started getting ready. Kevin messaged me he was on his way to pick me up. It was the first time I was in a car in the Philippines that wasn’t a taxi!

Kevin picked me up, he was dressed really well. Made me bummed out that I had a pour selection of clothes. I had to be up and ready BY 4am for the excursion the girls and I were taking. Kevin had a 7AM flight to catch to Manila. We figured it would be a short night.

We arrived to the bar Blui and his friends were supposed to be. I guess they were on Filipino time. After a few drinks, I thought I saw a recognizable face. “Is that the mayor from ABCD beach in Guiuan?” He came out of his vehicle with a woman. Kevin had no idea he would be here and we waved him over. It’s crazy that he also came from an entirely different island and to run into the same face. He also flew out of Tacloban to Cebu.

After an appetizer was ordered, Blui and his guests finally arrive after 11pm. We were all pouring sweat in our outside table while the inside was air conditioning. Everyone was content being outside, I kept having to go inside to use the bathroom but really just to catch the cool air.

Time flew, 4 mojios later it was already 230am. Kevin dropped me off at the hostel where my head literally hit the pillow and in an hours time my alarm went off at 330 to get up for the excursion.

4am whale shark tour

I actually didn’t feel as terrible as I thought. Carys and Anna got in the back of our private transport car and I sat front seat. I wanted to sleep the three and a half hours to the whale shark tour. I have a really hard time sleeping in cars naturally but our driver made it so much worse. He constantly started conversation, and as the front seat passanger I wanted to be polite and talk to him a little.

Constantly, the driver would ask..”So Mam, in your country…” over and over again. With different questions from wages to asking me if I could get him a job as a driver. He then asked me if I knew any mechanics to help get him a job. I said flat out, “I really don’t know, literally go there and apply yourself everywhere.” I had to tell him “okay I’m gonna sleep now. My eyes are closing..” he would say “okay mam you sleep now.”

As I tried to sleep I felt like the guy was intentially speeding up to slam on his breaks. By far the worst driver ever. We were all jolted around the car unnecessarily. It was very frustrating. I would doze off and it’s like he was speed, brake, and swerve at the same time causing my head to bounce off the side door. I would look up in a slight panic and it would be a straight road in front of us. I would give him an annoyed WTF look but didn’t have the balls to say anything. If he became a driver in the states he would lose his license first week. Or run a family over.

We arrive to the whale shark tour at about 8am. It was already packed and we had to wait about 45 minutes until our numbers were called. After we waited we all jumped aboard these boats that would take us maybe 30 yards from the shore line. They had 8 whale sharks they were feeding and allowed us to get out and swim with them but not touching them. It was scary and surreal At the same time. There was a time the biggest one was coming straight at me with its mouth opening and closing like some kind of jaws. I saw him through my snorkel and panicked sloth holding on to one of the balancing bamboo beams. The boat men laughed as I screamed. Turns out, I survived. It was cool because Carys had a go pro and caught some great photos.

After the whale sharks we were able to grab lunch. The girls and I sat down and ordered some food. I noticed the driver was sitting afar not eating. When the food came out I went over and invited him to join us. I scraped half of my food onto his plate which was abou 6 shrimp and a ton of seasoned noodles. He began speaking Waray to the server and she brought out pork and rice for him as well alone with an orange soda. I was a bit confused but I guess he could have managed to order his own and I lost half of my meal for nothing. He shared some rice with me.

It came time to pay for the meal. We all dug for our last dollars and worked on configuring how to pay for the drivers additional add on meals. Afterwards he got up and said “ready?” And had no intention of paying. His meal was the most expensive one to pay for so we were all taken back that he added on to the bill. There was also no thank you in return. It was just a bit awkward.

Kawasan Falls

We then headed to the waterfalls which was another 2 hour drive. The spazzing drive was turning our stomachs. As we were just arriving, Anna said “good because I think I was going to be sick.”

We arrived and it was an obvious path the the falls. We were bombarded by locals demanding money and entrance fee in which we forwarded them to our driver. Our excursion was supposed to include our entrence fee and the driver kept asking us to pay. Our driver disappeared for about 15 minutes and then arrived again with another man. The other man was eager to take our photos and was acting as a “tour guide.” The girls and I caught on that he might expect payment at the end. They all voted me to tell him that we didn’t need a tour guide. I went up to the guy and was pretty blunt. “Hey sir. We don’t need a guide we want to be alone- thanks.” He proceeded forward without responding. We didn’t see him for a bit.

We arrived to the huge heavy flowing light blue waterfalls. It was heavily commercialized with a lot of rules and a lot of areas where you had to pay money if you wanted to do anything. You had to rent a life jacket if you wanted to swim close and had to pay 300 pesos if you wanted a table. We did our own thing and refused both. The other guy returned who started to ask if we wanted our photos taken. We blatenly ignored him and took our own photos of eachother. We kept playing around with the “throw your hair back” photos. water was freezing but amazing.

Once we left we had our tour guide take us to the hostel in Oslob where whale sharks were. We tipped the driver 300 pesos for driving us back. The hostel we arrived to was very basic but beautiful. It was called Salangers hostel. It had at least 16 dorm bunk beds in the one room with us being the only people at the moment.

The first thing that caught our eye was this adorable puppy that was half Dalmatian and half lab. It was the first dog I’ve seen that was actually a pet. What is more heartbreaking is that his name was Buddy. I had a delmation and labordoodle and the labordoodle’s name was Buddy.

The hostel owner gave us a ride to downtown Oslob which was tiny and we as dinner at a pizza shop. We don’t even eat much just craved mango juice and a salad then tricycled back.

When we returned, the Canadian from the hostel 7 in Cebu city was there. He was like “hey Courtney!” I said “Sam!” It’s crazy how I kept running into the same people all around. Sam was from Vancouver Canada and was traveling alone while he is out of work. Where he has already gone is where I’m going. We were kind of on the same path but opposite. He was easy going and comfortable to be around.

Sam sat outside and picked up this cute kitten that was meowing around him. I was so surprised he did that but also happily impressed. The animals are so unpredictable here, were finally in a spot where a puppy and kitten are easy to handle and play with like your common domestic animal in the states.

Just as we were about to head to bed a guy from the Congo came in who was also traveling alone. He spoke French but lived in China. Him and Sam planned the whale sharks the next day.

I chose a bottom bunk and put my ear plugs in and eye covering on. The beds were worse than prison beds and it felt like we were upside down.

[pauljonelouns]

I Promise

When Kathy and me, my name is Robert, moved into a big Victorian house with our parents, also a cousin about our same age named Niki, life was but a dream. Ring around the rosie, swinging in the park and eating ice cream filled the complexities of our days. You only played London bridge in the back yard, ring around the rosie at the park, but at the park we always had ice cream, if you had ice cream playing on the swings was more fun; doing somersaults was out of the question though.

Mommy and daddy always kept our toys up in the attic for safe keeping. Continually reminding us about not losing just a single piece of something, if we did, it would be ruined forever. From the stories daddy would tell us at night, the people who lived in the attic would surly mention to them if any one of us went up into it. The three of us sometimes would listen to the ceiling, each taking a turn while the other two braced the ladder to keeping one of us from falling. Sometimes we would hear chattering and what seemed like foot steps.

In high school, things took a turn, the flu epidemic hit some of the town folk really hard. Mom would give us the petals, handfuls of posies everyday to put in our pockets, saying, “they're good luck to carry in these times.” I would throw mine away, Kathy and Niki though would tell their friends, outlandish stories of having them specially imported from the U.K; not thinking others might know our dad owned the local flower shop.

Niki and me graduated, Kathy had a whole more year to go. Dad put us to work full-time making funeral arrangements and small bouquets for condolences; a time or two we had to close because of a flower shortage. Dad never seemed to have a problem though, when all the other florists were sold out, we would get full delivers of flowers to resell.

In August of that year, Niki nervously pulled me far into the back room, hesitantly asking, “Robert, are you getting any chills or anything honey?”

“I am,” I said, “I've been throwing up some too.”

The way she looked at me, Niki stopped blinking it seemed like forever, the hugest tears I had ever seen started to roll down the fronts of her cheeks. I really hadn't looked at the size of a tear before, sensing her thoughts of reality, they started dropping from my face also. Hyperventilating, all she could get out is “we're going to die! ..we're going to die like all the others!!, I just know it Robert, we are!”

Both of us somewhat panic stricken, the next few days we started meeting in secret, sitting with each other, saying nothing. It was noticeable one morning though, at the far end of the house our beds went into a special room, it was where Niki and me would spend the rest of our days. Sometimes I would wake to Niki wiping my forehead or putting damp towels on me. There were times she would get so cold I would get under the covers with her to stop her teeth from chattering.

It seemed as if we had been in the room for weeks, and we had been. One day mom tapped on the window from out side, none of the others were to come in the room. “Where's Niki?” she asked, come to think of it, I never looked until she asked, …........she was gone!!

“Mom, she's sound asleep, I better not wake her.”

Looking down, “I have some sad news to tell you,”...in her crying, and sniffles, “your father passed away sometime last night.” she quickly turned away with her hands to her face, running to the other side of the house in a frantic state.

Opening the door to the room felt odd and different, out in the hall, in my pajamas, a woman with a folded up paper umbrella was just walking around, she was Asian, maybe here for the laundry. Too embarrassed to ask who she was, letting her pass me in the hall, Niki was much more important right now.

The door to the attic was wide open, thinking dad would be mad and angry for us going up there, mom said he's dead, it doesn't matter now; we get to play with the toys whenever we want and as long as we like. Trudging up the stairs to where the toys are, dad was right, boy it was a sure good thing, there were and are still people up here, lots of them!

Asking the two at the first post at the top of the stairs, they should know, they've been here forever, “we get to come up here now whenever we want, have you seen Niki?”

In a cold flat response. “We know no one of that name.” both saying, speaking at the exact same time.

“What's your name?, asking the one on the left, “Marna,” looking to other one, she said nothing, “do you have a name?” “Abby.” “Do you two guard the toys, so we don't play with them and our dad not know?

“We don't know what you speak of.” they didn't even seem to breathe when speaking.

Thinking, what do they know, they both look to be twins, both wearing the exact same dress, exact same Victorian lace collar, deep dark eyes. “You haven't seen Niki?”

“Your friend is talking with Katicia over at the mirror.” Well it's about time we get some order here, I bet Kathy can't wait to hear the good news about the toys. At the mirror, the Katicia woman was taking off some ears, letting Niki wear them, like for Halloween; she's in her underwear too, I better not look. “Niki, I've been looking all over for you, moms looking also.”

“Have you met the clown Robert!?” excited and happy she tried on the woman's ears, “they're not real ears Robert, they're play ears.”

“Moms going to be mad if she sees you like that, and this woman too, we're not just suppose to wear only underwear Niki and you know that.” Niki's ears looked fun, “let me wear them a little will you?”

In a girly-girl tone of voice “Robert?,......these are only for girls,” getting, posing risque. The Asian woman passes by without saying anything again, this time her umbrella is open; I wonder if she knows it's bad luck to do that.

“Niki, did you notice, how come we're so tall?” looking at her, I walked over standing with her at the mirror. “When you were putting towels on me, how come you were kissing me too; ….............you don't need to worry, I'm not going to tell mom or anything.”

“I don't know, we're big now and big people do that.” freezing in her thoughts for some. “here, you can wear them some,” she handed me the ears.

“Niki, I'm getting tired, let's go back to the room, so mom will know where we are.”

“Don't be crazy Robert, there's a bed up here, we'll stay with the toys and what about all the new friends we've made?”

“They’re not my friends, come with me Niki, I'm getting so tired, take me to lie down.”

“Here, come with me, dragging me by the hand, right near the window was the bed.

“It's only one big pillow we're going to have to share, are you getting cold again Niki?” Her teeth starting to chatter; “here, Niki, we'll lie down and just close our eyes for a little while, and It'll be okay again, just like all the other times...........I promise.

,The toys were all picked up, both closing the box, we drifted fast away.

                                                  The End

[jennaschererwrites]

‘Nanette’: Hannah Gadsby on Her Game-changing Stand-Up Special | Rolling Stone

Hannah Gadsby knows how to put an audience at ease. The Australian comedian delivers her jokes mildly, dryly, with a gentle lilt and a reassuring smile that can crack the ice in the toughest of rooms. And it’s this gift that has uniquely positioned her to upend stand-up as a source of comfort or a salve for wounds – perhaps even the very notion of the medium altogether. In her Netflix special Nanette, Gadsby toggles between amiable observational anecdotes and blistering honesty, between belly laughs and righteous anger, to illustrate the ways in which comedy fails to grapple with the trauma of reality. It will likely go down as one of the greatest stand-up sets of our time –  while also asking who, exactly, all these jokes and funny stories are serving.

Certainly not Gadsby herself. A lesbian who describes her gender presentation as “gender-not-normal,” she grew up in rural Tasmania, where homosexuality was a crime until the late Nineties. As a comedian, she taught herself to couch the very real traumas in her life, from homophobia to violent assault, in the soft cotton batting of humor. “You learn from the part of the story you focus on,” Gadsby says in her special. “I need to tell my story properly.” Partway through the special, she shifts from the comfort of humor to the brittleness of truth-telling, and the result is the kind of hard catharsis that leaves you physically shaken. (Which isn’t to say that Nanette isn’t also seriously funny, when it’s not seriously serious.)

And at the crest of the #MeToo wave, when more and more women are telling their stories and refusing to be silenced or disavowed, Gadsby’s frank admissions and admonitions feel more vital than ever. It seems less like coincidence than conversation that fellow lesbian comedian Cameron Esposito released her special Rape Jokes,which centers on her own experience with sexual assault, around the exact same moment – the time has never been more ripe for women and queer people to reclaim and reframe their own stories.

Having just finished an extended stage run of Nanette in New York City (her final in an 18-month global run that saw her win Best Comedy Show at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe), Gadsby is back home in Melbourne and ready to take a well-deserved break. But first, she hopped on the phone to discuss the overwhelming reaction to this groundbreaking set and to explain why, even after everything, she still loves stand-up. (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

What were the origins of Nanette? She started out as being a really, really angry little blast. For the past 10 years, I’ve been writing one-hour shows. So it started [out] the same: Time to write another hour … what the hell am I going to talk about? Who’s my audience? That was one of the main questions I was asking: Who am I speaking to? And that was starting to get really kind of a difficult question for me to answer. As a human being, I don’t know how to connect to any sort of broad audience, you know? I don’t have a family or a past that looks like what most people have. So the connection between the personal and the political really informed what Nanette was. Donald Trump got elected and my grandmother died – those two things provided an emotional flashpoint for me.

So what audience did you ultimately have in mind when you were writing the show? Me … and me only. I really was writing as though I was throwing a grenade and I fully expected for the show to seal me off in the margins. I am so shocked and overwhelmingly stunned. It’s become bigger than me. And I’m happy for that.

Did you initially conceive Nanette as a more traditional comedy special, or was that turn in the middle part of the plan from the beginning? From the beginning. I was quite exhausted of this generating new material year after year after year. But I knew that the show that I was looking to write would be dismissed critically as being just a one-woman show – because I’ve seen it happen before. And then I thought, well, that’s a bad idea, to just jump down on it like that. I mean, nobody ever accuses men of doing one-man shows. They just do them. So I just thought, “Oh, fuck it. I’ll do it.” [Laughs]

Even though the show interrogates and criticizes the form, it’s also itself an incredible piece of stand-up. How did you go about building the structure of the show? One of the first building blocks was the story at the bus stop [about a time she was assaulted]. My comedy has always been built around storytelling, and one of my favorite tricks is the callback –  where you layer in a joke or a story, then you keep referring back to it. And the audience is going, “Oh, we’re all becoming part of the in-crowd!” It’s a really great tool to create a communal atmosphere amongst strangers. So that’s really the fundamental block that I began with: I want to show people what I’ve had to do in order to make my story funny by using this tried-and-true method – not to elevate the laugh, but to really pull the rug.

You also talk a lot about the power that storytelling has, and what’s it been like to reexamine your own stories. Comedy has given me quite a privilege, because in order to define my personal life for comedy, I’ve been given the opportunity to interrogate my story. There’s a lot of stories we tell ourselves that we’ve set in stone when we’re quite young, and they remain with us all our lives. But I wouldn’t listen to me when I was 20. What the hell did I know when I was 20? A lot of the stories that we tell ourselves are really immature versions of events, but we build so much of our understanding of the world out of it. And I think it’s worth rewiring your stories that you set when you were immature.

You’ve performed Nanette all over the world, from Australia to the U.K. to America. Do audiences respond to it differently depending on where you are? You know what’s extraordinary? No. The response has been the same, in a very positive and connective way. It put people in shock. I’ve only just emerged from an extended run in New York, and I’ve been touring nonstop for 18 months … I’ve done maybe over 250 shows. And I think it’s going to take me a long time to really understand what I’ve done, both for myself and artistically.

What have reactions to the special been like from the comedy community? One of the things that I’m most happy is that comedians – particularly my peers who I know to be comedy nerds – have just taken my deconstruction of the art form and thanked me, engaged with me. I was a bit concerned I might have upset people, you know? Because I really do tear comedy a new asshole. And comedy is a lot of people’s lives. It’s certainly my life. I did it for personal reasons, not to destabilize other people’s faith and belief and love of the art form. And ultimately, I think stand-up comedy has developed such an amazing platform for people to tell their story from their perspective.

What is it about stand-up that makes it such a useful platform? There are no gatekeepers to comedy. You can be from a low socioeconomic background like myself. There’s no way I could get into theater; there’s no way I could have busted through to such a large audience in any other art form. Absolutely not. I’m not cut from the right cloth. So I think that’s what’s magnificent about stand-up.

In Nanette, you talk about how self-deprecating humor stopped serving you after a while, particularly as a performer from a marginalized background. Do you think there’s an alternative to that style? I can’t imagine that I’ll ever completely step away from self-deprecating humor. I actually think it’s a great way to communicate, particularly if you are onstage with a microphone – you are in a position of power. But I personally felt like I needed to assert my power first. Because I am a really good performer; I do know my way around a joke, I do understand how the world works. [But] I thought, well, why am I undermining myself before I let people know that I’ve got this all up my sleeve? I think there’s a place for it, but it should part of a voice, and there should be more flexibility in approach.

You just finished a pretty grueling tour – do you have any idea what project is next for you? A lot of sleep. [Laughs] I’m finishing a book, but then I’m going to take my time before I decide what I’m going to do next. Whatever it is, it will involve humor and it will involve telling a story. But I think … a good nap before I decide.