#reminds us of curran

[flanaganfilm]

I’m curious what the challenges are to working with kids- such as in both Haunting series. All the child actors did a fantastic job but I can imagine it can be harder to direct kids vs adults.

The biggest challenge I've had working with kids is just logistical - they are not permitted to work nearly as many hours as their adult co-stars. And they have strictly regimented breaks between work periods that must be used for school. On projects where a younger actor needs to be in the majority of scenes (like Oculus or Before I Wake) it can create an enormous scheduling puzzle. Also, in a lot of markets they cannot work past a certain hour of night. We call it "pumpkining." So we'll need scramble to get all of their scenes done before they "pumpkin" and have to go home, leaving us with nothing to shoot - but with hours left on our day.

When it comes to the actual acting, I have spent my career being pleasantly surprised (if not downright shocked) by how prepared, professional, and precise they are. I've been very lucky, as well - I have worked with some of the absolute best young actors in the entire business. Jacob Tremblay, Lulu Wilson, Kyliegh Curran, McKenna Grace, Julian Hilliard, Violet McGraw, Annalise Basso, Garrett Ryan, Amelie Smith, Ben Ainsworth, Paxton Singleton - I mean these really are the A-team. Jacob Tremblay was 7 years old when we shot Before I Wake and he had to carry almost the whole movie. Not only did Jake show up completely prepared with his scene work every day (and delivered a heartbreaking performance), he also was prepared for his scene partners - I distinctly remember a few times Thomas Jane forgot his lines, and Jake casually reminded him what they were. That can sometimes create friction with actors on set, but because it was little Jake feeding him the lines, Tom just smiled and thanked him. I was very nervous when we were filming episode 6 of Hill House, which consists of several very long, unbroken takes. The second of these shots was a 10 minute take through Hill House that involved all five of my youngest actors. In that episode, if someone forgot a line, missed a mark, or didn't land in precisely the right place at precisely the right moment, we'd have to scrap everything we'd shot so far and start over. It was insanely difficult. I was very nervous that the kids (the youngest of which was 6) would not be up to the challenge. But when we filmed episode 6 of Hill House, the only actor in the entire cast who ever forgot a line during filming was the seasoned, established Oscar winner. The kids were PERFECT.

I've been very lucky in my career. I think I've worked with some of the absolute best young actors in the business. I have had challenges and intense difficulties with actors on my sets, but each and every one of those difficult people were grownups.

[mermaidsirennikita]

are you watching Mary & George? 👀 would love your thoughts if so

I have seen it! Loved it.

--Julianne Moore is obviously the standout, because she's Julianne Moore and let us be real, is one of the finest actresses of her generation even if Still Alice was not what she should have won her Oscar for.

Mary is the type of character we so rarely get to see onscreen, but I fucking love it when we do. Scheming, avaricious, wholly selfish, yet somehow human and also capable of genuinely caring about people and, very occasionally, feeling some guilt. Usually when the consequences of her actions directly affect her and hers, but still!

--Nicholas Galitzine is an actor I really generally like (I don't care for Purple Hearts... at all... I actually hate that movie and pretend it doesn't exist... Cinderella was obviously bad but he did his best, I really liked The Idea of You, LOVE Bottoms and RWARB, so generally our track record together is pretty good) and he was so good in this. Does a great job with the "from boy to monster" arc. Loved his chemistry with Julianne and Tony Curran. I also, as much as I find him more pretty than my type, was legit attracted to him during his Evil George Era, and he also has the type of appeal and charisma as George that makes me BELIEVE that he's the type of guy who could basically get by on everyone wanting him.

--Tony Curran was fabulous. The gluttony, the madness, the love, the lechery. He's like, at once this incredibly spoiled and indulged king who honestly shouldn't be running anything, let alone a nation, and this tragic figure who's constantly being used. His relationship with George is so ambiguous, too. Like.. is it all attraction and using? Is it love? Is it all of the above (my take). It kind of mirrors George's relationship with Mary in that sense, though obviously with the added component of sex and romance--you can't really tell what's love and what's control.

--Love the look of everything. I feel like they captured the Baroque really well, overall. THOUGH. I MUST SAY. We get basically like, a tiny snippet with the full Iconic Buckingham look (the giant feathered hat and cape) and Nick looked SO GOOD in it. Why didn't we have more of that???

--The one thing I can say is that they really could've changed the pacing a bit. A lot happened in George's life after the king died--he did a lot of puppet-ruling (which... did not go well). I get having to cut some of the wild stuff (like the Anne of Austria affair rumors) but they chopped out a lot. Like, I generally loved the climax of the story and I don't really care about historical accuracy as long as the story is good (and the story is good). But it was very rushed in the end.

That said, overall recommend. Mary and George reminded me of Atia and Octavian, if Octavian was a himbo until he wasn't. I'm so fond of a conflicted evil mother/ambiguous-to-evil son dynamic in a period piece.

[shmowder]

I was looking at Sargent's art again and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose reminded me of another painting I like a lot, The Lanterns by Charles Courtney Curran.

So I said I wanted to live in a John Singer Sargent painting. I also want to live inside the worlds you create with your writing. <3

🐿️ anon

Omfg yeah! you're right they are reminiscent of each other, it's like the two kids ik the painting grew up in the second one. How vivid the world seemed as a child, how dimmer and more dull it gets as you grow up.

My favourite Charles Courtney Curran piece is this one, "Paris at night" - 1889.

The thing about John Singer Sargent is that he was THE portrait painter of his generation, creme de la creme and all. Over 900 works! at least half are portraits. After a while you start wondering if he enjoyed painting portraits this much or if he was simply too in-demand to he able to refuse, so very little time was left for him to actually paint different things or try out other styles.

God, you don't know how much those words mean to me. <3, ever since my first ever writing blog–the one even before my bg3 one–I admired John Singer Sargent paintings and used them as a header. I truly aspired to provide the same fantasy fairytale vibes, the vibrancy of life. I wasn't aiming for realisim but romanticised Idealism.

Thank you so much for being so sweet and suggesting a painting <333

[mlobsters]

supernatural s7e22 there will be blood (w. andrew dabb, daniel loflin)

spoiler alert, dean fogg's in this one. love his voice! periodic reminder i could not care less about the leviathan plotline. it's so cartoonish and dull

DEAN Okay, man, I have read this more times than the Playboy I found in Dad's duffel. SAM Anna Nicole? DEAN Anna Nicole. Oh, the good – they die young, huh?

i shared part of her name and used to get jokes about her regularly. there's an interesting (and very sad) documentary on netflix about her called "anna nicole smith: you don't know me". and one of the best documentaries i've watched recently i'd recommend even more, about pamela anderson - called "pamela, a love story".

genuinely happy to see crowley. so many side characters are kind of... stiff or over the top. he's the correct amount of top

silly pie focused bickering

DEAN Yeah, Sam, look around. It's friggin' Woodstock. Everybody's hopped up on the brown acid. We don't need the song and dance. Give him a little prick.

i'm so used to Emotional Trauma for the last few episodes of a season i'm not sure what to do with this goofy shit

GLORIA Yesterday I introduced you to this rising star in American business. In this hour, we'll go behind the scenes and answer the question everyone's been asking for months – what makes Dick so hard to beat?

they cannot resist the dick jokes my god

EMILY You were gonna hurt my daddy.

okay.

the magicians s1e13 have you brought me little cakes (w. sera gamble btw & john mcnamara & david reed) - laci j mailey as fen

so she was fen in s1 finale but the role was recast to brittany curran for the remainder of the show

DEAN Well, the creep gets creepier.

fucking seriously. not to mention this kid looks like a bit like young sam/colin ford

EDGAR I smell Sam and Dean Winchester.

kinky

SAM But, Dean... We gave up all our Vamptonite.

is dean dreaming, what is happening lol

DEAN I think any way you slice it, you got Pac Man and True Blood in the same room and that's bad news.

i have a lot of fondness for true blood, but anyway the thought that true blood the show exists in the universe where vampires do exist, it's just tickling me at the moment

well. cute they wrote in the little rescuing the young sam-esque kid. again appreciating the alpha vampire's actor, rick worthy, who is also great on the magicians and wishing he could be in a more regular role than some of the other people on this show :p

wonder if the season finale can make me feel anything.

[killakalx]

titans jason breaks my heart every time. i always saw so much tragedy in him, especially given how baby faced curran is too!! so it was this constant reminder that he was basically a kid when all of this went down. i was never truly happy with how they wrote him either, like i didn’t even stop to consider how mischaracterised jason was in the show so your post was like an epiphany to me.. i could be way off on this but i always felt like they’d reduced him to being a lackey for scarecrow and that’s not at all how i perceived his rise to Red Hood to be idk it felt like the writing was such a let down to everything jason is 😭😭

they made him worse than a lackey for scarecrow. they made him the angry and targeted little boy which isn’t a trope i hate but I DO hate it when people act like that’s all jason is. titans treated his character terribly. it was rushed and dare i say unjustified despite the fact that everyone treated him like shit. what stuck with me the most was the bit with the drugs and the using parents of children for dirty work and just. ugh. why. why? whyyyyy??? justice for jason todd. love what the show did with brenton as dick. hate what they did with curran for jason. those two reasons are why i watched all four seasons. begrudgingly. but i was hooked nonetheless.

[thetorturegardens]

445

At the start of twenty-five years' incarceration (torture for heretical poems, execution for political incest), I bite through the banister staring down at my own bloodbath.

446

The Antihuman Slaughter Agitation Group (ASAG) confused conservation with eradication, and this glitch resulted in annihilation never witnessed before.

447

We feel black rain coming in from the ocean, crows punching holes in the sand, crows hammering the bay, but in the morning, the palm trees have been touched up, and then a bulldozer crushes them, this set being recycled, and us being blood and bone and sand.

448

Dashboard cracks, foam burnt by the sun, remind me of cigarette marks made on your face, a hack-death-slasher final girl in a video store, marks becoming holes with a ballpoint pen, your body pretty much gone, ripped up like a magazine page by rogue-regime goons.

449

If it takes a bloodbath, let's take a drink.

450

The most beautiful sensations I remember are the abrupt feelings of potential freedom, the frantic voices whispering, withholding cartoon hysterics, and being excessively drunk.

451

My tooth floating in a wine glass is the final metaphor.

—paul curran, generation bloodbath

[myhiraeth]

💭 Do they tend to sleep better when in bed with their partner? (circe, styxx, jason)

"My Muse in a Relationship" meme - accepting!

It’s funny because they all are on different places on the scale. 

Circe London - 100% yes. Choosing a partner for Circe is a whole ordeal. There are a lot of hoops for said partner to jump through, numerous hurdles for her internal self to overcome, and endless tics and triggers for her partner to deal with. If she has found someone she lets herself truly care for, and found someone who actually commits to loving her despite her flaws, that person is her safe place, and that person is the only place she feels completely at ease. 

Sleep isn’t something Circe generally struggles with, but she does sleep better, and both goes to sleep and wakes up happier when she sleeps with her significant other. 

Styxx Anaxkolasi - It’s a process. Styxx had… THINGS happen in his life while he was drugged and kept drugged for an extended period of time… on more than one occasion. Since dying&resurrecting he has spent the last 10,000 years alone, so waking up next to someone isn’t a pleasant experience, but more a reminder of what’s happened to him against his will. So when he wakes with a body next to him, his first instinct is fight AND flight, in that order. He almost guaranteed will accidentally hurt someone he wakes next to in a blind panic trying to escape the bed. 

Exceptions apply to naps and couch dozes, where he’s never in a deep enough sleep to slow his senses when he wakes. And if/when he gets there, he definitely sleeps better when next to the person he loves. But actual overnight, REM sleep? He won’t allow that for some time, until he’s confident that he won’t accidentally injure someone he loves. 

[ I lost my Curran icons so use your imagination here ]

Jason Todd - No. Unlike Styxx, while he does occasionally have panic responses when he wakes, it really only applies to when he’s had a nightmare or a triggering experience right before. Generally he just sleeps the same with or without a body next to him. The real challenge with Jason is convincing him you’re trustworthy enough to stay overnight. 

[the-firebird69]

The Who - Pinball Wizard (Lyric Video)

And this is actually Trump himself and he's a led Zeppelin singer you can tell Dr Curran acts like him these people are huge rats and they're telling her your entire realm all the time it does not do them any good

They ran it on Dave more than anybody I've ever seen in my life that poor guy had these idiots all over him and the doctor audette tried to get them off him and couldn't couldn't get him off him he said this is too much strain there's too many of these morons and she's asking for help and he says blasphemy is not a crime other crimes he does using it is not a crime what can you get people for is going to rot on the empire as he already has quite a bit so just tries that when it works a little and they don't see any impacts and he says Susie messing with usually Brian and you get some going on it it says wailing on him is it foreign countries messing with them big time and taking over all the businesses so a fight started as one's going to start here

Thor Freya

Olympus

It's going to start this is this huge rat he's telling us everything and all the stuff we need to know and he's saying that he's in charge of it and stuff and he's just a massive massive rat and that's about it

Hera

Well thanks Trump and yeah have fun trying to get nozzles it's kind of a game you're a loser you perpetually do loser stuff you have no backbone and you found out about stuff you shouldn't know now that it's out your expendable

Zues

I want this fall through on and I'm organizing teams we don't need a constant leak or reminders we need him gone right now too

Thor Freya

We needed a little but I challenge people to use a gauge on him and do it when we want only

Zues Hera

Yeah he's a loser and doesn't want to do it anyway want to anyways he does it all day long no matter what it is

Nuada Arrianna

We have to fix this we got to meet and have a meeting and go over it

Olympus

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“AUTOMOBILE SIREN LAW USED IN CASE,” Montreal Gazette. January 14, 1933. Page 4. ---- Driver Reminded That Horn Blowing Not Allowed in City at Night --- RULING IN COLLISION --- Seldom Invoked By-law Comes Up, But Both Autoists Found to Have Been Careless ---- Automobile sirens must not be sounded within the city limits between midnight and six a.m., city by-law 1093 declares, but the rule is seldom observed by and never invoked against motorists. Nevertheless, it Is part of the law and must be approved when invoked, and for the first time in local courts it was Invoked and applied before Mr. Justice Curran, who used it to aid him in determining the responsibility of two motorists for a collision. 

Lionel St. Cyr, a chauffeur sued Romeo Lariviere for $866 damages arising out of a collision at the intersection of Vitre and St. Dominique streets, and St. Cyr, in order to clear himself of blame, declared that before entering the intersection he had sounded his horn and listened for an answering signal. 

But the accident occurred after midnight and in his judgment Mr. Justice Curran reminded the plaintiff that he had no right to expect an answering signal, as the law prohibited such signals after midnight except in cases of great necessity. 

However, this was only one factor in determining responsibility. Both drivers, His Lordship found, had crossed the intersection at prohibited speeds and the defendant, who was talking to a companion, had not even looked to see if the intersection was clear before crossing.

Accordingly, both drivers were at fault: His Lordship fixed the damages at $666, but because of the Joint fault, awarded St. Cyr only $333.

[nothillhq]

from  portobello  road  to  lancaster  road  ,  there  are  a  lot  of  faces  ,  but  i  knew  i  recognised  this  one .  the   luka sabbat lookalike jaziah "jazz" beamon  ,   was  just  spotted  catching  up  with  an  old  friend  ,  the  things  you  see  around  NOTTING  HILL ,  hey  ?  just  a  reminder  to  you  , kay please  make  sure  you  have  your  blog  to  us  within twenty four  hours and  check  out  this  link  here  for  any  further  information  ,  thank  you  for  applying  ,  we  cannot  wait  to  write  with  you  !

[          ◟     LUKA SABBAT IS NOW TAKEN. ◝           ]

from  portobello  road  to  lancaster  road  ,  there  are  a  lot  of  faces  ,  but  i  knew  i  recognised  this  one .  the   curran walters lookalike indigo carruthers ,   was  just  spotted  catching  up  with  an  old  friend  ,  the  things  you  see  around NOTTING  HILL ,  hey  ?  just  a  reminder  to  you  , kay please  make  sure  you  have  your  blog  to  us  within twenty four  hours and  check  out  this  link  here  for  any  further  information  ,  thank  you  for  applying  ,  we  cannot  wait  to  write  with  you  ! + wendy’s ex husband 

[          ◟     CURRAN WALTERS IS NOW TAKEN. ◝           ]

[dee6000]

LoSlavery Is Not OUR "Original Sin" The thick lines show majority of African slaves went to Spain’s (they started trans-Atlantic slave trade) Latin American & Caribbean slave colonies, Muslim and African Countries. Few went to colony that became the US

How many times have you heard that slavery was “America’s original sin”? I’m not quite sure what that means, but I think the idea is that slavery was a uniquely horrible thing that defines the United States and will stain whites forever. It’s one of the few things Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama agree on. There are books about it. Here’s a college course at UC Davis called “Slavery: America’s Original Sin: Part 1."

The fact is, there has been slavery in every period of history, and just about everywhere. The Greeks and Romans had it, the ancient Egyptians had it, it’s all over the Bible, the Chinese and the pre-Columbian Indians had it, the Maoris in New Zealand had it, and the Muslims had it in spades. But I have never, ever heard of slavery being anyone else’s “original sin.”

About the only societies that never had slaves were primitivehunter-gatherers. As soon as people have some kind of formal social organization, they start taking slaves.

You’ve heard about slavery and mass human sacrifices of Central and South American Indians, but North American Indians were enslaving each other long before the white man showed up.

Tlingit and Haida Indians, who lived in the Pacific Northwest, went raiding for slaves as far South as California. About one quarter of the population were slaves, and the children of slaves were slaves. During potlatches, or huge ceremonial feasts, the Tlingit would sometimes burn property and kill slaves, just to show how rich they were. What’s a couple of slaves to a guy who lives in a house like this?

When we bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867, Indians were furious when we told them they had to give up their slaves. The Tlingit carved this image of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator, to try to shame the government into compensating them for slaves.

What were called the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast happily bought black slaves. In 1860, there were 21,000 Cherokee, and they owned 4,000 slaves. And that was just the Cherokee. Many took their slaves with them when they were forced to move West.

Free blacks in the South owned slaves. The fact of having been slaves didn’t stop them from wanting to be slave masters themselves. In 1840, in South Carolina alone, there were 454 free blacks who owned a total of 2,357 slaves. Only about 20 percent of Southern households had even one slave, but 75 percent of the free-black households in South Carolina owned slaves.

Don’t believe me? It’s all in this book by the expert on the subject, Larry Koger of the University of South Carolina. And he demolishes the idea that most blacks bought slaves only to get family members out of slavery. Like whites, some were kind masters and some were mean, but, for the most part, they owned slaves for exactly the same reasons whites did.

There’s a whole book about this black guy, Andrew Durnford.

He had a plantation of 672 acres along the Mississippi in Louisiana, and close to 100 slaves. Another black slave owner in Louisiana, P.C. Richards, owned 152 slaves. Black slaveowners avidly supported the Confederacy. There are no accurate estimates of the number of slaves held by free blacks at the time of the Civil War, but they would have been tens of thousands.

If slavery is somebody’s Original Sin, it’s sure not ours. Take a look at this map of the slave trade, beginning in 1500.

[Source: SlaveVoyages.com, click to enlarge]

The thicknesses of the lines represent numbers of slaves. What became the United States imported just around 400,000 slaves—about 3 percent of all the slaves who crossed the Atlantic. Look at all the slaves who went to Brazil and to the Caribbean Islands.They needed millions because, unlike American slaveowners who raised slave families, they bought grown men and worked them to death. And let us not forget, virtually every slave on this map was caught by blacks or Arabs.

And look at all the slaves who ended up in North Africa and the Middle East.

That’s millions of them going to Muslim countries at exactly the same time slaves were crossing the Atlantic. And Arabs had been taking black slaves out of Africa, across the Sahara, for 900 years before America was even discovered—and a forced march across the desert was a lot worse than crossing the Atlantic. In this article about Africa’s first slavers—the Arabs—historian Paul Lovejoy estimates that over the centuries, Muslims took about 14 million blacks out of Africa [Recalling Africa’s harrowing tale of its first slavers – The Arabs – as UK Slave Trade Abolition is commemorated, March 27, 2018]. That is more than the 12 million who went to the New World.

And you might ask, where are the descendants of all those Middle Eastern slaves? America has millions of slave descendants. Why don’t you see lots of blacks in Saudi Arabia or Syria or Iraq? Arabs castrated black slaves so they wouldn’t have descendants.

Muslims were even more enthusiastic about enslaving white people. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, by Prof. Robert C. Davis is the best book on the subject. Remember the Barbary Pirates of North Africa? Between 1530 and 1780 they caught and enslaved more than a million white, European Christians. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Arabs took more white slaves south across the Mediterranean than there were blacks shipped across the Atlantic.

Mostly, Muslim pirates captured European ships and stole their crews. In just three years, from 1606 to 1609, the British navy admitted it had lost 466 British merchant ships to North African pirates [Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast Past & Present, August 2001]. Four hundred sixty-six ships in just three years. Arabs took American slaves. Between 1785 and 1793 Algerians captured 13 American ships in the Mediterranean and enslaved the crews. This is a 1804 battle between Arab pirates and the USS Enterprise.

It was only in 1815, after two wars, that the United States was finally free of the Barbary pirates.

Muslim pirates also organized huge, amphibious slave-catching assaults that practically depopulated the Italian coast. In 1544, Algerian raiders took 7,000 slaves in the Bay of Naples in a single raid. This drove the price of slaves so low it was said you could “swap a Christian for an onion.”

After a 1566 raid on Granada in Spain netted 4,000 men women, and children, it was said to be “raining Christians in Algiers.” Women were easier to catch than men, and were prized as sex slaves, so some coastal areas lost their entire child-bearing populations. One raid as far away as Iceland brought back 400 white slaves.

Prof. Davis notes that the trade in black Africans was strictly business, but Muslims had a jihad-like enthusiasm for stealing Christians. It was revenge for the Crusades and for the reconquest of Spain from the Arabs in 1492. When Muslim corsairs raided Europe, they made a point of desecrating churches and stealing church bells. The metal was valuable but stealing church bells silenced the voice of Christianity.

It was a tradition to parade newly captured Europeans through the streets so people could jeer at them, while children threw garbage at them. At the slave market, both men and women were stripped naked to evaluate their sexual value. In the North African capitals—Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli—there was a big demand for homosexual sex-slaves. Other Europeans were worked to death on farms or building projects.

Prof. Davis writes that unlike in North America, there were no limits on cruelty: “There was no countervailing force to protect the slave from his master’s violence: no local anti-cruelty laws, no benign public opinion, and rarely any effective pressure from foreign states.” Slaves were not just property, they were infidels, and deserved whatever suffering a master meted out.

For a man, there was a fate even worse than being a sex slave. Hundreds of thousands became galley slaves, often on slave-catching pirate ships. They were chained to their oars 24 hours a day, and could move only to the hole where the oar went through the hull—so they could relieve themselves. If the men were rowing, they fouled themselves. Galley slaves lived in a horrible stench, ate rotten food, were whipped by slave drivers and tormented by rats and lice. They could not lie down and had to sleep at their oars. Many never left their ships, even in port. Their job was to row until they died, and to be tossed overboard at the first sign of weakness.

Muslims have taken slaves for as long as there have been Muslims, which is about 1,400 years.

Mohammed himself was an enthusiastic slave trader. Muslims still take black slaves. As this article points out, Libya still has slave markets, Mauritanian Arabs take black slaves, and there is still slavery in Niger, Mali, Chad and Sudan[Libya’s slave markets are a reminder that the exploitation of Africans never went away, by Martin Plaut, New Statesman, February 21, 2018].

And, of course, it was white people who abolished slavery, both in their own countries and, except for a few stubborn holdouts, the whole world. Africans, just like the Tlingit Indians, screamed about all the wealth we made them give up.

But slavery’s still our “original sin.” As Time magazine wrote just this month about slavery “Europeans and their colonial “descendants” in the United States engineered the most complete and enduring dehumanization of a people in history."[Facing America's History of Racism Requires Facing the Origins of 'Race' as a Concept, by Andrew Curran, July 10, 2020]

What a small minority of Americans did for 246 years—and in a relatively mild form—is worse than anything that was ever done anywhere by anyone.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of white privilege. I hope you are enjoying it. Watch this video:

[absoloutenonsense]

Hiiiiii

Hope you're doing well<3333

Can we get a new snippet pleaseeeee 🥺👉👈

On literally anything you're working on, I'm kinda craving the content!! 💖

Craving content from me??? 🥺💖 That's very lovely, absolutely you can get a snippet. Anyone want to get to know Au Pair Louis a bit better?

*

“How did you get into painting?” Harry asks him when he sits back down. 

Louis lets out a quiet laugh at that. “I think I was always going to get into painting.” 

Harry raises his eyebrows and gestures for him to continue.

“Right so,” Louis says. “I got into mischief a lot when I was a kid. Nothing truly terrible, but you know, I was unsupervised a lot, and the oldest, so I got into some things I wasn’t supposed to get into. My mum tried all sorts of stuff to keep me engaged at home so I wouldn’t go out and mess about with me mates, and-- What? What are you looking at me like that for?”

Harry’s grin widened. “Nothing. You just sounded very British there.”

“I am British,” Louis says, sounding confused and mildly offended. 

“I know! You just… you sound so French a lot of the time, sometimes I just forget.”

“Hm,” Louis hums, like he’s trying to decide if he should still be offended by that statement. He must decide not to be because he nods. “I think I told you before, I spent my summers with my grandparents a little ways South. And I’ve lived here full time for five years, so I’ve got a lot of that in my accent now.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Harry’s quick to say. “I like it. Reminds me of home.”

“Oh,” Louis says. Looking down at his lap, he clears his throat. 

“Anyway, sorry, continue.”

“Right. So, uh, there was this after school program when I was about twelve or thirteen, and you could do football or arts or other stuff I don’t remember. I was going to do football, at first, but then a girl I had a crush on was doing art, so I decided to go with that, figuring I could switch out in a couple of weeks once I got my flirting in and she knew who I was.”

Harry smiles, picturing a tiny Louis flirting with a girl while they both drew love hearts.

“But the teacher, Mrs. Curran, she was just so lovely and let us go to whichever kind of art we wanted. When I picked up the paints, she sat with me for a while, talking me through how to mix colours, and layering, and perspective. I got hooked on seeing things come to life out of nothing. We couldn’t really afford canvases and paints and fancy brushes for me to have at home, but Mrs. Curran let me use the school’s supplies when I wanted.”

“That’s lovely,” Harry says. 

Louis nods. “Then it was like I started seeing a calling towards art everywhere. My nan took me to the art museum in London and I spent hours and hours just staring at the paintings. Documentaries on telly about famous artists seemed to be on more frequently. I saw brighter colours that I wanted to capture. It felt inevitable.”

Harry watches the soft smile on Louis’ face as he looks off to the side. Quiet passion and love for something you get to do and create. Harry understands that. 

“When I got my first job, I started buying all this paint and a few canvases. I painted over them quite a few times so I could have new space to work on, but I heard the renaissance lads did it all the time.” Louis winks at him. Harry feels a thrill run up his spine and automatically sits forward more. “When I graduated, instead of going to uni, I came to Paris and took a couple of art courses. That’s how I met Zayn. We worked side jobs for enough money to pay for our rent and food and wine and spent all the extra time drawing and painting. I watched people a lot. Not in a creepy way, just... “ He pauses, like he’s trying to find the words. “People express so much when they’re just being themselves, going about their day like normal. I became really captivated by those expressions. I’d draw them while I was out and then rush home to paint them.”

There’s so much excitement and light in his eyes. 

“What happened?” Harry asks, even if something in his gut is telling him he shouldn’t. 

Louis shrugs and swirls the wine in his glass again. “Scraping by and living off my art got hard, so I looked for better paying jobs and those took up more of my time. I tried to get work teaching art to kids, which was great for a while -- combining two things I love a whole lot. Eventually that got hard to manage too. I wasn’t doing much of my own painting because I had made it my job and not in a fun way. I still loved working with kids so I thought I’d try my hand at being an au pair. Figured I could teach a few French kids English.” He smirks at Harry. “Ended up being the opposite, but still worked out in my favour, I think.”

Harry holds his glass with both hands. “Am I holding you back from your passion?” he asks. 

Louis snorts and puts his wine glass down to grab both of Harry’s hands and the glass. His fingers feel a little cold to the touch against his own. “No, ma moitié, absolutely not. You’re the only person in the world who would ask if his employee was being held back from his art by the job.”

Harry hates that phrasing. Hates that Louis thinks of Harry’s as his boss, even if it’s technically true. It doesn’t feel true. It feels like Louis is family and nothing less.

“I’m just saying we could hire some extra help so you can do more of what you love.”

Louis’ eyes shine and his face looks so fond, it almost makes Harry forget what they’re talking about. He’s so beautiful. 

“I’m the help. And I love this job very much. You give me time off whenever I ask for it--”

“Which is never,” Harry interrupts. 

Louis ignores him. “I don’t pay for a single thing, and get to live in this beautiful house--”

“That was always a part of the role.” 

“Shh,” Louis giggles. “You’re not letting me talk.”

“Sorry,” Harry says sulkily. Louis rubs his thumbs along the edges of his fingers. 

“I never want for anything here. It feels like a dream to be able to do this every day. Wake up in this house, spend time with and teach three of the brightest, most amazing girls I’ve ever met in my life.” He squeezes Harry’s hands to emphasize his points. “I have time to paint on my days off, and it seems like a new stack of canvases mysteriously appears outside of my bedroom door every couple of months.”

Harry tries hard not to blush at that. It’s not that he thought Louis wouldn’t notice --he hoped he would, actually, and that would remind him how important he was to everyone in the house-- but it feels different being on a list of very good things that make him like their situation. 

“Even when it’s hard,” Louis says, sliding his hands up a little to hold Harry’s wrists and part of his forearms. “I know I get to be here with all of you. I love the girls so much and I love--” he stops abruptly, blinking a little fast. He speaks slower as he says, “I love it here. There’s hardly anything else I could ask for.”

Harry wants to kiss him more than anything in the world. 

Louis pulls his hands away, running one of them through his hair and looking towards the oven. “Short rib is probably almost done. Let me check.”

He stands and Harry gently grabs his elbow until he looks at him. “If there is anything,” Harry says. “I’ll give it to you.”

Louis looks very sad then. “Ma moitié,” he starts. But then he’s interrupted by beeping of the timer. He looks behind him and lets out a shaky sigh. He turns back with a smile Harry sees often, one that doesn’t quite seem bright enough to be genuine. Louis pats Harry’s hand lightly and Harry lets go. They pull away from each other as Louis says, “Do you want more wine with dinner?”

It takes too long for Harry to answer. “I think I’ll just have water.”

“Good,” Louis says, pulling on the oven mits. “Yes, me too.”

[bookbaristas]

📖 GIVEAWAY 📖⁣ ⁣ friends!!! i'm very excited to give away a hardcover copy of HUNGRY HILL by Eileen Curran, a contemporary fiction/romance that navigates "the complexities of love in its many forms and how it endures. It explores our desire to belong to each other and to live a life of connectedness. It also reminds us to keep our sense of humor no matter what life brings, and to never underestimate the power of a great pair of shoes." (from synopsis!) Note-worthy awards: 2021 Best Book Awards Finalist in the Best New Fiction category, Finalist in the Best Cover Design: Fiction category, AND the 2021 NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite in the Contemporary Novel category! 🏆 ⁣ ⁣ Lastly, a percentage of all proceeds of Hungry Hill will go to support Wide Horizons For Children. Their efforts bring hope and security to the world’s most vulnerable children being impacted by the global hunger crisis. ⁣ ⁣ TO ENTER: like this post, follow me + @eileenpatriciacurran, and tag a friend!!! ⁣ ⁣ US only, not affiliated with/sponsored by IG, ends 12/21! (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXmG6bcPzWV/?utm_medium=tumblr

[sohotthateveryonedied]

I knew I may be overly emotional about this, but every time DC reminds me that Jason was murdered by Joker I was DONE. They could have written him DIFFERENT instead of having that stupid poll only to be hijacked by a spammer and changed it, but NO, they decided to continuously remind us that, and how Titans made it WORSE, like, DUDE, what even was the point of that poll on deciding Jason's fate when it's going to be the SAME anyway??? Oh, and regarding on Jason's actor as a tr*mp supporter, yes, it is a thing cuz he once posted a pic of him wearing tr*mp supporter hat, and everyone on twitter laughed about it XD He was also a J*ker fan which also triggers me ._. It's from a pic of twitter but I can't find it (yet)

1) i actually don’t mind at all that they killed off jason all those decades ago because i didn’t read comics then; i read them NOW, which means i get to enjoy jason as the red hood and i’m happy about that :)

2) sorry but i don’t pay attention or care very much about what actors do unless i’m related to/responsible for them, and i didn’t see curran walters at my last family reunion sadly

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

i’m an idiot. i screw everything up.

Titans 3.03

still here, still doing this. these reviews take a fair bit of time that i cobble together across days (like, ten minute chunks during breaks, etc) and i tend to struggle to keep up with episodes as they come out. this means that by the time i’m done with one, most of my stuff is jossed (or geoffed in this case? idk) or outdated and the post sinks like a stone into oblivion. so! i’m going to change things up a bit with this one and write as i see the episode rather than collecting my thoughts later. in my experience with spn, that was a faster way to get them done. 

anyway. let’s see how it goes! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS ahead.

1. an auspicious start with some grave-digging!

digging up a grave and breaking open a coffin is some serious, back-breaking work--that dick did it on his own, likely straight after that fight with red hood, is a testament to the sheer intensity, stamina and discipline that he’s capable of. like, we like to joke about dick cooking cauliflower crust pizzas and making gar and rachel spar and memorise sun tzu--and despair at the obvious consequences of some of bruce’s parenting skills--but imagine crime-fighting almost daily without any superpowers, performing some of the most intense parkour in bulky, uncomfortable armour, doing detective work, pushing through every last barrier of exhaustion and then getting up to repeat it all over again the next day. dick probably thought he was going extra-easy on rachel and gar.

1.5. then again, dick probably had a hundred different easier ways to confirm whether jason was still buried or not, from using equipment to merely asking connor to have a quick look with his x-ray vision. but, no, he’s too caught up in confusion and terror, not really having come to terms with jason’s death in the first place, leave alone the possibility that he could be alive after all. he can’t possibly let the others know until he’s confirmed it himself, even if it means digging all through the night until his arms are jelly, thinking over and over again about jason’s eyes, jason’s voice, from behind that red mask. 

... besides, dick has good reason to believe that he could’ve been hallucinating. wouldn’t be his first psychotic episode, after all.

that just imbues this sweaty, desperate, fingers-scrabbling-in-gravedirt scene with that much more poignancy, and a fair bit of bone-chilling terror. dick is horrified to realise that jason’s grave is empty, but a part of him is also probably relieved.

1.75 (... also it’s curious that we’re never shown any of the team asking to see jason’s grave after they come to wayne manor. i guess it’s because the writers--and the audience--know that jason is actually alive, but these people don’t know that. i don’t know if it’s sad or infuriating or both that they’re barely shown mourning him.)

2. oh GOD the sheer TENSION in kory saying, “i don’t want to say it, but--” and dick quickly interrupting, “it was jason. i saw him,” and hank giving him this loaded sidelong glance. i love how dick’s precarious mental health from last season is still this big elephant in the room but at least nobody’s blowing up in his face and questioning his every decision yet

2.25. i love the relative matter-of-factness with which they’re discussing a possible resurrection. and, of course, ra’s al ghul is brought up and quickly dismissed

(still wouldn’t put it past this show to bring him up at the very last second as the real real mastermind)

2.5. “maybe they can bring donna back” OH KORY

2.75. didn’t they have this same conversation about killing/not killing rose last season? man, the og titans make me tired.

and i don’t know if it’s just hank, but there’s a definite in-group/out-group vibe going on with the og titans, where they’re not only ready to consider killing anybody who threatens the group but makes it difficult for new people to fit in. donna and kory got along well with each other, but the dynamics between hank/donna/dawn and gar/rachel/rose were somewhat strained, and with jason, they were really fucking terrible. it makes sense when you think about how the titans started and how they broke up the first time--both were fairly disruptive events, i’d imagine, in that they probably got together to break away from their mentors and strike out on their own, and when they split up, it was the first time they felt directly responsible for the loss of an innocent life.

but the titans that dick is leading now is explicitly about mentoring a young generation of heroes, about second chances and found family. dick definitely wants to reach out to him first, and i have a feeling he’s going to be forced to make some sort of terrible Choice later on in this episode. 

2.8. (honestly tho, this also seems like hank struggling with his own guilt re: jason; if red hood is not the kid that he failed, it’d be easier to fight him.)

3.

HANK NO

4. honestly this season is already ticking off so many things on my wishlist, but i really wish dick would sit down with the newer members of his team and trust them with important information the same time that he’s telling them to the other members. gar searching for help and reassurance from a man who just dumped all of his responsibilities on his son overnight and went AWOL is a sad sight

4.25. has it only been just 48 hours????? wow! jason’s definitely been planning the red hood gig for a long time now...

5. ezekiel, my man! shady looking guy gets into your cab without a destination in mind... no problem, get right in! said guy gets a call to go to the observatory when he’s barely even looked out of the window so far at gotham... yep, a damn tourist! i want more ezekiel in this show.

5.25. (of course jason has upturned table lamps all along the floor... we have to *gritted teeth* balance the TEAL with the ORANGE don’t we?)

5.5. “dick’s a fucking psycho--he could be following you right now.” hank... has no objection to that lol

5.25. hank, hank... this is bad-decision-palooza. i can’t imagine that hank actually thought that jason was reaching out to him for help, given that the last time hank and jason had any substantial interaction hank had been one of the people accusing jason of sabotaging the team. but for him to go seek out jason and go along with his demands without any backup, weapons or equipment? not the best idea he’s ever come up with.

(add to that getting into the swimming pool of a condemned gym... oh yuck.)

((yes, i have enough self-restraint to not cap his ass.))

(((cap his ass! HA!)))

5.5. do you think jason has bugs/monitoring equipment planted in wayne manor to monitor the titans, or remote access to the cave’s systems? wouldn’t put it past him.

6. oh man, hank came back before dick and the others could meet ezekiel! this is TRAGIC

6.25. i mean, it’s plot-convenient that connor was able to give so much information about the bomb from just looking at it once, but i also like to think it’s the luthor-side of him coming to the fore. it also reminds me of that (in)famous scene from the new52 run of Nightwing comics, where a bomb was attached to nightwing’s heart and luthor disabled it by killing nightwing (temporarily). it’s a neat little callback. 

6.55. “where i come from, you go after family? there’s no mercy.” BUT THAT’S THE PROBLEM ISN’T IT

6.75. i mean, dick’s making sense: this is a game, and they need to get it off playing out on jason’s terms. but having a member of his team in his face, doubting his reasoning and every decision? a very familiar sight. 

6.8. krypto with an a+ sense of humour? also a very familiar sight.

7. wayne enterprises... providing the military with... bombs that can be implanted in humans? a BIIIIG yikes. i guess it’s not too many steps above developing clandestine intra-dermal trackers and implanting them in your own sons, and bruce probably thought they could be used as part of negotiation tactics, but still... YIKES.

7.5. on the other hand, conner being asked to build a deactivation advice seems part of a growth arc that started from last season... he knows so much, but part of growing is learning, and part of learning is using what you know to create something new.

8. oh man, my heart broke at hank going “i’m an idiot... i screw everything up.” like. for him to go like this, after being brought down to such a low last season? struggling with pain and addiction and his relationship with the love of his life? it’s so sad.

9. oh, oh, oh! ronnie from schitt’s creek! i love her!

9.5. “one of jason’s minions” took his body out of the morgue... how deliciously morbid that he planned out his own death like this!

10. TALK TO HANK, DICK

honestly, tho, i’m quite impressed with dick here. trying to think beyond just the most alarming part of the crisis at hand, keeping his cool, delegating tasks, frequently touching base with different members of his team... well done. 

10.25.... whoops, spoke too soon. i’m genuinely confused here, tho. where did the van full of gold bars come from? why did they stop there and get out? how did dawn even know about this?

on the other hand, it’s cool to know dove has bulletproof feathers!

10.5. eh... curran walters isn’t really selling red hood’s menace to me so far. but then again, if titans version of red hood is vulnerable-kid-with-father-issues-trying-to-overcompensate, then yeah! yeah, it makes sense. 

11. “when bats have sex, they gotta have something to hang from” OH GOD HANK

... because i want smiley!gar on my blog :)

11.5. awww. i feel sorry for hank but NONE of these fuckers deserve gar except maybe kory

12. ohhh FUCK! look at jason being exactly one step ahead of the titans at every turn. nice.

no really, i love the building stakes and the building mystery - i feel like the deathstroke arc from last season should’ve been more like this. the flashbacks about jericho and rose came too late and after too much build up, which resulted in a very underwhelming and confusing season throughline.

13. HANK AND DIIIIIICCCKKK

“you’re doing your best by me. always have.” WAILING HERE

it also kills me to think that hank thinks that his imminent death is because of his failure to keep the team together (when he was clearly struggling with his own issues and was spiralling towards rock-bottom) and his fear that he will once again be the cause of the team falling apart. 

also:

14. “i grew up... you can, too. you just have to face your fear.”

yep, got scarecrow’s grubby little fingerprints aaaaalllll over this. 

14.25. nightwing’s got specialised batarangs! yay! (somehow i can’t see this universe’s dick calling them “wingdings”)

15. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

oh man, that was devastating. well done, show. fuck, well done, jason.

this is going to bring up all sorts of “if onlys” for the team. i can’t wait for some fucking aftermath.