#anyway he's just busted out of prison. naked. swimming for his life

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

What. The Count of Monte Cristo is so good :0

#NO-ONE TOLD ME??? #I'm listening to it on the train gasping & shit #the narrator mispronounces a few words sadly & his French accent for the characters is sometimes impenetrable #but idc this book is so good I am LIVING #they locked this bitch up for 14 years!! no trial no charge!! #god help him he was only 19 & so on & so forth #I would've lost my mind #also. the using suicidal ideation to cope??? #what is it w me & sailors who fantasise abt killing themselves #anyway he's just busted out of prison. naked. swimming for his life #the Edmond is out of his cage. yes. YES. the Edmond is free #I'm sooo ready for him to tear these bitches a new one but I'm only like 15% of the way through the book so. I assume all will not go well #anyway the more I read/listen to‚ the more I realise Edmond Dantes is Odysseus Lite #except at least Laertes makes it to the end of the Odyssey alive. unlike Old Dantes :( so Odysseus gets a point for that #I should've realised when they didn't give him a name tbh #anyway NO SPOILERS #I'm aware that it's 180 years old. STILL. 🤫 #ALSO THE SCENE W NOIRTIER??? lich rally breathless #dripping w swagger. fuck les gendarmes. complete identity metamorphosis. drags his failson. fuck les gendarmes TWO!! #I'm sorry Villefort I'm sure ur not a failson #I just haven't read enough yet. & ur certainly not yr father lmfaooo #The Count of Monte Cristo

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I wrote this a while ago (4 months?) . Sorry it’s so long, but that’s the drawback of insomnia and no one to gush about a movie to...

Short verson? Unexpectedly I really liked an obscure old western called To the Last Man, basically because the romance at it’s center really connected with me. 

It’s interesting when a movie takes you by surprise.

I’ve been watching a a DVD set Pop fished out of a $5 bin a very long time ago. It’s one of those “20 movies crammed onto two discs, and how watchable the image and sound are doesn’t matter” kind of things. And geez, some of these look horrible. In the case of one movie there were times I couldn’t even tell which character was on screen. These are the sort of churned out discs where the just throw whatever they can get a hold of onto it, quality be damned.

 Not being a huge western fan, and having recently endured a similar set of early John Wayne films Pop had * I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. Still, it was the last of the unwatched movie DVDs so I figured I might as well play them.

Turns out they have been a facinating variety of westerns, covering at least 40 years. For instance one film was a a spaghetti western that actually involved a circus ** and a film next to it was a pilot to a 1970s tv show set in 1914 with the heroes traveling the west in a car. 

Which leads me to the biggest surprise so far, a barely movie length film from 1933 called To the Last Man. 

Now I went into it expecting very little. It was one of those movies so short it wouldn’t be considered feature length now, a western staring Randolph Scott who always seems to fade from my memory as soon as I finish a film. *** Even after it started it seemed to be a Hatfield and McCoy style family fued migrating west, with an already old fashioned silent era quirk of putting the names of the character and actor on screen when they first appeared. And then they added a Romeo and Juliet to the story…

Again I had low expectations, When they introduced the girl, daughter of the baddie family, I thought I knew exactly where it was going. Once out west the girl is a bronco busting, sometimes trouser wearing despite being the 19th century, kind of gal. I liked her, which made me dread the romance ahead.

See stories have traditionally had problems with romances involving  non-traditional women. 

In some stories the woman will be there for the fella, saving his life or something like that, but whatever affections he may have for her the love will be unrequited. Sometimes she dies, sometimes she gets a supporting character love interest, but always the hero goes off with the traditional princess type girl.

 In the stories where there is dainty, aloof beauty for the hero to moon over instead, they go a different route. Those are the stories where women are tamed. The hero often mocks and teases the woman for her non-traditional ways, even outright bullying her and accusing her of not being a “real” woman. She goes through an awkward phase of attempting to be properly feminine, to humorous effect, before eventually transforming into what a woman is “supposed’ to be for the love of her man.

I hate those, both of them. With the first,  I find myself grumbling the gal is to good for him if he cares more about a proper bit of styling and pretty face than courage or kindness. With the second, it’s even worse. Love does NOT demand that the person you love deny their nature and remake themselves to satisfy your tastes. If they have to change into something else to earn your love then you don’t love them at all. 

Anyway, I was sure how this was gonna go, especially with references in the conversation between the father and his thug pal about her wildness. This was gonna be a taming. I liked her as she was, and they were going to break her…

But I was wrong! 

The initial “meet cute” involved her swimming (naked…it was1933) and being harrassed by the thug until the hero rides up and intervened. When afterwards they chatted I was surprised. Sure it was flirty and established their attraction, but in more authentic way than I expected. When he refered to her as a lady and she assumed he was mocking her, in most movies there would be truth in her belief. But not here. To be honest I was as thrown as she was by his sincerity.

Later she talked to one of her father’s men, trying to figure out how a lady would dress because she wanted to dress that way before heading out to find the hero. I thought, “oh no, here it comes”, but again I was wrong. The conversation was sweet as the guy used his mother as an example and offered to help the girl go shopping, only to have her say she couldn’t wait that long. The hero would be camping for the night nearby, so she would have to go find him wearing her usual ratty clothes. She did NOT do the comedy attempt to fancy up!

And then we get to the campfire scene.

They may have met while she was swimming, but he has a body too. She surprises him as he shirtlessly shaves, so there is a bit of admiring the male form, complete with her saying she would think he was “soft” (for shaving so often in her rough world) if it weren’t for the fact she could see his strong arms. Even now too many movies don’t do something as simple as this: Let the man be physically admired by the woman.

During their conversation after he dresses, for all her attraction she is also self conscious of her rough around the edges appearance. When he notes her bare feet must find the mountains painful, she is defensive, expecting it to be a slight. But he quickly reassures her that no insult was meant, and it’s true. He didn’t. Not once in that scene, or in any scene, did he ever belittle her or tell her that she is somehow wrong for being herself.

When he was ready to say goodnight she announces she is staying. While she does tell him he must treat her “like a man” for the night, it’s still a woman boldly telling a man she’s spending the night with him whatever ended up happening after the fade out.

Now next morning she fixes him breakfast. In most movies this would either be the comical “non-traditional woman inept at proper womanly skills” or it would be the “non-traditional woman embraces properly womanly role because of love”. It was neither. She fixed him breakfast, an affectionate gesture to be sure,  but no fuss was made of it. She cooked it skillfuly and he didn’t seem astonished. It was just….breakfast.

Naturally as they are now head over heels for each other, this is when they find out each other’s family names, with the expected emotional turmoil. Now you would expect a few hostile scenes between them before they get over the whole feud thing, but they actually get over it quickly. By the time he buys gifts for his reunion with his family, he buys one more gift for her. And sure, when he leaves it where she can find it she at first angrily tosses it in the fire…before fishing it out. The fact is they are still in love, family war or not.  

About that gift..yes, it is a dress, but it doesn’t feel like a judgement or a nudge but a gift given with love of something she desires. He doesn’t know that when her father got out of prison he commented on her shabby dress,which she explained was her only dress after the hard life she’d had to live. He does know she was self conscious about the dress she wore when they met. It feels like a thoughtful gesture.  

The next time they are together, her family has stollen his family’s horses and she is joyfully riding the horse his brother had recently given to him. This would be a  moment for a lot of shouting and protesting that their own families were in the right. Instead we see little of the encounter except from the viewpoint of the distant thug. Considering the couple kiss and he smilingly sees her off on what had been his horse, I really don’t think there was much shouting.

Naturally the thug, who has designs on her,  tells her father abouther romance. The dress she’d hidden away is dug out as proof. She defiantly says she intends to wear the dress at her wedding to the hero, and her father lashes her. It’s off camera but we see him swinging the whip, so whoa, horrible daddy there! 

Stuff happens with the feud, which I’ve almost totally ignored**** despite it being the main plot, which culminates in the thug engineering a rock slide. The only survivor of the men folk from both clans is, of course, our hero. As he staggers to the girl’s home he seems horribly injured and dazed almost to senselessness. There is no sudden miraculous recovery for the sake of love scenes, fights or plot.  This is convincing the way 99% of all action movies ever aren’t when it comes to traumatic injuries. He needs care..

So here comes the thug. The girl quickly hides the hero in the loft and goes to work to deal with the villian. She has to feign normalicy, then react as he would expect her to react, while he makes clear she is to be considered his property and she has to figure out how to play that considering she is trying to hide her beloved. The dazed hero can hear what’s going on, tries to aim his gun, and drops it. The villian know the hero is there, so it’s time for a fight scene..l.

And the fight is between the villian and the girl!! And this is no dainty girly crap like so many movies have thrown at us. 

Mom and I used to have this thing of yelling at the screen “Hit him!!!!!” whenever heroes and villians would fight and the love interest would stand by looking helpless. I mean, I dunno about you but if someone is trying to kill someone I love they are gonna find themselves fuckin’ fughting TWO people!

And here the girl was doing some serious full body, roll on the floor punching and biting fighting. This wasn’t damsel in distress “You brute!” thumps at the chest or gingerly smashed vases on the head. She fought like she was trying to save the life of someone she loved. Which should be expected, but isn’t when watching an old western.

Alright, so the hero does finally do in the baddie by dropping down with a knife…but now that I think about it maybe SHE was the hero of the movie anyway.

Well, maybe to me she was because she was my identification character. Most of these westerns haven’t had women I could relate to at all, and here was one I related to on some very deep level. I got her. 

Now my family was nothing like hers, not only in the lack of violence (with the ones exception of a relative you can guess) but that they were hardly uneducated (say hello to the ONLY relative I even know of that didn’t graduate college…that would be me BTW) Heck, Pop was a total sweetheart.

And yet I got her. 

An unconventional woman type myself, I never learned the girly stuff. Partly that was accidental and partly it was impractical for the life we lived. I did have to be willing to be rough and tumble, with no line between guy stuff and girl stuff. When I was a kid I was also the only girl in a neighborhood of boys where being a sissy was the worst insult and you had to be ready to fight. I was the girl that swam in the river and played in the woods. And for various reasons ( would take a while to explain) I’ve spent most of my life in worn out work clothes. 

Actually that’s an aspect that makes her resonate even more: clothes. 

I don’t dress like her, but I have my own version shabby woods girl going on. As I write this I’m wearing one of my father’s old t-shirts with holes in it, jeans worn at the knees, a broken hair barrette in my hair, and steel toed men’s work boots on my feet. 

Now there are reasons for all of these. The practicalities of farm amd woods life, being poor enough I’d have to choose between new clothes or things like books, a childhood trauma that gave me a lifelong desire to dress for fight or flight, not having a social life so 99% of the time no human sees me, living in a rural area with no credit card for onlinr ordering and, in the case of the boots, just the fact they are all I can find locally that work with the ankle braces my flat feet force me to wear.

But notice what is missing from all these reasons: fashion. I almost never get to wear clothes I actually like. I’d flip through catalogs or wander stores and imagine wearing this or that. I have strong feelings about clothes I like or don’t, but no real chance to express it. I actually fantasize about that, living the sort of lifestyle where even if you are adventuring you get to pick clothes you want to wear.

Somewhere along the line people started assuming I what I wear reflects my taste, or rather lack there of. I used to ask my cousin at Christmas to please give me something pretty. She couldn’t understand it as a request, but folks just never thought of me as wanting pretty things. What would it have been like, just once, to try to be pretty. 

Actually I’d probably have been laughed at, a comedy buffoon, the hideous lady trying to look cute, the ugly step sister. Just as well life never gave me a chance to try. 

So being self conscious about my appearance is normal for me. I know how I look to people. I also know from experience that people can be cruel, and have taken my share of insults and mocking. In her position I would have thought he was making fun of me too and reacted almost exactly like her. In fact, I have. 

Here is a heroine I can relate to, and she gets the fantasy too. The fella falls in love with her, and loves her as is, not as a fix it upper. He loves her and doesn’t tease her about things where she is sensitive. He gives her a gift of something pretty just because he thinks she will like it. She gets to admire him (and his strong arms). She even gets to fight the bad guy to save him! 

Geez, of course I ended up loving the movie!

Never saw that coming, a Randolph Scott film I will actually remember! But the question is, will I finally remember his face or just his arms?

*NOT  a John Wayne fan, and these were some sort of 1930s filler less than an hour formula stuff.

**I REALLY enjoyed this one, but of course I have a thing for circuses. Woody Strode as a trapeze artist gunfighter and Victor Buono as the big bad were nice bonuses.

***That’s always puzzled me. I usually have an excellent memory for faces from movies, but I forget his instantly.

****Also forgotten, Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple and the rest of the costars. 

#Westerns #to the last man #movies #randolph scott

[kuwttrpg-blog]

@LITTLEMOUNTEV is now in your network

EVERETT’S PUBLIC KUWTT ACCOUNT!

NAME: Everrett Anderson NICKNAME(S): Ev, E, Evie, Evvy, Rhett AGE/DOB: 21/oct 4th LOCATION: Missouri GENDER: Male SEXUALITY: Pansexual RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single SCHOOL: Washington University in St. Louis SELFIE: [click here]

OTHER INFORMATION, NOT INCLUDED ON KUWTT

FULL NAME: Everett Nathanael Anderson GENDER: Male PRONOUNS: He/Him BIRTH ORDER: Second TYPE: Solo ORIENTATION: Pansexual/Panromantic MAJOR: English MINOR: Art GRADE: Junior FACE CLAIM: Darren Criss

EVERETT’S STORY

Life growing up for Everett was just like anyone else life growing up. He had parents that loved him and wanted him to get the best out of life. He loved his parents and his siblings. Being with his family was something that he probably enjoyed more than anything. Everett as a child was full of energy always running around and playing. As he got older he seemed to mellow out a little, though he was still just as fun lovely and bubbly as he had always been.

Everett made friends quickly, due to his love of people, his trustworthlyness, his loyalty and his kindness. Everyone was his friend, it didn’t matter who you were or what you were. As long as you opened yourself up to him you had a friend for life. If your broke that trust, it was hard for Everrett to get it back.

His style had changed through the years. When he was kid his curly hair was pretty untamable for his mother. She would have it cut pretty short for that reason. As he got older he grew his hair out and loved his curls. But he would always go back to cutting it so it would be more manageable. Through the years he has gotten better at learning how to manages those beautiful curls of his. Button ups, t-shirts, jeans, and cardigans were pretty much the clothes he wore on a daily basis, with a few graphic tee throw in there. Clothes never were a big part of who he was, he liked to be more comfortable than anything, but he always tried to look put together.

The first year of high school Everett to learn that he was a little different from the other boys in his grade. His sexual interests went to anyone, it didn’t matter if they were a male or a female. If he found that person attractive he like them, it was more based on who they were and how they acted than what parts they had. It could matter less to Everett. It took a while for him to come out and tell people that but once he did he felt a weight off his shoulders and was able to really be himself.

{Tigger warning: Abusive relationship and rape}

High school was also the time when he had his first real romantic relationship. It was less than perfect. In fact in was rather, for a lack of a better word abusive. Jacob was good looking and super interested in Everett, attention that he had never had before. After the first week of their relationship things turned sour. Jacob tried to keep Everett all to himself, keeping him away from family and friends and even caused his school work to go down hill. Jacob would show up randomly at places Ev was at, his job at the library, practice for soccer. Jacob never wanted to leave Everett’s side.

Everett would brush off people concerns and tell them he was fine and that Jacob just liked being with him. But soon Jacob started to get angry when Ev would talk out of turn or go against him in anyway. Everett started to retreat into himself more and more afraid to really say anything. Everett knew deep down in his heart that it was bad relationships that he was being emotionally abused and yet he couldn’t bring himself to get out.

That was until one night Jacob wanted sex and Everett wasn’t in mood. They argued and Jacob continued to try and get Ev naked. Ev pushed him off over and over again which Jacob wasn’t pleased with at all. He grabbed Everett and slapped him across the face. That which surprised Ev more than anything. Sure Jacob was emotionally abusing him but physically abusive was not something he thought Jacob could be. He wasn’t sure what else to do beside stand there and hold his cheek. Tears moving down his face.

Jacob tried hard to sooth him and apologize saying he didn’t mean to do that. Everett finally came up with the courage to push away from Jacob and break up with him. That just enraged Jacob more, he took Everett by the wrists and threw him to the bed where he started to beat him.  Everett tried his best to fight back but Jacob was bigger and stronger than him so his fighting only tired more. Once Everett had no fight left in him Jacob went on to rape him. An act that went on over and over again for hours. Everything in Everett’s mind was telling him to fight back, to get out from under him, to run when Jacob was sleeping in-between but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t move, he was frozen there to endure the hideous act.

For a few days after the beating and the rape Everett kept to himself. He told people the bruising and busted eye happened in a fight and was fine though most people didn’t believe him.  The last thing Everett would ever do would be in fight. His parents knew that and there was big change in their son, after a long talk, with a lot tears  he finally broke and told them what happened. Jacob was arrested and after a long legal battle was sentenced to 6 years. Coming on the 4 year of Jacob being in prison Everett is a little nervous about him getting out. Afraid that somehow he will find him in Missouri.

Once the nightmare that was his junior year was over it took him a while to be able to get back to who he was, but he managed to get back to somewhat normal. Everett would never be the same person he was, but with the help of family and friends he was able to smile again. His grades got better and he got into the school he wanted to get into. Washington University in St. Louis, it was great school and it was far away from Lima. Everything was looking his way.

Once he got to college his world opened up more than ever. He made a lot friends and though he was a little more closed off than normal he had a pretty good time his first year in college and every year has been good. He got a job as an English tutor which his loves. There are times when life gets hard, when memories come rushing back and he gets more closed off. Recently he was at bar with a few friends a very cute guy started to talk and flirt with Everett. It was nice, a little nerve wracking but everything was going well. That was until he placed his hand on Ev’s knee and leaned in to kiss him. See the act of being touch without his full control over it and even then causes a fill panic attack in Everett. Being faced with a kiss from the guy made the trapped panic feeling in him raise. Everett pushed him back so hard it caused the young man to fall to the ground causing all in the bar to look. Ev was so embarrassed he ran off and has been avoiding going out since. Beside surprise touching when he goes home or someone starts to yell memories return and it gets hard for him. Even though he closed himself off from being any kind of relationship he was happy. He was studying English in hopes of being a teacher when he graduated in the next coming year.

Soccer was the sport that his mom put hm in to keep the energy he had as little kid under control and it worked for the most part. After the season she put him in swimming. Those two sports  helped him through the hardest time. Being able to have those brotherhoods of teams mates made recovery a lot easier on him  He was happy to be apart of both teams in college, it seemed when he was playing or swimming there were no fears, he was at peace on the field or in the pool. He also painted to clear his head and is minoring in art in college. If he can’t find relief in books, painting and drawing is his go too for sure.

#biography #everett anderson #kuwtteverett