#not that they've ever been very far away but that's half the charm of childhood friends

[yume-fanfare]

a thing with torikasa is that they as they are could never make it work by themselves. like in ship content it's not uncommon for it to focus on the characters directly involved alone but those two are Not getting anywhere on their own without any outside push and it's key for them to go on their own separate self-discovery journeys with their own friends before they get to understand each other

[eirabach]

Skin Deep [TAG post 3x26]

Oh my god. Oh my GOD.

Okay, here's my first mini dive into post canon TAG. It is unlikely to be my last 😂

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Jeff Tracy has five sons.

A five times fic that isn't really a five times fic at all. After all, a man rarely comes back from the dead more than once.

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I can feel my heart beating as I speed from

The sense of time catching up with me

----

It starts with a mission. 

Nothing too out of the ordinary, just a freighter struggling at the edge of the atmosphere, an unstable fuel supply, and his teenage son piloting a rocket to relieve them. Perhaps it is a little out of the ordinary. He does try not to show it though.

Alan is certainly an accomplished pilot, maybe even better than Jeff himself. He's certainly better than Jeff had been as an eighteen year old, taking pretty girls out for joyrides in his mother's ancient turboprop.

Alan is doing just fine.

Scott? Not so much.

Jeff had been led to understand that John had fielded all of IR's calls during Jeff's long absence, a fact that certainly accounts for the dark circles beneath the boy's eyes,l. So it was John's toes he'd worried about stepping on when he'd begun routing calls through to his desk, though John had assured him he'd be glad of the rest.

It isn't John's voice interrupting his every order.

He mutes the line between himself and Three, and spins his chair to glower at his eldest. Scott is pouring over the telemetry, his knuckles white against the edge of the pad.

"Scott," he says, as strongly as he dares. "You're confusing the kid. I know what I'm doing."

"But Alan --"

"Is my son!" He regrets it at once, the way Scott's jaw drops and his hands fall. Hates the way he sounds -- like a bitter old man. Jealous.

He hates the way he means it, how Scott's single nod sits like satisfaction at the back of his throat when it ought to sting.

"I know," Scott says, all quiet and reasonable as though he might be Virgil in a mask. "but he's still my brother."

Soft words gently said, yet they leave a burn he feels right across his heart.

He doesn't quite know why. 

---

Virgil is his grandmother reborn, with one fairly major difference. Virgil is absolutely big enough to pick Jeff up and put him in his room if he thinks for one moment that Jeff might be overdoing it.

It seems he thinks Jeff is overdoing it a lot.

It's the third full med scan of the week, and Jeff has undergone less torturous poking and prodding in order to be shot into space than Virgil appears to deem necessary for him to be allowed to head down to the hanger under his own power.

It's touching. It's sweet. It's… getting a little old.

He isn't likely to tell Virgil that though, because although he's treating Jeff as though he's made of glass it's clear to anyone with eyes to see that Jeff's not the fragile one in this room.

Another vial of blood, another heart rate monitor. Another whisper, directed somewhere around his right knee.

"I'm so sorry, dad."

This has to stop. "For what?"

"Scott never gave up."

Ah. Jeff's been gone a long time, but some things never change. Virgil has never been one to admit to being wrong. This is probably as close as he'll ever come, and it's so damn unnecessary that if it weren't for his son's downturned expression Jeff might be inclined to laugh.

"Tell me something Virgil. Do you still play?"

"Yeah, yeah when disasters allow. You know how it is."

Jeff very much doesn't, but he fears a reminder of that fact might just tip Virgil over the edge.

"You stopped for a while, as I recall. After your mother went."

"Yeah. It hurt too much, knowing she'd -- that she'd never hear me again." Narrowed eyes. "You remember that?"

"I'm getting old, Virgil. I'm not senile." A smile. "Did you ever give up painting?"

Virgil stares, then, shaking his head.

"No. I never gave up painting."

Jeff thinks of his own art, scratched into the walls of his hellish home. The villa. Three. His Lucy's eyes scrawled over and over until they became too much to bear and were hidden behind a washing machine. Those same eyes look up at him now.

"Hmm." Jeff squeezes his wrist, lies back on the med bed, and closes his own. "Glad to hear it."

---

He doesn't know what to make of it, any of it. John's standing there with a computer in his hands and an expression on his face that suggests Jeff needs to tread very, very carefully.

Unfortunately, this has never been his strong point. Eight years of isolation have not helped.

"What is it?"

The computer flashes, a circle of yellow light, and John winces. A voice Jeff doesn't know echoes around his lounge. 

"I prefer she."

"My apologies," he manages, because his mother's watching and she didn't raise an oaf. "What is she?"

"John made me."

"She's yours?"

John shuffles on the spot, awkward, as though he's confessing to something rather more dire than the writing of a computer program.

"She's not -- I don't own her. I created her, but she's -- she's her own person. Kinda. We're working on it."

"Working on it?" His voice goes up at the end. John winces again. The computer glows. Amber to red to amber. "She's sentient? You created a sentient being?"

Gordon laughs, because Gordon would, and claps Jeff on the shoulder.

"Your first grandkid is a sociopathic sentient computer code. Bet you weren't expecting that one."

"I do not like you, Gordon Tracy."

Gordon beams at this, and John rolls his eyes. It almost looks like they've had this conversation before. Rehearsed it. He'd believe that of John. He'd believe almost anything of John. But this --

"See?" Gordon's still grinning. John's still watching him, the computer held close to his chest. "She's totally John's kid. Grandpa, meet Eos. Eos, this is your Gramps."

"Charmed," the computer says, an echo of John's laugh in her voice, and Christ, he needs a scotch.

Grandchildren. He'd never dared dream of them.

(He knows why, and shame chases the whiskey down his throat.)

---

He spends a lot more time out in the pool now. It starts as physiotherapy, Virgil and Gordon guiding his struggling body through the motions that will help to strengthen atrophied muscles and support weakened bones, but becomes, in time, a place he spends the hours after dinner, watching his youngest children and wishing for things he'll never have.

He does it a lot, enough that his space pale face is now bronzed and pink, enough that Gordon and Alan think nothing of a cry of 'c'mon, get Dad!'. Enough, that when Gordon grabs him round the waist and goes to throw him, he shouldn't be shocked. He should have noticed.

There's a great silver-red scar arching from his boy's shoulder and curving up his spine, stopping just where the high collar of his blues must hide it. 

What the hell happened? What the hell happened?

He must say it out loud, or maybe his face says it for him, because Gordon freezes, releasing him, and then just stands there. A little hunched. A little sheepish. In the pool Alan treads water, silent. Waiting.

Alan knows. Jeff does not.

That's just the way of things, now.

"Had an accident."

Alan scoffs, his voice louder across the water. "Nearly got murdered, more like."

Jeff's grip tightens until Gordon flinches. He lets go as though burnt, but his hand still hovers there, just above the puckered ridge of skin. Waits.

"Son?"

Gordon shrugs, the scar pulling tight.

"Alan's exaggerating, dad. It wasn't --"

"He nearly died!"

"I got better," there's a false sort of brightness to it, a twist to Gordon's mouth that suggests Alan is probably closer to the truth than Jeff would like. "It's no big deal, dad. Swear. It's nothing. I don't want to make a thing of it."

The sun dips below the horizon and throws a last burst of red across the water, across Gordon's back and Jeff's hand and he wants to argue. Wants to demand. Wants the information that's owed to him as this boy's father. Who would dare lay a finger on his boy? Just how close had he come to losing him without even knowing?

But his funny little boy isn't a boy anymore, and Jeff's rights to his stories are lost somewhere in the trail of the stars.

"Of course, son," he tells him. "Of course."

---

He catches Alan at the table, some piece of electronic junk spread out in front of him like a childhood jigsaw, his brows furrowed.

"Everything alright there, Alligator?"

Alan's nose wrinkles at the old nickname, as though he's forgotten. Probably he has. Jeff had left him just a little boy, and he's come back to, if not a man, then a boy right on the cusp of adulthood. A boy who's already been taught to shave, and fly, and behave by other men who are not and never will be, him.

"Yeah, yeah all good." He looks up and smiles. Alan's smiles were the purest memory he'd had, out there. They're more beautiful than he'd remembered. "What's up?"

"Not much, believe it or not." Jeff sits, fiddling with a transistor as Alan blows dust from a circuit board. "Electrical engineering, huh? You thought any more about college?"

Alan turns the board over and over in his fingers. "Not really?" He shrugs. "Like you said, I've got a rocket. I save people. I dunno what letters after my name are gonna do to help."

"Well," Jeff says mildly, "it never hurts to have a plan b, son."

Alan drops the circuit board, shoves the various pieces as far away as he can reach, and turns on Jeff with an expression half fury and half abject terror.

"For what? What do I need a plan b for, dad? What's gonna happen now?"

And though Jeff is a man, a grown man, he doesn't have an answer for that.

[gracie-p8-officialblog]

Spilling Tea On Phantom of the Opera 2004

DISCLAIMER: I just want to say from the start that it is not my intention to offendanyone, you're entitled to your opinions and I'm allowed to have mine...

Ok, so, I just watched this movie a few days ago on my laptop and it was pretty much my first time sitting through the movie. I watched a few clips of the movie on YouTube but... Then, I decided to watch the whole movie. And this was my reaction.

Don't get me wrong! There WERE parts I liked but... That was just half of the movie... But overall... Um... It was meh. Ahem. Down to business!

My opinion on Gerard Butler as the Phantom? Um, wow. And not in a good way. I feel like this was a case of a talented performer being grossly miscast as the Phantom. I think this Tumblr post best describes on what I thought of his singing.

"He's supposed to have the voice of an angel, but it sounds like he's been gargling vinegar" ~Quoted by @faded-florals

Don't get me wrong. His voice is quite good for an untrained singer but... The Phantom is one of the biggest musical theatre roles of all time! It's right up there with Jean Valjean. It's really not a role that could go a competent singer, someone who's never sang professionally before but could be good once they've been trained up a bit. The role demands a truly great singer... And he wasn't right for the part.

His voice felt too strainy, growly and rock-ish for the Phantom. I didn't like how Joel Schumacher bought into the whole "sexy Phantom" thing and cast a hunky heart-throb, who was nowhere near disfigured enough. It's meant to be a gothic thriller novel with a small romantic subplot, not a B-grade vampire romance movie!

As for Emmy Rossum as Miss Christine Daae... it's true, her voice is good. She should know though, should she wish to excel, she has MUCH still to learn (Heeeeehee. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

Emmy's Christine had little-to-no character growth and personality but I don't think it reflects her as an actress, but reflects more on the director and casting director because of how young she was (but more on that later)

Not only that, her Christine was SIGNIFICANTLY dumbed down and oversexualized. I mean, the entire point of the story is that Christine grows strong enough to overcome the trauma of an abusive relationship and make sure that her abuser never hurts anyone ever again but still shows the Phantom compassion and sympathy. I mean, her story arc is her becoming strong-willed enough to overcome the Phantom's pull/spell/enchantment/hypnosis or whatever you percieve it as on her! And don't get me started on her costumes because of the SEVERE lack of modesty.

The chemistry was a little flat because she was underage and her two male love interests were both in their 30s (which totally isn't HER fault, of course, but the directors could easily have cast someone else older)

Her voice, too, strikes me as being much too young and undeveloped. She has a very pretty, sweet-sounding quality to her singing but she doesn't sound rich and operatic enough to be a convincing Christine. Rebecca Caine and Amy Manford do the best job of singing the way I think Christine ought to sound- a maturing opera voice! Though POTO is NOT an opera (you wouldn't believe how many people actually think it is...), it does revolve around opera, and Christine is an opera singer, not a pop star.

And now onto... Everyone's favourite vicomte!!!!!!

C'mon people, put your bottles down. It is a truth universally acknowledged (or at least in the wee Raoul Defense Squad Circle) that Raoul is one of the greatest and most underrated boyfriends to ever exist in musical theatre and it's almost impossible to hate him because of how relatable he is.

Ladies, puh-leeze. He's much more relatable than you admit and face it, we all have a little bit of Raoul in us. Failure to see things staring us in the face, saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, having a 'see it to believe it' attitude when we have little-to-no evidence on something... yeah, don't pretend you don't see a trend. Raoul is relatable whether we want him to be or not.

My thoughts on Patrick Wilson as Raoul, he was one of the few redeeming qualities of this not so great movie. Yeah, the swordfight and Tarzan leaps were a little too much but can you blame him?! And though I feel like that foppish wig made him look more like a magic elf prince than a vicomte, he couldn't control that!

His Raoul was so gentle and caring! Yeah, his acting was a bit stiff but at least his voice wasn't a chore to listen to, it has this warm, tender, comforting quality to it which suits Raoul. I really loved the way he sang "Don't throw away your life for my sake" and "I fought so hard to free you" in the Final Lair (😭😭😭) It feels like Raoul is genuinely apologising to Christine.

I know, I know... The Hadley Fraser fans are approaching with menacing expressions as we speak but let me clarify. I still think Hadley is amazing but... His Raoul kinda felt a little too shouty for me and his Raoul was closer to the LND-canon than POTO-canon (not his fault though).

Miranda Richardson (aka. Rita Skeeter) as Madame Giry is kind of weird. I mean, I know Madame Giry's supposed to be a little Strange and Mysterious. But this Mme. wasn't really Strange or Mysterious at all, or even slightly Spooky at all. She was just kind of an oddball. Popping up in random places to give warnings about the Phantom and looking at people as if she were questioning their life choices or something. As for her daughter... well, Jennifer Ellison's Meg was so-so. She's got a sweet-sounding voice and that added scene where she looked for Christine in the lair was a nice touch... But... Her Meg was kinda forgettable and uninteresting. Meg is supposed to prance around shrieking that the Phantom of the Opera is here, not whisper it in a blase manner that you half expect to be followed up with, "by the way, what's for lunch?" Not to mention, she rivaled Christine as far as low-necked costumes went.

Minnie Driver as Carlotta was spot on! Yes, I know she didn't sing the score but her acting was alright. She was very over-the-top and self-centered, which is great for Carlotta, but I felt her portrayal was a little too childish to be accurate. Carlotta is a successful middle-aged diva who's willing to scream and storm when she doesn't get her way, but she isn't a two-year-old pouting and throwing tantrums. (Yes, there's a difference.)

Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow played Firmin and Andre, respectively. Their managers kinda felt like twits and nothing more. Also, Firmin's masquerade costume was ridiculous. The stupid kind, not the funny kind. ...Well, okay, it was a little funny.

I'm not going to touch on every song here, but I will say that "Hannibal" was beyond awful (if you thought the costumes in the stage version were a bit risque, you should see the movie ones- no, actually you shouldn't) and that "Think of Me," while very nice, was not particularly memorable. Christine's dress, however (despite its less-than-ideal neckline) was GORGEOUS, even though it looks completely out of place in a musical that supposedly takes place in ancient Alexandria.

"Little Lotte" kinda lost its charm by being spoken instead of sung. And Gerard Butler's voice in "The Mirror" was too rough and raspy for my ears and made me cringe in sympathetic shame. The title song was like a cheesy, campy B-grade horror movie tbh, trying way too hard to be spooky and chilling ("ooh, look, Phantom's Lair! It's DARK and SCARY down here!") and succeeding only in being cringeworthy. Not that I've actually ever seen a bad horror movie- or any horror movie at all, for that matter. Unless you count this one.

Christine's costume, too, annoyed me no end. She was basically wearing a corset and drawers under the dressing gown. *facepalm* The dressing gown is supposed to go OVER your COSTUME to keep it CLEAN, peeps. It's not a BATHROBE. And the amount of eye makeup she had on would terrify a raccoon. Yikes.

Though I liked the random horse because of its nod to the Leroux novel.

"Music of the Night" was so blah-slash-touchy-feely that it made me summarily uncomfortable.

I'd like to be able to say something nice about "I remember/Stranger than you dreamt it" but I have none. One thing that bugged me to no end was how Christine is no longer wearing stockings, like dude, that gives some GROSS implications. Anyways, let's skip to Il Muto!

Oh, but first I should say that "Notes" was rather a flop and that "Prima Donna" is unmemorable and indeed should probably be fast-forwarded as there's a rather unsavory bit involving a crew member showing the audience what he thinks of Carlotta's behaviour.

"Il Muto," I must say, was pretty doggone funny. Carlotta's "Your part is silent. Leetle toad," cracked me up into a bunch of giggling little pieces, and the little vignette of the Phantom tinkering with Carlotta's throat spray made her croaking later on a lot more believable.

Now for "All I Ask Of You", SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! I honestly can't understand how anyone could listen to this song and still maintain that Christine and Raoul don't belong together. He represents everything she needs- stability, protection, a guiding hand and affirmed affection. She represents everything he needs, in turn- someone to show affection to and his childhood friend.

One thing I definitely think could have been left out was the scene in which Erik kills Buquet- we totally did not need to see him being chased, terrified, through the rafters and finally strangled. Gross.

And the Phantom and his rose crouching behind that statue... I think this was supposed to be sad, but there was too much snot mixed with tears for it to be sad. It was, again, gross. So was Gerard Butler's pathetic attempt at the "all that the Phantom asked of you" line. And the lack of a chandelier crash in that scene made the song anticlimactic.

And "Masquerade" was so-so but... The Phantom's entrance is anticlimactic somehow, and his Red Death costume (if indeed it's supposed to even BE the Red Death) is unimpressive. I don't like how Raoul just runs off to desert Christine as soon as things start looking ugly (yes, I realize he was going to get his sword, but still... something could have happened to her while he was gone. Duh, did this guy learn anything from "Little Lotte/The Mirror"? Just sayin)

As for Madame Giry's flashback immediately following, I like how it gives us some of the Phantom's backstory, but it seems really abrupt. You don't even realize until she's done that she was talking to Raoul the whole time- it sounds like she's just randomly reminiscing about Stuff, and if you didn't know the story you might be sitting there thinking, "who is this strange woman again?"

Also, Christine leaving wherever-it-is at, like, five in the morning to go to who-knows-where, completely oblivious to the fact that the Phantom is driving her. Whaaaaaaaaa? How'd he know she was planning to go for a graveyard stroll? Was he watching her through the mirror again? THAT'S JUST CREEPY.

"Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" was rather mediocre and dulled down the fact that it is a Christine Empowerment™ song. Why, exactly, does Christine's father have the biggest monument in the cemetery? If he were a rich and famous violinist as his crypt seems to suggest, why on earth was his daughter struggling along as a chorus girl taking free music lessons?

The swordfight... Well... I had mixed feelings about it. Sword fights are all well and good, but... The swordfight takes away the element of mysterious danger to the Phantom. Okay, fine, Christine getting Raoul to spare the Phantom's life is a nice touch, I guess, but did it strike no one else that his "now let it be war upon you BOTH" makes absolutely NO sense after that? If she just saved his life, why would he suddenly be all, "thanks, but no thanks, I'M GOING TO MURDER YOUUUUUUUUUU"?

And "Twisted Every Way" was after "Wishing" which made ZERO sense. Plus, I didn't like how they cut most of it because in the musical, it gave Christine a spine!

"Point of No Return"? Hooooooo boy....... There are so many things wrong with this number. Let's just a list a few.

*HOW did no one recognise the Phantom through his "disguise"?! At least in the stage play, it made more sense because of how he was wearing a cloak that obscured most of his body.

*Christine's sleeves falling down over and over again were REALLY annoying.

*It was just too touchy-feely for my taste.

*The fact that Emmy Rossum was a teenager during filming made this scene gross because of the way they oversexualized Christine in this scene.

*Gerard Butler's voice in that scene made me cringe and shake my head in sympathetic shame.

*In the stage play, Christine ran from him, showing her own agenda and resistance to his pull! While in the movie, she didn't resist him!

*Now for the one that took the cake... The disfigurement! Or it would be a disfigurement if it actually made him look, y'know, deformed. Instead, as several people have put it, he looks like he got a bad sunburn or something. It's really rather pathetic. It makes him look more like a drama queen than he already is! Yeah.... I really don't like this movie.

On to... Final Lair!!!!!!!! It was a flop. From Raoul's whining and flailing around and his stringy hair flopping about (shallow complaint, I know, but it's so ugly) to Christine's sappy melodramatic "don't make me choooooooose" faces to the Phantom's prancing around with his ropes and maniacal laughter that somehow wasn't really scary at all... yeah, it was a flop. A major, major flop. And though The Kiss wasn't all that bad, all I could think of was, "She's SIXTEEN! SIX! TEEN! THIS IS CREEPY, DISTURBING AND GROSS!"

Which is why it's so difficult for me to admit that, um, I... cried at the end.

I COULDN'T HELP IT GUYS HE WAS ALL ALONE THERE IN HIS LAKE WITH HIS MONKEY AND HIS SMASHED MIRRORS AND HE WAS CRYING AND IT WAS SAD.

And then that rose on the gravestone? That single red rose? And the look on Old Raoul's face (still Patrick Wilson, by the way, under all that makeup) when he saw it and realized he wasn't the only one visiting Christine's grave? Yup, I lost it again there, too. And I really didn't want to. Because I tend to cry over movies I love, y'know? And I didn't love this movie. At all

Yet I still cried at the end. I'm not really sure why. I think perhaps it had something to do with the way the story still "got" me, deep down inside, despite the lousy casting and less-than-perfect singing and ridiculously unnecessary elements that totally didn't need to be there. It's still a tragically beautiful romance, and even a bad film can't kill that.

In conclusion, I think Mary Poppins can best express what I thought of POTO 2004.

In conclusion, I rate it a 2.7/5