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theadrogna · 1 year

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Dream Show Challenge

It's time for the Dream Show Challenge once more! I gave @singledarkshade a list of 7 TV shows or films and we were given a cast of 7 actors in return.

Here's who I had to work with:

The Umbrella Academy - Aidan Gallagher Good Omens - David Tennant The Mandalorian - Giancarlo Esposito Leverage Redemption - Aleyse Shannon Everything Everywhere All at Once - Ke Huy Quan The Witcher - Freya Allan Sense8 - Daryl Hannah

I present you with:

Rift Hunter

Synopsis:

Someone or something is trying to reach Earth, not through space but across a dimensional rift. A secretive agency battles to control the rifts and deal with the incursions that threaten humans and the very fabric of the world. Connor Harris is having a particularly bad day. He is broke, his girlfriend has left him, and he’s desperate for something to go right, when he stumbles through the wrong door on his way to a job interview for a job he doesn’t really want, and into the middle of an incursion.

He is thrust into a world of monsters, aliens and strange science. Jiang Bao heads up the Reality Incursion Fundamental Tactics and Science (RIFTS) Agency which takes in Connor and gives him a new purpose. The secretive agency is tasked with keeping mankind safe but also with making good use of any opportunities that the Rifts produce to further science and technology.

The show plays on Connor's love of video games and retro gaming, getting in references about video games and gaming culture. It has a retro 80s theme tune and a purposefully retro intro sequence. It makes use of garish colours to heighten the strangeness of the rifts and the denizens from it.

Aidan Gallagher – Connor Harris

In the wrong place at the wrong time, Connor never wanted to be part of the agency. However, his quick thinking and problem solving skills make him an ideal operative. He is a gaming nerd, whose last job was at a large game design company. He has very few friends and almost no real prospects after the company he worked for went bankrupt and fired all their staff, but he grows into his role at the agency. His main skills are in computers, but he also somehow gains an ability to predict when and where a rift will occur. He can also track the entities who come to Earth through the rifts.

Aleyse Shannon – Tia Adefope

Tia is a government military operative, and is quite secretive about her past. She has trained to a high level and is extremely competent. She never expected to need to use her skills in this way but she is ready for whatever comes. She now leads a team of soldiers who act as security for the RIFT Agency and protect the scientists and technicians from anything that would harm them. When she isn’t saving the world one bullet at a time, she has a pet cat called Discord and a vintage motorbike to restore. She doesn’t have any attachments because her job never allows her time to stay in one place, but she also secretly likes it that way.

Giancarlo Esposito – Jules Jackson

Jackson oversees the work of the RIFTS Agency. He is their liaison with government and ultimately in charge of everything that happens in the agency, their strategy and direction. He takes a no nonsense approach and takes his responsibilities seriously. Jiang would not have been his first choice to head up the agency and he would rather have found Connor a basement office that he could have left him in. However, he respects skill and comes to see the good points of the team.

Ke Huy Quan – Jiang Bao

Head of the RIFTS Agency. Strings were pulled to get him this job, and Jackson would have preferred a military candidate. Jiang is an expert in the little that is known about the phenomenon of the rifts. Jiang’s parents emigrated from Vietnam when he was only a few months old, but he embraced his new country, becoming an disaster analyst in the government. His area of expertise is seismic activity, which led him to discover the rifts, but since then he has branched into several other areas of science to learn what he needs to know. He is smart, tough and a little out of his depth.

Freya Allen – Corinna Salvor

An expert in aerospace technology, formerly of NASA, she was recruited to the team as an expert technician. She helps to deal with the technological threats that the team face on a daily basis as part of their work. She loves the challenge of her work and will happily pick up a gun alongside Tia. Smart, sharp and with a wicked sense of humour she loves nothing better than to prank Dr Caffrey or wind up Jiang. She is an expert at pressing peoples buttons and specialises in cutting sarcasm.

David Tennant – Dr Alex Caffrey

Alex is a biologist, who found himself disgraced for his unusual views on the origins of life on Earth. Whilst he wasn’t exactly correct, he was closer to answers than many of his peers. Life on Earth wasn’t brought here by aliens but by the rifts. One of his key discoveries has been that humans were not originally native to Earth and he continues to gather evidence for where we came from as he interacts with the creatures that come through the rifts. He is a maverick who continues to clash with the senior team members on academic matters, but has a kind heart and will do anything for his friends. He does not enjoy fieldwork, but there is no substitute for collecting alien goo oneself.

Daryl Hannah – Persephone Turner

Persi is a linguist and expert in psychology. She is empathic and gentle, not well suited to the work she is doing, but determined not to let her fear get the better of her. There is nowhere else that would give her the opportunity to speak to beings from other worlds or to learn how they communicate. Her tenacity means she is unwilling to let things go, even if they look hopeless.

Episode 1: Connor Harris and the Day of the Tentacle

Connor loses his job at EverByte whilst in the middle of programming a game that could make them all rich. Unfortunately for Connor, things go from bad to worse when he applies for a new job and arrives at the interview to then get caught up in an evacuation. He enters the wrong room and instead of the exit, he finds a glowing rift and a waving set of tentacles being fought off by the RIFTS Agency.

Tia rescues him but not before he is covered in a strange alien slime that gives him unusual powers. He is taken back to HQ for treatment and testing. During this period he becomes away that objects from other worlds have unusual auras that he can see under the right conditions. The team take him out into the field to test this ability and he is able to pinpoint a rift before the final incursion appears. The tentacle monster returns and tries to take Connor back through the rift, but the creature is killed by Tia.

When Connor asks what’s on the other side, Tia tells him that no one has ever returned from the other side of a rift.

And finally, the 80s theme song:

Change Your Heart or Die - The Midnight

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#dream show #Dream show 3.0 #RBACL #rbacl dream show #Rift Hunter #Yes that is a play on words #no I'm not sorry

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fivedayshakespeare · 9 months

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1/1/2024-1/5/2024: Much Ado About Nothing

First of all, I think it's weird that Hero instantly forgives Claudio and marries him in spite of the way he treated her. His evidence of her "infidelity" was that he saw her talking to someone? And his response was to make the biggest scene possible right in the middle of the wedding? Come on, kid.

I realize things were different back then, but Beatrice specifically calls out both of those things, so I don't think things were THAT different. Claudio definitely wildly overreacted, but Hero still seems perfectly happy to marry him, as long as everyone in town clearly understands that she's a virgin.

Really, it's not the marriage that seems odd to me. The odd part is a few lines later, when both Hero and Claudio gleefully reveal Beatrice and Benedick's secret sonnets. You two have serious relationship issues you should be working on, but once the marriage happens they immediately retreat into being supporting characters for the actual stars of the play.

I've seen some analysis (now largely discredited, I think) that tries to make Claudio/Hero the stars and Benedick/Beatrice mere comic relief, but that flies in the face of the structure of the play. I think the couple that meets first and gets married last has to be the main objects of the plot, right? Or maybe not, because I guess by that rubric the main characters of A Midsummer Night's Dream would be Theseus and Hippolyta, who I regularly forget are even in the play.

When the Prince goes to Hero with the intention of wooing her for Claudio, he must have done an excellent job. Although I guess from Leonato's point of view, Hero has to marry the guy who spurned her if at all possible, to repair her (and thus Leonato's) reputation.

I watched the Kenneth Branagh and Joss Whedon versions while I was reading the play. They're both very good, I think. In Branagh, Emma Thompson and Michael Keaton are really excellent as Beatrice and Dogberry. In Whedon, I think Clark Gregg's Leonato impressed me the most. He felt the most fluent with Shakespeare. And there's a moment early on when Benedick is going on and on about Beatrice, and he says something to the effect of "Let's talk no more about her." Leonato just looks at the other character on screen until Benedick, of course, continues to talk about Beatrice. It's well acted and establishes that not only is Benedick clearly in love with Beatrice, but everyone knows it.

I was going to watch the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version, because I'm getting to the plays with multiple adaptations and I'm always fascinated by what changes are made (e.g. how many cuckold jokes get taken out) and the decisions by the actors. But I don't have time tonight, because RuPauls Drag Race is back. Aside: I think there is something interesting about Shakespeare and drag queens. Beatrice, after all, was played by a youth in a wig and a dress, and she definitely knew how to throw shade:

Benedick: God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were

That is a read if I ever saw one.

Finally, I would like to reiterate my dislike of the current state of things where the only Shakespeare criticism you can easily find online is people summarizing the plots and providing essays for students to steal. I'm having to order books from like 1955, when it appears that people were writing actual criticism. On the plus side, I'm assembling an okay research library.

#shakespeare #much ado about nothing #got a lot to say about this one #I didn't even get into beards

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faithandbuffy · 5 months

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S-U-N for the fandom alphabet ask

Thank you!!

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

My fave headcanon is that buffy and faith have a stronger connection than the show lets on, and that they share dreams on a semi frequent basis, also that faith felt it when buffy died

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

disregarding faith and buffy because duh, these are first three that popped into my head.

sameen shaw from person of interest because i find her personality so intriguing and i could think about how she "doesn't care" but really intensely cares for hours.

adora from she-ra. like? it's a kids cartoon but adora has so much depth and i'm a sucker for the weight-of-the-world hero archetype. the voice acting elevates her, she's the funniest character in the show, and her arc in s5 is so so good. also she has big sword big muscles.

amalia true from the nevers, which i think 3 people on the planet watched. she's from the future, she can see the future, she's hench as fuck, she has this intense sense of duty to something she doesn't even really understand. her dynamic with pretty much every character is super interesting, i love when she lets her guard down a little and i'm forever mad i don't live in a parallel universe where the nevers wasn't created by an asshole and ran for more than 12 episodes.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

okay i don't often give my opinions about the doctor who fandom in general because it tends to cause unwanted discourse but i will take the opportunity now bc i've thought about this stuff a lot.

first of all I wish there was more grace given to the show before a series has even aired. like now there's all these people getting annoyed about things in the new series that we haven't even seen yet, and it the episodes might be really good, we don't know! and i don't mean the bigots complaining about it being woke, i mean the actual fans! so many people were up in arms about david tennant coming back before the specials had even come out! trust the process and hope for the best!

second wish is that people realise multiple takes about a character or episode can coexist. the one that comes to mind is the whole human nature/family of blood debate. was the way martha was treated in these eps racist by the show runner and by the characters within the show? yes. was it also done intentionally to feed into her overall arc of recognising her own self worth and culminating in her leaving the doctor because she realises she should be treated better? also yes! just because one is true doesn't mean the other is not also a valid point and you don't always have to take a side as long as you recognise the racist implications and don't steamroll black fans when they rightfully critique these aspects. the same thing goes for pretty much anything to do with moffat as a show runner - you can recognise his misogynistic writing patterns without throwing out his whole era lol.

and third wish is that the fandom on the whole are more positive about the show in general. the whole reason i left twitter was because i think the majority of fans were getting bogged down in hating on various aspects of the show over and over while barely talking about bits they actually liked! i think valid criticism is one thing, but it gets to a point where you just wanna say "if you hate this aspect so much, why are you devoting so much time and brain power to hating on it!" the show has so much to love over its long history that it makes a far more enjoyable fandom experience to focus on the bits you love and just limit your engagement with the bits you don't like. fandom is supposed to be fun, you should not be getting this angry over 3 series of a 39 series show fr.

#this was way longer than i intended but i enjoyed putting down my thoughts too much #thank you for the ask buddy!!!#asks

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zeke-ewan · 2 years

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IMHO: David Tennant as 'the Bridge Doctor'; I think it was a good move. In this essay I will...

Talk at length about this whole thing, if invited.

For now, I will share main points, and if anyone wants more, you know what to do - it's tumblr. This isn't super long but I still hate taking up dash space, so:

I am inspired to write this because I watched this video ... ("The REAL Reason David Tennant is Back as Doctor Who" by Joe Brennan on Youtube). And I would like to politely add my own opinion, as I am one of the "nostalgic fanboys" mentioned in the video, but I also consider myself able to learn and change perspectives, as I highly value the adaptive nature of scientific research.

"The News" to which I am responding, is that David Tennant will play The Doctor, while we await Ncuti Gatwa who is working on another project. Some opinions are concerned this is too much fan service, despite "Tentwo" being somewhat of a placeholder, as Ncuti is presently too busy to film Who.

Key points of which I think when considering this move:

If you really have selected the perfect person for the role, wouldn't it make more long-term sense to hold their role for them while they make the necessary accommodations? I can surely say that if someone headhunted and offered to change my life with the role of a life time (though I think if it were my first role, I'd have another character in mind for myself, if I were able to make wishes haha) I sure would need to make some necessary adjustments!

Joining something as phenomenal and endless as Doctor Who has got to be one of the biggest honours in Sci-Fi, pop culture, etc, along with a number of other popular or obscure titles that have endured as long (I would like to nod to Star Trek, Star Wars, Red Dwarf). And adjusting one's life to accommodate filming such a title would take much preparation.

Personally I welcome the nostalgic nod to the anniversary with the 'Fan service doctor'. Sometimes, when able to show growth through throw-back, nostalgia is okay, for a moment. In a world where the nostalgeneration (my term, anyone a fan?) who watched our parents fear the technology then integrate it into our entire society. The millennials were the ones who grew up riding bikes then couldn't afford our own cars, so please give us a break when we get excited to see hopeful faces from our upbringing, or at least me, if I am alone in this feeling.

I was promised success upon completion of school, then failed school, over and over and over. But I have fond memories of watching Doctor Who with my mother, who remembered it a bit growing up, despite not being an avid Sci-fi fan.

I could explain my points further, except I am attempting to practice sleep hygiene and it's already past my bed time, so I must away.

I think it's okay to take a breather with some gentle nostalgia to celebrate a monolithic anniversary, so that we can say that we didn't miss that huge milestone, but still keep the role open for the perfect next candidate.

Personally, I'd rather wait for the dream role than rush into an ill-suited one. Sure would help the wait, knowing what's at the end of the tunnel, but at this point, I'm not even sure what I'm 'waiting on' any more. And I'm determined to make this waiting room as interesting as possible - when the main quest is out of reach, do side-quests! I just hope the main quest becomes clear again soon, even if I have to write the dang code myself, lol.

#doctor who #david tennant #ncuti gatwa #writers of tumblr #aspiring actor #aspiring writer #aspiring decision maker #thoughts on doctor who #aaand sleep time kgo

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stageyrebecca · 2 years

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Why I'm not heading to MusicalCon

This year is seeing the launch of something theatre fans have been crying out for... MusicalCon. It promises a weekend-long celebration of all things musical where you can meet the stars, learn from the pros and celebrate the shows.

Sounds a stagey dream, right?

I personally decided to not go this year.

The current experiences that have been detailed, which require payment on top of the entrance fee, seem to include taking part in dance workshops. From what I've seen on socials, there seems to be a mixed bag of people who are going to better their dancing skills, and those who feel like they need to take part in *something* to justify the ticket.

As someone with limited dancing talent, I don't overly fancy paying to make a fool of myself in front of West End stars... but props to those who are keen! These days, I'm more of an appreciater than a do-er.

This is particularly exacerbated by the fact it seems super geared towards the under 20 musical fan market.

Don't get me wrong, I'd have bought the first tickets to a convention if there was a wider spread of talent like Aaron Tveit, Julie Andrews (imagine), Gary Wilmot, Scarlet Strallen, Joshua Henry and Ramin Karimloo would be there... or even modern composer legends like Alan Menken, Stiles & Drewe, and Jason Robert Brown. But I did have a feeling it'd be focused on the Heathers crowd - which is great news for them!

There's also been a bit of noise on socials about paying to meet the stars. This isn't unusual for fan conventions - Wales Comic Con boasted £80 on top of entry to meet and take a photo with David Tennant. But for musical theatre fans, meeting your idols is generally significantly 'easier' than film and tv; this is something I believe has caused a little friction between ticket holders and the organisers.

I personally wouldn't spend £30 on top of entry to meet someone who I could meet at stage door, or even bump into at a central London Tesco Express. I'd rather spend that £30 on a ticket to a show, and if I take a liking to one of the actors, I'd swing by stage door and snag an autograph if I'm lucky.

What particularly interests me about MusicalCon is the £195 Weekend VIP Pass. Some folks on Facebook have said they "naively assumed the VIP extra ticket price meant that stuff would be included" and I think that's completely fair.

Upon launch of these passes, they included: VIP main stage viewing area, VIP access to book autographs, photo opportunities and workshops, VIP lanyard & goody bag, and a (limited availability of) MusicalCon t shirt.

It's that 'VIP access to' that I think has slightly led some customers astray.

The price point below the £195 Weekend VIP Pass was the Weekend Priority Pass, costing £89. This simply included priority access to book autographs, photo opportunities and workshops. The £195 VIP Pass should be including one hell of a goody bag to justify the extra £100 between that and the Priority Pass!

Some folks are even passing up their opportunity to book workshops early due to the fact a limited amount of scheduling has been announced and they don't want to miss out on something better coming along. Perhaps something on the Main Stage, like the unannounced panels, Q&As and interviews - this is definitely something I'd be more likely to enjoy.

But for me, the biggest anti-selling point, was how this may go some way towards inadvertently increase theatre ticket prices.

If I were a big theatre producer, I'd be keeping tabs on which meet & greets sold out. Because if folks are willing to spend £30 on spending a few minutes with their favourite star, they'd probably be happy paying £5 more per ticket for two and a half hours' worth of time in the same room as them, right? It feels like it makes musicals even more commercialised than they currently are.

When it comes down to it, though, it'll be a great way to meet likeminded musicals fans in one room together. Our collective passion for the form is truly unmatched and will, I'm sure, be worth the entry fee.

One reason I wish I did have a ticket to MusicalCon for me is the marketplace exhibitors. It is SO rare to find decent musical theatre merch, particularly if your favourite shows aren't currently being staged.

It'll be featuring some excellent stagey small businesses including AmeliaStitches for all your embroidery needs, TheatreAndThreads to jazz up your jackets, LettersToJuly to decorate your scrapbooks, Scrunchies4Theatre to accessorise your hair, ThePlayhouseArthouse to swankify your walls and MusicalTheatrePins for your collector's items.

If you're a ticket holder, make sure you get yourself down to visit these stalls!

I hope everyone who bought a ticket to MusicalCon has the most divine time and gets exactly what they want from it. Curating a new event from scratch is a pretty impossible task, so to open to a sell out audience is phenomenal.

Let me know what you think - did you buy a ticket to MusicalCon? Do you wish you had?

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canyousonicme · 4 years

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“Certain actors have a reputation for being difficult. I don’t want to be one of those people”. - Alex Kingston

 INTERVIEW: The Sunday Post

 It comes as no surprise to Alex Kingston that her daughter has decided to follow in her footsteps, despite her best efforts to temper her acting ambitions.

The actress fell pregnant with Salome, now 19, when she was playing surgeon Elizabeth Corday on the long-running US medical drama ER in the ’90s.

Alex’s pregnancy was written into the script and Salome, whose father is German writer Florian Haertel, was just weeks old when she joined the cast as Elizabeth and Dr Mark Greene’s baby girl.

Now, two decades on, mother and daughter are working together again, this time in a Doctor Who spin-off audio drama, The Diary Of River Song. Now in its eighth series, it focuses on the Time Lord’s brilliant wife, the poetically named River Song, whom Alex has played on the TV show since 2008. Salome, meanwhile, plays the part of her synthetic humanoid companion, Rachel.

Alex said: “My daughter was in my belly on ER then played the role of our baby girl Ella Greene. She’s secretly always had the desire to act, but I was always adamant that she finished her education first.

“Salome plays a character who River Song meets up with occasionally and they have adventures together. Working with my daughter has been terrific fun. I am super-impressed with her. She is incredibly professional.”

Alex with daughter Salome

For the past year Alex and Salome have been isolating together at her London home, alongside Alex’s third husband, television producer Jonathan Stamp. The pair married in an intimate Italian ceremony in 2015, and Salome was a bridesmaid.

They are joined by Alex’s German-born mother, Margarethe, who sadly suffers from dementia. It sounds like a potentially stressful set-up but Alex has cherished the unexpected extra family time lockdown gifted her.

Alex, who celebrated her 57th birthday a few days after the first lockdown was announced last March, said: “My daughter had arrived from New York and decided she wanted to live with us. Then my mother, who has dementia, suffered two strokes early on in lockdown and she moved in as well. So I was her carer.

“It was an amazingly special time. And I cherish it. Particularly with my mother, because I wouldn’t have had that opportunity otherwise.”

Like the rest of us, Alex has relied heavily on streaming services to keep her entertained during the long days spent at home. She even broke her self-imposed rule of not watching her own stuff on screen.

She said: “We did all the usual things, massive clear-outs, and of course binge-watched TV. I loved Schitt’s Creek, Call My Agent, Bridgerton and Luther. I can’t bear to watch myself on the television. However, I started watching ER, because it was streaming on Channel 4. I look at myself and it’s like I am watching someone else. It’s such a good show, and it’s really held up!”

She added: “As much as everyone is saying this is the year that they want to forget, I actually feel it’s a year one can never forget. It certainly wasn’t an easy time. However, I have much stronger memories of the year, and of the patterns of the year than I have ever had pre-pandemic, when there was always so much rushing around.”

Alex in 1994 with fellow ER cast members (l-r) Anthony Edwards, Eriq La Salle, Goran Visnjic, Noah Wyle

Alex began her career at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she met her first husband, Skyfall actor Ralph Fiennes. They were together for 10 years before marrying in 1993. Two years later, Alex was left bereft when Fiennes left her after an alleged affair with a co-star. The London-born actress has barely stopped working since she first appeared on UK screens in 1980, as Jill Harcourt on the iconic children’s series Grange Hill. She continued to find success in UK dramas including Upstairs Downstairs, and The Fortunes And Misfortunes of Moll Flanders.

She first appeared in the fourth series of Doctor Who alongside David Tennant in 2008. Alex thought it was a one-off but has reprised the role in 15 episodes between 2008 and 2015.

It’s thanks to her Doctor Who appearances and, more recently, Sky’s hit supernatural drama, A Discovery Of Witches, that she has become known to a new generation of fans.

During her long and successful career, Alex has never been afraid to call out sexism in the industry. When she was dropped from ER aged 41, after seven seasons, she accused producers of ageism. saying “Apparently, I, according to the producers and the writers, am part of the old fogies who are no longer interesting.”

Then, when she auditioned for the role of Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives which eventually went to Felicity Huffman, she says she was turned away for being too curvy.

Although vocal about the challenges that face women, she admits she has seen positive changes in attitudes towards female talent in recent years.

She says: “When I was working on ER, I thought that I wasn’t allowed to get pregnant, I didn’t want to offend the producers as that is not what they had intended. I thought that I would have to ask permission. It was Anthony Edwards, who played my on-screen husband, who said ‘Don’t be ridiculous, don’t wait for them to allow you, you are not that important. If you want to have a child, go and have a child, and they will find a way to work round you.’ So I took his advice.

“I grew up with this notion that one had to be polite and always ask for permission. Whereas this generation don’t. They just get up and do it. The lovely and talented Teresa Palmer, whom I work with on A Discovery of Witches, is constantly popping out babies. Production just work around her. And it’s great, I admire her very much for that.”

Alex in ER

Alex puts her staying power down to being in the right place at the right time – and being nice to people, though she says theatre will provide her with a safety net should the TV work dry up one day.

She said: “Being as versatile as possible helps. I’m up for anything as long it is written well.

“I had a formal training. My first love is theatre. Having that as a backbone will always support me. In an industry that will favour youth more, theatre is always there. In order to succeed on the stage you have to have had good solid training and know how to handle your voice.

“Also, being a nice person counts for a lot. If you were difficult you would get a reputation. Of course there are actors who are extremely difficult and tiresome to work with, and there will come a point at which you think is it worth it? I don’t want to be one of those people.”

Despite her time-travelling credentials Alex has no idea what the future holds but still harbours a dream of being a Bond Girl (though obviously not one who falls for the smooth-talking spy).

She laughs: “I would love to be a villain in a James Bond movie, the real villain, the main one. Because they’ve never had a female villain. And I want to be a villain who does not find James Bond sexy at all. And doesn’t succumb to his charms, I want to be his real nemesis.”

Time for a return to Tardis?

Alex alongside Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who

From ER to the Tardis, Alex’s career to date has been distinguished by roles opposite fictional doctors, whether medical or time-travelling.

The smash-hit hospital drama which made her a star in the ’90s famously launched the Hollywood career of a certain George Clooney. Then in 2008, Alex won a new generation of fans as the wife of Doctor Who.

Because the Doctor transmutates over time Alex, as River Song, gets several leading men for the price of one. Alex said: “Essentially my character is the same, so there’s continuity there, and the fun is interacting with someone who is essentially the same man, but in a different skin and with a different energy.”

Perhaps the least lucky man in the role was Matt Smith.

Alex explained: “One of the most memorable parts of filming was when I flew through the universe, got caught in the Tardis and kneed Matt Smith, who was playing the Doctor at the time, in a sore place by mistake. There were a few tears of laughter from me and cries of pain from him.”

Speculation is rife among fans that Alex will return to the Whoniverse, if the incumbent Time Lord Jodie Whittaker steps down. All Alex will say is: “My Tardis door is always open…” [x]

#Alex Kingston #Salome Haertel #River Song #Doctor Who #Kingston Edit #ER #NEW #Interview #2021 #The Sunday Post #New

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales Reviews: The Town Where Everyone Was Nice! or Scrooge Is the Lindburgh Baby

Saludos Amigos! The Ride of the Three Cablleros has at long last come to the last stop before it’s final phase. It’s been a hell of a ride so far: Our boys have tried to woo some ladies, performed some black magic, had some sort of drug trip, dealt with Donald’s ego, helped goofy ungoofy himself...

“SEASONS CHANGE, TIMES CHANGE BUT UNGOOFY IS FOREVER AND ALWAYS HE IS ALWAYS THERE” ... I created this magificent stalion.. kinda I think he came out of a styigan hole in the universe from the darkest dark in the dark of the dark... I can’t be sure. Our heroes fought an arrogant prince, found a lost city and helped donald get his smile back. All culminating in our heroes going to Spain for some reason, soundtracking Goofy’s win against Horace in Flamico Dancing, somehow that wasn’t a Covid induced fever dream I had but the actual premise of the episode, and then played some soccer with Daisy’s cousin and Pancho Pete. All in all we’ve had some good times getting here and I feel acomplished having made it this far. While I’ve still got quite a ways to go, getting this far means I really made something.. and not just the 80 something dollars it took to comission all of this. And I genuinely just want to thank all of you for reading these as these have easily been some of my most popular reviews and @weirdkev27 for comissioning all of this. It’s been easily one of my faviorite projects so far and I look forward to the final leg of it soon. For now though we have one last adventure before the biggest one starts. But before we can dive into it you probably have a few questions, and since I don’t really need to give Ducktales 2017 a lavish introduction as unlike most stuff so far this show is well and familiar: it’s what got me started reviewing animation on this blog, it’s what got me into the duck community as a full member, and it’s what caught Kev’s attention leading to this entire series. So I have time to answer the questions your probably asking and if your not.. well here’s the answers anyway Wait aren’t you going to cover Louie’s Eleven?: Nope. While I love that episode, I already did a full review of it earlier this year. I saw no reason to completely and utterly redo the entire thing when my opinions toward the episode haven’t really changed. That being said since I didn’t touch on the boys characterizations in that one too much and since I do want this retrospective to be comprehensive, I will talk about Panchito And Jose’s characterization there briefly during this review at the right time as a compromise.

Wait why isn’t THIS the last stop since it came out AFTER Legend of the Three Cablleros: Simple.. it felt unsatsfying to both me and kev to end on this one. While their apperance here IS a good one and a big deal... it’s also ANOTHER guest apperance. It’s something I didn’t quite realize for now but outside of the movie.. every apperance after is them guest starring in another series. Their aperances in Don Rosa’s Duck Comics, while awesome and treating them with proper respect, were still them showing up to shake up Donald’s stories and formulas. They were LITERAL guest stars in House of Mouse, and Roadster Racers was entirely just “let’s shove them in there because we can”. Legend.. is their story. Their moment in the sun after too damn long with all three as main characters and while being a lead is normal for donald, Jose and Panchito really HAVEN’T had that shot outside of their home countries. To be the hero of their own fully realized epic adventure. So it just fits best to have the road lead there instead of have all that happen.. then go back to yet another guest appearance. The other major factor.. is that while Legend came out around the same time as ducktales, to the point many compared and contrast both shows treatment of Donald, this episode is what most non-latin american audiences saw first as it took Disney WAY too damn long to air the series over here.. i.e. until Disney Plus launched, finding it somewhere online was the only option despite the series being produced in america with some really big american names voice acting wise. Point is this came first to some people, so i’m using that as a flimsy excuse to put it ahead so we get a better finale.

Now all that’s settled, let’s dive into “The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!” and see what one of the best duck propeties period makes of our boys.

We open in a remote town in Brazil. It’s the Festival of the Flower.. which is a bit off to me. While it DOES kind of make plot sense.. the problem is the lure was written to Panchito and Jose.. Jose whose a brazil native and could’ve possibly been supscious that a tourist invintation wasn’t in Brazilian Portugese, the countries national language and something I specifically researched just to see what it’d be called. For the record it’d be O Festival da Flor acording to google translate, which still sounds neat, Webby could’ve still said it means festival of the flower. It just feels like a missed opportunity from a creative team that’s taken such pains to make the series feel as authentic as possible and clearly put a lot of hard work and research into making each location feel like it’s real world counterpart. But it’s a minor thing and we soon get our two plots for the episode: Our B Plot.. is that Dewey can’t stay the fuck off his phone and is taking pictures rather than actually getting experiences with Louie enabling him, while Webby gets increasingly frustrated at Dewey not actually botherting to experince this unique and obscure culture. We’ll get back to this in a bit.

Our main plot naturally concerns the reason our heroes are here: Donald is reuniting with The Cabs, who in this continuity are his old College friends who Scrooge hates due to having to listen to them practice constnatly and tells the kids they’d hate it worse than his playing the bagpipes.

Bagpipes are objectively the worst insterument on earth. They are loud, unharmonic and generally just obnoxious. I do respect how important they are to Scotland, home of David Tennant, Grant Morrision and .. Alan Cumming and James Macavoy? Wait what? that’s awesome! Point is Scotland is great but I do not like the bagpipes except when Bugs Bunnny is murdering them. Honestly Donald’s college band was probably more like this. Nothing bad at all just mildly pathetic and mildly pathetic is what got Donald a girlfriend, so it’s not a bad look

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That brings me to another point: Scrooge is pretty obnoxious in this episode. It seems like his sole reason for coming was to bitch about Donald’s old college band. He could’ve just sent them a stern letter like the pros at being a cranky old geezer do.

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I do GET why he’s here as there are some REALLY damn funny bits with him in the a-plot, it just feels like they could’ve justified it better. But on to better things as Jose and Panchito enter the scene after Scrooge claims they “weren’t so cool”.. with Panchito diving from a plane and drifting down on his umbrella

And Panchito shows up dramatically playing the guitar. A truly awesome and worthy intro to our boys. So let’s talk about them in this series. Honestly the two really aren’t that diffrent from usual, though Jose’s lady chasing is given to Panchito, his footloose world traveling lifestyle remains in tact as does his genuine charm while Panchito remains the peppy one, just with his outbursts gone as his guns are replaced with cell phones..

Yeah while I do get replacing the pistols because let’s face it the mexican of the group being a gun nut was pretty damn unfortunate, though Don Rosa toned it down and justifed it well, and frankly guns are a hard no for family shows these days unless their laser guns so replacing them I get. But instead of I dunno giving him knives or turning his holsters into pouches carrying his stuff.. he just has two Cell Phones. It’s weird. It dosen’t really make sense other than for him putting on a big shot act and even big stars probably don’t have two phones on them at all times. It’s just a VERY weird update that makes not a whole lot of logical sense and I belivie is thankfully gone by the next ep. The only real issue I have is the two just sorta blend together personality wise instead of being distinct like usual, but that’s also happened in other apperances, so it’s not exactly a new or unique problem, and the two’s voice actors do a great job making both feel like they should.

Speaking of which let’s just go ahead and discuss that elephant in the room: The Cabs were recast for the first time in ages, which didn’t sit well with friends of legend as Eric Bauza, who’d replaced rob Paulsen, was himself replaced by Arturo Del Puerto and Bernado Del Paulo replaced Jamie Camil and Carlos Aquazi as Panchito. And I have mixed opinons on this one: Replacing Eric was a no brainer: while he’s a terrific voice actor.. he’s not brazilian and the crew of Ducktales 2017 perfer to cast actors who match their characters backgrounds, which again adds to the authenicty of it’s globetrotting and scope. They don’t ALWAYS, Cree Summer isn’t, as far as I know, Egyptian and Catherine Tate, while wonderful, isn’t italian. But for the most part it adds a nice flavor to things and frankly I personally prefer it when Jose is voiced by an actual brazilian man. So that change i’m fine with. Not using Camil though... I do not get. Jamie Camil is a throughly talented voice actor, having done TONS of great work lately , vocing Globgor for star vs and not getting nearly enough screen time as the loveable demon dad, and stealing the show as Don Carnage earlier in the series. While that episode is one of the series weakest, he’s still easily the best part of it and I hope Carnage shows up one last time before the finale.

So it really makes.. no sense to me to replace him. Not only is camil a bigger named actor, but he was already on the show and even the defense of “well they don’t want actors playing multiple rolls” ended up utterly destroyed by the end of the season, as Christ Dimatopolus not only reprised Storkules, but went on to play Drake and Melon, and picked up a FOURTH role in season 3 as Hades. My point is the show has no real issue with doubling up on voice rolls, so I scratch my head as to why Camil wasn’t given this part too despite being the obvious choice. Del Paulo isn’t a bad actor and is great in the role.. I just scratch my head why he was needed when a perfect actor for the part was right there and already had experince with the character.

I do think Puerto and Paulo are terrific and do the characters justice, issues with Paulo being there at all aside, and they do a great job and more than earned the roles and I don’t think the mass critcisim of this version of the characters is entirely warranted.. for this episode. This episode while they can meld into each other... that happens in most of their apperances anyway, so it’s not unusual or unique to this series. I will say however that the way their written in their next apperance is utter garbage: they aren’t really given any chances to be distinct, are basically written as one person even worse .. and that one person is a greedy asshole who takes advantage of their friend and never apologizes. I do get why people did not like them in that episode. I do think it has no baring on this one and people should stop bashing these versions as a whole for one terrible episode, especially when Louie has been written pretty badly for the bulk of season 3, yet is still not a bad character. It’s unfair to paint the series as painting them soley as selfish jackasses when it didn’t at first and hopefully wont’ again when they presumibly show up for the finale’s big avengers endgame sequence I hope is coming. For now they aren’t bad and the colors are crisp and the animation nice and bouncy on our boys.

Since we have two plots here, I’m just going to go ahead and split em since honestly, the b plot dosen’t really impact the a-plot until really the last minute and is basically happening right along side it and in concert with it. Sooooo...

The Trite B-Plot: As you can probably gather I didn’t really like this one. It’s basically 5-7 minutes of me wanting to punch a child in the face. Or rather Webby wanting to have fun experinces and actually take in the culture while in town, while Dewey just wants to take pictures of everything, make it seem like he did stuff, and generally is obnoxious to webby while Louie supports him wholeheartdly. That last part is really one of the few good parts of the plot as it’s nice for one of the brothers plots to NOT be about them being in conflict or squabbling but just hanging out and having some fun, doubly so since i’ve had to spend a season watching Louie , outside of a few good exceptions be an absolute dick to Huey and also Dewey once. It’s nice to just see him and Dewey bond over a shared intrest: posting shit online and getting good photos.

And it’s not without GOOD gags: Dewey’s obnoxious captions at one point while Webby continually looses her shit, Louie continually saying “that’s so wise” at Dewey’s bullshit philosphies, Webby’s continued annoyance is delivered great by Kate as always, and the best bit is Webby, utterly pissed at Dewey for refusing to eat Local Cuisine, wolfing down the entire fucking plate, all the dumplings in her mouth at once while Dewey, naturally, takes a picture. Otherwise this is just.. grating. It’s utterly grating to watch Webby GENUINELY try hard to absorb the local culture and really enjoy a once in a life time experince.. while Dewey jackasses about and basically acts like she’s wrong for it and treats his best friend like garbage. Just because i’ts nice it’s not Louie this time doesen’t make one of the kids being a dick without any nuance or character stuff suddenly great. It’s just tiresome.

And SOMEHOW , despite already not liking it the first time watching the episode.. it’s even WORSE now afterlast years. No not because I watched it while having to put up with Coronoavirus induced Chills, but because another show did this plot 100 times better: Close Enough. One of the best new shows of the year, Close Enough had a plot where exes Bridget and Alex, aka yet aother great set of Kimiko Glenn and Jason Mantzokus characters, went on vacation together, but their attempts to have some ex sex fell flat due to longstanding issues we found about through this plot: Bridget has a bad habit of doing what Dewey did, focusing way more on her social than actually enjoying her vacatoin while Alex has a bad habit of befreinding random weirdos who agree with his worldview. Keep in mind this is the same worldview that spent an afternoon connecting garfield to jesus while pissing in a jug for some reason. Point instead of a character just being a smug dick, it ties into actual character flaws that helped us not only learn more about them but lead to a really heartwarming scene where the two admit they jsut can’t sleep together casually with allt heir baggage, and that they still have a lot to sort out. Before given the show their on having their friends show up from the a plot and all of them getting kidnapped by a robot because Josh skipped a bunch of ads and a 5 year old has to solve some issues and prove she’s not dumb to blow up said robot. What i’m saying is it’s even more insufferable watching this after seeing it done a thousand times better, and fucking watch Close Enough. Thankfully unlike Inifnity Train it’s not reliant on you to get a second season as it’s been renewed proving that even in a cluster fuck like 2020 miracles can happen, but it’d still be nice for it to get more fans during the presumably long wait for Season 2. Let’s move past this, i��ll get to the plot relevant bit for the climax when we get to the climax, and onto the reason your all here.

The Main Event: A Life Not Wasted

Okay onto the actual plot. Rewinding quite a bit, the boys meet our boys, and we get some good bits. The boys cool new handshake leaves Huey wanting one only for Louie to simply lick his hand. See this is Louie dickery I can get behind because what did Huey expect? I do take comfort in the fact he has actual friends now who will likely do a handshake, fenton very much included. I’m sure Gyro didn’t want one either so he’s had plenty of time to workshop. We also find out one of the boys was dropped as an egg and well.. given Dewey opens and closes his eyes one at a time for this one moment, the ohter triplets just sorta.. silently agre it’s Dewey. IT does explain why he thought Champ Popular would get over..that and Santa Claus is Going to Highschool being his favorite movie.

So both Jose and Panchito claim to be sucessful: Jose being a sucessful jetsetter and trendsetter, and Panchito being a world famous pop star, never stop stopping. So Donald being donald panics and runs into a alley where Scrooge and Huey join him. Donald is fully convinced he’s wasted his life and has nothing to show for it. Huey rightfully points out he raised three wonderful children and isn’t that enough? Naturally given Donald clearly has some issues related to this subject and Scrooge has develoved into old man yells at cloud, he agrees it’s not important as money. So Huey decides to help his uncle because he’s the good son.. and because the two are easily the most alike out of Donald and his Kids. It’s something I haven’t really been able to bring up before so I was delighted to realize i could now: Besides the obvious people bring up constnatly, I.e. Huey having inhereted the most of the family rage out of his brothers, there’s the fact both are kind of obessive, both tend ot spiral into panic when a situation goes wrong, both are awkward with women, both are frequently ignored or taken for granted by those around them, and both are awkward adorable dorks who I will give my life to protect. It’s why I think Huey has the best relationship with his uncle of the bunch: He’s the only one who at least TRIES to empahtize with him and support him. While the other two do love him, and Webby of course likely has an insanne and horrifying shrine of him, and scrooge and probably della now in her closet.. and of course lena but that’s less out of hero worship and more out of her insane, over the top, very webby version of love. Point is, he’s the one who genuinely sees his uncle as a person who needs help and love. This was best demonstrated in the scene at the bank back in “Who Is Gizmoduck” as Huey tries to get his uncle a loan using the guidebook and is there soley to help the guy and taking time out of his day to visit the bank. Let’s face it though this is huey: he probably loves visiting the bank. They just got new pens! So Huey decides to put his improv badge to good use... so far the only use he’s gotten is Louie laughing at the fact he actually earned an improv badge and urges donald to simply ACT like he’s sucessful. Scrooge balks at this, because as Wonder Woman 1984 taught us nothing good comes from lies.. or from banging your ghost boyfriend while he’s possessing someone’s body without said body’s consent and plan to fully live out the rest of your lives togehter without ever considering how fucked up this is. I will..deal with that movie ... soon. But he soon changes his turn and agrees to go along with it to avoid Jose getting upset and them having to pay for everything.

So Huey suggest Donald keep the lie small, but belivable. Given the law of sitcoms when it comes to anyone saying that and the fact this is Donald, he instead panics and lies that he’s taken over McDuck industries and scrooge has gone full abe simpson in the other direction.

Which is why i’m not enitrely annoyed by Scrooge’s presence: while they don’t even handwave him being here, Scrooge putting on an old man act, and sometimes getting back at donald for it is solid gold the whole damn time and some of David Tennat’s best comedic acting on the show, so it makes up for him being a grumpus. And while i’m not usually not a fan of liar revealed plots, this one works for me.. mostly because it’s rooted in character. Here Donald is lying.. but because of deep seated neurosis he’s yet to fully tackle. While he loves his boys and is proud of htem every day... it’s very clear Donald hates his life and how it turned out. We got bits of this back in House of the Lucky Gander, with Donald’s first thought upon thinking he’s about to die is “I wasted my life” and feeling entirely like a looser. This episode brillinatly builds on that: it shows a Donald who simply feels.. he acomplished nothing. It’s easy to see why as his parents were happy and sucessful at whatever they did from the looks of it and how well taken care of the kids were, his uncle is the richest duck in the world and it’s greatest hero and explorer, his sister is the only one who could rival that record, and his cousin constnatly gets riches and fame handed to him. Donald.. by comparison.. is just a normal guy whose house is in his rich uncle’s pool, who has no job, no partner, and only really the love of his family. He spent his life on adventures he didn’t want to have living int he shadow of someone he grew to resent before the Spear of Selene incident blew things up for a decade. And then when he was free instead of becoming a big sucess... he blew the rest of it being overprotective of his boys and bouncing from dead end job to dead end job. It’s easy to see why he sees himself as a failure despite having lived a good life: compared to everyone else, even his sister who mooned herself, in his life.. he feelsd far behind. And as someone whose felt they were far behind countless times and only now is realizing they haven’t and it’s a marathoon ot a sprint I naturally relate. So his wanting to play big shot for just ONE day, to be the big hero like scrooge, teo be a sucess for five minutes with his best friends.. it’s understandable and relatable.

So Donald continues the ruse, leading to a great bit where the cabs all try to avoid picking up the check “WE can’t all keep whistling nonchalantly” before Scrooge is forced to give Donald the money to in the best joke of the episode.. and I mean FORCED. He and donald get into a fight with their hands under the table and Huey eventually gets fed up with that and has to BITE his uncle’s hand just to get him to do what he shoudl’ve done ruse or no given he’s the richest person there. The reason I take special offense to this.. is that my fairly wealthy grandpa and grandma, my mom’s dad and his wife for the record, would buy us dinner EVERY TIME they were near town, a nice steak dinner with whatever we wanted to most of the time. They knew we couldn’t afford such luxury half the time and wanted to treat us and spend time with us. Since my grandpa’s passing, my Grandma and her New Husband have continued the tradition since then, if obviously not this year for damn obvious reasons, thought hey sent us a really nice dinner to cook for christmas in the same spirit. What i’m saying is when you know your relatives arne’t as stacked as you , you pay for the fucking meal especially since i’ts a special occasion, and even for someone as stingy as scrooge, it comes off as a dick move.

We then get the best scene with the episode, just inching out the climax as the three simply talk, remince on old times, have a good rib like old friends would. It feels natural and wonderful to watch and gets even better when the three hear the radio and end up having an impromptu dance and musical number. Also Jose’s umbrella is also a flute somehow.

Point is the boys have a good time and Donald gets carried away, with the boys planning a world tour. Huey, while happy to endulge his uncle in a badly needded ego boost, isn’t happy to endulge this and scrooge is unwilling ot pay, more resonably this time. Huey eventually talks him out of being a moron and tells him he has to tell the honest truth and while that dosen’t work this does.

So as Donald goes to face the music, we have come to our climax. Phrasing.

The Finale: Ay Carumba

So we come to our finale. Backing up a scene or too to the B-Plot, webby is interviewing a local about the festival when she gets stuck in a loop. So far in the episode we’ve had hints something is up with the people as they go all yellow eyed.. and webby finds out why as she notices the “person” she was interviewing is, in a hilarious and disturbing review.. a horrignly realistic hand puppet.. and upon stealing Louie’s phone, she points out there’s no shots of anyone’s feet.. and the reason why is that the giant flower the feast is about is a mean green mother from outer space and he’s bad. And Webby finding that out’s got him fighting mad. Webby and the boys naturally run to warn the remaning boy and scrooge and they all run out only to get blocked out of town and captured. Dewey looses his phone inside the plant monster.

In a great joke, Scrooge ended up actually throwing his back out with the old man act, so our heroes are all captured and it’s up to our stars to save the day. So while his family is in peril, Donald finally comes clean with Jose and Panchito naturally being upset.. for a second before Jose admits he lied to and an irate panchito.. is forced to admit he also lied. Jose is a flight attendant, hopefully he’ll get his own mini series where he accidently murders a dude on disney plus, which is a nice update of his globe trotting ways, as it’s a resonable way for someone with no money to get around the world these days and Panchito is a birthday party muscian. They all however chuckle over this realizing they haven’t come as far as they thought.. and they still have each other. It’s a nice way of modernizing Rosa’s jobs for them and their hard luck lives he set up and I love this. IJt’s just a sweet emotoinal scene that makes donald, and his friends, realize they aren’t faliures and life isn’t just about reaching some arbitrarity goal.. just like Soul taught me aka the actually great movie I watched on Christmas Day. But since Donald’s family is in peril Jose suggests theys till play the gig.. just like they did ion acapulco thus we get the second best scene of the episode and another worthy rendition of The Three Caballeros as our heroes beat the shit out of the plant, free the kids and the plant straighens out scrooges back.

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It’s beautiful, psycadelic, and utterly awesome. Seroiusly the bright boldend colors are awesome and so’s this sequence. Easily one of the show’s best.. and it’s a show that contiains the greatest scene in television history

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So that masterclass concludes with Donald signing.. badly.. and blowing the plant hte fuck up. Our heroes win and head off in the sunchaser. No idea what Launchpad is up to, probably has another ex in the area. Point is our heroes win, Dewey deletes his photos because “If there was no pics it didn’t happen” (So wise) and Donald decides to get the band back together, prompting scrooge to do an animal house on Panchito’s guitar... you.. you know you have to pay for that right? you aren’t a loveable frat man and he wasn’t ‘singing and I gave my love a cherry. Your obligated to get him a new guitar. You know that right?

So with that the episode wraps. This is a pretty good episode. While the subplot is bad and it should feel bad the main plot is emotional, well done and really adds more depth to Donald’s character while giving us a hell of a show with the cabs. The College Band background gives the boys a unique flavor this time around, not musically but in how they know each other and helps set it apart from the countless other reunions. It’s a truly bright, colorful and fun episode with some great gags and great performances. As I said Puerto and Paulo really knock it out of the park as the boys and while I would’ve preferred Jamie Camil, Paulo was still utterly excellent, though Puerto was the clear standout of the two. While their second apparence would be disapointing characterization wise, overall this was a fun introduction to two of disney’s best into it’s best universe and one of Season 2′s Standouts.

Next Time on the Ride of the Three Cablleros: we begin our massive finale look at The Legend of the Three Cablleros. Donald gets dumped by a nightmare of a person and finds an inhertance, new friends, and some sort of hot adventure god in his new cabana. Good times. Until then goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#ducktales #donald duck #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #panchito pistoles #Jose Carioca #webby vanderquack #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #huey duck #louie duck #Abe Simpson #the town where everyone was nice #The Three Caballeros

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lost-in-austen-books · 4 years

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Expectation by Anna Hope

Synopsis: Expectation is a book which follows three friends through their teenage years into their thirties. What makes it really interesting is that the book uses multiple narrators so each of the main characters narrate their own chapters. There’s a sort of a “main timeline” and then every now and then the timeline jumps backwards or forwards in time. However each change is made clear to the reader so that every chapter begins with a time stamp and the name of the narrator. The name of the book hints to the theme of the book. The book follows these three women growing up and facing up to the fact that their lives have not turned out what the had expected. Cate is a new mother who suffers from a postpartum depression. She feel overwhelmed by the expectations of motherhood and her in-laws. In someways I think she feels like she has lost agency of her own life. The marriage, the baby, everything just sort of happened to her. Meanwhile her childhood friend is running a successful career and has a steady relationship with her husband and all about them seems very nice, well functioning and middle-classed. However, she and her husband have been trying for a baby for a long time, going through several rounds of IVF with no success. The third friend is Lissa. She is a creative spirit who aspires to be an actress. However as her career doesn’t seem to pick up she begins to feel the weight of her failings on her shoulders. She doesn’t seem to be able to have anything steady or lasting on a relationship front either. Where others may look up to her and admire her happy-go-lucky easy going artistic attitude, as she grows older she herself begins to dream of something more steady.

Review: I absolutely loved this book! Gave it a 5 out of 5 without a shadow of a doubt. I think this book is great in displaying complicated female relationships and also how even with your closest friends you can never know what is going on inside their mind. All the main characters are jealous of each other and often so caught up in their own issues that they don’t necessarily even pay enough attention to their friends to realise what they might be going through. At times they also struggle to see things from each other’s perspectives and only see things from their own perspective which is often clouded by their own problems and bias. This is really emphasised and supported through the multiple narrators and timelines, I just feel like both of these elements bring so much richness into the story. I originally picked this up because it a) sounded interesting plot wise and b) the back cover is filled with praise, one of them saying “if you wished that normal people had covered female relationships, this is the book for you” or something along those lines, I’ve lent the book to a friend so I can’t check the exact wording! But anyhow, I loved Normal People and these books certainly have some things in common like the multiple perspectives and timelines as well as the frustration or sadness you might feel at times when the characters fail to communicate but you’re sitting there actually getting both sides of the story and feeling hopeless. However, despite the fact that this book is full of sorrow and sadness it also brings me hope at the end. Things may not have turned out like the characters had planned in their youth, they might have gone through some heartaches for different reasons but in the final chapter when they’re actually around forty, there’s a sense of contentment which reminds the reader that not everything has to be perfect in order to feel fulfilment in life. I just feel like it’s a great description of life, friendship and a reminder to sometimes step out of the situation you’re in and look at it from a different perspective - whether that’s trying to see things from your loved one’s point of view or imagining a different direction for your own life.

I would recommend this to anyone but especially to everyone who might have liked Normal People or who likes books about female friendship! Also if you have any recommendations on books about female friendship then let me know!

Ps. Anna Hope is also an actress, who is perhaps most famous for her appearance on Doctor Who as Novice Hame so the cat nun in episodes 1 of season 2 (David Tennant’s first season) and episode 3 of season 3!

Pps. There wasn’t any gifs to really go with this book as it has not been turned into TV or film (not yet anyhow) so I just used gifs of some of my favourite female friendships to illustrate this post with 👯‍♀️

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chaoticsoulsword · 5 years

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It took me some time to realize, but everything makes sense now. The reason I’m so in love with Good Omens is because it has everything I needed in my life as a member of countless fandoms.

You see, I’m so damned tired of ship wars, of authors and actors being rude and mean to their fans (especially the LGBTQ+ community), of failed OTPs that existed only to bait us.

But Good Omens?

First of all, Aziraphale and Crowley. There’s nothing between them. There’s no third wheel. There’s no supporting wasted character that will exist only to develop the main OTP. There are only them and they are everything we need.

Their relationship? It’s beyond canon at this point. After all, they ARE in love with each other. That’s a fact.

And there’s Neil Gaiman, blessing every single headcanon the fans share. No, it’s not like other authors that will probably humiliate you and your dreams. Neil Gaiman is right here in this hellish website, answering our questions and supporting our headcanons.

You hc that your fav is an LGBTQIA-coded character? Done. That’s valid.

And then there’s Michael Sheen and David Tennant, saying in every single interview Aziraphale and Crowley are in love with each other, or how Good Omens is a love story, or how they are the ultimate couple, the yin to the other’s yang. Beyond that, there’s Michael Sheen on Twitter supporting fanarts, the LGBTQ+ community, sending love, shipping Ineffable Husbands as much as we do, EVERY SINGLE DAY. He reads fanfics on AO3, for Heaven’s sake!

Good Omens is honest. And people behind it are honest and supportive. It’s crazy because.... have you ever met such supportive and open people towards their fandom? I mean, TRULY open? Like, “we’ll discuss openly about this OTP right here. They are in love with each other, any headcanon is valid. Next.”

Wow. Just... Wow.

People in media should really learn from Good Omens about how to create such a beautiful community like this one right here.

#words #words are failing me #i'm way too emotional #good omens #neil gaiman #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #michael sheen #david tennant

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mygreatadventurehasbegun · 4 years

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22 questions

Thanks for the tag @nitrateglow!!

1. The book that transformed your life.

Oooh...that’s really tough. There are so many books I love, but transformed my life? I think I’d have to say During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase. I read it for a Women in Literature class in high school and really enjoyed it then, but found a copy at a used book store and loved it more as an adult. But I think that was the first book that got me to start thinking critically about characters and motivations...I remember one of the assignments was actually to write a character study on a character or our choosing and it was one of the easiest things I’ve ever had to write (a prelude to building characters for acting).

2. The movie that changed the way you see the world.

Oddly enough, I think it might be Roman Holiday

I think it may have been the first movie I saw that didn’t have a happy ending for it’s main characters (particularly in a romantic sense)...I remember watching it for the first time thinking that Princess Ann was going to run after Joe as he was leaving...and she didn’t. It really shocked me. And I think it was extra shocking to me (at age 13 or so) because the movie was set up like a fairy tale and we didn’t get the happily ever after.

3. The music that makes part of the soundtrack of your life.

Showtunes, or course. I’ve been listening to Come From Away a lot during the past four months. But outside of showtunes, I love listening to Queen and Stevie Wonder.

4. Define longing.

Wishing for and wanting something you’ve never had or experienced...

5. If you got back in time, which scene would you visit of your life?

Either certain moments in college so I could tell certain people exactly how I felt about the way they were treating me, or any point in my life when I was too oblivious to notice the obvious signs that I should take a chance.

6. The place where your heart is.

With my parents and with my acting.

7. The travel of your life.

My NY trip in 2018 was great! My first real vacation in a decade (and first solo trip). But there are so many places I want to go...I finally got my passport last year...and now...well...

8. An author that you have met recently, and whose works you want to continue to read.

I haven’t met any published writers, that I’m aware of.

9. Coffee or tea?

10. Who’s your Doctor (if you don’t watch Doctor Who, who’s your favorite character from a TV series)?

I mean, I’d probably pick David Tennant, just because I’m a fan...but I’ve only seen maybe one episode of the show, so I can’t really say.

I find the character of Mal in Firefly completely fascinating, he’s definitely a favorite.

11. If you could just throw everything away and live your dream, what would you do?

I’d be cast in amazing shows and movies that pay my bills so I’d never have to work a survival job again. The jobs I get would allow me to travel to all the places that I want to go to and I have an amazing man in my life.

12. If you could choose to be a character from a book, TV series or movie, who you would be?

So, the first character that popped into my head was Morticia Addams (gonna go with the first instinct)

It’d be amazing to be so completely confident in who you are as a person...and even when everything goes tits-up, you are calm and strong. And it’d be nice to have a man who looks like Raul Julia be passionately in love with you.

13. What makes you not like a story?

A combination of awful characters and lazy writing.

14. Do you like romance in stories? Why?

I love a good romance in a story! But the romantic stories I tend to like best are when the romance is not the only focus of the plot. If an entire book or movie centers 100% on the romance, there’s a chance I’ll get bored.

15. Which book did you hate having read?

I hated reading Heart of Darkness in college. I think a ended up skimming about 75% of it.

16. Which movie did you hate having watched?

I don’t know if there’s a movie I completely hate, in the sense that my time was wasted watching it.

Even though I really, really dislike Beauty and the Beast ‘17, I find it weirdly fascinating, because it could have been good. It’s the kind of movie I might put on on the rare occasion that I want to hate-watch something. Where I put a movie on just so I can yell at the screen and get some frustration out.

17. Do you like anime/manga? Any favorite?

I’ve watched a little bit of anime...I’ve seen Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies (and sobbed through most of it), and my best friend is a huge Miyazaki fan. I do remember watching these short videos as a kid and it wasn’t until I was a little older that I realized they were anime...they were 30 minute movies of Heidi and Snow White...I used to watch those all the time!

18. Who is the best villain you saw in a story?

I love a good villain! Let’s see....Harry Roat, Jr., Ursula, Buffalo Bill, Max Cady (Mitchum’s version, of course) and Uncle Charlie

19. If you could do an interview with any person, alive or dead, from our world, who would you choose and why?

OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND! I want to know all about life in the studio system, her approaches to acting, her court cases, and, if she was willing, what happened between her and Joan Fontaine.

20. If you could meet and and befriend a writer, who would it be?

I’d probably pick a playwright or screenwriter, so they could right something for me to act in. :) Maybe Aaron Sorkin, Rian Johnson or Emma Thompson?

21. Cats or dogs?

22. If you could choose any time period or society to live, which it would be?

Given everything that’s happening in the world, I’m trying to think of a time in history that is stress-free and not oppressive...there’s not much to choose from (even periods of history I find interesting like Tudor England, or the 1940′s have a lot of...friction, to say the least).

So, I think I’d pick a fictional world....like Bartlet’s America during The West Wing...or Santos’ America...hell, I’ll take the Vinnick administration, like we were originally supposed to get before John Spencer’s death.

Or maybe I’ll just go to Neverland

I tag @hobbitmajora, @geraldmcgarry, @thatvermilionflycatcher

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ad1thi · 4 years

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tagged by: @lovelyirony (im sorry it took me this long to get to it).

1. Name 4 fictional characters who showcase your personality the best, with explanations if you want.

Naina Talwar, YJHD: i don’t think you can find a character that more closely remembers me, except that i have an extremely sharp tongue and my shyness is constantly warring with my desire to always speak up. Bookish ✅ well meaning but extremely strict parents ✅ didn’t have a lot of friends at school ✅ was largely known for her marks ✅ desperate desire to break out of her monotonous life and go on an adventure ✅

Stiles Stilinski, Teen Wolf: my life is a constant ping-pong between being Stiles and wanting to f*** Stiles. extremely sarcastic ✅ intelligent but rarely applies themselves to the task at hand ✅ suffers from imposter syndrome ✅ would die for their friends ✅ is attracted to people who could snap them in half ✅

Ten, Doctor Who: i was having this discussion with someone recently, but - apart my love for David Tennant - the reason Ten resonated with me so much was because of how much i understood him; the way he never forgave himself and constantly carried around this massive looming self hatred but still tried to absolve him, knowing full well that he could never forgive himself. also he cries all the time and bitch me too tf

Rosa Diaz, Brooklyn 99: okay so i get that this might surprise some people but hear me out: she thrives off maintaining an aloof, terrifying exterior, has a kink for being mysterious and will do damn near anything to main an illusionary peace with her parents to the point that she was more willing to let her parents think she was dating Jake than she was ready to admit that she was bisexual, but the minute her parents revealed their internalised biphobia she got so incensed that she broke that peace just to stand up for her truth and what she thought was right

2. Aesthetic

iced coffee, oversized clothes, black nail-polish and the smell of nicotine. (does that count as an aesthetic?)

3. Favorite musical/play? (If you’ve never seen a musical or play, one you’d be interested in seeing?)

Mamma Mia

4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

i don’t know i have terrible memory. im quite vain tho, i love superficial compliments about my appearance.

5. How many times have you been in love?

once.

6. Embarrassing story or fact about yourself that makes you laugh now?

my lack of self-esteem could never

7. Favorite Disney/Pixar movie?

the Lion King trilogy is one that always comes to mind when i get asked questions along this vein

8. Favorite flower or plant?

i have hay-fever me and flowers don’t vibe

9. What’s your favorite holiday?

i love the vibe that Dussehra has, but im also extremely fond of Diwali.

10. Name three things that made you laugh or smile this past week.

this series that i discovered today, the palak paneer that i ate for dinner today, and a video edit of my future husband

11. What song would you play to introduce yourself to someone?

Where You From by Riz Ahmed (a must listen for anyone in the south asian diaspora). and Halsey’s entire discography

12. Name something that truly makes you feel peaceful even at your most stressed moments.

my bestfriend, LRP sometimes sends me voice-notes of her singing. that makes me feel at peace

13. What do you, did you, or would you study at college?

i study Law

14. This is kind of a weird one, but which outfit of yours makes you feel most like yourself?

an oversized hoodie and ratty shorts

15. What is a quote you live by?

i’ve never rly put much stock in other people’s words, so you’ll find this answer will change everytime someone asks me for it. i do particularly like if you’re going through hell - keep going.

16. Name the funniest playlist name you have.

all of my playlists are emojis rn but i used to have one called “ ” when i was younger

17. Make a reference to an inside joke you have with someone you love with zero context.

Young Volcano

18. What is a message you would give your younger self if given the chance?

at the end of the day, you never rly needed anybody but yourself. those people who you relied on, who you thought you needed like you need air or water?? they’re not here anymore but guess what - you’re still standing. you’re still here.

19. Who is your favorite family member? (If you have no good blood family members, feel free to mention someone in your found family)

my maternal grandmother

20. What’s a secret dream of yours?

i don’t know if you can count it as secret but i want to have that sort of life-affirming love that they write about

i don’t know how many people have done this because i rly left it to the last minute so: @iam93percentstardust, @rxmanoff, @spiderrpcrker, @omg-just-peachy, @firebrands , @starkrogerrs (i rly hope im not tagging anyone who’s already done this)

#tumblr tagged memes #why were these questions so hard to answer lmfao #this uhhh- got a bit personal #oof

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the-desolated-quill · 5 years

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Good Omens, Queerbaiting And Death Of The Author - Quill’s Scribbles

I confess this is the most reluctant I’ve ever been to write a Scribble. When this topic came up, I remember just groaning and putting my head in my hands because I knew that, due to the nature of what I tend to write about on this blog and the fact that I’m an out and out biromantic demisexual queerbo, people would be asking me to contribute to the discourse. And honestly I don’t particularly want to. I don’t get to enjoy many films and TV shows anymore thanks to the industry doing their very best to ruin everything they touch. Can’t I just watch one good TV show without being dragged into some ideological battle?

Okay. Guess I can’t really put this off any longer.

On the 31st May, the long awaited adaptation of Good Omens was released on Amazon Video. I thought it was quite good. Not perfect. There are some things I could criticise, but overall it was a worthy adaptation of the source material and it was very enjoyable to watch. And that seems to be the general consensus with both critics and fans. However over the past couple of months since its release, a ‘controversy’ began to emerge within the fandom regarding the show’s main characters Aziraphale and Crowley. See, a large proportion of both the media and the Good Omens fanbase have interpreted the angel/demon double act as being gay, but this has sparked a backlash from some fans with them going so far as to accuse the show of queerbaiting as the show never explicitly confirms the characters’ sexuality. This then led to a backlash to the backlash, sparking a whole debate as to what constitutes good LGBT representation. Not only that, Neil Gaiman, the showrunner and original co-author of Good Omens, has stubbornly refused to confirm one way or the other whether or not Aziraphale and Crowley are more than just good friends, which has added further fuel to the fire.

Now before we go any further, I just want to disavow one argument that I see cropping up a lot and that really gets under my skin. That Aziraphale and Crowley can’t possibly be gay because they’re not men. They’re genderless beings that feel no sexual attraction. The implication being that the characters are asexual, but the way you hear people going on about it, the Ineffable Husbands seem less asexual and more like soulless robots. First off, you do know asexual people feel love too, right? We’re not Vulcans. Second, can we stop this ridiculous logic that they can’t be gay because they’re not men? It reminds me of the ‘controversy’ that surrounded Mass Effect 3 when BioWare confirmed that you could play as a gay male Commander Shepard. When people pointed out to the critics and haters that you could already play as a gay Shepard if you picked FemShep and pursued Liara, they retorted by saying that Liara doesn’t count as a woman because she’s a ‘monogendered alien.’ And my response to that was... so? She still looks like a woman and she still uses female pronouns. If FemShep is attracted to her, there’s a good chance she might be gay. It really is that simple. Aziraphale and Crowley may be genderless, but they look like men and use male pronouns. So if they were attracted to each other, they just might be gay. Period.

Anyway. Tangent over. Lets talk about Aziraphale and Crowley. You might be wondering where I stand on this whole issue. Do I believe that Aziraphale and Crowley are gay? Well honestly it depends on which version we’re talking about here. If we’re talking about the book version, I would say probably not. Don’t get me wrong. I’m almost certain book Aziraphale is gay as there are a number of references that seem to suggest that. His bookshop is in Soho, which is famous for its thriving LGBT community, the narrator mentions him going to a ‘discreet gentlemen’s club’ in the 1800s, and there’s of course this brilliant line:

“Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.”

So yeah. There was never a doubt in my mind that book Aziraphale was gay. (And before anyone comments saying that the next line mentions that Aziraphale isn’t gay because angels are sexless unless they make the effort, let me ask you something. Who, out of all the characters in the book, does he make a genuine effort for? Aha!). Book Crowley on the other hand isn’t quite so clear cut. Sure there are occasional flashes of something, but it could easily just be interpreted as being gestures of friendship rather than romance. Personally I always saw book Crowley as being more aromantic/asexual. In fact their relationship reminded me a lot of my relationship with my best friend. I’m more like Aziraphale, due to being very camp, somewhat old fashioned and often quite emotional, whereas my friend is like Crowley in that she displays a facade of confidence to mask her insecurities and is extremely loyal to her friends. Now please note I’m not trying to destroy anyone’s personal headcanon here. I know for a fact many LGBT people have interpreted and drawn inspiration from Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship for nearly 30 years since the book first came out in 1990, and I wouldn’t dream of depriving anyone of that. I’m just merely describing how I personally interpreted the characters when I read it.

So, while book Aziraphale is almost definitely gay in my opinion, I personally don’t think they were anything more than just good friends. Do I think the same about the TV version? Actually no. In fact completely the opposite. I think TV Aziraphale and Crowley are 100%, unquestionably and unashamedly in love with each other and this view is supported by the extra material Neil Gaiman has written for them, most notably the 30 minute long cold open of the third episode that shows Aziraphale and Crowley’s blossoming relationship over the course of human history, as well as how the show frames them. We hear the kind of swelling, orchestral music you would hear in a romance when Crowley saves Aziraphale’s books from a WW2 bomb, the scenes where the two argue about running away to Alpha Centauri are presented as being like a legitimate breakup (with the addition of some random passerby telling Aziraphale he’s ‘better off without him’), the other angels occasionally refer to Crowley as being Aziraphale’s boyfriend (albeit in a mocking way), and the way Michael Sheen and David Tennant play the characters makes them feel much more like an old married couple rather than being simply friends. There’s even a wonderful moment in the third episode where Crowley asks Aziraphale if he could give him a ride somewhere, to which Aziraphale responds “you go too fast for me Crowley.” It leaves very little room for doubt in my opinion, and yet Neil Gaiman refuses to verbally confirm this, even though the actors and the director have expressed numerous times that they interpreted the characters as such. Not only that, but the writing and filmmaking leaves just enough room for plausible deniability, never explicitly confirming the relationship. So the question remains, does this count as legitimate LGBT representation or is this just a very advanced form of queerbaiting?

Well first it would be useful to talk about what queerbaiting actually is, because a lot of people arguing against Good Omens don’t seem to fully understand the term. Queerbaiting is when a creator hints at a possible same sex romance without ever actually confirming or depicting the relationship. A recent example of this would be Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.

JK Rowling first ‘outed’ Dumbledore as gay back in 2007, saying he was in a relationship with the dark wizard Grindelwald, but unless you read the interview, you would never have known this because the book doesn’t provide any sort of hint or clue or reference to that relationship. Worse still, when given the opportunity to rectify this in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald, Rowling chose instead to downplay the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald significantly. This is queerbaiting. Implying a character might be gay or promising to introduce a gay character only to then backtrack or not fully commit. Another example would be Avengers: Endgame where the Russo Brothers announced there was going to be a gay character in the film only for it to be some nameless guy who’s only on screen for about a minute. It revolves around luring people in with the expectation of LGBT representation only to then snatch it away once they’ve got bums in seats.

(Also, just to clarify, queerbaiting is not when a bisexual or pansexual character becomes romantically involved with someone of the opposite sex. Yes it’s important that we see more bisexual and pansexual characters and yes it’s important we see more same sex couples on screen, but do NOT conflate the two. Deadpool’s pansexuality, for instance, isn’t suddenly invalid just because he has a girlfriend).

So, with this in mind, does Good Omens fit the criteria of queerbaiting. Well the sexuality of the characters are often the focal point of many interviews, with the director and actors explicitly describing Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship as ‘a love story.’ Most notably Michael Sheen, who plays Aziraphale and who has been carrying a torch for the Ineffable Husbands since Good Omens came out. But unlike JK Rowling and the Russos, the makers of Good Omens can back up their words with content. As mentioned above, the way the show frames the relationship makes the implication quite clear. There’s even a bit where Crowley thinks Aziraphale has been killed and he leaves the burning bookshop while ‘Somebody To Love’ is playing in the background. It isn’t really very subtle. So, by my understanding, queerbaiting doesn’t seem particularly accurate when talking about Good Omens. The issue here is one of presentation. The overt subtext is all well and good, but does the fact that there’s no explicit confirmation of their relationship make it invalid? To answer that question, we must look into another relevant term. Queercoding.

Queercoding is when a character is given the traits typically associated with those commonly attributed to gay people, such as effeminate behaviour or ostentatious dress sense. This is used often as a way of getting queer relationships past the censor. Implying a character might be gay without explicitly confirming it for fear of the studio or publisher putting their foot down.

While queercoding is often intrinsically linked to queerbaiting, it’s worth noting that while queerbaiting is always seen as a negative (and rightly so), queercoding is neither positive nor negative. It’s merely a contextual device and can be positive or negative depending on execution. A positive example of queercoding would be Deadpool.

While the Merc with the Mouth has never been officially outed as pansexual, both the comics and the movies in particular have framed him as someone who doesn’t conform to heteronormative expectations. The marketing of both movies present Deadpool in traditionally feminine poses as a way of mocking and commenting on how gender is perceived in these kinds of tentpole blockbusters. The comics often make fairly explicit references towards Deadpool’s sexual flexibility for the purposes of humour, such as in his interactions with characters like Spider-Man or Thor.

The movies follow suit. The first movie is littered with moments where Deadpool alludes to being not entirely straight. He occasionally uses gay slang, we see his girlfriend Vanessa penetrate him with a strap-on during the sex montage, and there are frequent references to how sexy Hugh Jackman is, most notably near the beginning when Deadpool describes how he had to give Wolverine a handjob in order to get his own movie. The second movie meanwhile takes it a step further. Not only is the entirety of Deadpool 2 essentially one big allegory for how members of the LGBT community cope with abuse and discrimination, we also see Deadpool express a sexual interest in Colossus many times, the extended cut even going so far as to depict Deadpool trying to give him a blowjob.

Now as I said, Deadpool has never been officially outed as pansexual. That information comes from one of the comic book writers on Twitter. The comics and movies have never verbally confirmed it. We never hear Deadpool describe himself as such. But to say he’s not queer would be absurd because he clearly is. That’s how he’s framed and presented to us across the majority of media. What makes Deadpool a positive example of queercoding is how we view the character. He’s clearly extremely comfortable with expressing his own sexuality and feels no shame in his antics. While the majority of his queer moments are used for the purposes of humour, we’re always laughing with him, not at him.

Now lets take a look at a negative example of queercoding:

This is Moriarty from the BBC series Sherlock written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Sherlock is without a doubt one of the worst adaptations of the canon that’s ever been made and the show’s treatment of Moriarty is a big reason for that. When he’s first introduced in The Great Game, when he’s posing as Molly’s boyfriend, Sherlock deduces that he’s gay based on really no evidence at all other than that he puts product in his hair and his underpants are showing. It’s ostensibly playing on that stereotype that any man who takes pride in their appearance isn’t masculine and therefore must be gay. (if that were true then David Beckham would be the gayest man on the fucking planet). While it becomes clear at the end of the episode that this was just an act Moriarty was putting on to fool Sherlock, he never really loses the metrosexual image. He boasts about his ‘Westwood’ clothes, we see him prance and preen like some over the top camp supervillain (more on that later) and he makes numerous double entendres that imply he’s interested in men, specifically Sherlock. There’s even a moment in The Reichenbach Fall where we see Moriarty sitting on a throne wearing the crown jewels. Ha! Do you get it? Because he’s a queen!

What makes this form of queercoding more offensive than Deadpool is, again, how we as the audience are supposed to perceive him. Moffat and Gatiss want us to laugh at Moriarty’s camp behaviour and they clearly find the prospect of shipping Moriarty and Sherlock utterly absurd, as demonstrated in the episode The Empty Hearse where we see the Sherlock fan club suggest Sherlock survived the fall because he and Moriarty were secretly lovers. This bit was there for no reason other than to take the piss out of Sherlock fans who read too much into the show’s intentional subtext. Also, crucially, Moriarty has no real character or backstory other than as a gay stereotype. He’s a lazily written caricature who serves no real purpose other than as a homophobic punchline. There’s a lot more to Deadpool than just being queer. With Moriarty however, there’s simply nothing underneath.

Moriarty is also an example of how queercoding is most commonly applied to villains. There are countless examples of this across various media over the years. The Joker from Batman, for instance. Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Scar from The Lion King. In these cases, whether intentionally or not, queercoding plants ideas of gender identity into the viewers’ heads. A male supervillain like the Joker is presented as being eccentric, arch and incredibly camp while Batman, the hero, is big and strong and serious and honourable. A manly man. Likewise, Ursula is presented as butch and unfeminine, scheming and malevolent, whereas Ariel is attractive and sweet and innocent. The ideal woman. Queercoded villains have been used to demonise the LGBT community for decades by presenting an ideal, hetronormative image of what a man or woman should be like, battling an antagonist that doesn’t fit in with traditional gender roles. Obviously there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a camp male villain or a distinctly unfeminine female villain, but it’s worth bearing in mind where these ideas originally came from and the impact it could potentially have.

So lets bring this back to Good Omens. The queercoding of Aziraphale and Crowley is obvious and it’s never presented in negative terms. (there’s a moment where Shadwell refers to Aziraphale as a pansy, but considering the man is a complete moron who draws eyes on milk bottles and thinks nipples are the gold standard way of identifying a witch, I think we can safely say he’s not to be taken seriously). In fact their relationship is incredibly sweet and endearing. Except... I can understand why Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman weren’t explicit in expressing the characters’ sexuality when the book was first published. It was 1990, both Pratchett and Gaiman were still relatively fresh faces and Western society’s attitudes toward homosexuality weren’t quite as progressive then as they are now. But it’s now 2019. Things have changed. Gay characters are appearing more frequently in books, movies and TV shows, people in general are more accepting of the LGBT community and Gaiman is now a hugely successful author with a lot of influence in the industry. Why not just make the relationship explicit?

Well there are two ways of looking at this. The first is that it really doesn’t need to be explicit. You would never hear a man and a woman talk about how incredibly hetero they are, would you? Actions speak louder than words after all. But when the two characters in question are of the same gender, suddenly the whole thing becomes a massive debate to the point where unless someone comes right out and says they are gay, people simply won’t buy it. Deadpool, tragically, has suffered from this with obnoxious frat boys deliberately glossing over the obvious queer subtext and hijacking the character for their own self-aggrandisement. This really shouldn’t be the case and this whole ‘straight until proven gay’ mindset isn’t the fault of the show. It’s entirely the fault of the viewer. The second involves our last topic of discussion. The Death of the Author. (no pun intended. RIP Pratchett).

Death of the Author refers to a literary essay written by the theorist Roland Barthes in 1967, which argues against critiquing a piece of literature based on authorial intent. Basically, once a book or movie or TV show is released to the general public, any relation to its creator becomes immaterial. The work in question must stand on its own and be judged independently. The intention of the author no longer matters. (I’m simplifying obviously, but that’s basically the gist of it. If you ever get the chance, read the essay yourself. It’s a fascinating read). Gaiman appears to be a firm believer in this philosophy. On his Tumblr account, @neil-gaiman, when asked about the the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley, he often refuses to comment, invoking the Death of the Author mindset. It’s up the reader/viewer to interpret the characters. If you think they’re gay, then they’re gay. If you think they’re just friends, then they’re just friends. Some could call this a bit of a cop out, and you’re entitled to do so, but I understand where Gaiman is coming from. We’ve seen writers like JK Rowling get into trouble for queerbaiting, saying that she always intended for Dumbledore to be gay, but never actually showing any real evidence for it in the text, and Gaiman doesn’t want to fall into the same trap. Plus it demonstrates that Gaiman respects the views and interpretations of his fans, unlike Rowling who responded to criticism of her queerbaiting on Twitter with GIFs of people sticking their fingers in their ears and ‘blocking out the haters.’

In some ways I do feel very sorry for Gaiman. On the one hand he wants to stay true to his and Pratchett’s original vision, but on the other hand he doesn’t want to disappoint the hundreds of fans who do view the characters as being gay. Good Omens has been cited as an extremely positive influence on many queer readers, some even going so far as to say that it was this very book that allowed them to finally accept their identities and come out of the closet. Heartwarming stories like this can be found all over the web and hopefully many more will emerge now that the TV adaptation has been released. If Gaiman were to suddenly turn around in an interview one day and say ‘oh. No. Sorry. Aziraphale and Crowley were always intended to be just friends. You’re all wrong’, it would destroy people who invested so much in this relationship. Likewise, if he explicitly confirmed in an interview that the two characters are definitely gay, people would either accuse him of queerbaiting if the show doesn’t fully live up to their expectations or accuse him of shoving his political opinions down their throats. He can’t win either way really. That being said, I can’t help but respect Gaiman for sticking to his guns. It demonstrates that he’s confident in his skills as a writer and his ability to make his intentions clear in the text, that he respects the ideas and opinions of his readers and fans, and that he also respects the ideas and opinions of the cast and crew of the Good Omens TV show. While Gaiman has refused to confirm one way or the other, others like Michael Sheen or director Douglas Mackinnon have made their views very clear. Aziraphale and Crowley are in love. That’s their interpretation and they have every right to it.

So do I believe Good Omens is queerbaiting? In my opinion, no. Does that mean I believe it’s faultless? Again, no. If the intention is to depict Aziraphale and Crowley as being lovers, then I think they could have done a bit more. Obviously I’m not suggesting a full blown sex scene or anything like that. Even something as simple as them holding hands or hugging each other would have done. Some physical intimacy of some kind. Because as it stands, Good Omens does share problems with a lot of other TV shows in how they present same sex couples, in that they’re consciously aware that they are presenting to a heterosexual viewer. This is why a relationship between two women is often sexualised and eroticised for the titillation of straight men whereas the relationship between two men can often be quite chaste. Very rarely do you see two men making out or doing anything beyond a quick peck. Good Omens sadly fits into that camp, though just to be clear, I’m not blaming Neil Gaiman or the show for this. I’m merely saying that this is part of a wider systemic issue that needs to be talked about and addressed as the industry moves forward. (Hell, that might as well be be the title of my entire Tumblr profile). Also, whether you believe the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley is platonic or romantic, it does not change the impact this story has had on many LGBT readers nor the fact that the story is about love. It’s important to bear this in mind because while, yes, it is important to have this discussion, we can’t lose sight of the positive message it conveys with regards to building bridges and closing divides between opposing groups.

“And perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality because, while they were eating, for the first time ever, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. No one heard it over the noise of the traffic, but it was there, right enough.”

#aziraphale #crowley #good omens #lgbt representation #quill's scribbles

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time-qxeen · 4 years

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tag twenty-one people you’d like to know better some questions may be ‘ ??? ’ instead of answered

01. nickname: Nat 02. real name: All my online friends call me Nat. Except like... two people. 04. height: 5′8″ 05. what time is it: 10:50pm. 06. favorite musicians/groups: My Chemical Romance, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Papa Roach, Billie Eilish and Ed Sheeran. (Those last two sort of break the rock pattern, I know.) 07. favorite sports team: I have exactly zero interest in sports. 08. other blogs: legendsofwholock is my main, and tfw-adhd is my adhd blog!

9. do i get asks?: Sometimes! Not very often, though.

10. how many blogs do i follow?: ...612. I have a problem. 11. any tumblr crushes: Totally. 12. lucky number: 11 13. what am i wearing right now?: Leopard print shorts and a strappy pajama top. It’s 28 degrees. I’m dying. 14. dream vacation: Man... Somewhere cold. And I like caravan parks. 15. dream car: One that can be driven. 16. favorite food: If you mean a meal, then it’s toad in the hole. If you mean a singular item of food, then chicken nuggets. If you mean favourite thing to just pick up and eat, then pringles. 17. drink of choice: Soft drink? Pepsi Max. Alcoholic drink? Raspberry gin. 18. languages: English, and at one point I was learning BSL. I can barely remember it now, though. Same goes for French. 19. instruments: Used to play piano and ukulele. I have no memory of the chords for either, and my limit is now playing the opening to The Black Parade. 20. celebrity crushes: Oh, so many. Michelle Gomez, David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Hiddleston, Jodie Comer, Robert Carlyle (I blame Kylie for my recent obsession with him), Ruby Rose... 21. random fact: Hm. Can’t think of one. I’m not interesting, I suppose. Although, I did recently change the spelling of my real, actual name, which confused some people, and made some people think that they’d just been spelling it wrong this whole time. That was fun. (But considering that I didn’t actually write my real name here, that won’t mean much to you guys XD)

Tagged by @darkerdeariegold (LITERALLY TWO MONTHS AGO. AND THEN I CLICKED LIKE BECAUSE I WANTED TO DO IT BUT I FORGOT UNTIL JUST NOW SO THANKS FOR THE TAG IF YOU ACTUALLY REMEMBER TAGGING ME IN THIS AHFJKAKG)

Tagging: @idontdosecondchances @godsmuses @magaprima @ooswcld @theiracademydaysareover @asterobellis @beyondthetardis @mostincrediblechange @heartonanoose

#ooc ask meme

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branlovestowrite · 5 years

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The Decoy Groom (1/5): A CS Fanfic

I have been absent from the fandom lately, and I woke up this morning with a burning desire to get back in. I miss everyone! To that end, I decided to challenge myself by posting a story I’ve been sitting on for months.

This is loosely (very loosely) based on the movie The Decoy Bride (starring Kelly MacDonald and David Tennant; it’s super cute and highly recommended). Brennan Jones is in this story, and, as it’s a no-magic AU, Tim Omundson will be playing that role.

Title: The Decoy Groom

Rating: M for language and some suggestive scenes in future installments

Summary: After a failed turn as a musician in Los Angeles, Killian Jones has returned to his home: Storybrooke Island, a remote, tiny island off the coast of Maine. Emma Swan is a famous actress that just wants one day out of the spotlight so she can get married. Storybrooke Island, just two miles long and accessible only by ferry, seems like the answer to her prayers. But will she really be able to keep her nuptials a private affair? And can Killian find the solace he craves when there’s a world-famous actress in town?

Also on AO3

Chapter 1

“The wedding is off!” Emma cried out as she stormed into her apartment. She kicked off her black stilettos and combed her fingers through her long blonde hair. Her green eyes narrowed on her fiancé, ready for a fight.

Walsh heaved a sigh and mussed his shaggy brown hair. This was unfortunately something they’d already been through once, and he knew she was not cancelling the event because of anything he’d done. “Who do I have to fire?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “But someone leaked the location to the press, and now it’s up on TMZ and all the paps are going to be there, and… it’s just ruined! Everything is ruined!”

“Calm down,” Walsh said, putting his hands on her arms. “It’s not ruined.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Emma growled as she pulled away. She stood with her back turned and rested her forehead in her right hand. She took a few deep, cleansing breaths before turning back around. “I think I’ve been pretty reasonable about this wedding. I agreed to your choices for the venue, the guest list, the menus… The one request I had was that we keep the press OUT. Now I’m not even getting that!” She stomped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not totally unreasonable to want this one day of my life to be private, at least for a little while!”

“Emma… come on, think about what you’re saying! You are the most popular movie star in the world! People want to see you get married! And if we would just work with the press instead of against them, we could charge whatever we wanted for exclusive rights. And then that publication will keep the others out. It’s a win-win!”

“No!” Emma cried out. “I have lived my life in the spotlight since I was sixteen! My wedding is going to be private.”

Walsh huffed again and walked to the kitchen. “Fine. You win. The wedding’s off. I’ll call Zelena tomorrow and have her make the cancellations.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, visibly deflating. She followed him to the kitchen and let him encircle her with his arms. “What now?”

“Elope?” Walsh asked. “We could go to Vegas.”

“Hell no. If we’re eloping I want it to be somewhere the press would never think we would go.”

“Some remote island? I could get on board with that. Some private beach in Tahiti?” His brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “We can ditch your big dress and get you a sexy little white bikini.”

Emma pulled away before he could slide his hands any lower. She was not in the mood. “No, there’s always someone with a camera there. We need to go somewhere crazy remote. Some island with less than 100 people where they don’t watch movies and no one knows who we are.”

“Good luck with that. We’re only the most well known couple in Hollywood. Biggest producer. World-famous actress. You’d have to find a place without internet to find somewhere that people don’t know us.”

“It’s got to exist.”

“Fine. I’ll ask Zelena to look into that too.”

“No, don’t,” Emma interjected. “Let me find a place.”

“Are you sure? She’s a wedding planner. This is her thing. She’ll probably know of a place.”

“I want to do this.” She stepped closer and threaded their fingers together. “I’ll find us a beautiful, romantic island where we can have the picture perfect, private, wedding of our dreams. Then we can have a beautiful honeymoon and escape the craziness of this life for a while.”

“Sounds perfect,” Walsh said, but his tone and lack of a smile set off Emma’s lie detector. She knew he’d rather have a flashy Hollywood wedding, but she was adamant on this point. No press. She would find a way. Once they got past this hurdle, their marriage would be perfect, and Emma would finally have the family she’d always wanted.

Killian stepped off the ferry and began the trek toward town. Last time he left, he told himself he’d never be coming back to Storybrooke Island. If only he’d known that he’d be returning three years later with his tail between his legs. He kept his head down and his eyes trained on the pavement as he walked. He’d been fortunate that the ferry driver was new and didn’t know him. And since it was the off season, there wasn’t much foot traffic in town. If he was lucky, he’d be able to traverse the entire two mile walk to the lighthouse at the other end of the island without anyone noticing him.

“Killian Jones! Is that you?”

He groaned before pasting on a smile and turning to face the woman currently running out of her establishment. He’d not even made it a tenth of the way. “Hello Granny.”

“I thought you were leaving us for good? Off to L.A. to make it big with your band. What are you doing back?”

He bowed low before the woman. “You must know that I can never stay away from you for very long, Lady Lucas.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the old woman said, turning her head away from him and waving at him dismissively. She chuffed and turned her head back, her steely blue eyes looking at him skeptically. “You’re here for him aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. I can’t leave him alone.”

“It would serve him right!”

“Regardless of his past misdeeds, he is still my father.”

“You’re too good,” she scoffed.

“I must admit that my motives are not entirely altruistic. I was not as successful as I had hoped I would be. I think it’s time to reevaluate my life and see if there is something more stable I could do to make my name.”

“Well, I forbid you from taking over for him in that lighthouse. You were not meant to waste away the rest of your life there.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said, bowing his head. “I should be going.”

“Tell your father I said hello.” She waved after him.

“Anything else?” he asked, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow.

“That he needs to get off of his sorry ass and come visit me every once in a while!” she yelled, but Killian kept on walking.

He had several similar encounters before finally reaching his destination. When he arrived at the house situated at the foot of the lighthouse, he didn’t bother knocking, but instead simply opened the door and walked inside. It was as if he’d never left. Nothing seemed to change on Storybrooke Island, other than the residents getting a little older every year.

“Killian?” he heard his father yell from the back of the small cottage.

“Aye,” he replied, raising his voice only slightly. Brennan Jones may be getting older, but his hearing was still as sharp as when he was a boy. Killian dropped his suitcase by the door and walked toward the kitchen, finding his father cleaning some fish. His nose crinkled at the pungent smell.

“You’ve been away too long!” Brennan said with a laugh as he spied his son's expression. He rubbed his forearm against the side of his nose and shook his head, his long gray waves shaking loose from the haphazard ponytail he’d secured them with. “Give it a week and you won’t even smell it anymore.”

Killian nodded. “That’s a nice catch there. Where’d you get it?”

“Will has a job on a fishing boat. He gets to purchase them at wholesale price.”

“I see. And where is Will?”

“Out on the boat for another week.”

“And how is Natalie?”

Brennan’s eyes lit up as he smiled. “She’s pregnant! She’s visiting her parents on the mainland while Will’s away, but I’m sure you’ll see her soon.”

Killian forced a smile. Unlike himself, his younger brother had no delusions of grandeur and thus was living a happy existence with his pretty wife, spending their lives on one of the most remote islands in the Northeastern US. It was not a life Killian would have chosen, but after the disappointment of the last three years, he was starting to see the appeal.

He walked over to the sink and began washing his hands. “What can I do?”

“I’ve found it!” Emma said as soon as Walsh answered the phone.

“Found what?”

“The perfect place for our wedding! Storybrooke Island. It’s off the coast of Maine, accessible through only a 90-minute ferry ride or a 30 minute helicopter ride. It has a beautiful church that was built as a replica of one in Ireland. And the best part is, the population is only 60 people!”

“Oh. Sounds… amazing.”

Emma’s mood soured the moment she heard his response. “Can’t you be a little excited for this? You know how much this means to me. There’s no way the press can find us there, and even if they do, they’ll have a hard time getting there in droves. We can have the beautiful, picturesque wedding I’ve always dreamed of.”

“You’re right, gorgeous. If this is what you want, I am happy to do it for you. When do we go?”

“This weekend too soon?”

“No. We can do that. I’ll make sure everything’s cancelled so we can leave Friday. I’ll let Zelena know so she can book the arrangements.”

“No, Elsa’s already taken care of everything. No need for Zelena to trouble herself.”

“Are we bringing anyone with us?”

“Elsa is coming along. The reservation is in her name, and she’ll be my maid of honor and witness. You’ll need to bring someone too. Robin?”

“No, Robin and I had a little falling out. Look, let’s not worry about me. I’m sure someone there can be our second witness. I don’t need anyone else but you.”

“Okay.” Emma breathed a contented sigh. “We’re finally doing this. Are you excited?”

“Hey, babe, listen. I gotta go. We’ll chat more later.”

“Oh… okay. See you tonight?”

“Maybe. I think I’m gonna have a late night again.”

Emma felt her lie detector alarm go off once more, but bit her tongue. “Okay, well, call me and let me know for sure.”

“Will do. Bye babe.”

“Bye…” Emma said, though he’d already hung up.

“Did you hear?” Granny said to Killian one morning a few days after he’d returned.

“Apparently not,” Killian replied.

“Some location scout is coming to check out the old church. They’re thinking about making a movie here. They even went ahead and rented out the place to ‘test the lighting’ or something like that. Could it be anyone you know?”

Killian laughed. “Not likely. LA is a big place, and I didn’t really spent time around the movie crowd.”

“Maybe you should introduce yourself when they’re here. You’re a pretty boy. You could make it in movies.”

“Not sure that’s where I want to focus my efforts.”

“Come on…” Granny teased. “Don’t waste those baby blues. Those are your money makers right there.”

“If I change my mind, I’ll make sure and hire you as my agent.”

“Damn right you will! I’ll ride your coattails all the way off this island!

Stepping off the ferry, Emma was transported back in time. “Wow. It’s so beautiful here! So untouched. Did you see the seals on the beach?”

“Yeah. It’s great,” Walsh said. “Now where is our car?”

“No cars allowed on the island,” Elsa said with a smirk, her crystal blue eyes glancing down at Walsh’s custom-made Italian leather loafers.

“So how do people get around?”

“You’ve got legs,” Emma teased, “start walking.” She stacked her overnight bag on top of the matching rolling suitcase and secured it in place before rolling it alongside as she began the trek. She’d already plotted the course to Granny’s Inn, the only place in town with lodgings for rent. It was a ten minute walk from the ferry. The cool air and calm atmosphere invigorated her. Her hair was pulled up under a beanie and she wore an oversized coat to protect against the chill. There were no cameras around for miles. She was anonymous for the first time in a long time, and finally felt at peace.

They’d only been walking a few minutes when Walsh began to complain. “Can we at least get a golf cart or something?”

Emma stopped and smiled back at him. “You’ve become spoiled. Come on, stretch those legs a little!” She turned her head to look at the beautifully blue sky. “Isn’t this place wonderful?”

Walsh said nothing but continued his trek. They reached Granny’s shortly after, and were surprised to come upon the proprietor herself standing in the yard, talking with a tall, dark haired man with brilliant blue eyes. Emma startled at the sight of him. He was gorgeous! Was he another actor? He was no one she could place, but she felt there was no way this man was simply just an inhabitant of such a secluded island as this.

“Good afternoon,” he said, the lilting tones of his British accent lending further credence to her theory that he was famous. He returned her gaze, and she felt suddenly very warm and exposed. She chastised herself for this sudden attraction to another man. She was here to get married!

Emma quickly broke her stare, and Elsa took her cue and jumped in, discussing their reservation. Granny bid the unfairly attractive man farewell and led them inside to procure keys and show them to their rooms.

Granny’s Inn had four rooms available, and Elsa had rented all of them to reduce any chance that a photographer or anyone else could crash the wedding. She’d engaged a professional wedding photographer that was coming in the morning to sign an ironclad NDA before taking wedding photos. He would not be releasing the photos to anyone other than Elsa. Emma would then review them and select a few to be released to the press at a later date.

The freedom she felt in this remote location could not be overstated. The moment she reached her room, she flopped onto the bed and sighed contentedly.

Killian took a seat in the diner and tried to forget the gorgeous pair of green eyes he'd seen. Although she was bundled up in a beanie and large jacket, he felt like he recognized her from somewhere. He just couldn't place it. Did he perhaps meet her when he was living in L.A.? It was a mystery, but one he hoped to have a chance to puzzle out more.

He was disrupted from his thoughts by a squeal as a blur of brown and red hair tackled him, pinning him to the side of the booth.

“Killian Jones!” The girl cried as she released her hold and permitted him to sit up. “I can't believe you're back!”

“Aye Ruby, I am,” he replied, straightening his clothes. “How are you?”

“In college now,” she said with a smile, bumping shoulders with him. “Not a little girl anymore.” She batted her eyelashes at him. Lashes that framed a striking pair of hazel green eyes. Complimented by smooth, creamy skin and a tall, lithe figure. Ruby Lucas was gorgeous, and she knew it. When he'd last been to the island, she'd been working in the diner and finishing high school online. Now she was a 21 year-old college student, and very clearly hitting on him.

Killian cleared his throat. “What are you studying?”

“I'm still a sophomore, so just working on my prerequisites.”

“And do you still work in the diner?”

She laughed and playfully hit him on the chest. “No way! I live on the mainland now, but when Granny told me you were back, I had to come see for myself. I came over on the ferry this morning.” Her gaze changed from playful to lusty in an instant. “Are you staying upstairs?”

“Ah… no. I'm staying with my father for now.”

“Oh boo,” Ruby said, exaggerating the pout on her lower lip. “I was hoping we could find somewhere to be alone together.” She moved closer and put her hand on his thigh, dangerously close to his groin. “I know you're shy,” she continued, her voice a near whisper. “And I know last time you were here I was a little girl, but I'm not little anymore. I'm a woman, and I know what I want. And, Killian Jones, I want you.” She squeezed his thigh, the tips of her fingers barely grazing his crotch and causing him to jump.

Carefully, he removed her hand from his thigh. “Ruby, you are a beautiful woman, but I just got out of a bad relationship, and I'm not ready to be with anyone else yet.”

“I don't mind being your rebound,” she replied with a giggle. He gave her a wary stare, to which she responded with a full-on laugh. “Killian! Come on! I'm 21 and still in school. I don't want anything serious. But I have had a crush on you for as long as I can remember!” She threw her hands up to emphasize her last point before her eyes took a predatory gleam and she leaned in to whisper once more. “The first time I masturbated, I was thinking of you.” He felt a flare in his cheeks at her words. “I just want to know if you are as good in bed as I imagine.” She rubbed against him, deliberately pushing her breasts into his arm. Killian bit back a groan. “You can deny it all you want, but your body is betraying you.” She glanced down at his pants, where the beginnings of an erection stood out. “I'm here all weekend. You know where to find me.” She slid out of the booth, adjusting her short skirt as she stood, and giving him a glimpse of her lacy black underwear.

Once she was gone, he exhaled a deep breath and took a sip of his coffee, trying to calm down. Had he met a girl like Ruby in L.A., he probably would have gladly taken her up on her offer, even if she was 10 years his junior. But Ruby from Storybrooke Island was different. He'd known her since she was very young, and he saw her in many ways as a little sister. Reflecting on her words now, he felt ashamed for not stopping her sooner. He felt like a dirty old man. He sighed once more and scrubbed his hand down his face, waiting for his hard-on to go down.

Once he felt able to move, he stood and exited the diner, leaving cash on the table for his coffee. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. The entire walk home, he pondered the face of the woman he’d seen outside the inn. He was almost to the lighthouse when it hit him. She was Emma Swan! All thoughts of his encounter with Ruby fled from his mind as he raced inside. He needed to look her up to confirm his suspicion.

He was still staring at his iPad 20 minutes later, not believing his eyes.

“What are you looking at, Killian?”

“Dad!” he jumped, not having heard his father enter the room.

“Who is Emma Swan? She’s quite pretty,” Brennan said.

“She’s an actress, Dad. Surely you’ve heard of her? She was in the ‘Savior’ trilogy. And that thriller about the madman that takes two women hostage. The one where they fight back and have to escape his house of horrors.”

“Never heard of her. It’s not like we have a movie theater here.”

“Well, for some reason, she’s on the island, staying at Granny’s.”

“What would a movie star be doing on Storybrooke Island?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe she’s getting married in the old church.”

“In the church? But it’s the off season! And I still don’t understand why some Hollywood couple would want to get married here.”

“According to a couple articles I’ve read, she’s canceled her wedding twice because she wants to keep the press out. So it would make sense that she might prefer to come here and have a private ceremony. There’s limited access to the island. It makes for a good hideaway.”

“She’s been trying to escape the press?”

“Aye.”

“I bet they’d pay a lot of money to know that she was here now.”

“What are you going to do, Dad? Are you going to call up TMZ and tell them she’s here?”

“What’s TMZ?”

“Exactly. Let’s leave her be. If she wants a quiet wedding away from the horde, then she should have it.”

“Right…” Brennan trailed off. “I’ll just be off to the kitchen to get started on dinner. How would you like your fish prepared tonight?”

Killian suppressed a groan. After just a few days on the island, he was growing tired of eating fish every night.

Elsa had booked all the rooms at Granny’s Inn, but Emma assumed only two of those four would actually be occupied. So it came as a shock to her that Walsh insisted on staying in a separate room.

“Come on,” she said, standing in the doorway of the room he'd claimed. “This doesn't make any sense. Let's enjoy some quiet time together.”

“I'm really not in the mood,” Walsh grumbled.

“I don't understand, babe. We're getting married tomorrow. Aren't you excited? This is what we wanted.”

“No, Emma!” Walsh snapped. “It's not what I wanted. It's what you wanted. What you've insisted on, even though you know how important this wedding is for my career.”

“Your career?” Emma spat back. “Is that all this relationship is for you? A career move?!” She charged on him and shoved his shoulders. “I thought you loved me?!”

“Shit… that came out wrong. But you know the business we work in! When everyone finds out we ran off to get married in secret, there are going to be a lot of people pissed off that there wasn't a wedding for them to be invited to. People we can't really afford to piss off.”

“Fuck them,” Emma said. “They're not really our friends if they don't understand the importance of this for me.”

“They don't have to understand, Emma. Dammit, don't you see that?! It's not about us. It's about them feeling slighted. And then the next time I need a picture bankrolled, will these people pass me over because I didn't invite them to my wedding?”

“That's ridiculous, Walsh.”

“No, that's business. You're the one being ridiculous! Insisting on a private wedding?! What the fuck are you thinking? You know we don't get to have private lives. That's the trade-off.” He huffed a breath and turned his back to her before muttering something she couldn’t make out.

“What’d you say?”

He turned back to face her. “I said ‘Zelena gets this.’”

“What the hell does Zelena have to do with any of this? She's a wedding planner.” She stepped back and scrutinized him. His face looked suddenly pained, as if he didn’t like her belittling Zelena. Emma suddenly thought back to the past few months. How Walsh was always working late. How he was always speaking to Zelena. He’d volunteered to be the main point of contact for their wedding planner, without any prompting. Emma’d been glad for it at the time as it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with.

“You're sleeping with her, aren't you?”

Walsh stared at her for a full minute before replying. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Emma, come on. Let's not get distracted.”

“No! Lets! Answer me! Are. You. Sleeping. With. Her?”

He groaned fiercely. “Fine! You win. Yes. I've been sleeping with her. She gets this business. She understands. She's not some spoiled starlet who has had no true grip on reality.”

“That's what you really think of me?!” Emma reeled back and punched Walsh in square between the eyes. He doubled over, cradling his head in his hands.

“You stupid bitch!” he cried out, his voice muffled behind his hands.

“What the hell is going on?!” Elsa cried out, charging into the room.

Emma loomed over her fiancé. “Walsh is cheating on me. With our wedding planner!”

“Oh grow up, Emma.” Walsh stood and looked at her, his eyes already blackening and his nose bleeding. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the dresser and wiped away some of the blood. “No one is faithful in Hollywood. She’s just a good fuck.”

“How can you say that?” Emma cried. “I loved you!”

“You’re so naive. It’s part of your charm. You and me, getting married was a business move. It’s going to skyrocket your career and give me even better name recognition. Love wasn’t part of the equation.”

“Get out of here.” Emma bit her cheek to keep her tears from spilling. She had to keep it together until he left. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Good luck with that, sweetheart,” he sneered. “You won’t be able to step foot on a set without my permission.”

Walsh’s head suddenly snapped back again as Elsa punched him in the chin. “Get the fuck out of here, Walsh,” she said, shaking her hand. “Your chauvinistic bullshit doesn’t fly anymore. Here,” she dug into her pocket and threw a business card at him. “That’s the number for the company that runs the helicopter rides to and from the island. Call them and get the hell away from here before I hit you again and break your jaw.”

He bent down and picked up the card before grabbing his still-packed suitcase and stomping out the door. The second he was gone and Elsa closed the door, Emma broke down in tears.

Tagging a few friends. For those of you I discussed the story with, sorry it’s taken me so long to do something with it!

@flslp87 @gingerchangeling @hollyethecurious @initiala @jonirobinson64 @kmomof4 @kymbersmith-90 @laschatzi @nerdyhuntress @resident-of-storybrooke @searchingwardrobes @sherlockianwhovian @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @snowbellewells @teamhook @thejollyroger-writer @thislassishooked @winterbythesea @winterbaby89 @wingedlioness @wyntereyez

#cs ff #cs au #cs fanfic #Captain Swan #captain swan au #the decoy groom #branwrites

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