#sick sick sick of people acting like no film based media is made with love and wonder and care anymore

[badolmen]

Some of y’all have GOT to get obnoxiously into amateur indie films on YouTube made for fun by Just Some Guy (gender neutral) and their friends. Go watch some shaky camera work and the best acting college age kids can muster for a story or concept they loved so much they put it out into the world. They’re braver and more genuine than literally anything you’ll see in a box office or streaming platform because they’re making art for art’s sake without a multibillion dollar industry breathing down their neck.

[tokkias]

How about actor au hc’s for fairy tail! (Nalu centered cuz i need my nalu crumbs)

so i got like 80% of the way through writing these before i realised i may have misinterpreted this ask, and that you were in fact probably asking for an au where they're actors on fairy tail as a show. oops! but these are actually headcanons that i have (to no ones surprise) talked about pretty at length with @nalunalu which is why this was my default list.

in fact, they even drew some absolute banging art based on one of these headcanons so you should go look at it <333

if that is in fact what you meant, and you still really want to hear my thoughts on it, i would still love to write that up, just send me another ask and i will make a post, but i hope you enjoy these general actor au headcanons nonetheless <3

misc natsu + lucy headcanons

natsu primarly does actions films and lucy mostly does dramas

natsu got his start in the industry as a stunt double but eventually started getting acting roles of his own

he does all (or most) of his own stunts

lucy gets into acting in college where she's doing a business degree at her fathers demands and she takes an improv class to try and make friends

she's really bad at improv and thinks it's fucking lame, but it sparks her interest in acting and she gets a conjoint degree in business and theatre

she would have dropped her business degree but if she did that her father would have stopped paying for it and it was the only way he would entertain the idea

as soon as she graduates she leaves home, cuts off all contact with her father and goes to pursue acting

she works waitressing and modelling for a while and she's offered the chance at a full time modelling contract but as much as she likes it, she still wants to pursue acting

natsu is crazy good at spotting cameras and paparazzi

like this video is natsu

there are so many photos of natsu and lucy where lucy's minding her own business, chatting along, while natsu just stares dead straight into the camera

natsu's instagram is made up entirely of bad pictures he takes of lucy

he only posts when he's contractually obligated to promote something and it's always his stupid genre of bad lucy photos

when he's not allowed to post bad lucy pics to promote his new projects, it's bad pics of his cat happy

his agency gets so sick of his terrible instagram prescense that he has it taken away from him and a social media manager takes over

they start posting actual nice good quality photos from red carpets and other events and people fucking hate it

the comments are so flooded with demands to bring lucy and happy back that they are forced to give it back to him, which he of course announces with a bad picture he took of lucy holding happy

all the comments are just like. the return of the king.

people constantly ask if his phone/camera is like 10 years old or if his terrible quality photos are an aesthetic choice, and it's not. it's 5 years old and has a crack on both cameras because he's always dropping it doing dumb shit

lucy still does a lot of modelling for magazines after her acting career takes off, but more for fun that for money like when she first ran away from home

brands are clambering at her feet to have her as their ambassador

she becomes a style icon and still retains her expensive taste from growing up in the heartfilia household

she wears lots of designer dresses on the red carpet and she works with a stylist but most of her stuff she picks herself

while lucy is always wearing show-stopping gowns on the red carpet and to every other promo event, natsu has one (1) suit he wears to every event

the only thing he changes is the shirt he wears underneath and it always matches what lucy's wearing

nalu specific headcanons

they meet for the first time on the set of a romcom that they're starring in opposite of each other and it's both of their first time doing anything like it

they're pretty much instant besties and they surprise literally everyone with how great their chemistry and comedic timing is

lucy did not know of his stunt double background until she watched him do one on set for the first time and she was fucking mortified. she screamed

their first kiss (and probably natsu's first kiss ever) is on set and they both get a little too into it for their own good

it's just a good old friendly kiss with no meaning whatsoever except for the fact that it definitely goes on for way longer than it was scripted to

they have a sex scene in the film and lucy is super nervous because it's her first time filming one

it's natsu's first time too but he's not nervous at all because he's jumped off of moving cars before so pretending to have sex with lucy is nothing compared to that

every time the cameras aren't rolling natsu is just goofing around to try make her feel more comfortable and it works a little too well because they're laughing and giggling and goofing off the whole time

if they were good friends before that, they're basically inseperable after it

on set, it's cute sometimes and infuriating other times

lucy's hair stylists and makeup artists fucking hate him because he will not leave her alone while they're trying to do her hair and makeup

he once got himself cursed out for giving her a noogie between her hair being done and get scene

once filming wraps they're both really bummed because they go from seeing each other every day to being lucky to see each other once every few weeks

once promo for the film starts they are attached at the hip

the films marketing team doesn't even have to try to push them into a fake relationship to promote the film because everyone just thinks they're dating anyway

in fact, they're so close that they're constantly accused of being in a fake relationship and that it's "so fake and forced" even though they're not actually dating

so much arguing ensues because of the sheer natural chemistry they have together in interviews even though both sides are wrong, they're just close friends who kiss for a job

lucy desperately needs everyone to know that they're not actually dating and that they're just friends but the films marketing team shushes her because it'll be good promo for the movie

natsu on the other hand does not care about it at all because he pays so little attention to the media anyway that he didn't even know people thought they were dating

both of them were pretty well known before the film, but the dating speculation and their acting in the film itself turns them both into household names and people hardly seperate one from the other

they both make cameos, even small ones, in each others films

lucy landed a role in a soap opera and natsu, who has never worked in television before, plays a recurring role as her love interest

he is not very good at acting in soaps because he thinks they're kind of lame and he's not practiced in it at all so his role is pretty limited to scenes with lucy because they just have stupid insane chemistry that everyone loves

natsu enters stage left. natsu kisses lucy. natsu exit stage left.

it's not until years of being best friends and well after the dating speculation dies down do they actually start dating, but neither they or their reps reveal it

no one gets confirmation that they're dating until pictures of their wedding pops up online and everyone is like THEY'RE MARRIED???

lucy writes a super long heartfelt post about how she got to marry her best friend and how much he means to her

natsu posted a picture of him and happy in matching suits and then the one (1) nice photo of lucy he has on their wedding day on the second slide with no caption

[stanleyl]

This is why I don't understand why ppl get mad at Tom fans for wanting him to work in roles that aren't Spiderman. Spiderman is a shared character, and he's always compared to his predecessors. I appreciate what it has helped in his career and I guess personal life but, Tom doesn't have a role or roles that he can cultivate a fanbase that is his own like his gf or the person the media and stans love comparing him to Timothee.

They have projects like Dune, Euphoria, CMBYN, and even now, Challengers were it blows up Twitter, and then people made their characters their personality, and it creates a fanbase and hit tweets. I know , Tom, fans say Twitter doesn't matter, but it does. Let's not lie!!! I remember a few years ago, someone made a tweet about what happened to Coco Jones career, and then she was made a video and agents reached out to her and now shes acting again and recently won a grammy. All from that one tweet.

Tom needs to get on the filmtwitter side as much as I don't care for those snobs, but they currently have so much power. Like Elle Fanning spoke how she lost on jobs because of her lack of social media presencem Mind you, she's worked with top directors in the industry. Just look at the power that Taylor Swift has online because of her stans. He's not a Tom Cruise whose fame doesn't need public approval because the films he's done in the past and now are classics.

Personally, I'm sick of the disrespect he gets from all accounts and I'm happy he's supportive of Z as a black woman but he's so fluffy about his own career and that's not fun. I hope he posts about R+J, but he's so reluctant to do things for himself. Like he don't even like his own birthday!!!😭😭😭

I agree on the fan base part because I'm tired of Spider-Man and (most) Tomdaya fans acting like they care for Tom outside of the things that really matter to them.

But I disagree on the part you say Twitter matters, we're not in 2013 anymore, TikTok is the most famous social media currently and Tom is really beloved on that App. The two girls you mentioned could only dream of having his social media engagement & Taylor Swift is a singer, her target audience is a different one.

Like I said before, I hope critics end up loving the play cuz I think this could help bring back some of the enthusiasm he used to have about his non-MCU projects that I think he lost after those TCR reviews.

[onlyallytothesun]

Hi, I want to ask you a question regarding the way Stella's abusive behavior was written. Yesterday I ended up debating someone on reddit when I expressed my criticism that Stella's abuse seemed one-dimensional and cartoonishly unrealistic cuz her only interactions with Stolas were aggressive or insulting, while irl abusers will often manipulate their victims with gaslighting or acting kind to maintain control, and how often theres a "honey moon period" where everything seems fine. Someone replied saying that my narrative "is harmful" to abuse survivors cuz not every abusive relationship looks the same and that in fact abusers can be openly aggressive and violent, and that Stella is not an unrealistic depiction of an abuser. I hope its OK to ask for your opinion on what they said: is Stella a bad or unrealistic depiction of an abuser or not, and if so, why? Is the narrative of Stolas' abuse?

Not ALL abusers are subtle, some are overt, VERY overt. Abuse can come in many forms, I agree on that. But Stella is very much the caricature of abuse, written for the sake of shipping fuel. Not an actual attempt to portray abuse. Aside from inconsistent writing that actively contradicts Stella's later depiction (The daughter pointing out that the parents at least co existed. But later depictions show Stella so cartoonishly evil its baffling the daughter didn't even notice).

I keep bringing up yaoi, because Viziepop has been accused of fethisization and again it doesn't miss me that Stella reads like a misogynistic depiction of a villaness in a mlm manga.

If im being honest depictions of women giggling evily as they torture the poor male character for shipping fuel just do more harm than actual good when it comes to the depiction of abuse. In the same way I despise most depiction of SA on media. Sure they could/do happen, but their often written for fake drama, evil characterization, and often overshadow the reality of the issue.

Stella is a Disney villain, and not even an enjoyable one. Stella's later speech when Stolas asks her why she stays is indicative of this. She turns around and exclaims how much she just loves torturing him. And we all roll our eyes, just like when the evil r*pist character jumps out of the alley way.

Its weird the show never mentions that she, unlike Stolas, doesn't have an immediate position of power. For now, her only job seems to have a kid. And that is a dark and depressing reality, that COULD have played into her abusive nature. If she never truly loved Stolas, and only stayed out of necessity, taking her anger out on her child and husband.

Mommy Dearest is a film based on a true story. Its campy, over dramatic, and the abusive mother was portrayed as more monstrous than she actually was. Yet her scenes of abuse hit harder than any of Stella's. Why? For many reasons. Her violent outbursts, her short temper, the way she project her insecurities on her daughter feel so tangible. All explained by the pressure she faced as an actress and the acknowledgement her old age would destroy her career, and that her younger daughter was an invisible threat. The scene of her screaming at her daughter when she cuts her hair is brutal. Made worse by the knowledge that only a few weeks ago, a mother publicly posted a video of her shaving her daughter's head as punishment in Tik Tok.

The mother almost feels like what Stella could have been. Over dramatic, overly violent, etc... but the mother's abuse is set up and explored. Again, Stella's is stereotypical, out of nowhere and contradictory to early writing. And for what? To actually explore the effects of an abusive partner? Or was it a quick justification for the writers to further woobify Stolas?

Intention matters, just as much as depiction. Its bad writing and im sick of people pretending otherwise.

[salti-thelatediagnosedautist]

Any other autistics left confused by live action media?

I rarely ever watch live action movies, but generally I have a hard time telling what is good acting, and what is bad acting (unless it is hilariously bad acting, like in twilight).

Often I will watch a live action movie and quite enjoy it, only then to afterwards read bad reviews. Or - alternatively, I will not recognise how amazing the acting was.

A moment that made me realise this recently was I watched the Moon Knight series. I really enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong. But then I was surprised when I watched ‘Cinema Therapy’ on Youtube cover it, and give the main actor (Oscar Isaac) extremely high praise for his acting. Nothing told me his acting was bad, I enjoyed watching him. But nothing clicked in my head to tell me that his acting was really super good, either.

I’m fairly certain that this... phenomenon(?) occurs because I don’t know body language or facial expressions (or even tone of voice) well enough to be able to judge someones acting. I often find it difficult or impossible to actually immerse myself in live action because all I can see is actors on a set.

I think this is a major reason as to why I (and a lot of other autistics) really prefer animated media. Watching real people interact in live action media is not nearly as engaging or clear to me.

In animated media, expressions are over-exaggerated, which makes it a lot easier for me to keep up. The amount of live-action scenes I’ve watched where the two actors are uncomfortably staring at each-other for extended periods of time is countless. Only for me to then realise later on that the scene was supposed to be romantic? Or even a respectful gaze? I cannot interpret those scenes AT ALL. No clue what’s happening. Then all the allistics go ahead and praise the wonderful acting. I’m just thinking “what happened?”. During scenes like this I always turn to my boyfriend and ask “what was happening there? I don’t get it.”

I think I also really like child-directed cartoons and animated media because there is often exposition. People like to make fun of exposition because to them, how the character should be feeling is obvious. But to me exposition is genuinely helpful and doesn’t bother me at all in most cases.

There are some live action shows that are more enjoyable to me because they are more clearly expressive, or plot based. But those are generally orientated to children/teens too. Think media like Harry Potter, Wednesday or Marvel movies. All of these kinds of media are pretty clear-cut on how characters are feeling. Usually because the show has a lot of other selling points to rely on (interesting characters, unique worldbuilding, special effects, plot twists, mysteries). Things like romantic comedies and drama pieces have never appealed to me because the core of their shows (good acting to convey complex emotions, in a subtle way) is literally inaccessible for me. I cannot consume that type of media and understand it at all.

Another interesting thing for me to note with live action VS animated media is gore (feel free to skip this bit if talking about gore is triggering to you, however it’s not graphic). Watching violence in live action media makes me extremely uncomfortable. I feel sick and want to run away. (There are a few exceptions where the gore is clearly fake and supposed to be funny, like in the recent film “Violent Night” (a pretty funny movie about a stuipidly violent Santa). But, in contrast, with animated media, I can watch the most bloody, horrible and violent scenes and feel nothing. Or just observe how good the animation is.

So yeah, basically TLDR; I love cartoons and don’t understand live action media because autism.

[dippedanddripped]

Old Nollywood aesthetics and fashion may be considered trendy today, but the films were not always so well-regarded. In the 90s and early 2000s, when these movies were made and watched in parlours across Nigerian homes as they were shot, straight-to-video, they were considered as bad entertainment, or ‘low culture’. To watch and enjoy Nollywood films was to celebrate mediocrity. But today, nostalgic young Millennials and Gen Zers are overlooking the jarring audio, grainy pictures, and sometimes hammy acting, to appreciate not only the grooming and style of the actors, but the original and diverse stories that reflect unique Nigerian experiences.

It was for this reason that sisters Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu started Nolly Babes, a nostalgic Instagram account dedicated to celebrating the cinematic period’s women. Started in December 2017, their first post was of Nollywood’s biggest star Genevieve Nnaji; a still taken from 2004 film Sharon Stone In Abuja, directed by Adim Williams. Nnaji plays the titular character, a sexually liberated young woman who uses her beauty and charm to ensnare unassuming men into doing her bidding.

The account is an ode to the female characters of old Nollywood who were often portrayed as warning examples. The storylines were steeped in moral principles rooted in the patriarchal culture and the dominant Christian religion of Southern Nigeria. A large number of the female characters were considered immoral because they kissed other women, challenged men, smoked and drank, or wore mini skirts. Today, Nolly Babes and similar accounts are reimagining these women, taking their scenes out of the moralistic context of the films, and turning them into iconic feminist personas.

The first time Nollywood content seeped into the mainstream internet consciousness can be traced back to 2017 when videos of Nollywood’s favourite comedic duo Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, better known as Aki and Pawpaw, rose to popularity due mostly to the influence of a now-defunct Twitter account @nollywoodroll ran by Nicole, a woman based in Brazil.

Their memes became the go-to reaction videos for expressing a wide range of emotions: joy, disappointment, sadness, frustration. The appeal was in seeing children making mischief or in adult situations – drinking beer and smoking cigars, wooing bigger women, or in oversized suits shouting instructions at people twice their size. Although both Ikedieze and Iheme were in their 20s in the early 2000s when most of the films were made, they mostly played children because of their body stature. By 2019, the memes had achieved such virality that brands like Rihanna’s Fenty would use them for social media clout.

Theodora Imaan Beauvais is the curator of Yung Nollywood, another archive of clips and stills from old Nollywood paying homage to its controversial female characters, after screenshotting moments from Nollywood she found “appealing or inspirational”. Yung Nollywood is remarkably distinct from Nolly Babes for its subtitling of the films’ stills from Nollywood films, something she attributes to Tumblr. While the idea to give witty captions to the actors’ facial expressions came from watching Netflix. “I thought, ‘If someone could describe Nollywood reactions in short phrases it’d be an art form on its own,’ and I became that someone.’”

In December 2019, Tochi and Ebele hosted a Nollywood-themed party in Lagos. Nollywood actor and musician Nonso Bassey attended the party dressed in a two-piece jean set and bucket hat, a signature look of the bad boy/alpha male archetype, and a role reprised multiple times by older actors such as Hanks Anuku, Emeka Ike, and Jim Iyke. Since that party, Nonso has attended social functions and premieres in outfits that make a nod to the fashion choices of that era of Nollywood. He insists, though, that he isn’t cosplaying Nollywood characters of that era. “I’ve always been attracted to the idea of merging old world charm with a new school approach,” he said.

The party caused a cultural stir amongst Nigerians and Africans both at home and in the diaspora – every other week, there seems to be a Nollywood-themed party held either in Lagos or London. Take for instance friends and business partners Imani Okunubi and Aseosa Uwagboe, two Nigerian-British kids who grew up in the UK. Nollywood was one of the ways they could connect back to their roots. That experience informs their event brand, Lasgidi to London, targeted at Nigerians living in the UK. “We wanted to create events that were reminiscent of the Naija hall parties (Owambe) we attended as kids, as we don’t want to see that culture die,” Aseosa said. Their next owambe is a Nollywood-themed party and guests are expected to come dressed in their “best nolly Y2K aesthetic”.

Below, the Nolly Babes sisters talk about creating and hosting the first Nollywood-themed party and the cultural moment it has inspired.

How did that first event come about – please take me through it, from the planning to how it turned out?

Nolly Babes: From the inception of Nolly Babes, we knew we had to throw a party. Fashion is a huge part of what makes Nolly Babes different from other Nollywood-themed pages and we knew we were the only ones that could set Nolly Babes as the dress code and have people commit as they did. There are many iconic Nollywood scenes and scenarios. The daughter meeting her evil mother-in-law, the ominous visit to the Babalawo, the campus stroll – just the mere mention of these scenes evokes images that have been embedded in the minds of our fellow Nollywood enthusiasts. The party scene is probably the most iconic of them all. Whether it’s in a club, a mansion while mum and dad are out of town (but coming home early to crash the whole thing) or poolside, the Nolly Babes party scene has its staples: mad music, dancing, and sick outfits.

December in Lagos is notoriously hectic. On each day, there are day parties, beach hangouts, concerts, and we just knew we had to be a part of it. Our flyer was the first thing we made sure was done right, and that has been replicated (but never duplicated) many many times. We went through at least six drafts of that until we got the flyer to be a realistic replica of the home video covers from the golden era. The DJs Kemi Lijadu and vIVENDII Sounds understood the assignment and played music from the Nolly Babes era. We’re talking Tony Tetuila, Mo Hitz, Wande Coal, Plantation Boyz… We curated a special cocktail menu: Genny Colladas, Jim Iyke’s Hard Lemonade, MargaRita Dominic, and our Lagos Island Iced Tea, in tribute to Nollywood stars Genevieve Nnaji, Jim Iyke, and Rita Dominic respectively. We had a video projection on the famous red wall at Nok showing a mashup of emblematic scenes. We were partying while seeing images of a young Jim Iyke dressed just like many of the attendees were dressed. It was magical! We have an event we’re planning in New York for the summer – it’s going to be a madness.

Did you envisage it becoming the cultural movement it’s now become?

Nolly Babes: We really didn’t. We hosted the party because we knew people were taking inspiration from our page for styling jobs and music video treatments, and wanted to give everyone a chance to recreate some of their favourite looks. Now every week we see people planning Nollywood-themed parties and sending people to our page for references. It’s awesome. Toke Makinwa even recently attended a Nolly Babes-themed party and she was dressed as a character we have immortalised – Regina Askia in President’s Daughter. She killed it! Even though the character wasn’t referenced, it was clear as day and it was awesome to see that she pulled it off! Honestly, when we see people really pay attention to detail and execute the theme well it’s so, so dope.

How has TikTok helped grow Nollywood's influence? You posted a scene from Girls Cot, the famous “you stink with poverty” clip on TikTok and it went viral and birthed these recreations even by non-Africans.

Nolly Babes: We’re just happy to see that another aspect of Nollywood that we champion – the iconic scenes and one-liners – is also resonating across the world. We see Nolly Babes as an archival work and as much as we focus on beauty and looks on Instagram, it’s nice to be able to point people in the direction of the scenes that are forever embedded in our brains. These are scenes we recreated in jest ourselves before there was even a Nolly Babes to begin with, so to see it catching on TikTok is exciting and a new frontier for us to fully explore. I think what distinguishes Nolly Babes from other Nollywood pages and what contributes to our TikTok success is that we really watch Nollywood movies. We grew up watching these movies and continue to do so now so we can capture those moments in films that the casual consumer or poster of Nollywood content might not.

What are your thoughts on Nollywood’s influence on the Alté scene? Music videos of artists such as Lady Donli and Odunsi nod to the aesthetic and fashion styles of that era.

Nolly Babes: Nollywood, and specifically the aesthetic we have shone a spotlight on, is probably one of the biggest influences in terms of visuals in that scene right now. I have never seen so many Eucharia (Anunobi) eyebrows on TV and we love it! It’s awesome to see our images and scenes being used in treatments and storyboards. If we’re being candid, we think it would be great if we got the chance to step into our stylist/creative direction bag and help with the execution of the aesthetic.

“The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens” – Nolly Babes

How far do you see Nollywood's influence on pop culture, beyond Nigeria and Africa?

Nolly Babes: When we moved to New York we found our Dominican and South American friends had also grown up watching Nollywood films. The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens. Nollywood clips were online everywhere – but it was always in a comedic way. Aki and PawPaw are meme gods now, and that’s because their expressions transcend cultural boundaries. Black Twitter eats that stuff up.

Nolly Babes chooses to center the beauty, style, and iconic imagery, even the home decor with our #NollyDecor hashtag of the golden era of Nollywood. We share the makeup, accessories, fashion, iconic phrases, and scenes in a way that isn’t just comedic but inspirational and aesthetically groundbreaking. I see Nollywood being at the centre of this Y2K resurgence that is happening all over the world, from TV to runways and fashion collections. That era is coming back around and, this time, the Black experience is being revisited and centered in a way it wasn’t back in the late 90s and 2000s. (Black people) were always the originators of the trends and this time they’re tapping into the source and Nollywood, particularly the era we celebrate as Nolly Babes, is a great resource for that.

Follow Nolly Babes on Instagram

[forthegothicheroine]

The King in Yellow, 1949

Much of this story is true.  Warnings in the tags.

When I had pneumonia in my early teens, my mother brought home an armful of VHS tapes from the library to alleviate my misery.  Knowing my snobbish preferences, she had grabbed copies of whatever she found in black and white.  I remember something musical that I suspect was Busby Berkeley, I remember Mildred Pierce (a bad choice, as it turned out- the plot includes a young girl dying of pneumonia), and I remember a period piece called The King.  I faded in and out of consciousness while I watched it, but it soothed me while I was awake and filled my fever dreams with sparkling images.  I could never find it at the library again, nor at Hollywood Video or even early Netflix (once my father got the subscription service where you could order practically every DVD.)  It was a bit odd that it seemed to be so obscure, given that it starred old Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman (and, although I initially forgot it, Marlene Dietrich.)  But even big stars make films that fall by the wayside in public memory, and it seemed that this was one of them.  Google was no help, and at the time that was that.

I didn’t see the film again until I was watching Turner Classic Movies at my grandparents’ house.  I loved watching that channel with them while filling out the crossword puzzle that came in their little TCM catalogue (all of it based on movie trivia, the only kind of crossword puzzle I’ve ever been any good at.)  I recognized a certain scene where Bergman stood on a balcony, looking sadly at the moon.  Her face had an expression of unutterable melancholy, and the crescent moon reflected in each of her eyes, giving the impression of two moons in one sky.  I had very little time to catch up on what I’d missed before we had to go meet my cousins at the local Italian restaurant.  I knew logically that the movie would be long over by the time we returned, but I turned on the channel anyway.  Of course it had moved on to the lesser known Alfred Hitchcock film Stage Fright, but then I heard Marlene Dietrich sing before I could reach the remote to turn the tv off in disappointment.  I knew that I had heard her sing before, and I knew it had been in The King.

Dietrich’s singing often comes across as somewhat campy today, with its Rs pronounced as Ws and it’s up-and-down tone.  Madeline Kahn parodied it brilliantly in Blazing Saddles, such that it was a bit of a disappointment when I finally saw Dietrich’s western Destry Rides Again and found it to be lifeless and inconsistent next to the parody.  Still, we remember her voice for a reason, and when I remembered it that night, I knew that its sardonic loneliness had rung through The King and made me shiver in my dreams.

The TCM schedule didn’t list The King in its time slot, but something else.  If I had taken down the name, maybe it would have helped me find it.  Sometimes the same movie runs under multiple names.

I didn’t see the film all the way through for many years, after I graduated college.  I had found a web page that listed public domain film noir, including one called The Masked Guest.  The website described it as a costume noir, and I curiously clicked on the link.  Once I took in the credits running on the youtube window, my eyes grew wide and I did not move from my place on the bed until the movie had run its course.

The credits did indeed list it as The Masked Guest, but I recognized the strange repeating design on the title cards.  They told me that in addition to starring Dietrich and Bergman, it was directed by Fritz Lang, and a character called The King was credited to “???”  (I hadn’t seen that kind of credit since the first Karloff Frankenstein.)  When the King finally appears on screen, though, it is unmistakably Orson Welles’s voice that booms out from behind his elaborate costume.

Here are the things I understand about The King, or The Masked Guest, or The Man in Yellow, or any other title I’ve found for it on public domain archive searches.  Dietrich and Bergman play princesses named Cassilda and Camilla, respectively.  Though Dietrich’s accent is German and Bergman’s is Swedish, they blend together to give the film the impression of being set somewhere on the map that I can’t quite find.  The scenery and camera angles are very Freudian, with a great deal of archways and pillars.

The first act of The King involves frankly dull romantic plotlines, and the only thing that really saved it was the feeling that the suitors were supposed to be insipid, a suspicion lended credence by the fact that the love interests were listed so low on the credits.  Dietrich is the scandalous sister and Bergman is the responsible one, though each takes on aspects of the other as the film goes on.  Dietrich sings her song at a party, dressed in a fake 17th century gown and leaning against a piano.  Although just a moment ago she had been laughing and joking with her gentleman friends, her song takes an abruptly serious tone (not seductive, not sentimental) as she tells the story of a city lost to time and memory.  Bergman slips away from the party and onto the balcony, where we see that wonderful shot of the moon in her eyes.  Is she mourning?  Is she longing?

Dietrich cuts off the song by abruptly screaming “Not on us, King!  Not on us!”  She flees the party weeping and shaking, and from there on the film goes mad.

Though uncommon, it is not unknown for movies to switch between black and white and color, done most famously in The Wizard of Oz.  The film The King recalls here is the silent Phantom of the Opera, which had a masqued ball scene tinted in shades of red and green that tried to provide a whole spectrum of color.  The effect is even odder in the masqued ball scene in The King- the only color that appears is yellow, highlighting things like candlelight, Dietrich’s hair, a passing gown, a vase of tulips.  It also highlights one particular masked figure, whose expressionless mask was decorated with a black pattern against a sickening yellow canvas- the same pattern I had seen in the opening credits.  The color of his costume causes him to stand out from the crown even when he is far off in the background, just one head among many others.  It must have taken long and painstaking hours of work to color in every frame.

Dietrich still seems broken up days after her song, though Bergman tries to coax her into joining the dance.  Finally, at midnight, Dietrich goes out to face the party, but only to demand that every guest remove their mask.  The yellow man with a voice that once warned America about a Martian invasion tells her that he wears no mask.  Bergman reacts with disbelief, but Dietrich starts laughing like a woman unhinged.  As she laughs, the yellow hue seeps out of the King’s clothing and face- if that really is his face- and begins to color the entire ballroom crowd.  I think that what follows is bloodshed, but if there is any carnage (doubtful under the Production Code censorship), the blood must be tainted yellow and splashed across the camera like daubs of paint.  Dietrich’s laughing face is doubled and tripled on screen until it dissipates, but even when it has faded offscreen, it feels as if her ghost continues to watch the proceedings.  

By the end of the scene (filled with German Expressionist camera angles and mad violin screeching), only Bergman remains alive, cowering behind a grandfather clock.  It does not hide her for long.  The King steps towards her and extends his hand.  Reluctantly, but with a fatalistic expression, Bergman takes his hand.  They walk away together hand in hand.  The screen shifts back into black and white, and then the credits roll before we can get a good look at all the bodies in the scene.  The credits say it was based on a play called The King in Yellow, although Raymond Chandler of all people apparently had a hand in the screenplay.

As I said, that’s what I think I understand.  It’s an oddly experimental art film for the era, and it may be awaiting rediscovery by the film festival crowd.  I feel as if I alone know about it, though that obviously isn’t true.  It is my little secret; I tell myself that my husband doesn’t need me to show it to him, it would be too odd for his taste.  I’ve rewatched it many times, even if it seems like each time I search for it I have to find a different video platform or torrent.  Naturally, no subscription site has it available.  Maybe I am the last person who will ever watch it.  Maybe no one will ever think to look for it again after me, and it will be completely forgotten.

When I was hospitalized, they let me use my laptop at night before I went to sleep (no power cord, though, in case I tried to hang myself.)  I found a youtube link for The Man in Yellow, and I watched it every night.  It wasn’t a soothing sort of movie, but having it in my mind all day and then watching it in the evening allowed me to think as opposed to crying endlessly while the other patients shot me awkward looks.  I clutched the childhood stuffed animals my mother brought me when she visited, and I always held them extra tight when the masquerade scene started.

I watched the movie when I had to move away from my beloved San Francisco.  I watched the movie when I lost the last of my grandparents.  I watched the movie when a doctor unwisely took me off my medication and I couldn’t manage to eat for a month.  I watched the movie when the whole world got sick and we all locked ourselves away from each other.  I don’t mind that I don’t entirely know what it means.  I don’t mind the nightmares.  In the hospital they kept telling us about mindfulness exercises, and maybe the fact that I can focus on every aspect of the film so closely that all else falls away is the reason I keep coming back to it.  I’m being mindful.  I’m not letting any stray thoughts invade my head.  I’m just watching and waiting for the next beat of every scene, leading inexorably to that yellow-stained bloodbath.

Streaming media doesn’t last forever, and each time I find The King, I worry that it will be the last time I ever can find it.  My efforts to download it have so far been unsuccessful, odd considering that it is in the public domain.

When I watch The King, I am once again a child in my bedroom being cared for in the throes of agonizing sickness.  I am once again sitting on the couch with my grandparents in front of the tv, both of them alive and lucid again.  I am once again in the hospital, all alone except for my stuffed animals and the staff trying to keep me alive.  The film reflects in my eyes like the crescent moon in Ingrid Bergman’s gaze.  It sings to me.

I am determined to find a way to obtain The King under any name so that I never have to worry about losing it.  During some of the worst times in my life, it is the only thing that has kept me sane.

[lanawinters-ily]

A New Life

Years in the acting industry & enduring the media take their toll on Audrey. Is it too late for Billie to save her?

Pairing: Audrey Tindall x Billie Dean Howard

Word count: 4600

Warnings: restrictive eating disorder, mentions of harming, mentions of death. If you believe this could be triggering for you, do not read, but I have a message for you at the bottom of the fic in bold.

Disclaimer: this is not based on my story, simply what I have learned along the way. Eating disorders don’t have a type - they can happen to any age, any gender, any race, any body type. They don’t pick a certain ‘brand’ of people, it is an illness that could effect anyone. Restrictive disorders aren’t the only type of ED, here is a link that explains some types & the signs to look out for (also look up diabulimia for diabetics). You never know, you could help save somebody’s life, or your own, one day. Helplines for eating disorders are available online, so use them if you are struggling, & let someone know so you don’t have to battle this alone.

Audrey stared at herself in the mirror. She did this practically all the time now; scrutinising every inch of visible skin, every curve, every blemish. The actress felt imperfect, far from whole, & it drove her to insanity. She had always had insecurities from adolescence, the typical awkward teen stages turning into brutal bashings of the entertainment industry. Audrey felt as if she couldn’t escape - she was simply never good enough. Too chunky, then too skinny, not experienced enough, & now too old. The list could go on, & the blonde wondered if it was just her that was the issue, or if everyone was treated like this. Nevertheless, Audrey was going to stop at nothing to achieve perfection, this time in her body now that her career was reaching a high point.

As said before, the actress had always been critical of herself, but it felt more real when others had started to point out her weaknesses. Audrey welcomed constructive feedback on her work, so had never actually had a problem with much of the media through her career, until she started filming My Roanoke Nightmare & met Rory Monaghan. The ginger actor was slightly more high profile than the blonde, so combined with the age gap, their relationship drew a lot of unwarranted attention from the tabloids.

Suddenly, Audrey felt as if she had aged 20 years overnight. Pictures were snapped everywhere she went, deliberately trying to capture every bare face, every bad hair day, just to sell the story that Rory was too good for this ‘older woman’ & that Audrey should stick with her own age as she simply wasn’t pretty enough for a younger man. The relationship was supposedly about money, fame, media attention, or Rory’s apparent ‘mommy issues’ (even though he called his mother at least once a week to check on her).

So really, their union was about anything but love. The poison created by the journalists & the public slowly started to seep into the relationship, creating strain that couldn’t be ignored. Both actors valued their careers highly, rightly, as they had both worked incredibly hard to get where they were. A divorce was imminent although each person still felt very in love with the other, they both felt that it was bad publicity that could destroy their futures if the marriage continued.

Of course, fate intervened on the sequel of their successful show, Return to Roanoke. Rory was murdered, slashed across the throat & hung above in the trees, where Audrey had found him soon after. She had never felt so sick to her stomach, so broken, so numb yet feelings all too overwhelming. The universe had refreshed her career by removing Rory from the equation, & for boosting the actress’s success from the sudden ‘sympathy’ articles.

But Audrey’s love had gone.

She had finally been made aware of how cruel the world was, from Rory’s early death but also from how she had been treated for the duration of their time together. How could the world not understand that love was love? Not a publicity stunt, not a projection of trauma - just two people united by attraction from the inside out. It seemed that only she knew this, & it felt impossible to express.

Audrey felt as if she could never be perfect. Who could, when you try your hardest to make other people happy, but just get it thrown back in your face? She was old, she was past it, she would never feel happiness again.

Then along came Billie Dean Howard.

Billie Dean was the definition of angelic in Audrey’s eyes. She was ethereal, a shining blonde with a face that radiated eternal youth. When they first met, the actress didn’t know if she wanted to be Billie, or to be with Billie, but all she knew was that the medium was everything she was not. The media didn’t criticise this relationship, both women were similar age, similar success, just similar in general. But the damage had already been done. Audrey never really felt truly happy despite Billie Dean giving her everything she could ask for & all of the love in the world, because it felt like time was running out. Was it for her time with Billie, her success, or for life in general? The blonde didn’t know, but all she could visualise was the hourglass emptying; sand slipping through the grips of time to plummet into her empty pit of memories.

Audrey had gotten into the habit of critiquing every move, every action when around Billie Dean, starting in public spaces due to media coverage, but the routine soon became so familiar that she did it even when alone. Each laugh was too high when Billie would make a joke, she was too clumsy when walking, her fashion sense wasn’t as glamorous as her girlfriend’s; the list was endless. This time the articles weren’t saying this, just Audrey. Nothing was ever good enough for her anymore, & it now went far further than despairing of her character.

At first it was an increase in exercise. Audrey simply believed that she could get a little more toned, lose a little weight around the middle, that was all. Then it became obsessive, the actress doing reps between takes at work, & even if Billie Dean left the room for a few minutes. But it wasn’t enough, she still felt out of control.

But what can you control when nothing in your life can be manipulated to your will? Why, food of course.

Salads were Audrey’s fixation for a while, endless dieting accounts on Instagram telling her that carbs were the Devil’s food & that it was impossible to consume them without gaining shedloads of weight. Then even that became too much. Each bite screamed unhealthy, overflowed with calories until the blonde felt so full that she could scream - obviously she wasn’t physically full of anything, just a stomach full of air. Really, cutting out these nutrition groups & reducing food to tiny bites was more damaging than eating a balanced diet, but of course when you’re sick you can’t rationalise this fact.

These accounts were bullshit, made up stories of taking out while food groups in attempt to prevent ‘bloat’ or to help exercise. When in reality people lie, or make up theories when they really have no clue on the human body & how it processes food, or they just want to promote products that ‘work miracles’. It’s all ignorant, & it is incredibly harmful because when people are vulnerable, & have imperfections, companies target that to gain attention, no matter the cost of life.

Audrey was one of millions of unsuspecting people being fed the untruths of social media & capitalism, but all she could think of was her body in the mirror in front of her eyes - she no longer had the energy to comprehend in anything else. It was her body until she died, which actually didn’t seem as frightening anymore. At least she would finally be perfect.

Through her haze of obsessive thoughts, the blonde peered back into the looking glass in front of her. Everything was wrong. Audrey welled up with tears & sobbed at the unachievable nature of her goals, not even sure anymore just what she could do to shed the last few pounds she craved to lose. Even as she dried the water from her eyes, her view was still distorted, whether it was dysmorphia or dizziness.

The sight in front of her seemed warped, like a cruel joke in a hall of mirrors. To a typical person, Audrey was gaunt & pale looking, extremely unhealthy because of how much weight she had dropped over the last few weeks. But to the sick blonde, it was all too much, trying to make her hands reach through & tug on the flesh to mould it to her touch. Audrey was not clay, could not be prodded & poked until she reached the perfect model, & she resented herself for it. If only she could cut into her skin & remove the contents from within, that would really solve her problems.

Suddenly the door slammed downstairs. Audrey jumped at the unexpected noise, & looked confused at her phone to find the time. Surely ten minutes ago it was only 2pm?

The clock read differently. It was 6:30, meaning that her girlfriend finished work around half an hour ago & had probably bought dinner with her, as she did on busier days. Time is not logical in a disordered mind; hours feel like minutes as the whirling thoughts consume the mind & poison every aspect until there is only hatred. Almost half a day had passed & all Audrey had done was stare at her reflection with enough venom to kill a thousand men.

Oh, dinner. The dreaded word, unavoidable & scarier than the childhood monster under the bed. The actress could put on a brave façade, hide under feigned illness, or make up excuses, but she knew that Billie Dean would catch up eventually.

“Just one more week,” her mind repeated; “a few more pounds, can’t you do that? Keep in control & it will all go how you want. You will be perfect if you keep this up by then, that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Yes, of course that was what Audrey wanted – a few more meals could go amiss for happiness that couldn’t be bought any other way. She seemed to be forgetting this was what she had told herself week after week for the past few months.

Billie would just have to wait a little longer, though a ‘little longer’ could be a lifetime for a sick brain.

“Babygirl? Are you here honey?”

It was time. The curtain was lifting & Audrey had no choice but to perform. It was funny that way, that her career & the cause of her hate was also the habit that was allowing it to stay. The blonde was an actress, she spent all her work life pretending to be someone she wasn’t, feeling emotions that she didn’t connect to altogether, so it was a natural instinct to play a happy Audrey at home, when her true self felt as if it was crumbling out of reach.

“There you are sweetheart. I’ve been looking for you everywhere! How are you, my love?” Billie gushes as she drifts into the bedroom & pulls Audrey in for a gentle hug. The actress tensed up; another defence mechanism brought about by her insecurities of her body.

She didn’t want anyone as whole, as angelic as Billie Dean Howard touching her until she was ready, until she felt fully satisfied with all of her ‘work’, despite the fact that the medium was her girlfriend. Part of it was a fear of repulsion, that Billie would leave any second once she realised just how disgusting & imperfect Audrey was, but another part of the blonde knew just how sick she was & was afraid of change if her lover ever figured it out.

But Billie Dean already knew.

Disordered eating is a private struggle, the sufferer often taking every measure possible to conceal their behaviours & intentions from those around them, but Billie knew her girlfriend like the back of her hand. At first, she had thought Audrey was having an affair, from how long she was away from home, how they would never eat as a couple, how she would avoid affection whenever they were together. However, after observing closer, the medium saw a familiarity in the shorter blonde’s odd shift in demeanour.

When Billie Dean was young, her elder brother had an eating disorder. Unfortunately, the older Howard son was a little overweight to begin with, so even though he actually weighed a perfectly healthy amount, he was encouraged to lose a few pounds & given ‘healthier choices’; fuelling the insatiable desire of his eventual disorder, stoking the fire until it was too raging to be controlled. Of course, when their parents noticed the habits spiralling out of control & took their teenager to the hospital, they were refused treatment, not only because the boy seemed a ‘normal weight’ but also because he was male, stigma chasing at them from every angle. Little Billie had to watch her brother scream at every plate of food, watch him lose hair & snap his nails from lack of nutrition, watch him wear layers after layers because he was always so cold, & watch him eventually never leave his room because he was too weak from not eating.

It was terrifying for them all, & it seemed impossible because they simply could not get the help needed anywhere.

Just weeks after being turned away from the team at the hospital, her brother collapsed at school. His heart wasn’t beating enough, & his pulse was so weak that if he walked too fast or even stood up, he could die on the spot. He was admitted to the impatient psych unit, & slowly started to recover, though it took years & lifetimes of trauma along the way, not just for him but Billie & her family also.

Nothing can erase an experience like that, fear like that, from your mind.

Billie Dean was wary of approaching Audrey because she hated confrontation & was terrified of driving her love away, however the risk of losing her girlfriend in the way that she almost did her brother outweighed this doubt for the medium. All the measures were in place; Billie had called a private dietician that she knew to assess Audrey this week, had made demands to take time off work for both of them to support her girl, & even collected one of the actress’s ‘safe foods’ on the way home to try to coax her girlfriend with.

Billie was scared out of her mind for what was to come, but she knew that she had no choice to do this another time. The talk had to be tonight.

The couple exchanged accounts of their days sat in the bedroom; Audrey’s speech quiet, snipped & muffled, whilst Billie Dean rambled with quick sentences that were almost impossible to follow, a nervous habit she had accumulated since she was a child – she could ‘talk for England’ as her British girlfriend would usually joke. Of course, Audrey hadn’t laughed for weeks by now, let alone made bubbly conversation.

“Honey?” Billie interjected quietly into the silence that had settled amongst them; “Do you want to go pick a movie? We can sit together & have a film night this evening like we used to!”

Of course, this was just another step on the taller blonde’s ladder of a plan. She needed Audrey downstairs to try to feed her girlfriend & to have a proper conversation, but Billie knew that the actress would not go down to the dinner table without a fight. The lower level of the house was the source of Audrey’s fears; the kitchen, the dining room, all of the food & where it was eaten. If she stayed upstairs, she was safe & hidden from her anxieties, but it would only get worse if she was not forced out of her safety zone, which was rapidly shrinking in size as time passed by.

A shadow of a smile graced across Audrey’s limp features at the memories of their early relationship, & the nostalgia of the simple times in which love overruled every problem & reduced it to insignificance. The only thing that mattered in those days was the woman by her side, the actress remembered feeling invincible, as if she could reach the stars with Billie Dean on her arm.

She would do anything to get into a time machine & travel back a few years, which is probably how she found herself sitting on the sofa & staring blankly at the Netflix homepage on the TV screen. A small part of her brain had willed her to at least try a little for her girlfriend. Audrey didn’t hear Billie bustling round the kitchen next door, setting the table to prepare for the war that was about to commence. All the shorter blonde wanted to do was lay down here & sleep for a thousand years, sleep until she wouldn’t wake up & all of her problems would disappear. She genuinely thought that would be possible by now, lack of food reducing her energy levels so much that the short trip down the stairs into this room was equivalent to sprinting a mile at this point.

“Audrey, baby? Can you help me with something?” a sweet voice sang from the kitchen, an innocent bird song ringing deep from the depths of hell.

The actress shuffled into the room with tired eyes, which soon widened with horror at the sight before her. It was a normal sight, two plates opposite each other with one full, & one relatively small portion of salad & utensils. But to Audrey it was her greatest fear being thrown in her face; overwhelming, shocking, & most of all, absolutely petrifying. Once she had managed to tear her terror-filled gaze off the monster on the table, she encountered a new problem.

Billie Dean Howard.

To Audrey this was the ultimate betrayal. What was Billie trying to do? Ruin all of her hard work? Did she want Audrey to look ugly & grotesque so that she could look even more perfect by standing next to an ogre? A freak? How would she ever, ever look anywhere near acceptable with such a hateful, selfish person by her side?

“Babygirl? Are you going to try to eat?” Billie whispered, trying to sound confident when in fact Audrey’s cold stare had reduced her to a tremble.

She was now sat down, fiddling with the knife & fork by her hands & wondering just what would happen if she stabbed herself with this blunt instrument right now. Or flipped the table. Or the Apocalypse began.

Anything to escape dinner with the woman she was starting to incredulously despise. Right now, she would rather take her chances in the haunted Roanoke house than be sitting with her girlfriend & a plate of food.

“No.”

Billie Dean looked up with wide pupils & a quivering lip. Of course, this was going to be difficult.

“Why not, sweetheart?”

“No, never ever.” Audrey replied in a blunt, monosyllabic tone. She couldn’t be bothered to deal with this nonsense right now, but on a deeper level, she didn’t even have the vitality to voice her deeper emotions, the life being sucked from her body as the disease overtook.

The medium put down her own fork & meandered carefully over to kneel by her girlfriend’s chair. They would have to do this together; bite by bite, fight by fight, until the first battle was over.

“Come on honey,” Billie sniffed as Audrey flinched away from her touch; “Just three forkfuls? Ok, it’s nothing at all, honestly sweetheart.”

She’s going to ruin it all, all of the hard work. You’ll be nothing & you’ll never get anywhere.

“NO!” Audrey yelled in frustration; “No I won’t, you can’t make me,” Kicking her legs & wringing her hands in some sort of tantrum or fit. She felt like she would burst with anger or sadness at the idea that her girlfriend had stabbed her in the back & her intentions were revealed.

“Two mouthfuls, baby? You can do this, I’m here my love, it’s all going to be ok,” The medium reassured as she guided a small amount of salad towards the shorter blonde’s mouth, like a mother encouraging her child to eat by playing airplanes.

See, you’ll never be perfect. Ever. You’re useless, hopeless. You need to get away if you have any hope of achieving anything.

“No no no no! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” Audrey cried, malevolence spitting out of her vocal chords.

Billie was not perfect; her love was whole yet fragile, & her heart shattered hearing this. She knew that it was the illness talking, that her Audrey would never speak with such carelessness & spite, but it was all too much for a logical viewpoint right now. Tears streamed down her face, trying to wash to pain away, even though all she wanted to do was to take her girlfriend’s agony into herself & to remove every negative image that had led her to this moment.

Audrey paid no attention to the medium’s despair, instead shoving the fork away, trying to get it as far from her view as possible. She almost knocked Billie Dean over from her crouching position through this action, & took the opportunity to step aside, to run as far away from the kitchen & the taller blonde as she could muster.

As the actress stood, familiar blurred vision misted her eyes & she swayed gently as if there was a slight breeze in the room. The lack of nutrition made this a frequent occurrence, but what was not typical was the narrowing of the tunnel that had formed, & the grey static in her range of view getting closer & closer together until all she could see was dots.

“Honey, baby? Oh god,”

And soft, comforting arms was all she could sense until everything changed to black.

The curtain had fallen.

- - - - -

The intermission was over, & low-toned notes rose from the orchestra pit. The half was to begin, hopefully this part would be better than the first.

The scene began with a soft surface, cushions underneath the actress’s spine when she had expected hard kitchen tile. Next were delicate hands rubbing up & down in a soothing motion along her arms, with hushed whispers forming a rising vibrato by her ears.

Audrey could feel, but she wasn’t sure where she was & how she had gotten here. She wanted to open her eyes for answers, but there was something comforting about the darkness behind her eyelids & how she was blocking out the world & all the problems it had brought.

Sobs changed her perception, however. They were a little recognisable, yet very odd to the blonde’s hearing, as if she had heard it in a past lifetime. Out of pure curiosity, Audrey opened her heavy lids & peered through to explore her surroundings.

An angel was crying next to her body. Not just any angel, her angel. Billie Dean Howard had her head in Audrey’s chest, burrowed in as if she would never let go, & was openly wailing into the valley of the clothed breasts. Her body was shaking violently with the sobs & her breath hitching every few seconds as if the medium was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t even make the space in her consciousness to remember to breathe.

Out of instinct, Audrey reached out to stroke Billie’s hair, an action that she knew always soothed her girlfriend when she was stressed or anxious. She was confused & concerned, having never seen the medium cry in such a way before, but then her memories came back & the guilt flooded in.

Billie Dean jumped at the change in the shorter blonde’s breathing & the careful touch to her scalp. The medium quickly sat up & frantically wiped her tears with the sleeve of her blouse to clear her sight. There were her babydoll’s beautiful, chocolate eyes glancing slightly puzzled back at her. The relief of seeing Audrey conscious & less tense than their last interactions sent Billie flying back into her love’s arms as she tried her best to hold in further sobs.

“I’m sorry Bill, I- I really don’t know how it got this far,” Audrey started, struggling to find the words to voice her emotions & the secrets she had hidden for all this time.

Billie shushed her girlfriend lightly, shaking her head as if to silence the actress’s stuttering words & unspoken aura of remorse.

“Honey, you’re sick. It’s an illness, a disorder; you’re not in control of your thoughts or your actions when it has a hold on you. You are enough, & you are so so worthy of feeling much better than this. You’re perfect sweetheart, I would never lie to you.”

Despite the medium’s certainty, Audrey looked unsure & her hands shook slightly at the acknowledgement of her lifestyle. She didn’t feel worthy of Billie Dean’s patience or calmness in the face of such adversity & unnecessary pain on her part. The shorter blonde’s face of hesitancy prompted her girlfriend to reach into her pocket & pull out her phone.

“You see this here?”, Audrey squinted at the screen to realise it was her, on their second date in a field of flowers & trees, arguably the happiest she had ever been.

“That’s my Audrey. My beautiful, sweet, kind, sometimes irritating, but always hilarious, Audrey Tindall. She’s the love of my life, & I’ve never been so taken aback by someone’s beauty quite like I do hers, even when she wakes up with her sticking up in all directions & the worst morning breath in the world,”

Audrey chuckled sadly with tears gently tracing her cheeks.

“It’s selfish, but I miss her more than anything. She’s my girl, & I wouldn’t change a thing about my babydoll. Look at how the sunlight shines off of you in this photo. It’s my favourite, because it just represents you sweetheart. Do you know why?”

The shorter blonde looked up into Billie’s sincere face with a brow furrowed in confusion.

“Because you’re my sunshine. You light up my life, & without you I couldn’t survive. You’re the sun to my moon Audrey, you’re just as bright & beautiful, & you always will be. You’re forever mine babygirl, I love you to the stars & back. If only you could see just how beautiful you are,”

Audrey bit her lip as a little light returned to her eyes. Maybe there was a future ahead after all; it went far wider than herself & her perception of her body, that was only a tiny aspect that carried her from destination to destination. Life is a photo album made of memories, not physique checks or restricted meals. You need a healthy body in order to live a contented life, & Audrey was starting to learn this now.

“My love,” Billie started, sitting beside the actress & pulling her into a loving hold; “Do you want to get better? I have everything in place, & I will be here the whole journey, sweetheart. What do you think?”

The shorter blonde looked up into the brown eyes of her future, & took a deep breath to summon all of her strength for the progress ahead.

“Yes.”

And that was enough.

- - - - -

One year later:

Life was now life for Audrey, not a series of days in which she would fixate on each meal & the consequence it would bring. There were bad days of course, but the good ones far outweighed negativity as time went on, & the actress found herself growing to love food & once again.

Billie Dean was elated, not just to have her love back to normal, but to have a certain future in which they could both travel forward with joy & lack of apprehension, just taking each day as it comes.

So many memories had been made that would have been lost on the road if it wasn’t for Audrey’s ongoing recovery. Spontaneous brunches, intimate dinners, & even a luminous holiday to Italy - seeing Billie with tomato smeared up to her forehead from an enthusiastic mouthful of pasta was enough to convince the shorter blonde that these moments were just too beautiful to miss.

She had learned that she was not perfect, nobody was, but with Billie by her side & a newfound smile on her face (plus a full stomach) nothing seemed to matter as much anymore.

Recovery was, without a doubt, a new life for Audrey Tindall.

Happy one year of recovery to me!

I won’t lie, it is difficult, but it is also the best decision I ever made. I feel so much more confident in myself, so much happier, & the day goes by so much easier when I enjoy food rather than it being a constant stress.

So if you’re struggling right now, choose recovery & ask for help. I promise you it is worth it entirely.

Do it for your past self, your future self, but most importantly yourself right now. Life is just too short to be worrying about something that could enrich your experiences even more. Take care, I love you <3

Taglist: @ka-s @ninaahs @stayevildarling @l0verssr0ck @babypocahontas @winters-witch-bitch @basicasshole @bottom4delia @forevercountess @violentwavesofem0tion @sporadicsupercorpquotesmonger @liberosisaspire @mellowalieneggsknight @supremeinlilac @thecasualgeek1 @lucykilljoy @mrsdeanhoward @cordeliaswhore @loverofallthingssarah

[imaginesforjohnnydepp]

Met Gala (Johnny Depp x fem reader)

for anon @kittenlittle24 @evelynrosestuff

for the vibe of this, listen to Could It Be? by Christy Carlson Romano here 

You looked absolutely stunning, but you were always stunning. This was Johnny’s exact thought as you ascended up the stairs into the Met Gala, and he just couldn’t tear his eyes away from you; the lights from the camera flashes and the tent seemed to bounce off your metallic/silver dress... and the large diamond on your right hand that seemed to mock him. Johnny hated the way your fiancé’s hand gripped your waist, hated the way you smiled up at him as he did so. As the night progressed, you found yourself in the bathroom trying to get in Kylie Jenner’s Met Gala selfie with your head on some pop star’s shoulder. After dinner and the musical guest, you roamed the exhibit alone after Alex had to leave early.

The entire thing was absolutely beautiful, you thought as you snapped pictures for your friends and family back home, and you made a mental note to visit during the rest of it’s duration. While you thought you were the only person on this side of the museum, you were proven wrong as you heard the scuffle of feet on the marble floor and the hushed voices bouncing off the walls. “Are you out of mind? Y/N’s engaged and definitely not into me.” It was Johnny’s voice and it sounded like was talking on the phone. Johnny was quiet for a while as the other person spoke.

“Tim, I promise it would not make a difference if I told or not. You should’ve seen the two of them. The way she was looking at him, it was disgusting, and the worst part is that she can’t see that he’s using her.” You almost choked on your breath. What did he mean by that? Johnny’s in love with you, and if so, for how long? You quickly turned back in the direction in which you came, trying not to trip in your heels.

There was no way Alex was using you, right? He loves you, and yeah, it was a bit too fast, but when you know, you know. Isn’t that what everyone says? This wouldn’t be the first time someone said something like this about Alex, your fans online thought so too, but they were wrong about him, they don’t know his heart the way you do. You quickly ducked into a restroom and into a stall to check your Twitter feed, and after reading a few messages, you felt a little sick.

oh god, the met gala is going downhill. how tf are so many “influencers” getting invited? one said. Another one: y/n looks so gorgeous but that rat ruins it. And the last one: funny how y/n and alex have been together for less than a year and he’s already signed to a modeling agency and going to the met gala. The other comments were pretty much the same and you wanted to throw up. You thought back to everything that had happened since you confirmed our relationship with Alex; his following on social media had grown exponentially, he did sign with a modeling agency and landed a L’uomo Vogue cover and campaign for Gucci and countless other brands.

Your friends in the modeling world told you it took them twice as long to get steady work and to get their foot in the door. And then the paparazzi to deal with, they were always popping up, even at the most secluded places... like at your favorite restaurant in your hometown. You’ve never had to deal with that while visiting your family, and while you would take pictures with fans, that was it. All of it was starting to click.

You needed to end things with Alex, like yesterday, and you thought back to Johnny’s conversation: “It wouldn’t make a difference if I told her how I feel about her.” How could you miss that? The first time you ever met him was at an audition for one of his movies; the movie was based off a book and it was between you and another girl, and even though you didn’t quite match the physical description of the book, he fought tooth and nail for you to be in the movie. You had a small crush on him while filming, but at the time, he was in a committed relationship with two kids. You were a law school drop out trying to prove to your family that this “acting thing” could work, so you never acted on it.

He had taken you under his wing and supported you in the early days of your career, and still does. All of that was a decade ago, and now you’re at the top of your game and still remain close friends (which Alex doesn’t like), even filming a movie with Lily-Rose and interviewing her for one of her first magazine covers. Your little crush on Johnny never really went away, and before you could tell someone, you met Alex and the rest was history. You never thought Johnny would ever be interested in you and that you could ever have a chance with him so you let it go.

But now Johnny is single, and you’re engaged and ten years older. It was completely unfair. It’s not like you could pretend everything was normal, but what could you do? Go up to him and admit that you overheard his very private conversation? Yeah, that’ll work.

As the night wore on, you danced to the music the dj was playing with your celebrity friends and took pictures and videos with them before heading to an after party that Rihanna was throwing. You turned on your phone to see the multiple calls and text messages from Alex wondering where you were so you typed back: going to the rihanna after party. see you when i get back to the hotel. This was one of the things you hated about Alex. He could be so clingy and could constantly blow up your phone asking where you were. You turned it back off and went on with your night.

“Hey you. I’ve been looking for you all night.” You finally found Johnny at the bar nursing a glass of water. “I’ve been... around.” He took a sip of water before asking the bartender for another refill. You took a deep breath and let it out slowly; it was now or never, and you know that if you don’t do it now you’ll never do it.

“Johnny, can we talk? Like really talk? Because I feel like I haven’t spoken to you since I got engaged. You got engaged two months ago, and you and Johnny check in with each other every week. “Johnny, I know. About everything.” His brown eyes widened in fear and it reminded you of a child who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner. “God, Y/N, I’m so sorry, you must think I’m disgusting---”

You cut him him off. “No Johnny, I don’t” You told him about the crush you had on him while you were filming together ten years ago and you could feel your face heat up in embarrassment, then it was over. You kept your eyes down on the bar top the entire time. “Johnny, what are we going to do?”

All of this felt so wrong, and it felt like you were cheating on Alex, which you weren’t but still. Alex is your fiancé, you’re supposed to be in love with him. Of course you love him, but lately you’ve been feeling annoyed, about everything. You’re tired about being asked about wedding plans, fighting about where to live, Alex speaking calmly to the paparazzi as they invade your privacy. Sick and tired of all of it.

“Y/N, you’re engaged, not married. There’s still time.” For a second you thought about what it would be like with Johnny, how easy it would be. The both off you are private people and you get along with his kids, so nothing bad on that front. You fiddled with the engagement ring before pulling it off; that felt much better and your hand felt a lot lighter. “I don’t think I can marry Alex. I think I made a mistake.”

You finally said it. Said the four words you’ve been trying to push down for the last two months; it felt good to say out loud. You slipped the ring in your clutch. You threw your arms around Johnny and quickly kissed his cheek. “I have to break it off with Alex.” If all went well, then you would make plans to leave L.A. before the media storm could hit. 

Maybe your place in the countryside just outside your hometown? You could only hope that this break up could go smoothly.

[runephoenix6769]

“What is with the Blake / Yang hate this week? Folks seem particularly fired up.” I asked this question on a forum because of something I’ve noticed the last few days on discussions about Blake and Yang/Bumbleby/shipping in general. I keep seeing the same answers.  “It ruins the team’s dynamic.”

Welp, I’m pretty certain none of those people would say that Raven/Tai and Tai/Summer ruined the team’s dynamic. Or that Ren and Nora are currently  ruining the team’s dynamic.  What is this holy than thou crusading to protect the sanctity of the team dynamic? Rwby has always been first and foremost about interpersonal relationships. It’s what drives the actual plot. Character growth, failing relationships/friendships. How they change over time, either to grow or crumble. 

“It’s being shoehorned in, for fanwank.” How? How is it being shoehorned in? Give me a narrative breakdown as to where/how/when this occurs? Compare it to the Sun/Blake narrative and show me the glaring differences between the Yang/Blake narrative to prove that bumbleby was never planned yet blacksun was?  (Sidenote. Anyone that has been asked to do this on the forum has yet to do it.)

“Yang showed interest in boys.”“ Yes, yes she passed comment once. In vol 1 episode 1. 8 VOLUMES AGO. She has shown not a lick of interest in guys since. Its almost as if she’s like any normal 17 year old girl who is growing into adulthood and figuring herself out, who might be realising her interest in Blake isn’t strictly platonic and is trying to navigate that whilst also grappling with what that means with regards to their friendship. And dealing with an over arching situation that is, ya know, potentially the end of the world as they know it.  It’s about two years in universe, right? Which is about right of an amount of time for what its happening between them to play out. It only feels like longer to the audience because, well, its taken 8/9 years to tell the story up until that point. 

“The Fans are too loud/vocal/come on too strong.” Ok, this one I agree with, we are loud and vocal and that might come across as coming on strong  (here’s a huge) BUT, there is actually a genuine explanation for why it seems that way.   If you really think about it, objectively. 

Hear me out.  Fans are excited about the potential representation we don't otherwise usually get in media. I mean, if you have 10,000 pieces of media and only ONE of them represents lgbtq people, of course we’re gonna be excited and talk about the ONE quite a bit with others who are like us. This might also be the first time we’ve seen anything like this, or seen ourselves represented in a somewhat positive light. It stands to reason that the other 9999 pieces aren't going to hold our attention as much, esp if its the same hetero romance played out a bajillion times before, right? I mean, if you have a group of people who are constantly represented in the 9999 other shows, their voices are going to spread thinner, right? They aren’t going to be gathered all on one place, talking about the same thing because there are 9999 other choices to connect them to other people. They aren’t going to care as much if their straight ship happens/doesnt happen 

“Hey, I can move onto another piece of media that is churned out by the status quo. No big deal.”

Hetero romances are ten a penny. Flick through netflix, hulu, crunchy roll etc.  Where as if you have a group of people who are only represented in ONE show out of the 10,000 those people are going to gather in one place to connect with others and its only going to seem like they are louder due to the densely packed space.  These same people have been majority silent about the other 9999 pieces of media as their voice isn't usually represented in a positive light - being queer characters are usually brutally murdered or sidelined. (Thankyou Hays Code.)- or not even represented at all. (Bury Your Gays is a trope for a reason, folks.) And we are NEVER the titular characters. We’ve been living on crumbs and subtext for decades! Not to mention showrunners who actively queerbait the hell out of us for ratings and viewership. The almighty Pink Pound as its often referred to in business. “But why do they have to make them gay?” You’re not made gay, you’re born gay. It just takes longer for some people to realise than others. It can be a gradual realisation. And this is quite possibly the case with Yang/Blake, slowly coming to realise their own burgeoning sexualities and attraction to each other.

”Why do they have to be gay?” They don't need a reason to be queer! They just are! Queerness is only a part of a person, not their everything. It’s actually quite refreshing to see Yang/Blake being portrayed as much more than their potential sexuality.  Ask yourself, ‘Why does a character have to be straight? And why doesn’t a straight character have to constantly reaffirm their sexuality? Why is ‘straightness’ assumed by default?’ Heteronormativity, is something that has been perpetuated by decades of media. (helped by the Hays Code with its out of date moral code. To be other is to be punished within the narrative.) That straight is the default setting. It’s not! We exist! Everywhere! We always have and we are going to talk to each other about it when we see a glimpse of ourselves represented in what has been a relative Sahara Desert when it comes to queer content were we are not villainised.   “The romance is detracting from the plot.” Two seconds ago, people were claiming that the romance was none existent. Which is it? But Nora and Ren’s romance that is being held up as a mirror to bumbleby is fine? That Jaune relentlessly pursuing Weiss was perfectly ok. Neptune openly hitting on female characters is fine. 

“I don’t have a problem with LGBT. I just don’t want it forced down my throat.” Again, out of 10,000 pieces of media, this is just ONE show. Nobody is forcing anyone to watch it or participate.  Queer people have had to stomach literal 100′s of years of straight media forced upon them. Since the very conception of the written word and narrative storytelling. In plays, theatre, art, music, tv, film, on billboards, advertising, in places of education and learning etc etc. Queer people are bombarded with it whilst also being surrounded by negativity towards queerness. 

“They are shoving it down my throat!” part two Is hand holding, compassion and expressing concern for another person and comforting them somehow offensive? Renora kissed, not a problem. Arkos kissed, not a problem. Show me in the sand where the line is drawn. What is the difference? Please explain this to me? Why is the expression of queerness somehow offensive? Is this because decades of media have perpetuated the false idea that all queer people are sex crazed perverts? That you’ve been groomed into thinking that queer sexuality is only based in the act of sex itself? That queer sexuality couldn’t possibly be similar to heterosexuality in its expression?

That it couldn’t possibly be about attraction, emotional, mental and maybe one day blossom into physical between two consenting adults, a pure expression of love the exact same as heterosexuality. 

That some how queer love stems from some sort of deviancy or mental health issue. That queer people are some how bad or evil, and therefore their expression of affection is wrong? Oh, I wonder where those beliefs have possibly stemmed from?  “Why are they in my face?” part three.  50% of of the titular cast are potentially queer. Blake and Yang. But if you look at the overall cast ensemble that runs at minimum 16 any given volume, that’s a measly 12.5% (prolly a lot smaller if you actually counted the whole cast that appears in rotation each volume) Also, someone did the math. Blake - a titular character- actually has less spoken lines that Jaune. ffs. B&Y spent neatly a whole two volumes of 8 apart. 25% of the narrative as it stands on entirely different continents. 

I fail to see how it being in someone’s face could be the case.

  “I just don't see it!”

That’s ok and perfectly valid But listen when people who have lived this experience are telling you that their experience is being portrayed on the screen. That they see themselves being represented.  OK, This completely got away from me. In conclusion. They are more straight people than queer people and media often reflects that.   We are usually the silent minority, we are sick of it but we are used to it and we are very excited that things seem to be finally changing.

It’s two characters in an large cast in ONE show out of 10,000. Its a piece of media that, for a change, hasn’t been 100% curated for straight people.  We are often not allowed to play in the sand box and if we are, we’re told to play with the broken toys, be grateful and quiet. So when we are given a sandbox to play in with new unbroken toys, we are gonna dog pile in there and make a ruckas, calling our friends over. What I’m trying to say is, it’s gonna get rowdy.  and here’s something to think about.  “When you are used to privilege, equality feels like deprivation.”  

[bao3bei4]

girlbosses, male wives, and other lesbian genders

a post about jing wei qing shang. but also mostly about another unrelated movie. spoiler-free.

for a lot of people, mulan 1998 is their definitive “ohhh i’m a chinese woman dressing as a man for contrived reasons and i get absolutely nooo erotic pleasure from this” movie. 

however, because i am very special and unique, for me it’s the love eterne 1963. it’s the shaw brothers adaptation of butterfly lovers, the classic chinese folktale. here’s how i’d summarize the movie: 

zhu yingtai, an aspiring scholar, convinces her parents to let her dress as a man to attend school. on the way there, she meets liang shanbo, another prospective student, and they become sworn brothers. they study together for three years, growing closer, until zhu yingtai returns home. liang shangbo accompanies her for the eighteen-li journey home while she hints she’s a woman, but he remains oblivious. by the time he learns her gender, her parents have engaged her to another man. he dies of grief, and while she mourns at his grave, it splits open, and she buries herself inside with him. two scraps of her torn outfit turn into butterflies and fly away.

it’s worth noting here that like. this movie is made in the huangmei opera style. so both zhu yingtai and liang shanbo are played by women (betty loh ti and ivy ling po respectively). because of this, basically every level of the film is preoccupied with gender: if we take zhu yingtai’s male performance as credible (as the characters in the movie do) the leads bond through male homoeroticism; the text is ultimately about a heterosexual romance; it is acted out by two women, in a performance that is difficult to mistake as heterosexual or even feminine; and the dialogue of the movie can’t help but remark on this.

basically it asks: what if lesbians could be gay both ways? wouldn’t that be based? 

like opera was traditionally made by single gender casts, so roles tended to be genderless, in that the gender of the actor doesn’t determine the gender of the role they play. roles are instead typed into four categories: dan (fem), sheng (masc), chou (clown), and jing (painted face). it’s a sick gender quadinary. each of these roles has further subtypes that are represented through stylized patterns of singing, makeup, costuming, movement etc.

so in butterfly lovers, betty loh ti plays a dan, and ivy ling po plays a sheng. but because of the textual cross-gender play, you end up with a woman playing a woman playing a man who falls in love with a woman playing a man.

i’m going to make a brief digression here into talking about like.. acting theory. in the european tradition, you see it evolving out of early concerns (from stanislavski, brecht) about the fourth wall, and its permeability or lack thereof. in chinese opera tradition, the fourth wall didn’t ever really exist. and mei lanfang, the legendary fanchuan performer, claimed that his success wasn’t just due to his appearance, but rather, his mastery of some nonliteral feminine subjectivity. 

If I kept my male feelings, even just a trace, it will betray my true self; then how can I compete for the audience’s affection for feminine beauty and guile?

i’m not going to argue that there’s like, an essence to being a woman because i’m not a fucking idiot. but there’s something to be said for the idea that the gendered interplay between the audience’s perception of the actor, the actor’s perception of themself, and the character they play is a massive part of the appeal of fanchuan performance.

this is echoed by david hwang’s m. butterfly, in which gallimard memorably says, “i’m a man who loved a woman created by a man. everything else—simply falls short.” btw sorry for having the type of brain disease where i constantly reference chinese crossdressing related media. you already know why i have it. 

anyway. parallel to that (but far less morally detestably), jin jiang argues “young male impersonators in yue opera embody women’s ideal men—elegant, graceful, capable, caring, gentle, and loyal.” so, trivially, 1) the eroticism embodied by fanchuan performers is distinctly different from their “straight” counterparts, and perhaps less trivially 2) it’s way better. 

back to the love eterne for a bit. one of the many reasons it’s lodged itself into my psyche is because there’s something more interesting at play than just all that. normally in opera, to compensate for any perceived residual femininity in the sheng, the dan camps it up even further. so this is how zhu yingtai first appears, this bratty femme pastiche of womanhood. yet within a couple minutes she’s dressed as a man, which she’ll stay as for the bulk of the movie. they do however make compromises with the makeup--more gently lifted eyebrows than the steep angles of the sheng opera beat, and an improbably masculine smoky eye. 

that’s right. they performed girlbossification on her. 

i don’t want to suggest that she’s straightforwardly feminine. i could write an entire other thing on her relationship to masculinity. instead i want to highlight the erotic interplay not just between the “girl” and the “boss” but also between her and her counterpart: the male wife. 

liang shanbo is ostensibly straightforwardly male, but his relationship with zhu yingtai isn’t gay in the ahaha what if i was into my bro way-- it’s a what if i was into my bro and i was his wife way.

that’s right. they performed force fem on a cis woman-man. like when zhu yingtai tells him he can’t watch over her as she recovers from an illness because “boys and girls can’t sleep together,” liang shanbo asks “are you implying that I’m a girl?”

there’s a lot of shit like this that builds up over the course of the movie. it all culminates in that final 18 mile journey. along the way, zhu yingtai compares them to a pair of mandarin ducks, one male & one female. liang shanbo sputters “i am a man inside out-- you shouldn’t--” before graciously conceding, “you may compare me to a woman.” 

this is like. a simple punchline. but it’s incredible. it’s true! liang shanbo isn’t a man inside out in that he’s a man and only a man, but rather that he’s a man seen inside first, built for desiring, by a woman & for a woman. as a perpetual object, he becomes a more believable woman than zhu yingtai. and at least in his view, it seems more likely that he could be a woman than her. but beyond that, his permissive tone reads as a kind of wanting in itself--recast, if she wants, “for you, i’ll be a woman.” 

obviously this is a classic lesbian mood. who among us has not seen “no gender only lesbian” posts. and speaking of classic lesbians, you might ask. did you just tiresomely reinvent butches and femmes but with a more annoying name? yes. no. okay. well. 

first, like butch/femme dynamics have both historical specificity and a classed character such that it’s not rlly that appropriate to impose them on the love eterne. and i guess more importantly, i wanna talk about stuff that isn’t real.

we fight all day about people who confuse performance with performativity, (i use we lightly here. for instance, i go outside every day so i don’t care about discourse) but what if we actually wanted to talk about the former for once? something specifically, whether we choose or are forced into it, that we pretend to be? 

anyway. what the hell does all that have to do with jing wei qing shang. i’m going to start by first making the argument that there’s no such thing as a naturally occurring girlboss. i think, honestly, she’s a product of capitalism (“boss” should be the tipoff here) but because both of these stories are set in ambiguously historical china, i’m going to say, instead that she’s a product of uhhh primitive accumulation.

semantics so that i can be canon compliant with marxism aside, if girlbosses are made not born, can you choose to be a girlboss? sheryl sandberg says yes. i don’t disagree, i guess, but i will say: stop glamorizing it! humans only become girlbosses when they’re greatly distressed. 

you become a girlboss when you have no other choice not to be one. when your wants are too great to be a woman, when the things you want are not things that women should want-- whether that’s something that really no one should want, like being a ceo, or whether that’s just something like loving a woman (or, as it is quite often, both) -- you have to become something else. 

another important part of being a girlboss is that other people are not. your excesses mean that not only do you lose something in the process, but your bosshood comes at the expense of others. the girlboss necessitates a girlworker, or so to speak. 

now we’re getting to jwqs. i’m assuming that you haven’t read jwqs, because most people haven’t. that was me until like four days ago. in broad strokes, the novel is about a woman, qiyan agula, who was raised as a prince, and her quest for revenge against the kingdom who slaughtered her people. of course, this involves marrying one of the princesses of that kingdom. it’s all very exciting (lesbian). 

what’s striking about jwqs is that both of them seem to fit the girlboss paradigm, in vaguely similar ways. qi yan (agula’s assumed name) seems to follow the lineage of zhu yingtai, who pretends to be a man to achieve her goals. she’s forced to give up much in the process, and also sacrifices a, uh, lot of innocent people. similarly, nangong jingnu, the princess, is inherently a girlboss because royalty sucks. but also, qi yan girlbossifies her over the course of their relationship. 

but i wouldn’t say jwqs is girlboss4girlboss. there’s something a little more complicated happening. qi yan isn’t zhu yingtai in that she’s a dan pretending to be a sheng. it seems more like that she was a sheng all along. it’s something that the women of the novel return to often: qi yan seems to be better than a man.

for instance, nangong sunu, jingnu’s older sister, reflects on this. 

Nangong Sunu had seen many foolishly loving women who sacrificed everything for the sake of their husbands, but there were rarely any men who would do the same for them. 

(...) 

Thinking it through, Nangong Sunu felt that Qi Yan was truly becoming more interesting. She intended to observe discreetly for a while, to verify if such a man truly existed in this world. (ch 221) 

and i forgot to write down the citation for this, but nangong jingnu also seems to argue that not only is qi yan prettier than a man, but she also seems to be prettier than a woman. (it’s the bit where she’s watching qi yan sleep. help me out here.)

moreover, the way qi yan relates to nangong jingnu is suggestive. jingnu brings out the elements of wanting to be a woman in her. it’s jingnu’s body that makes her wonder what she would look like if she was more feminine. it’s jingnu’s happiness that she resents, wishing that her people could have that as well. it’s her desire for jingnu that makes her a woman. 

(another important distinction i suppose--while one person can’t be both a butch and a femme, because the girlboss and the male wife are things we pretend to be until we embody them / them us -- there’s greater slippage between the two.)

anyway, the girlboss/male wife dynamic is reversed wrt who’s actually dressing as a different gender. that suggests an inversion in the implications we see from the love eterne, if we are to take the love eterne as the paradigmatic girlboss text. which i do, for no reason in particular. 

so then, is qi yan pretending to be a man? under the opera framework, we’re forced to say no. she’s not pretending to be a man any more so than liang shanbo (as acted by ivy ling po) was. but that, of course, feels incorrect, just looking at the text. is she, then, pretending to be a sheng? i’d strongly say no. the things that others see in her, they authentically see; and she does authentically feel the same things as liang shanbo wrt femininity.

so it has to be the opera framework that jwqs is subverting then. if qi yan kept some trace of her once-womanhood, if qi yan reveals her true self, and yet she still can compete for the audience’s affection-- jwqs’s inversion of the opera framework seems to argue instead that it’s that true self that allows you to compete. it’s being masc that lets you be a desirable woman; it’s being feminine that lets you be a desirable man.

there’s an increased gender ambivalence to jwqs, which make sense, i guess, seeing as it’s not meant to be a het story the way that the love eterne was. for instance, nangong jingnu crossdresses to go out in public, and qi yan remarks that jingnu’s disguise fooled her on their first meeting. when qi yan and jingnu go out in public, both disguised as men, they’re repeatedly perceived as a gay male couple. there’s freedom in that: they could be gay women only privately, they could be straight officially, but they could be anonymously gay publicly. 

so it’s through the gay male pretense that they can be gay women; it’s through the qi yan pretense that agula can love women; it’s the qi yan caring husband persona that coaxes jingnu in caring for qi yan in return-- jwqs, more precisely, argues that you can’t be a woman if you’re going to love them, and even less so if you’re going to be loved by one. 

this is perhaps well-trodden ground for anyone who has read wittig & certainly many people who haven’t. but it’s the layer of pretense that for me complicates these two narratives. 

i think it’s a relatable feeling: wanting something anticipating getting something, or wanting something for yourself anticipating knowing that you already had it. that is, desire in itself being constitutive of that reality. 

or less abstractly, knowing that you’d want to be a lesbian if you could, knowing that you’d want not to be a woman if you could-- anticipating any realization of either. 

the dramatic excesses & wants of the girlboss, i think, are a decent literary stand in for being a lesbian. 

i wanna note here that this is rlly just based on my experience being a transmisogyny exempt nonbinary diaspora lesbian lol. it’s fun & cathartic to overread this history & place myself in the accidental implications.

i don’t think most of the things i say are literally true. and i don’t want to overstep & say any of this can be generalized. please lmk if something here doesn’t read right! ok kisses bye

[southernconstellctions]

⌠tom holland. 25, straight, cismale, he/him. ⌡ wait a minute, is benjamin ‘benji’ hawke still in town? i thought i saw a flash of (phone battery at ten percent, late night hotel hallways, the constant hum of a party in the next room over)! last i heard they were working as an actor (on hiatus). when it’s the (gemini)’s birthday on 06/01 i forget that they’re attention-seeking and celebrate that they’re lighthearted. i hear classifieds by the academy is... every time i think of them. ⌿ @liminalintro

tw - death, alcohol and drug use mentioned, car accident

* Adopted from a young age, Benji has no memory of his life at all before he was taken in by Wayne and Mary Beth Clapp, a fairly humble couple that didn’t have much in the world, but they had each other.  They were older, and had had kids of their own. but when their youngest finally moved out, they felt too empty, and that’s when they decided to adopt the boy. 

* For as long as Benji can remember, he wanted to be a star.  Extremely charismatic, he was acting from a very young age, for his older siblings who were almost like parents to him, being filmed and shown off as a darling little clown, thriving under the love and laughter.

* When Benji was ten, Wayne got sick and passed away.  The following year, Mary Beth did as well, and Benji was adopted by his oldest sister, changing his last name to Hawke as she did so to make things easier on both of them,

* Despite all this though, Benji seemed to stay in good spirits, constantly seeking attention while keeping a smile on his face.  However, his sister and her family found his antics less endearing, and Benji found himself out on the streets at seventeen, everyone unable to handle his increasingly reckless and attention seeking behavior.

* Extremely popular on social media, Benji started to build himself a fan base.  He made little skits (think vine era) and pitched himself to as many reality tv shows as he could find, knowing that if he could just make his big break, he’d be the big star his parents encouraged him that he could be.

* After many failed attempts, though still doing wonderfully on social media, when Benji was twenty one, he landed himself a spot on an upcoming reality tv series - you know the type, a bunch of horny twenty somethings all stuck together, let’s see what they do next kind of show.  Benji was undoubtedly the fan favorite, and while the show was fairly short lived - one season of ten episodes, and he didn’t even win - the attention and fame all shot straight to his head.

* The fame spike was dangerous, and Benji didn’t know how to suddenly handle the uptick in money and attention - the reckless attention seeking behavior was now revved up with alcohol and drug fueled nights, blowing off meetings his agent tried setting up for him to keep him in the spotlight.

* Things that go up must come down, and Benji’s bad behavior finally caught up to him.  After crashing a brand new car while having god knows how many substances in his body, his agent and pr manager agreed that it was best to send him somewhere to keep him from inadvertently killing himself.  How they landed on Centralia, Benji would never know, but he agreed if that kept him out of celebrity rehab - that wasn’t the kind of name he wanted to build for himself.

* Stranded in PA for the forseeable future, Benji keeps himself preoccupied by posting ceaselessly on Instagram for his fans, as well as riding the momentary high of having people recognize who he is.  He’s made a mostly comfortable life, for now, but he’s still itching to get the hell out of dodge and back to stardom.

wanted connections

- i’d love people who recognized him from tv, people who love that for him and people who hate him because of it.  people that call him on his inflated head bs and people that do nothing but enable him.

- i’m honestly open to someone even playing one of his older siblings; I have no fcs or ideas in mind but if that’s something you want, hmu

- a fellow contestant from his show

- someone from the following years, either an enabler to his bad behavior or someone he fucked over because of it

[ilooklikeaburntchickenugget]

Only Mine Pt. 5

A/N: THANK YOU ALL FOR THE SWEET MESSAGES ABOUT THIS SERIES! It’s honestly so fun to write about so I’m glad all of you like it as much as I do. Pairing: Gerard Way x F!Pop Star!Reader Word count: 2,337 Warnings: Some swearing, mentions of anxiety and stress

You were humming an idea you had, your phone sitting out and playing one of the hundreds recordings you had for songs. Sweatpants and a large hoodie with fuzzy socks were the only appropriate attire for the recording studio, your hair carelessly held up by a scrunchie in a bun on the top of your head, glasses slightly crooked on your face.

“You get it, right?” You asked from the couch, where your legs were propped up against your chest.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.” Ray smiled, turning back to the computer and putting in a few various sounds.

“I’m thinking of putting in these ‘Oh’ sounds over and over, as background, pre-verse and then in the chorus.” You included.

“That would be cool.” Gerard laid back in the chair in between you and Ray, “Make them lower though, they’ll contrast your voice.” You nodded, agreeing.

“I want to make it sound frantic, almost anxious, right? That’s kind of the feeling of the song.” “Well, yeah, that makes sense with the meaning and lyrics.” Ray added on and you nodded. “I think it sounds sick.” “Thanks man.” You smiled lightly, “I have like 20 of these. Not the same song, but for the new album.” “Already?” He asked, shocked.

“Don’t underestimate her,” Gerard looked over at him, arms crossed and slouching back, “Give her five minutes and she’ll have an entire fucking song conducted.” You nodded.

“Maybe not five, but something along those lines.”

“Have you made a title for the record?” Ray asked next and you shook your head.

“I have most of it composed, I don’t have a title though.” You said, “It’s a concept album, so as you guys know, it’s written like a book. But there’s this whole plot and everything. So it’s not like I can name it after someone or something, like I did with the last one, I have to find something.” “What about a song name?” Gerard looked up at you, “Name it after a song, maybe. One that you feel embodies the record as a whole.” “I don’t know,” You sighed out of partial frustration, “I’m not good at naming albums. I almost named the last one Gerard, but Ray told me no.” You could hear Ray lightly snicker remembering that.

“Really?” Gerard asked, a look of slight shock on his face.

“What?” You asked, “You act like you don’t know that entire record is about you.” He shrugged.

“It still flatters me.” “Well this one is kinda about you,” You admitted, “More about the picture the media has painted us out to be.” “You mean bad boy makes innocent girl bad?” He asked and you nodded.

“It’s almost set out as a character v. self, character v. character, and character v. society album.” You explained, “She’s frustrated with herself because she knows he’s bad but she loves him, she’s mad at him because he’s that way but she also loves him for it, and she’s mad at everyone who’s telling her he’s bad, because she knows it, but she can’t help it.” “So like an addiction?” Ray asked and you nodded.

“That’s why Clean is on there. It’s the last track, it’s her almost cleansing herself from everything.” “That makes sense.” Gerard nodded.

“I mean, I think it’s brilliant.” Ray began playing with a few more sounds while talking, “I hope people take it as it is, AKA it’s very ironic, but addressing that by making an entire record is pretty bad ass.” You lightly laughed.

“Thanks,” You smiled, “Maybe Gerard is making me corrupt, making me a badass and all.” You winked playfully at him.

“Ah yes, I’m going to make you my emo queen.” The three of you began laughing.

“I am thinking about changing my look to take on this alter ego,” You began, “You cut off all your hair and bleached it to be a representation of The Patient.” You looked to Gerard, “I don’t think I would do anything to my hair, but I would change up my wardrobe and makeup look.” “Like start off as you are and gradually get more rebellious looking?” Ray asked and you nodded.

“The paparazzi will love that.” You lightly smiled sarcastically, a few moments of silence at the end. “Thank you guys, by the way, for taking time off to help me make this.” “No problem,” Ray smiled and nodded, “Besides, everyone loves you and we’ve been having some writing block lately.” “And I didn’t have a choice.” Gerard said. You eyed him, throwing a pen which hit his head and he very lightly flinched at the impact.

“Oh stop it.” You rolled your eyes.

“Ready to go in?” Ray asked, motioning to the recording booth. You nodded getting up and grabbing a pair of headphones. You put them on, beginning to do some short vocal warm ups. Ray was sitting right outside through the glass window at the panel, Gerard leaning over and playing with a few things on the sound board.

“Ready?” Ray asked into the mic and you nodded, pulling out notes on your phone to read lyrics.

“We’re just doing verse and chorus, right? No belts or high notes or anything?” He shook his head.

“That’ll be next.” He responded and you nodded. The music started up, giving you a few seconds to prepare before you began singing the lyrics, both Gerard and Ray actively adjusting various switches and such. Finally, when the song wrapped up, you took a few steps back from the mic as they stopped the recording.

“How was that?” You asked.

“Incredible as always.” Ray smiled and you smiled back, “Now we have to work on high notes and belting for the bridge and final chorus, then we can do background vocals.” You nodded, “Let me just edit a bit of the track.” It only took him a matter of minutes before replaying the track, a huge smile plastered on your face the entire time.

“It’s sick!” You smiled and clapped, jumping a bit.

“It’s honestly incredible.” Gerard smiled too.

“Thank you.” You smiled back.

“Ready for everything else?” Ray asked and you nodded.

It took you another hour of recording and getting everything before you could finally retire the recording and production process for the song, getting out of the booth and grabbing a water.

The finished product was incredible, it had the perfect amount of everything from base to drums with a little bit of synth and a light echo attached to your voice.

“Do you think this new record’s gonna be as big as the last?” Ray asked you, all three of you now on various pieces of furniture in the studio and eating burritos, which had been jointly decided upon pretty quickly when you all grew hungry. “Mmm,” You hummed, thinking for a minute, “I don’t know. Probably not considering winning 10 Grammys in one night is a record,” “On top of the, like 40 other awards you got.” Ray laughed.

“Yeah, true,” You agreed, “But I don’t make music to win awards or anything. I make music because I want to and because I love to and other people like it.” You explained, “You guys are the same.” They nodded. “The awards are just something nice.”

“I mean, you’re basically on top of the world.” Ray responded.

“Yeah, but that’s what makes it all the more scary,” You began, “You kind of look down from your stance at the top, having everything you’ve ever dreamed of in your career, and you have to ask what do you do next. And then it turns in to panic because there’s no where to go. And that’s why Gerard is up with me every other night while I’m having a panic attack about what the fuck I do next.”

“I don’t think I’m much help.” He added.

“You’re more help than if I was alone.” You responded, “But I’m kind of excited for this new era. There’s no limits anymore, I feel like, so I’ll just take on this good girl gone bad character. Not in real life, of course, but my alter ego.” “So you’re gonna reset everything?” Ray asked and you nodded.

“Yeah, hopefully. Starting with my closet.” You took a bite of your food, “Gee, take me to Hot Topic.” He rolled his eyes.

“If you want to do that, then just take all my leather jackets.” “You have too many anyways.” “Do not,” He warned, “I take pride in my jacket collection.” This time you rolled your eyes. “You have an entire rack in your closet for jackets.” “Uh huh, says Miss ‘I have to have an entire room for my purse and shoe collection’.” “Oh, please, it’s part of my personality.” “Well jackets are apart of mine.” He fired back.

“You two are literally an old couple.” Ray interrupted.

“Kinda.” You agreed.

“But for real,” Ray asked next, “What is going on in the world of Y/F/N Y/L/N?” You sighed.

“For once it feels like nothing,” You admitted, “No brand deals really, almost no interviews, no tour because that finished up, just this I guess.” You took another bite and continued, “I did recently get the opportunity for there to be a documentary on me and my life though. Like a camera crew and everyone follow me around for a few critical weeks of the year, put it into a whole movie type thing about how I live, my fame, all that.” “Wait, what?” Gerard asked, now a mixture of shock and concern on his face. “You-you never told me.” He said next.

“Well, yeah, I mean I told them I would at least have to think about it. I was planning on telling you but I needed to figure out if I wanted to go through with it first. I was very indecisive about it. Still am.” “So what are you thinking?” Ray asked, clearly trying to break some of the tension.

“I still don’t know,” You admitted, “I mean, a part of me really wants people to understand why I’m so under the radar, why I’ve disappeared from the world for a while. But the other part wants to protect that privacy. Plus if we were to theoretically go through with this, Gee, you would have to be okay with it too since they’ll be filming in our homes, and very possibly me and you.” He nodded, “And plus, I don’t know if it’s the right timing. I’m starting this new era of me being private and taking on this alter ego for everyone else, it may just be bad timing too.”

“I think it would be interesting for people to be able to see you, like the real you. And how you deal with the fame and all.” Ray added.

“Yeah, but,” You took a brief pause to find words, “How much of my privacy am I willing to forfeit for that?”

You and Gerard got back to your New York townhouse, kicking off your shoes and almost immediately crashing on the bed. You had to admit, at least to yourself, that your mind was beyond conflicted with what to do. Your next album release would have been perfect timing to plan starting a family with Gerard. Release the album, stay completely under the radar, and go on a small tour with a few big shows. But the opportunity for the documentary to be made would make a huge deal to your life. It would be nearly impossible to do both at the same time, though.

You laid down, your head on Gerard’s shoulder, as you both laid in bed reading your books trying to wind down. But Gerard, being your husband, best friend, and soulmate, knew you were stressed. Just from even looking at you, although no one else could tell, he could.

“Talk to me.” He said softly, barely above a whisper.

“I don’t want to disrupt your reading,” You sighed, “Or annoy you.” “I like listening to you talk.” He glanced to you, your eyes meeting. You didn’t know how a man could be that gorgeous, he just was. “It’s soothing, even when you rant.” You lightly laughed, snuggling further into him. He willingly took one of his arms, swinging it behind you and placing his book down on his nightstand, marking the page. 

“Fine,” You sighed, moving down so your head was on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with every delicate breath he absentmindedly took. Your hands found their way there too, drawing circles on the shirt he had on.

So there the two of you laid, you pouring our your anxiety and worries to your husband, who seemed to understand what you were saying, translating every jumble of emotion you had into a symphony of calmness. 

“This is all up to you babe, I’m just along for the ride.” He said, “But maybe this is a sign, ya know? Maybe you should take this opportunity to have a documentary be made about you, because maybe people will begin to actually understand the extent to which your life has been thrown into the spotlight, and why you need that privacy. And maybe that sympathy will get us to an even better place where we can start a family, worry free from any chance that our child or children will be in the spotlight.” “You’re so smart.” You lightly laughed, nuzzling into him. “I’ll think about it, Gee.” And like that a lightbulb went off in your head. You squeezed out of his embrace, groaning and getting up out of bed, his face filled with confusion. “Where’re you going? Did I say something wrong? I-” “No, it’s a song idea.” You palmed your face in your hand, “Like a really good one.” You grabbed your phone to go record it. “You get it, right?” “Not really because I don’t record as many songs as you, but kinda.” You groaned again, his face so innocent as you eyed him.

“You’re an ass.” 

[jawritter]

Broken Me...

Ch. 10

Summery: The Dallas Convention couldn't have come at a worse time for Jensen. His world fell apart earlier that morning, but was expected to just act like everything was normal. You and a friend were at the convention for her birthday. Life hasn't been that great for you either, but a forced meeting on stage changes two worlds. Will you be able to put this broken man back together again...

Series Warings: Cheating, shitty marriage, Danneel is a bitch, I unfortunatly have to put that as a warning because some people tend to get turnt up about it if you don’t... Smut, Crying, Suiside Attempt, brief discription of suicide attempt and recovery, depression, hints of self loathing, language. I think that’s it... Suicide Trigger warnings will be placed over each chapter!

Chapter Warnings: A disgusting amount of fluff..

Word Count: 2666

A/N: BINGE READ TIME!! As always all mistakes are mine! Please do not copy my work! Feedback is gold!! Hope you all enjoy this one!!

Want More? Check out my masterlist!!

****MASTERLIST****

You've been in Vancouver with Jensen for a week. 

He was slowly getting better, but It's been a long week. The first three days were really tough. High fever and coughing until he nearly vomited. No real appetite. Once the fever broke he'd been mostly sleeping, and had little to no appetite.. 

The Tamiflu that they gave him at the hospital seemed to be helping some, but really the only help for the flu is time and sleep...

Jared had been over almost every evening when he got done working to check on Jensen. The little bit you did speak to each other was still pretty tense. You hated that he didn't really trust you, though with the kind of life that they lived you did understand why. 

People would love to use Jensen for money, their little 15 minutes in the limelight, or a way to get themselves into the industry. 

You wanted none of those things. 

You really weren't interested in any of that. 

You didn't want to be the center of attention in any way, shape, or form. You just wanted to be with Jensen. That's all you cared about. The other to you, was just his work, that's all. The person that they saw played out on the screen wasn't Jensen. The person that they saw during the cons wasn't really Jensen. 

He was so much more than that... 

He was one of the most caring people you'd ever meet. He'd give his shirt off his back to a complete stranger if he saw they didn't have one. He was giving of himself almost to a fault. He was strong willed. The man probably would walk through a burning building if he put his mind to it or there was something on the other side that he wanted. He loved a challenge. Especially anything physical. Even though he was those things, and more. 

He was still human. 

He wasn't perfect. 

You loved everything about him though. The good and the bad. You didn't mind that he was clingy. You understood why. You didn't mind that he was overprotective. You got that too. Putting your all into a relationship, then having done to you what she did to him was bound to create trust issues, and he definitely had that. 

He didn't have a lot of self confidence anymore. Though Misha said he didn't develop that issue until her. He would over analyze things enough to drive a saint to drinking. 

To you though. 

All of that was fine. 

You didn't mind.. 

He was glad that you were here with him.That much you could tell. 

You might be a little crazy, but you considered it an honor to be able to take of him while he wasn't feeling well. You never expected it to be as intimate as it was. You never expected how close it would pull the two of you, but it had.  

You were lost in thought, checking social media. The rumor's about Jensen being sick had found social media. Of course his fan base showed concern, though there is always someone who thinks it's okay to be  a dick since they weren't face to face with people and they were hiding behind a computer.

Hearing the shower turn on had pulled you out of your snooping...

He's up!! This was the first time in days!! He had only been able to really lay in the bed and sleep. 

Relief washed over you. While he was in the shower you went to the bedroom, and quickly changed the sheet and disinfected the pillows and bed. You were just turning the sheets down again in case he decided that he wanted to lay back down when you heard him calling you from the kitchen. 

"Y/n? Baby where are you?"

"I'm back here!" You yell from the hallway, hurrying toward the kitchen. Where you heard his voice coming from. When you rounded the corner you found him sitting at the bar, smiling at you. Looking better in his face than he had in a week. 

"You look like you feel better." You tell him, walking over to him as he turns the bar stool so that you could slip between his knees, and let him wrap his arms around your waist. 

"Yeah I'm a little bit better." He laughed, pretending to click his heels together with a fake overly wide smile momentarily plastered on his face, getting a giggle from you. You were relieved to see him getting back to himself. 

After getting him something to eat. Another sign he was feeling better, It was the first time since you got there that he even said he was hungry... You two found yourself sitting on the couch as he flipped through the TV channels. 

Finally landing on a late night football game. Absent-mindedly running his fingers through your hair while your head rested on his shoulder. An oversized throw draped over the two of you. You were almost asleep when his deep voice, still a little hoarse from the sickness snapped you out of your doasing state. 

"There's something I want to ask you. Something I was planning on asking you before I got sick. Then you just showed up, and I never got to ask you. I was kinda too busy trying not to die." He said, obviously nervous about what he was planning to ask you. Which made you nervous. 

"Okay....I'm listening....." You said, heart hammering in your chest. Your throat felt like it was closing in. You didn't think you were going to be able to handle it if he asked you to leave him alone. If he didn't want to see you anymore. 

"I was hoping that you would move in with me.........I know we haven't made our relationship official really, and that's my fault. I should have done it a long time ago. I......I...I love you.......and I want to be with you. I want you to be here when I get home from work.....I want you be there every night when I go to bed.....I hope I'm not scaring you off...It's just I'm in my 40's.....I want this to be permanent...I'm not looking for just a weekend fling. I really, really want you to stay with me....." He said, stumbling over his words in his  nervous state. 

All you could do was sit there for a moment in shock. Unable to speak. Jensen had just told you he loved you..That's something you never thought you'd hear...

"Sweetheart...Say something please.." He pleaded with you, desperation evident in his voice as he lifted your face closer to his with his finger. You swallowed hard, attempting to make the lump in your throat disappear so that you could speak clearly to him..

"I love you to Jensen. Of course I'll stay." You watched relief wash over his face as he pulled you tighter into his arms.. 

A knock on the door disturbed the moment the two of you were having before either of you could say anything else. 

"Come in it's open." Jensen yelled at the door. Both of you knowing it was probably Jared. 

A few moments later Jared came lumbering into the door. Surprised to see Jensen up, and looking almost alive again. 

"Hey man, You look better." He said, flopping down in the chair across from Jensen and yourself. 

"I am now that y/n has agreed to move in with me." He said, still looking at you. Jared sat there in silence for a moment before speaking.

"That's great man... Glad to see you feeling better today." He seemed almost a little relieved, and annoyed all at the same time. 

You know he just wanted his friend to be happy. 

You were going to have to think of a way to win him over.

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

Three months later…

Jensen's POV:

The Austin, Texas sun shining through the window woke Jensen for the first time in almost months. 

You and Jensen had landed in Austin late last night, coming back home from the holidays..

It was the first time in years that he was going to get to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with his family. Danneel never wanted to come to his parents house. The first thing you had said to him the morning he got done with my last day of filming, was when he wanted to head to Texas to see his family.

Once he got over the shock he called his Mom, and she was elated. He couldn't  have his kids till Christmas, and that was heavy on his mind the whole plane ride back down to Austin. 

Not having to be in Dallas until the day of Thanksgiving gave Jensen and yourself some time to yourselves. He hadn’t stepped foot into the house since the day he’d caught Danneel with her new man in the living room, he didn’t think it was bothering him, but it was, a lot of things were bothering him lately... 

You being here with him helped a great deal. It wasn’t like walking in alone, and that’s something he didn’t want to even think about.. Looking down at you asleep on his chest, his heart swelled a little. 

All the bullshit in his head aside there was one thing for sure… He was in love with you… That was the only thing holding him together. 

Even though people thought it was too fast, he didn’t care. He loved you, and for some reason you loved him, that’s all that mattered...

Carefully as to not wake you he slid his arm from under your head, tucked the cover in around you, and headed toward the kitchen. 

You’d done so much for him during the time you’d been together. When he came home from filming during the day, when his hours are actually decent, you’d always have a hot; home-cooked meal and a cold beer waiting for him. If he came in really late you would wake up just to lay there and talk to him about his day. Running your fingers through his hair until he relaxed enough to fall asleep.

You made time for him, no matter what...

When he was sick you didn't sleep for three days. Always watching, making sure he was okay, Making sure he had everything he needed. Not caring about yourself. You treated him like a damn God. He felt like he didn't deserve it.

He’d just started the coffee pot, and started to make breakfast when he heard you coming down the stairs.. He was going to walk down the boardwalk this morning before a lot of people got there. Maybe check out some of the little shops that line downtown Austin. He had a whole day planned of the two of you to  just enjoy each other. 

He felt like you deserved this, and so much more.

"Morning babe.” He laughed as you duck under my arm. Heading for the coffee pot. 

"Morning." You mumble still somewhat asleep. Coming back to the stove to wrap your arms around him. 

"What's got you up so early?" You asked him, as he loaded two plates up with eggs, bacon, and toast.

"I'm taking you around Austin today. Just me and you."  He tells you, wrapping his arms around you, kissing your forehead. 

"Now eat! I want to get going! I'm excited to be home!" Jensen said, practically skipping over to the seat next to you, peppering your face with little kisses..

........................

Your POV:

You had never seen Jensen so giddy, You were very nervous to meet his family, but just watching him shuffling around the kitchen, making breakfast, singing to himself, excitedly telling you to hurry up and eat your breakfast so he can take you to do whatever it was he had planned made all of these nerves worth it.. 

His eyes were brighter than you'd seen in a long time. He was relaxed and in his element. It was worth more to you than money could buy just to see him happy. You couldn't understand how someone could so quickly become your everything. He was like air. You required it to survive.

So you hurried up, and ate your breakfast before heading out to the boardwalk for today...

It was absolutely the most amazing day you'd had this far. 

You spent the morning walking down the boardwalk, holding hands like a couple of teenagers. Talking about anything you could think of. Cuddling on the bench that they had along the way. Watching the water slap against the boats that were tied to the docks there... Enjoying the nice cool November weather. Unlike Vancouver, which is beautiful all times of the year, Texas was more bearable when it came to winter temperatures changes.

He took you to his favorite little restaurant near the boardwalk, then to walk through the little shops in downtown Austin. 

When the two of you had just about walked until you couldn't put one foot in front of the other he brought you home, and drew you a bath. Complete with a glass of your favorite wine while he ordered the two of you take out for supper. 

You did love how he was pampering you, but you would much rather have been pampering him.

After your bath you came into the living room where Jensen had the takeout spread across the coffee table and a movie waiting for the two of you. 

His mood was through the roof. You had never seen him this happy. 

When the two of you had finally crawled into bed that night, you didn’t think it was humanly possible for you to love him more than you did right there in that moment… 

You don’t know what you did to deserve him, but you knew that you were going to spend the rest of your life doing everything in your power to show him just how much you loved him… Because that’s what he deserved, even though he thought he was broken..

You loved every crack, chip, and fault, to you it just made him that much more beautiful..

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[tea-at-221]

The TJLC Debacle: 3 years out from S4 and counting; the copyright mini-theory; so much salt I’m bloated; but in the end, there is peace (I love you Johnlockers)

Ugh, don't even talk to me about Mary.

Don't even talk to me about the way Mofftiss have said they're sick of responding to fans on the subject of Johnlock. Of how they've said they're "not telling anyone else what to think or write about them" (as if they could stop us; as if they even own Sherlock themselves. Do keep reading, because this point becomes much more relevant and in-jokey later on). Don't even mention how they've bitched and whined incessantly because--god forbid--fans got *really really* into their show and emotionally invested.

They're so eager to discount all the beautiful little moments they wrote as accidents. And Arwel, who planted all those props, continually demonstrates that he's on their side (a not-very in-depth-analysis of his Instagram account and the way he interacted with fans towards the beginning of the pandemic showed as much, but I think maybe he’s grown a bit wiser and quieter since at least in terms of Johnlock and all things elephant-related. I don’t know for sure because I stopped looking.)

Anyway--they'd actually prefer for us to celebrate our own intelligence, is I suppose a charitable way of looking at it: our ability to make connections between things in the show; our metas on symbolism; our insightful fanfic; etc., and denounce them as the bad writers that they ultimately are.

More under the cut.

(This post may be of interest to you especially if you came to the fandom a bit later: multiple links to things of relevance/quotes/explanations appear both within and at the end of this entry.)

Because what makes a writer good?

Well, an ability to make people feel an emotional connection to their work, for one. I know this is just my own perspective, but if not for Johnlock, all my emotion about the show would evaporate. There wouldn't be much else there. Other people might get something, but I wouldn’t. Is some of the writing witty and entertaining regardless of any inferred/implied Johnlock? Yeah but, eh, a lot of shows have some good writing and I just don’t give a damn about them.

What makes a writer good?

Not making promises to the reader/viewer that they'll never keep. Plot holes, leading dialogue ("There’s stuff you wanted to say...but didn’t say it.” “Yeah”) never followed through on, puns that are apparently, I suppose, unintentional (e.g. "'Previous' commander?" "I meant 'ex'").

Uh, not writing continual gay jokes that aren't actually pointing toward the inference that people are making them because there's actually something going on there under the surface. (How about just don't make those jokes ever.)

Not being, apparently, oblivious (? questionable) to the queerbaiting they're engaging in *as they’re writing it.*

Acting like their LGBT audience is in the wrong/the bad guy, instead of choosing to remain respectful in the face of dissent. Instead it's just, "we never wrote it that way" / "We never played it that way."

A lot of those other mildly witty shows don’t actually blatantly drag their most passionate fans face-down through the mud the writers themselves created. Imagine that.

I'm not even a fan of Martin Freeman anymore, for the way he handled the whole thing (getting angry, the comments he made about how the fans made Sherlock “not fun anymore”...apparently Martin’s packing up his crayons and going home?)...no offense to anyone who is still a fan of his. I don’t make it a habit to drag him. I do to some degree understand his frustration with having the whole situation taken out on him--he’s just an actor in the show--but I simply wish he’d remained as cool and professional about it as Benedict Cumberbatch instead of pointing at the fans. You’re pointing in the wrong direction, mate.

What also irks me at the end of the day is this: the subsection of people who legitimately responded badly to the TJLC/S4 debacle and went above and beyond to harass the writers and actors/actresses on social media are *few and far between*, but we've been lumped in with them by what feels like...everyone, Martin included. TJLCers/Johnlockers (not the same group, but often treated as such) have been made to look like a bunch of rambunctious, immature, demanding children time and time and again in the wake of S4.

They'd rather, what, suggest John was so in love with Mary? THAT was the relationship they wanted to uphold in that show as so significant and...what, a demonstration of how honorable it is to respect your heterosexual relationship despite, you know...ANYTHING?

Yeah sorry, I don’t believe in that. John’s text-based affair, whether a disappointment for some as to his supposed character, was a very human reaction and I kinda sorta feel like I would have reacted MUCH more strongly than that had I been John. But nope. He stayed with Mary and was *ashamed* of his wandering eye. Ashamed that maybe he wanted to be admired by someone. I can’t think of a scene, off the top of my head, where Mary ever interacted with John without belittling him in some way--if not with words, then with consistently patronizing glances.

The message here is that heterosexuality is not just acceptable, but VALUABLE, however it manifests--but god forbid anyone see a queer subtext. (Why are lgbt+ writers some of the very WORST offenders where this is concerned? And they defend it! Is this childhood nostalgia/Stockholm Syndrome of the very fondest variety or what? Gay angst is all they got if they got anything at all, so it’s still good enough as far as “representation” goes?)

They really want to tell the story of John as so emotionally/mentally fucked up that he surrounds himself with unstable people time and again. They never give any reason *why* he might do that (which they could have done even soooo subtly), or delve into his past--just, apparently it's okay to assume that Sherlock's comment about "she's like that because you chose her" is exactly that.

No. Sherlock and Mary are NOT the same. Not...*remotely*!

Mary is underhanded and evil. She lies. She manipulates. She schemes. Her “love” is based on selfishness, and her assumption that John is a simpleton and hers to mold. She's in it for herself.

Sherlock hides. He prevaricates. He feels. He loves John. He does fucked up things in the name of love, but always for the benefit of those he loves. When he screws up, which he obviously does, it’s painful to us as the audience because we see that it is painful for him when he recognizes and regrets it.

I have never seen Mary regret anything. Those crocodile tears at Christmas? More manipulation. Inconsistent with anything else we were shown about her as a character.

To even think for a SECOND that people could ship Mary and John and mentally condemn John for cheating on Mary AFTER SHE SHOT HIS BEST FRIEND...as if marriage is the be-all-end-all free pass in which every sin must be forgiven until the end of time...as if John broke any covenant with his wife beyond those she broke from the very moment she walked into his life *with an entire fake past.* Is just. Well. It's asking us to accept gaslighting as healthy, loving, normal, *preferable* behavior, so...given the source that message is coming from, it's all a bit meta.

THAT. Is insanity. Maybe Mofftiss are the sociopaths.

How these men could write characters they themselves understand so little (or tell us they understand so little because their emotional maturity has yet to surpass that of the average three-year-old’s), I will never know. I can only imagine that they have absorbed, by osmosis over their lives, real and nuanced human behavior...then churned it back out again in their writing unaware, a bit like psychopaths who teach themselves what "normal" people do so that they can pass as psychologically sound in regular society.

Remember, we *are* talking about men who do these sorts of things:

Moffat says that Sherlock is celibate and that people who claim he's misogynistic when he does things like make Irene Adler imply she's attracted to the detective (even though she's a lesbian) are, ironically, "deeply offensive" (despite lines like "look at us both" in Battersea. We aren't your therapists, Moffat--we don't care what you meant, we care what you said, and what you *said* was clear. *Implying* it does not let you off the hook).

Gatiss has proclaimed that "I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting" than the idea of ever making a show addressing LGBT issues. (That link is to a reddit forum, and I can't find the original interview anymore, but I assure you I had seen the actual article myself ages back and can't find it online again now along with some of the Martin quotes I wanted to link to. And nevermind what Gatiss has done with LGBT shows/issues since--my focus here is on what he has said, versus what he and Moffat have since claimed regarding their queerbaiting.)

Here’s a transcript of this screenshot:

"...many people come up and say they didn't realise." Despite this lack of public awareness, being part of the gay community is clearly important to Gatiss: "The older I get the more I want to give something back. I mean, I keep meaning to do something." When asked if he'd be interested in making a series about gay issues his response was enlightening:

"No, I don't think I'd make a kind of gay programme. It's much more interesting when it's not about a single issue. And equally, I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting. Of course this reflects the grand picture of everyone's strange make-up; there are good gay people and bad gay people. I wouldn't like to make an issue film around the culture of being gay."

Instead Gatiss' interest seems to lie in making a drama where sexuality is, if not mundane, part of the wider framework: "I'd quite like to do something about a quite happy, ordinary gay person who's just incidentally gay. For example, a three-part thriller for ITV where the lead character just happens to be gay; when they finally go home, say 45 minutes in, and they had a same sex partner. That to me would be genuinely progressive. It wouldn't be a three-part gay thriller for ITV. It would be that this character just happened to be gay."

--End article quote.

And instead, who is canonically gay in the series? Well, Irene Adler. The innkeepers at the Cross Keys. And perhaps most notably, the *villains*, because that's a helpful trope: Moriarty and Eurus are, in S4, both implied to be at least bisexual.

Any character should be able to be any sexuality, this is true. But can we have some main characters, the good guys, give some good representation? Can't we start making that the standard, rather than the villains and the background characters? Because so far, that is the exception and not the rule.

Writers need to be aware of the damage they are perpetuating. We are not quite in a world yet where any character should be able to be any sexuality but isn't, yet we have no problem with saying the villain is LGBT+ or looks different/functions differently than much of the viewing audience.

"Male friendship is important and valid, not everything has to be gay"--this is a popular point with casual heterosexual viewers (and, to my chagrin, some of my LGBT+ friends) who don't fully grasp what "queerbaiting" is, often even when it's pointed out to them.

The lens of heterosexuality is real. My first time through watching BBC Sherlock, I didn't see the Johnlock at all. I had to look for it and read about it. When I saw it, the lens was lifted for me, and it changed my life and the way I view things forever (and for the best).

But back to my point about how little Mofftiss seem to understand their own story/most ardent fans, and then on to my other theory: in S4 it must be that they dropped their “psychopaths emulating empathy” act and indulged in their own "insane wish fulfillment" by doing away with all of the meaning, continuity, and sense. Right?

So, here’s the alternate theory. One which is not, please remember, in their defense.

Remember that S4 is what Mofftiss are *happy* to have us believe is what they'd do with these characters, given the chance to do whatever they wanted. I repeat, in Moffat’s own words: “Insane wish fulfillment.”

Okay I get it, this pasta has been over-salted.

Without further delay: MY COPYRIGHT RESEARCH THEORY THAT EVEN I DON'T PUT MUCH STOCK IN AND WHICH DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR THEIR CRUELTY EVEN IF TRUE

Part of me also raises an eyebrow at S4 as perhaps an example of the effect of the Conan Doyle estate on any modern production in the US. While it’s true that all of Sherlock is part of public domain in the UK and has been for quite a long time, Gatiss and Moffat still talk about it being partially under copyright. Specifically, the last 10 stories. I’m supposing that this means that because Sherlock airs internationally, or due to whatever contract the BBC has with the Doyle estate, they are still limited by the copyright as to what they can “publish”.

The Doyle estate is known for being a pain in the ass when it comes to abiding by copyright law as everyone else knows and practices it. They’ve tried to argue, for example (in 2013 and, much more recently, with the advent of Enola Holmes), that because Holmes and Watson were not fully developed as their final selves until the conclusion of all 10 stories still under copyright, then perhaps the characters themselves should still be protected, basically, in full.

It’s true that certain elements of the remaining stories are still under copyright here in the US (Watson had more than one wife--uh huh, we have that to look forward to, Johnlockers; the Garridebs moment is still under copyright--yeah, I’m getting to that too; and Sherlock didn’t care much for dogs til later so that’s not allowed either, fuck off Redbeard), but the estate’s problem in 2013 seemed to be based around a fear that *gasp* some day--if not right now!--anyone could write a Sherlock Holmes story in any way they pleased, changing the characters however they wished to and giving those characters “multiple personalities.”

See the following excerpt from the Estate’s case:

“...at any given point in their fictional lives, the two men's characters depend on the Ten Stories. It is impossible to split the characters into public domain versions and complete versions.”

(Click for full transcript.)

Obviously, by this point, that’s been done in multiple iterations. So I dunno. Their argument was *more* than muddy to begin with--they just grasp at straws to stay in control, it seems.

But okay. Backing up: wasn’t there sort-of a Garridebs moment in S4?!?? you cry. Yep. But imagine this: the Conan Doyle estate taking Mofftiss to court to argue that they depicted the Garridebs moment--a moment still under copyright--in The Final Problem.

Did they, though? Did they really?

The fandom cried out about the ridiculousness--the utter disappointment--of that moment when it was shown. It was not what we would have expected/wanted. We didn’t see John injured, Sherlock reacting with tender outrage to the good doctor’s attacker.

Instead we saw some ludicrous BS that was as bad as the clown with the sword-gun-umbrella. More of that.

I think Martin probably found that it was easy to produce real tears when he thought about how fucking terrible the S4 scripts were.

Ahem. Yet, this all seems very Mofftiss-flavored in terms of humor.

I can all-too-easily imagine them saying, “HA. We’re going to show some of these supposedly copyrighted things--and if they take us to court, they’ll be laughed out of the room.” Could that explain some of the overall S4 fuckery?

Sherlock wasn’t supposed to like dogs til later stories, as previously mentioned-- is that why Redbeard pulled a “Cinderella’s carriage” and transformed into a pumpkin (Victor Trevor)? Hmm. Sigh.

It...doesn’t actually appear that the estate has any qualms about taking laughable stuff to court, I mean...*shrug.* They have the money to do it, and money is the name of the game, because you’ve got to pay for rights (cha-ching sounds).

Yep, it does seem that the estate is open to the copyrighted materials being made reality, but who knows for what price or with what caveats. The BBC isn’t, so far as I’ve ever heard, known for throwing money around. Early Doctor Who would be so much less entertaining if they’d had any sort of budget. (And in fact, more of the older episodes would exist, but apparently the BBC--in part to cut costs--reused some of their tapes.)

My bottom-line bitter is this: Mofftiss do like to amuse themselves. To please themselves and no one else, as they’ve shown time and again. Sure, they could do whatever they wanted with S4...and they did...but they were also cruel about it, and that’s what I’ll never forgive them--OR the BBC--for.

A lot of fans gave up after series 4. I was very nearly one of them. I was angry, like just about every other Johnlocker and/or TJLCer, but I was really truly heartbroken. I couldn’t look at fanfiction. My days were full of bitterness and I keenly felt the lack of the fandom outlet that had become so essential to my mental well-being. I didn't know how to overcome the disparity between TJLC and what the show actually was. I didn't know how to separate the things I loved so much from the shitty writers and the way the BBC handled things with their whole response letter (that atrocious, childish blanket response they sent to everyone who complained about S4, not just the Johnlockers/TJLCers. Related to your complaint or not, if you filed one post-S4, this was the response you got). I still boycott BBC shows/merchandise, just by the way.

I tried to link to the blanket response letter but the link didn’t want to work (it’s an old reddit post; I had difficulty finding a copy of the letter elsewhere though at one point it wasn’t so hard...Google is weird these days y’all...tell me it’s not just me) so here’s a screenshot:

Transcript:

“Thank you for contacting us about “Sherlock”.

The BBC and Hartswood Films have received feedback from some viewers who were disappointed there was not a romantic resolution to the relationship between Sherlcok and John in the finale of the latest season of “Sherlock”.

We are aware that the majority of this feedback uses the same text posted on websites and circulated on social media.

Through four series and thirteen episodes, Sherlock and John have never shown any romantic or sexual interest in each other. Furthermore, whenever the creators of “Sherlock” have been asked by fans if the relationship might develop in that direction, they have always made it clear that it would not.

Sherlock’s writers, cast and producers have long been firm and vocal supporters of LGBT rights.

The BBC does not accept the allegations leveled at “Sherlock” or its writers, and we wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers to develop the story as they see fit.

We will of course register your disappointment.

Thank you for contacting us.

Kind Regards,

BBC Complaints Team

So how about that? *Did* they “register our disappointment”? We can actually check that. The BBC’s website has a monthly summary of complaints received. So what did they receive in January 2017, the month S4 aired?

Huh, what do you know. Sounds like that blanket response was exactly the “fuck you” it came across as.

But the show--the FANDOM--had filled a need in my life, and so I had to own that and make it mine, or just...let something in me die: something that felt like an actual vital organ. I had to decide that these characters mean something to me beyond what anyone else tells me they should. I had to accept my own perceptions as truth, as I do with everything else in my life. I had to overcome the idea of canon as law (BBC Sherlock isn't canon anyway; ACD is canon. BBC Sherlock is, in the end, badly written fanfiction--or--worse?--decent pre-slash fanfiction distorted by consistent lies and the hazing of the LGBT audience, topped with the dumpster fire of S4′s incoherent nonsense).

I had to take the good and throw away the bad, just like anyone else who chose to stay. The good bits of the show...dialogue, yes. Plot points, yes. These awful writers did write some good stuff sometimes.

They just broke all the unspoken rules of what not to do to your audience. And then did and said everything they could not to apologize, and to justify their own failings. Which, in the years since I began shipping queer ships beyond any others, I have unfortunately experienced more than once.

So, my vulnerability has been yeeted into the vacuum of broke-my-trustdom: no one can tell me what things should mean to me. I will decide.

I decide that all of the FUCKING AMAZING writing in the Sherlock fandom is a staple in my life that makes it worth living. And that that's okay. And takes precedence over anything the writers or anyone else associated with the show could ever say or do.

Johnlock can not be taken away. It doesn't belong to them. It never did, even if they brought us to it. It belongs to us. To the group of amazingly creative, brainy, empathetic, resourceful, vibrant, resilient people who make up this fandom.

So thank YOU, all of YOU, for giving me Sherlock, Johnlock, and TJLC.

I am SO SAD for those who never found a way to make peace with this fandom again. Let me just say that I understand that inability entirely.

I am fortunate that I found the ability in myself to cling to the joy (something it has taken my whole life to be able to do). I hope others will who haven’t yet but wish they could.

Let Mofftiss and whoever sides with them stay angry and bitter and vicious, always looking over their shoulders for anyone who dares to whisper about subtext.

I’m proud to be part of what they’re whispering so angrily about.

Thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far. I know this was very self-indulgent and rambly.

Articles of interest:

A Study in Queerbaiting (Or How Sherlock Got it All Wrong) by Marty Greyson

“We never played it like that.” - Martin on Johnlock

Henry Cavill on the Enola Holmes lawsuit

More on that--and by the way Sherlock isn’t allowed to like dogs

The way Sherlock creators told fans Sherlock & John aren’t gay is so rude

Especially for those new to the fandom who may not know the distinction between TJLC and Johnlockers and want to know more about TJLC's evolution/what it is/meta through the years

Moffat's view on asexuality, offensive to me in particular *as* an asexual person (same article where he claims he isn't misogynistic): "If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that – it's someone who abstains who's interesting."

Yet he says Sherlock isn't gay or straight and that he's trying to keep his brain pure which is a "very Victorian attitude"

(Nice historical research there, Moff--actually the Victorians were sex-positive).

Sherlock fans were robbed of the gay ending they deserved

Benedict Cumberbatch has lashed out at his Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman over his negative attitude towards fans

BBC complaints January 2017

Martin Freeman: 'Sherlock is gayest story ever'

From 2016: UNPOPULAR OPINION: "Sherlock" Isn't Sexist or Queerbaiting; It's Actually Trying to Stage a Revolution

Queer-baiting on the BBC's Sherlock: Addressing the Invalidation of Queer Identities through Online Fan Fiction Communities by Cassidy Sheehan

[tabloidtoc]

OK, December 21

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Queen Elizabeth cancels Christmas

Page 1: Big Pic -- David Beckham in an ad for Haig Club 

Page 2: Contents 

Page 4: Bella and Olivia Jade Giannulli -- life on their own -- find out what Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli’s daughters have been up to while their famous parents sweat it out in prison -- Bella has been so stressed out and felt she deserved a trip with her buds so she went to a luxury resort in Santa Barbara over Thanksgiving weekend 

Page 6: It’s been a little over a year since Felicity Huffman was released from prison after serving her time for role in the college admissions scandal but she is finally starting to get her life and career back on track -- initially she was nervous about working again given the controversy and everything that went down and she seriously wondered if there would be anything out there for her material-wise but she shouldn’t have worried as she landed a part in an upcoming pilot in which she’ll play a recently widowed owner of a Triple-A baseball team and she’s really excited about the show 

Page 7: Kristin Cavallari is fed up with Carrie Underwood’s meddling in her divorce from Jay Cutler -- after Kristin called time on her seven-year marriage Carrie and her husband Mike Fisher who used to be Nashville couple-friends to both Kristin and Jay have taken Jay’s side and since then there’s been some snide stuff said that’s made it clear how Carrie really fills about Kristin -- while Jay spent Thanksgiving with Carrie and Mike, Kristin filmed a wine-fueled Instagram Live and Carrie finds this type of thirsty behavior on social media incredibly lame and she’s saying it’s obvious Kristin cares more about upping her profile than making any type of family peace 

* After nearly 60 years in showbiz Cher has a different aspirations -- since traveling to Pakistan to help a mistreated elephant from a local zoo be relocated to an animal sanctuary she’s saying this is her new mission to help endangered species in third world countries and campaign for other good eco causes -- Cher spends much of her time cooped up and bored in her Malibu mansion and her trip made her realize there’s a world out there that needs her help 

* Mark Harmon of NCIS is all work and no play these days and nearly two decades in the same TV gig as Leroy Gibbs has only made things worse as the responsibilities of the show seem to wear heavier on Mark by the year and even on a break you can’t get him to crack a smile or tell a joke; he’d rather go lie down in his trailer -- off set Mark and his wife of 33 years Pam Dawber get along because they’re such homebodies and Mark can usually be found working on his cars in the garage or relaxing in the yard and he cherishes his quiet time but people have stopped inviting him out because he’s known as Mr. Boring 

Page 8: Dolly Parton is spreading Christmas cheer far and wide with a new TV special and album and Netflix movie but at her home in Tennessee the holiday spirit is decidedly lacking because Dolly is forgoing her favorite 40-year-running traditions which are filling her house with trees and driving her nieces and nephews and their kids around her farm in golf carts dressed as Santa and handing out presents because of her concern for her husband Carl Dean who has Alzheimer’s disease and he’s in a high-risk group for coronavirus so she’s restricted the property to just them and two staff members -- it breaks Dolly’s heart to have to cancel her big annual celebration and she’s still decorated her home to the nines but it’s a lonely feeling knowing the family won’t be there to see it 

* Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton are proving themselves to be perfectly postmodern parents by raising their kids Prince George and Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis with firm rules for TV and electronic use -- Kate who recently revealed she’s fielded her share of temper tantrums actively attempts to stave off meltdowns with a strict rewards chart and the kids have to earn screen time -- Kate prefers to keep them busy with activities like board games and hikes and baking which the children enjoy anyway

* After spending the last several years living a relatively low-key life in his native England Russell Brand is desperate to have a bigger presence in Hollywood but his wife Laura insists he stay put -- Russell’s craving SoCal living and the copious acting jobs and event invites that came with it but Laura prefers their British life outside the spotlight with their young daughters -- while some work has come to him in England like the upcoming Death on the Nile if he had his way he’d make a more aggressive career push in L.A. 

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars stand out in festive green dresses -- Carly Pearce, Angela Bassett, Zendaya 

Page 11: Jodie Comer, Adriana Lima 

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Melissa Gorga vs. Jennifer Lahmers, Abigail Spencer vs. Hailey Bieber in Max Mara, Olivia Culpo vs. Aurora Culpo 

Page 14: News in Photos -- Brooke Burke with Christmas ornaments that will be auctioned by non-profit Operation Smile 

Page 16: Audrina Patridge brought along her daughter Kirra’s favorite toys for a picnic in Beverly Hills, Padma Lakshmi visits The Vitamin Shoppe in NYC, Brandy at the BET Soul Train Awards 

Page 17: Kelly Rutherford felt the love from her dogs in L.A., Shawn Mendes out for a walk in Miami 

Page 21: Robin Wright and husband Clement Giraudet held hands while riding their bikes in L.A., long-time friends Gabrielle Union and Snoop Dogg unpacked ingredients delivered by Shipt 

Page 22: Josh Duhamel on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Karlie Kloss on her new Adidas collection 

Page 24: Vanessa Hudgens snuggled up to her beloved pup Darla while at the park in L.A., Jay-Z taking a walk around the island in Hawaii 

Page 25: Kimora Lee Simmons and her children handed out food to residents of a housing complex, Prince Jackson safely helped a community church distribute food to those in need 

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Ariel Winter’s stylish setup 

Page 28: Like most Garth Brooks and wife Trisha Yearwood have had a challenging 2020 but their 15-year marriage was put to the test this past summer when the country superstars’ daughter Allie tested positive for Covid-19 -- they were worried sick and had to go into quarantine themselves and not being able to hold Allie’s hand was terrible for both of them but fortunately Allie’s case was mild and Garth and Trisha’s tests came back negative 

Page 30: Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott who have amicably coparented their daughter Stormi since their split last year and recently spent Thanksgiving together as a family are drawing up plans to have another baby together in 2021 because both of them want to give Stormi a sibling ASAP and neither can imagine going through this process with anyone else -- the exes are figuring out a contract to specify their family plans that will protect Kylie’s money and outline coparenting terms more formally and give them each an agreeable share of custody if things don’t stay as rosy down the line

* They’ve costarred in five films and have proclaimed they’re each other’s work wives and are finally single at the same time so pals of Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis are urging the longtime friends to give it a go romantically especially now that Jason has split from Olivia Wilde -- Jennifer always says Jason makes her laugh the way no one else can -- while Jason’s primarily focusing on coparenting his kids he’s long harbored warm and fuzzy feelings toward Jen and he would love to ask her out but the only thing holding him back is the potential to ruin their solid friendship

* Love Bites -- Johnny Galecki and Alaina Meyer split, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky dating, Jonathan Bennett and Jaymes Vaughan engaged 

Page 31: Matthew Perry’s loved ones are worried the Friends star has made a rash call by suddenly getting engaged to literary manager Molly Hurwitz -- the on-off two-year romance between Matthew and Molly has been dysfunctional from the get-go and Matthew’s way more into this than Molly who seems to love him more like a brother

* A rough year for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle including inter-family strife and a move across the pond and a devastating miscarriage has only strengthened their bond -- after Meghan revealed she and Harry had miscarried in July the two were quite overwhelmed by the outpouring of compassion and the response not only validated their decision to go public a thousand times over but it also helped them grow even closer -- they’re determined to put this behind them and try for another baby at the earliest opportunity but more than anything else it’s really underlined how they belong together as soulmates 

Page 32: Cover Story -- Queen Elizabeth’s holiday shake-up -- inside the monarch’s heartbreaking decision to call off the family’s annual Christmas celebration -- the queen will celebrate the holidays at Windsor Castle in Berkshire for the first time in more than three decades -- while the queen is upset not to have the company of the younger royals this year she has to think about her and Prince Philip’s health 

Page 36: Katie Holmes’ season of joy -- how Katie is spending the holidays with her new love Emilio Vitolo Jr. 

Page 38: Mistaken Identity -- with these celeb look-alikes it’s deja vu all over again -- Carrie Underwood and Reese Witherspoon, Daniel Radcliffe and Elijah Wood 

Page 39: Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon, Amy Adams and Isla Fisher, Lucy Hale and Selena Gomez 

Page 40: Interview -- Tommy Lee’s new beat -- the veteran rock star opens up about his latest solo album and his new fan base 

Page 42: Gal Power -- how Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot gets into superhero shape 

Page 43: Fight Club -- these buttkicking superheroines pushed themselves to new limits -- Brie Larson, Scarlett Johansson, Danai Gurira 

Page 46: Style -- Zendaya for Lancome’s new mascara 

Page 48: Sleek activewear from celeb-loved label Gigi C Bikinis makes it easy to look like a star when you work out 

Page 49: 5 minutes with Adrienne Bailon 

Page 54: Entertainment 

Page 58: Buzz -- Disney Holiday Singalong featuring Ryan Seacrest, Katy Perry, Pink and daughter Willow, Ciara and her kids Future and Sienna 

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Nelly on feeling disappointed with placing third on Dancing With the Stars, Kaley Cuoco on husband Karl Cook’s social media presence, Megan Fox on first meeting boyfriend Machine Gun Kelly 

Page 61: Paul McCartney on why he doesn’t like taking pictures with fans, Cardi B joking about how her 2-year-old crashed her selfie video 

Page 62: Horoscope -- Sagittarius Vanessa Hudgens turned 32 on December 14 

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Dan Levy