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#bbc all that glitters
20th May 1940
Dear Diary,
today was our match against the RAF Dunham Marsh Eleven
When it was my innings I opened my shoulders up, like I always do, and made a quip to their keeper about how the motion almost mimics one of their propellers. It made my the Captain laugh a lot. I do love the sound of his laughter
I caught him looking at my hair again (I forgot my cap on purpose but shhhh) and later I took my jumper off and found him staring at my forearms. He was a bit red in the face but that was probably from the sun, I don't know
I played as best as I could, I do love playing cricket so much, and was not out for 88 innings. The Captain looked very proud and a bit flustered but once again that might have been from the weather. However he is so dreamy I can't even!
Today was a great match and a great day and I hope I can make Cap laugh again soon.
Your
Anthony
Diary entry of Lieutenant Havers (written in glitter pen whilst kicking his feet)
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deeisace · 2 years
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I would like some Noise to make my brain go, but my headphones need charging for a bit and also idk what tv to put on now I've finished POI
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qqueenofhades · 3 months
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May I ask for new year’s eve Dreamling watching the ball drop because Hob celebrates every year, Morpheus isn’t the sort of person who cares at all, but Hob forces him to celebrate and wear the dumb paper glasses and stuff anyway
"Hob," Dream says, not for the first time, in a deeply pained tone. "I simply do not see why this rigmarole is necessary."
"It's necessary because I say it's necessary, you joyless git." Hob dulls the sting by leaning over to plant a kiss on Dream's cheek, adjust the 2024 cardboard glitter crown from Tesco that is perched atop the dread dark head of the immortal King of Dreams and Nightmares, and throw an arm over his shoulders -- all of which Dream suffers with the tense, bristled wariness of a cat suddenly subjected to excessive snuggling. "Plus, there's going to be a general election this year -- fucking finally -- and the Tories are going to get thrown out on their kleptocratic arses. Good as any reason to celebrate, if you ask me."
Morpheus mutters something under his breath that Hob can't understand but doesn't sound particularly complimentary, but for once in his eternal-ageless-stubborn-bastard life, decides not to press the point. He's already been horribly traumatized by enduring the New Year's Eve party and being forced to socialize with Hob's friends from around London and the South East and colleagues from Goldsmiths and all the other strays he's picked up over the years (indeed, very much like Dream himself). All right, socialize might be a stretch. More like lurking ominously with a single glass of prosecco and giving the other guests a fright when they come round the corner too fast, but at least he hasn't run screaming into the night or huffily evaporated into the Dreaming never to return, so Hob is going to optimistically count that as a success. Besides, it is tacitly agreed between the two of them that Hob's love language is cheerily bullying Morpheus into taking part in normal human courtship activities and Morpheus's concession is to act like this is the worst thing to ever happen to him in literally eighty billion years, but still grudgingly put up with it. Baby steps, Hob thinks, taking a swig of his own bubbly and looking back at the television. Baby steps.
It's already the New Year in Oz and the rest of Down Under, and five hours off yet in New York, where they're still greasing up the ball drop in Times Square, but it's just about time in London, the fireworks over the Thames are all set to go, and Hob and the ten other people in his flat (hardly an excessive number, not that you'd know it from Morpheus's face) lean forward in eagerness. The bloke on the BBC leads a countdown, it rolls over to 00:00:01 GMT, 1 January 2024, and everyone lets out a boozy cheer, raising glasses to salute each other and making more please-God-help-us jokes about the Tories. Hob, meanwhile, turns to Morpheus, who gazes expectantly back at him with those luminous, star-flecked eyes, and leans in to kiss him -- quickly, chastely, nothing to make the silly goose come over in his melodramatic conniptions all over again. "Happy new year, darling."
Dream huffs, but he does look slightly pleased. (It's a subtle art, reading his expressions, and to the untutored looks no different from "mildly constipated," but Hob still knows his Stranger well.) "Happy new year, Hob Gadling," he allows, after a long moment. "I still do not understand why you feel it necessary to celebrate all this. Have you not seen so many that it is no longer special?"
"See, that's exactly why." Hob should get up and refill the pigs-in-blankets tray, as there is evidently nothing that British academics love more and it has been descended on like starving vultures, but he doesn't feel like it, not yet. He grins at Morpheus instead, lowering his voice, not that there's much risk of anyone overhearing. "A bloke born all the way back in God's Year 1356, and I'm still here, ringing in the fucking year 2024? That's a bloody miracle, you ask me. And with you, no less? What else would I want in the whole world?"
Dream's expression melts a little, despite himself. A faint pink flush climbs into his elegant ice-sculpted cheeks, and he huffs. "You are quite the flatterer, Robert Gadling."
"Eh." Hob takes a more comfortable position, settles deeper into the couch cushions, and feels, with great vindication, Dream's head tip and lean and rest on his shoulder, snuggling closer entirely of his own volition. "You love it."
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BBC Merlin where (almost) everything is the same but they’re all covered in body glitter with running eye makeup and extremely flustered, thank you.
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witchthewriter · 2 years
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𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮
⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!
a/n: How are we feeling about this moodboard? Merlin BBC doesn’t have a lot of edits/icons/gifs so I’m trying to be creative ... please give your honest thought✌🏼
ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ      
SFW🌿
𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒖𝒓
⭑ Gifts, gifts, and more gifts. 
⭑ He loves giving you jewelry; and he doesn’t need a reason. He is the King, so he can do whatever he pleases. So, you have jewelry boxes full of jewels, silver, gold, etc. 
⭑ He wants to impress you; for you to think that he’s an important man who has no limits. 
⭑ He gets Merlin to do the heavy work though
    “Merlin! Merlin where are you? I need you to shine this-”
“I’ve spent hours shining that damn necklace!” 
      “It’s not glittering right. Why isn’t it glittering right?!” 
⭑ He loves horseback riding. Arthur LOVES showing off, and looking like he knows exactly what he’s doing. 
⭑ All his efforts of looking suave fail. So much so that you can’t stop laughing. So, laughter is a big part of your courtship. Arthur loves your laugh, your smile. The way your eyes light up. 
𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒏
⭑ He’s very thoughtful and likes to woo you with things that are meaningful. 
⭑ Merlin will find out your favourite things and surprise you with them. 
⭑ He asked you on a date one afternoon after he had been pumped up by Gwaine. 
  “You can do this Merlin,” Gwaine said while grabbing the sorcerer’s shoulders. 
“Yeah, yeah of course I can ... I can do this! No, wait, Gwaine. I can’t-” 
⭑ He did though, only because you had overheard the conversation and couldn’t wait for him. So, you walked up behind him, tapped his shoulder, and said ‘‘yes, where are going to go?”
⭑ Merlin will use magic, he definitely will. Making the fireflies glow brighter, the fire burn warmer. 
⭑ He loves resting his forehead against yours. Being still with one another, noses touching, hands holding the others’. 
𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑮𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆
⭑ He would flirt with you without shame. Trying to charm you with his best efforts. You would flirt back, not taking anything from it - it was harmless. It didn’t mean anything. 
⭑ Until Gwaine couldn’t get you out of his head. And you lived there absolutely rent-free. 
⭑ He yearns to be around you. The way your mind works ... he doesn’t know many people like that. 
⭑ Gwaine would spend a lot of time with you. Wanting to get to know everything about you. He’d ask questions, probe, poke, wanting to see every side of you. 
⭑ He’s very excitable and likes to thrill seek with you. 
⭑ Gwaine loves to play fight with you, but also train you to be able to defend yourself. He’s fun-loving and always makes sure you’re having a good time. 
𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒕
⭑ He courts you with grace and the utmost respect. He always makes sure you’re comfortable and well. 
⭑ Very protective but in a subtle way - he doesn’t arc up when another guy is looking at you, but is able to diffuse any situation. 
⭑ Lots and lots and lots of flowers. New ones everyday. And they aren’t even bouquets; they could be from a garden or in the forest. At one point you felt bad that he was picking them from nature, so he bought seeds and asked for a place to plant them. He then tended to the seeds for weeks, and eventually they started to grow. 
⭑ He said “now you can have flowers everyday, for as long as they grow, I will be here.”
⭑ Light touches; moving the hair from your face and gently removing an eyelash from your face. 
⭑ He often leaves you needy and wanting more; but he isn’t meaning to tease you. He’s just that soft. 
𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒐𝒏
⭑ He courts you through food and good conversation. Either making the food himself, taking you to the markets, or asking the royal cooks to make something special for you. 
⭑ Leon loves making you feel content - 
 “Are you warm enough, my love?” 
 “Do you want another slice?”
 “How are you feeling?”
⭑ He may not seek out exciting adventures, but that’s what you like about Leon. He’s grounding and that’s how he caught your heart. You need someone secure, someone safe.
⭑ The first few months into your courtship, he never let the two of you be alone together. He wanted to be traditional. But that didn’t really work because he was so in love with you. Therefore, he would take the food to your door so he could focus on eating, rather than ... you
⭑ He loves being in your company - and courts you by spending quality time with you. Where Gwaine asks questions and listens with focus, your time with Leon would be just ... existing in each other’s presence. Not pushing anything; just letting whatever comes up - comes up. 
𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒍
⭑ His intent in courting you is to make you feel wanted. He knows what it’s like to be left out, so Percival makes sure you’re included and desired. 
⭑ When he first saw you in the tavern, he didn’t think much of you - it wasn’t until you cut a man off and had to practically throw him out that he was enamored with you. 
⭑ Percival loves PDA, he doesn’t have a problem with it at all. He wants to hold your hand, kiss your neck, and have you in his lap. 
⭑ He’s actually a good singer and will hum things when you’re together without knowing it. 
⭑ Likes to dance with you - whether that’s inside, around people, or outside, underneath the moon
⭑ He isn’t overly romantic, because he’s somewhat clueless in these matters. But he does his best to show his feelings through action. 
𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑬𝒍𝒚𝒂𝒏
⭑ He likes making you feel safe. Throughout your courtship, he always went the extra mile. Walking you to your front door (literally, he’ll wait until you’ve gone in. But he never goes inside until you invite him.)
⭑ Elyan wants to show you new things; share new experiences with you. Going on adventures and creating memories. 
⭑ He’ll call in after his watch and make sure you’re okay. 
⭑ If you need any errands done but don’t want to do them - he’s your man 
⭑ Wants you to know that if you have any problems, he’ll fix them. No matter what they are. There’s a leak? He’ll patch it up, you’re fighting with your sister? He’ll sit and let you vent. 
⭑ Elyan would make you feel less alone in this huge world. He knows how it feel to be alone, and never wants that for you. 
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i1f3klic · 29 days
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Art in different ways
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Klaus Mikaelson x Black Heretic
warnings: smut, kinda kidnapping, really flirty klaus , blowjob , backshots , anal , dom reader , (this reader got the gyat btw)
We found love by Rihanna blasts in the air. Pink bright dresses everywhere , the aesthetics went from chic , to hooker. Homecoming is tomorrow and I need to find the perfect dress. I look at every dress in the boutique. I finally find THE one. The dress is black and shimmering with glitter and at the bottom there's a small cutesy bow. I'm definitely going to eat up for prom. I take the dress up to the register and watch the cashier pack it up.
"Your going to do wonders for that dress" said a man with a deep british accent.
I turned to see a man with light brown hair, green eyes and a cheeky smile. He was mighty fine. "What's your name love"?" he asked. I tell him "Y/n Reid". He looks at me and examines my whole person. "Let's go for a chat"
He takes me back his house and shows me around. His house looks like a mansion. The architecture of it was made beautifully.
"I hope I don't have to take anyone's heart out for you" He says and laughs low. He looks to me and smiles , I smile back. This man was so fine and I'm in his house. He brings me to his art room, what really caught my eye was a drawing. It was a person hugging their knees and there were strings attached to them, with skulls surrounding it. It freaked me out at first but I somehow could decrypt what it meant.
He walked towards the table and took the drawing off it. "You like this ?" He asked. I shake my head yes and ask "What made you draw this" I look at him and in his eyes he looked really hurt like he was mentally in pain.
"A artist never shares their inspiration, someone might take it and twist it" He puts away the drawing and takes my hands and looks at me. His eyes are blue with a hint of green in them. "You're so beautiful Y/n" he says. I smile and it feels like I'm blushing. He raises his hand to caress his thumb on my cheek. He moves his other hand to the back of my neck and pulls me in. He kisses me.
His lips are so soft and they taste like faded cherry chapstick. His tongue and my tongue were fighting. He grabs my waist and I make my hands to the buckle of his zipper. He's rock solid, it feels like a hard ass brick. From that I could tell he was packing. I pull it out and his member shoots up to the sky. He leans back on a wall and I get on my knees.
I placed his cock in my mouth, my nose all on his groan. I motion my head back and forth. His dick had to be like 11/12 inches. Instead of a bbc he had a BWC. I look up to him and he's already looking down at me. He was admiring me. I smile at him and lick his tip. I kiss it and lick all around it. "Stop teasing love" he moans. I get back too it and the whole room sounds like someone is blowing in a ballon with a hole in it.
He grabs my head and starts fucking it. His thrusts are fast , it feels like sonic. He groans loudly, "I can't wait to fuck you" He nuts and I swallow , some of his cum dripped from my lips. I lick it up and he smiles. He grabs me and then grabs my ass gripping it. He speeds off really fast with me into his bedroom. It was literally sonic boom.
"You're a vampire" I say
"And your a heretic"
"You want too stop" he asks. I look at him, he had his shirt off. His pecs looked suckable. "Hell no" I said as I grabbed his face kissing him, I threw us on the bed. I put my hand on his abs, keeping him down. My super strength came in clutch. I climb on top of him and I put it in. I whisper in his ear, "You should've told me earlier , I could've showed you my tricks". He looks at me and whispers back. "I got a trick for you"
He turns us over and bends me down infront of him. He caresses his dick on my hole and puts it in there. His trusts start slow and he sped up after every shot. The room sounded like gunshots. I tried to control my moans but they were out of control. Klaus was moaning too, his sounds were so deep and sexy. My ears were in heaven. He grabs my waist and I feel it in my stomach.
We go on for like another hour or two. He finally nuts. We both fall back on the bed, my head is on his chest and his hand on my ass. "We should do this again" he said.
"I wouldn't pass on that"
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ohwhataniight · 17 days
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“Oh what a night” – The case of the BBC Sherlock transmasc aesthetics: Relating to problematic masculinities in search for identity
I take a deep drag of my American Spirit cigarette after wearing my long black coat whose tail swishes behind me dramatically. Dusk-time Boston is lit up. The skyscrapers towering over my tiny figure are glittering against the dark through the blurry lens of my camera phone.
I am consciously imitating Sherlock in the aesthetic scene following John and Mary’s wedding, from which the only consulting detective leaves surrendered to his noble, quiet pining for his self-identified-as-not-gay best friend. For all the queerbaiting, homophobia, and sexism in the Moftis series, for all the Season Four fiasco, for all of Martin Freeman’s refusal that Sherlock and John would ever run together into the sunset, Sherlock himself never denied he was gay. He never affirmed it either, but his non-denial paired with the way Cumberbatch (consciously or unconsciously) played the part of pining, the internalized phobias, the neurodivergence portrayed (however problematically) in the show, and the character’s dapper aesthetic, are the reasons I started clinging on the Moftis version of the classic like dear life itself, almost ten years after the supposed demise of the BBC Sherlock fandom.
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Boston, with its red brick buildings and glass towers extending to the gods looks like Glasgow on steroids – not as cozy as the vibes emitted by the European countries I was accustomed to until now, but big enough to consume me and hide me safely away from Greece’s overprotective and often murderous eye, big enough for me to finally feel free to be seen. So I smoke on the street away from the possibility of my parents’ gaze, momentarily romanticizing the prospect of (yet another, this time serious) cancer in a country that has largely given up smoking, because right now I need this.
I need to romanticize the night city lights during my first time in the US, travelling far away from home. I need to romanticize the dark curls forming around my cheekbones, courtesy of Lush’s lemon-scented “Curl Power” cream, I need to romanticize the act of tying around my neck the 2$ blue scarf that smells like The Two Genders (Narcisso Rodriguez’s “Poudree” layered with Tom Ford’s “Ombre Leather”, each of which costed me 10 euros at an imitation perfume shop across my house in Athens). I need to trot the sparkling streets of 7PM Boston in closet-drag and masculine cheekbone-contouring, with my swishing thrifted coat, while smoking and listening to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons’ “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” through my big, white, broken-then-glued-together headphones.
I want to feel like the streets belong to me, and I am intensely aware of the privilege of this appropriation, being a white European tourist walking on land that was stolen from the Indigenous peoples of America, but as a queer person from Greece, I realize that, up to this moment, the feeling of having a right to step on any street has repeatedly been stripped off of me every time that a queer person was beat (even to death) while committing the simple sin of walking. So, I ask for permission to share these streets with my Indigenous and Of Color siblings while remaining blissfully anonymous, unabashedly queer, and deeply grateful to the ancestors who dared to make livable lives for themselves. I take the night air in in drags of smoke that comes from their stolen land - I wonder where that situates me. I remember the small-town awe and terror I felt on the first day of my trip, when I couldn’t figure out when to cross the street. Three days later, I feel proud to be able say that my fragile Greek skin is used to the cold: I could live everywhere (as enmeshed in privilege as this realization is). It’s proof that I can adapt in any place that wants my trans ass dead less than my own country does.
During the entire trip, I pretend I'm Sherlock. It’s not that I don’t have my own personality – at least I hope that I do. It’s that through relating (to fictional characters, to actors, to role models that remind me of an aesthetic I’ve had to co-invent for myself with the help, art, and looks of other gender-non-conforming people) I find a vehicle to explore my identity more easily, to see my reflection staring back at me in the mirror. For now, it’s Sherlock. For years it’s been genderfluid!headcanon Tonks or trans!headcanon Remus Lupin or fanon!Jean Prouvaire from Les Miserables. Through it all I’ve come up with a name of my own: Sam. And Sam, like any other transmasc Sam, Skye, Noah and Eliot, contains multitudes. Given that there have been no transmasc role models in the media and literature I’ve consumed growing up, though, this iconography I have to construct for myself needs sources of inspiration, a Pinterest aesthetic moodboard, a Tumblr gifset subtitled with the lyrics of “Achilles Come Down” or some other tune popular among AFAB sadboy dandies and flaneurs of the internet.
For now, it’s Sherlock. A deeply privileged and largely insufferable character I would probably wish to punch in the face every time he opened his mouth if I met him in real life but, as Hil Malatino writes in the chapter Fall Out Boy is Trans Culture of his essay Surviving Trans Antagonism: “The boy at the center of a [Fall Out Boy track, brackets mine] is […] being eminently braggadocious and narcissistic […]. He’s stationed directly at the center of a completely solipsistic universe. No matter how insufferable this kind of guy is in reality, I would have killed for a fraction of his swaggering self-confidence as a kid” (Malatino 2020, 17).
Because, being an AFAB person born in a deeply misogynistic, gender-essentialist society, I have been told, more-often-than-not, that I must be serious, refined, alluring in a feminine way. I have been taught to behave, to make sure I sound smart if I wish to be taken even remotely seriously in a room full of men, to make sure I never fart or burp audibly, to make jokes but never untasteful ones, to always remain attractive (and completely heterosexual) in a way that serves (cis, straight) men, to hide the fact that, like all women and AFAB people of other genders, I too have a personality, because that will scare (cis, straight) men away and we don’t want that, do we?
My number one role model as a transmasc egg during childhood had been my father. Goofy, never serious, larger-than-life, taking up all the space. That’s how I’ve always striven to behave in order to float as far away as possible from the feminine archetype of my serious, elegant, self-conscious mother whose biggest dream is to see me as her spitting image: poised, expensive, coquettish, deftly maquillaged. And yet, I seem to have put all my eggs in my Dad’s basket, inheriting and/or imitating all those characteristics that make me angry at him: his loudness, his impulsivity, his disregard for being an adult, his eternal boyishness. Dad provided the perfect guidelines for the materialization of my own gender feelings: he has always been masculine in his assertiveness and his carefreeness, yet never masculine enough – he takes about two hours to self-groom and dress every morning, owns more ties than my mother owns scarves, and always smells boastfully of unisex cologne. When I was younger, even before my coming out as non-binary, I knew who I wanted on be, based on the archetype offered graciously by my father: goofy, passionate, limitless, boyish, an eternal student, a petulant adult, a modern-day dandy dressed artfully with clothes purchased from the rack.
I go to therapy every week for two reasons: One is my debilitating OCD. The other is to not become my dad. Today I know I must fight with the desire to occupy all the space in a room, to outsmart everyone, to outdress everyone, and to always have the last word. I know these traits won’t make me more of a Man. Today I don’t want to stay in my own bubble of ignorance anymore, to consume whenever I need to feel better, to sit and simmer in my own privilege while people more precarious than me keep dying everywhere every day. Today I want to learn to listen more, to talk less, to be more empathetic rather than just compassionate, to acknowledge my privilege and use it in favor of the needs of my subaltern siblings. I know that these don’t make me more of a Woman either. I am neither, and I am becoming Me, despite my father’s pride in the assumption that I am his spitting image, despite my mother’s sorrow in the realization that I am never going to be hers.
In a world that will never see me as masculine enough for my standards, or as feminine enough for their standards, I choose to dress as a non-binary version of Sherlock on the days I need to feel more masculine or, on others, wear frilly dresses, bright lipstick, and carry tapestry Mary Poppins bags with Beatrix Potter patterns that shock my mother who would much rather me wearing a Longchamp. On some days, I sport scraped knees and short dungarees, like I did when I was four years old, before gender mattered. On other days I bind and wear too much hair product, I pass as a heterosexual Parisienne (my most detested compliment), and inside my head I repeat my mantra: NOT. A. WOMAN.
“Do I look like Sherlock?” I ask my partner, hopeful and doe-eyed as I prance around in my black suit inside the house while packing for the trip. “Sherlock is gender, you know.”
“Do you really want to know how I see your gender? 100% honest-to-God?” she asks mischievously.
“Yes, I do,” I’m hanging from her lips.
“You are, deep inside your soul, in this tartan robe of yours, Bananas in Pyjamas.”
I think about it. Not exactly Sherlock. I smile though. I see my gender in her words. Goofy, boyish, vintage, loud, sleepy, badly dressed: Me. Headcanon accepted.
Back home and back into my closet, I sit cross-legged in my fuzzy Christmas onesie, savoring a joint, and continue reading Hil Malatino’s book Trans Care that I purchased from the book fair of the conference I was in Boston for, the conference that made me feel like I belonged while I presented my memoir about having to hide one’s gender identity from a hostile society, amongst three thousand women and queer academics of different ethnicities, skin colors and social classes, attending panels organized by and for neurodivergent people, fat people, chronically ill people, who know what it is like to not belong on the streets of your hometown yet still walk on them, in kitsch high heels borrowed by a girlfriend, in worn brogues, in hand-me-down sneakers from an older sibling, or the boots passed on by one’s mother after her calves stopped fitting in them.
Hil Malatino writes, about the Fall Out Boy fandom and the significance of its aesthetics for the (predominantly white and young) transmasc community: “Sometimes young trans guys annoy me in precisely the ways that Fall Out Boy [read: Sherlock] annoys me. But I want them to have their clueless and self-involved boyhoods. I want them to be able to take the long road through navigating toxic masculinity, to sloppily grapple with it the way that other boys get to do. I want them – I want all of us – to maintain the kind of wide-eyed silliness and unabashed enthusiasm that we associate with childhood but that, in fact, only the most privileged and unharassed kids get to experience” (Malatino 2020, 18).
If headcanon and fanon – that is, reclaimed – Cumberbatch’s Holmes teaches me how to be a boy or a man, even if I’ll have to unlearn every problematic little thing afterwards, I’ll let myself have it. Because there is a child in me who never got to openly live like an unashamaedly neurodivergent, inquisitive little boy. Because there is a masculine side in me that I have to hide every day when I go to work. For that, I let me have this. I put together a playlist. I put my scruffy headphones on. I tar my lungs, just for a little longer, just once more until I leave this country and manage to unlearn all those self-destructive habits I turned to as survival strategies during my years of anxiety and depression. I let my coat swish behind me as I dance alone on the street, invisible among the crowds yet more visible than ever in my mind’s eye.
Written by: Sam Wells
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diceriadelluntore · 6 months
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Storia Di Musica #294 - Simple Minds, New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
Se in un ipotetico cruciverba la definizione chiedesse: Famoso gruppo rock scozzese degli anni '80 (10 lettere) la risposta è una sola. Simple Minds. Tutto comincia a Glasgow quando tre ragazzi, Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill e Brian McGee fondano nel febbraio del 1977 un gruppo a tre, Johnny & The Self Abusers, nome in pieno stile punk. Pubblicano anche un singolo, Saints & Sinners / Dead Van Dals, ma l'insuccesso li porta a sciogliere il gruppo. Un anno più tardi ci riprovano, ma scelgono come nome Simple Minds, partendo da un verso di The Jean Genie di David Bowie, He's so simple-minded, he can't drive his module. Si uniscono le tastiere di Michael McNeil e il basso di Derek Forber, e firmano con la Zoom Records, una etichetta in orbita Arista. Suonano come gruppo di apertura a diverse band, come Siouxsie & The Banshees, gli Ultravox di Midge Ure, e pubblicano il primo disco, nel 1979, Life In A Day, dalla stupenda copertina. Vivono in maniera turbinosa il passaggio dalla scarna dimensione del punk all'arrivo imperioso dell'elettronica e della new wave. Nello stesso anno, desiderosi di fare grandi cose, pubblicano Real To Real Cacophony, un disco che vira con violenza verso l'elettronica, con atmosfere quasi spettrali e in vena di sperimentazione. Le vendite scarseggiano, e l'Arista concede un ultimo tentativo: Empires And Dance nel 1980 è un interessante incrocio tra Krafwerk e Joy Division, con canzoni che hanno un potere magnetico come Celebrate, ma nemmeno stavolta arrivano vendite, nonostante la critica apprezzi tantissimo il disco. Si dividono dalla Arista e firmano con la Virgin, ed iniziano con il botto: originariamente infatti pubblicano un doppio album, composto da due album separati, che la casa discografica prontamente vende separatamente, Sons & Fascination e Sister Feelings Call (1981), con Steve Hillage dei Gong in produzione, sono il primo tentativo organico di dare forma alle ritmica mai banali, alla chitarra ieratica di Burchill e a indirizzare meglio la appassionata e versatile voce di Kerr. Finalmente le vendite arrivano e gli album sfiorano la Top Ten degli album più venduti. Ma c'è il primo abbandono: McGee se ne va, e per un certo periodo c'è una rotazione di batteristi finchè, dopo un lungo tour, viene ingaggiato il batterista Mel Gaynor, formidabile, che subito viene mandato in studio per registrare del nuovo materiale.
Ciò che ne viene fuori, abbassata la tensione personale e ritrovato un approccio più spirituale alla composizione, parole di Jim Kerr, è il tanto atteso capolavoro. In regia c'è un giovanissimo Peter Walsh, che a 21 anni aveva lavorato con gli Heaven 17 e a 22 aiuta la band scozzese a produrre un disco che nelle atmosfere generali è sofisticato, etereo ma ricco di vibrazioni intense, suonato benissimo e che ha canzoni meravigliose al suo interno. Il titolo viene in mente alla Band durante un tour in Australia, nel 1981, in cui il promoter oceanico chiedeva se volevano già preparare un tour nel 1983 e 1984: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84). Il primo singolo è Promised You a Miracle, con il meraviglioso lavoro del basso di McNeil e il riff accattivante di Burchill, con un inaspettato ritmo funk, e con questa canzone debuttano persino in Tv nella storica trasmissione della BBC Top Of The Pops. Il disco ha canzoni che sono diventate famosissime: Someone Somewhere In Summertime, dall'atmosfera sognante e la ritmica innovativa, Glittering Prize che divenne una hit anche per il fantasioso video girato in uan camera tutta dipinta d'oro, canzone che come poche tra l'altro racconta la new wave degli anni '80 nelle sue tastiere a tappeto e nel beat elettronico. Del tocco elettronico dei primi dischi rimane solo Big Sleep, in una mutazione che trova però un perfetto equilibrio in musicalità e diventerà una sorta di pietra di paragone per qualche anno. C'è persino uno strumentale, Somebody Up There Likes You, nella meravigliosa Hunter And The Hunted c'è persino la leggenda del jazz Herbie Hancock a suonare un assolo al sintetizzatore, e New Gold Dreams (81-82-83-84) con il suo andare a salire diventerà una hit e un inno da stadio, anticipando il suono elettronico dei Depeche Mode. Il successo di critica e vendite è altissimo, tanto che la band sfrutta l'onda e pubblica nello stesso anno Sparkle In The Rain. Chiama a produrre uno dei nomi del momento, Steve Lillywhite, che aveva prodotto gli XTC e i primi tre dischi degli U2, per un suono più leggero ma che ha un alone di ruvidezza.
Nel 1985, Once Upon A Time diviene uno dei pochi dischi di grande successo più criticato dai fan. Il tutto perchè la band decide di fare una cover di Keith Forsey, Don't You (Forget About Me), che diviene una hit mondiale come colonna sonora del film Breakfast Club (canzone in primo momento rifiutata da Brian Ferry) e ritenuta troppo "pop commerciale". In tutta risposta, la Band è una delle colonne del Live Aid, con piena sorpresa di chi li aveva conosciuti come avanguardia nel 1980. Rimane tuttavia uno zoccolo duro di appassionati, tanto che hanno un record invidiabile di ben 21 singoli in classifica fino al 1998, anno in cui dedicheranno un disco a Napoli, Neapolis. I Simple Minds hanno avuto un percorso musicale del tutto particolare, e il loro ricordo è minore rispetto ad altri gruppi del periodo anche per scelte personali che li allontanarono dal pubblico (dopo Once Upon A Time, si presero una pausa di 4 anni per far uscire Street Fighting Years, che contiene due grandi inni della loro antologia, The Belfast Child e Mandela Day). Ancora oggi suonano, pubblicano canzoni e fanno concerti, probabilmente con poche nuove cosa da proporre, ma con una sfilza di canzoni inni che molti ancora ricordano, declamati tra l'altro con il meraviglioso accento di Glasgow di Kerr, che chiama propriamente la sua band Simple Mains.
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angryschnauzer · 8 months
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Trust your gut. Trust your internal moral compass. If you meet someone and there is something nagging at you in the pit of your stomach trust that feeling.
Over the years i've had that feeling a number of times. People that give me the 'Heebie Jeebies' or severe anxiety. A lot of the time it was celebrities, and a large portion of the time i've been proven right. I remember being a child and watching TV where a performer called Gary Glitter was on a show. It was the mid 1980s and he was a 'Glam Rock' pop star and i remember being no more than 5 or 6 but refusing to watch the show, to the point of crying and being visibly upset. I'd never met him. A decade and a half later he was imprisoned for Child Pornography. Another celebrity was Jimmy Saville. He was a TV presenter and even had a show in the 80s called 'Jim'll Fix It', a bit like a make a wish show, where children could write in and say they've always dreamed of meeting a celebrity. For example meeting a footballer and kicking the first ball at a game, or having tea with a pop star etc. It was 'wholesome family TV'. I couldn't stand to watch it, he gave me the utter creeps. His name lives now in infamy amongst British people, as the BBC had hidden hundreds of accusations against him over the course of 4 decades during his time working for them, accusations sexual assault of adults and children both male and female, and when the floodgates of revelations opened in 2012 there was even investigations into the NHS as he would volunteer as a porter (general helper that would help escort patients or even corpses between wards in the hospitals) and was known not to be left alone with young patients and especially corpses.
Those are the most visceral reactions to celebrities i'd had, way before any accusations ever came to light, but i've felt it to a somewhat lesser extent with other celebrities that again have proven to be not nice people (Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt, Jonah Hill), but also people in real life. I there was a guy who married my Aunt back in the 90s. He always seemed a little off, but all the adults loved him; he was smart and funny, and made my Aunt happy. They had 2 kids together and had a wonderful 15 years of marriage. Until he left one day deciding that his other family was more important, and his other wife and kids were a better fit. He literally ran two families side by side for a decade and a half, living 5 miles apart. He drained my Aunt's finances to support the other family. He put their house up for sale whilst my Aunt was living in it. Someone i went to school with was one of those guys that was always funny and popular, and during my 20s i'd see him out and about regularly in pubs as had a few mutual friends, always a social butterfly. He once asked me why i never pursued him for a date (he never asked me out either), and i just told him he wasn't my type, something always niggled at my gut. 5 years ago he was arrested for impersonating a 15yo boy in a chat room and getting 12yo girls to send him explicit photos of themselves.
Trust your gut. Trust that anxiety. You don't have to explain it to anyone, trust your instinct. You can read people better than you know.
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danosrosegarden · 1 month
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elijah’s anniversary celebration! 。・:*˚:✧。
when march 19th hits, i will have officially been on tumblr for a year! wow, that went by quick. to celebrate my time here and to say thank you for sticking around…i am going to feed danonation well. below there are a list of prompts that you can bedazzle with your own details as you see fit, as well as which characters i will write for! i will take requests from now until march 19th! feel free to request as many prompts as you’d like…i cannot guarantee i will write all of them, but i will try my best. any questions? send me an ask! thank you so much for supporting me for a whole year! (reblogs are especially appreciated on this post; i want to write a wide variety of pieces!) 🩷
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prompts 。・:*˚:✧。
☆ glitter: give me a character, and i will write a piece on how they celebrate a special event with their partner.
☆ sparkle: give me a character, and i will write a piece on how they comfort their partner after a bad day.
☆ glitz: give me a character, and i will write a nsfw piece for them.
☆ shimmer: give me a character, and i will write a piece on how they would handle having a crush.
☆ shine: tell me about you, and i will match you with a character from the list!
characters 。・:*˚:✧。
☆ edward nashton (the batman)
☆ eli sunday (there will be blood)
☆ calvin weir-fields (ruby sparks)
☆ ruby sparks (ruby sparks)
☆ pierre bezukhov (bbc’s war and peace)
☆ joby taylor (for ellen)
☆ jay (okja)
☆ burt fabelman (the fabelmans)
☆ mitzi fabelman (the fabelmans)
☆ klitz (the girl next door)
☆ louis ives (the extra man)
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Old-style Paedoing, Before It Got Such A Bad Name
Epistemic status: understanding the recent past, which I wasn’t around for, mainly through the lens of comedies, rumour, and scuttlebutt
The story goes that it was an open secret for many years that Sir Jimmy Savile, knight of the realm, was a horrible sex pervert before it all came to light and he was declared a posthumous monster. And this is true - but the specifics are rather vague.
A lot of sources (or, as they are now, brave prescient voices) were bang-on certain he was into some kind of sex crime, but weren’t sure exactly what. Viz simply painted him as a man whose (unspecified) confessional was worth hearing. An early Mitchell and Webb bit came in on some shocking report midway through, leaving the actual deeds as a noodle incident but quite clear they were appalling: ‘you think you know a guy, and then he goes and does something like that.’ Even Johnny Rotten, back in ‘78, went no further than charging him with ‘seediness’ and saying ‘I know some rumours’ in an edgy-kid stream-of-consciousness about all the people he’d like to kill, where he displays a bit too much knowledge about what does and doesn’t constitute libel.
The general charge, if any, seemed to be necrophilia. Lee and Herring’s bit where they dressed as Savile ended with the punchline ‘bagsy I take him to the morgue’. One of Irvine Welsh’s earlier novellas has a Cornish Savile-alike wantonly indulging in any corpse he had access to - Welsh’s version is a more general TV personality rather than specifically a children’s entertainer, probably for fear of litigation. This was no idle fear, Savile was well-known for taking such insinuations courtside, and of course he did sue when Chris Morris falsely announced his death on Radio 1, with the coda ‘the patients [at Savile hunting ground Stoke-Mandeville Hospital] are far from mourning...The majority, if not all of them, are extremely relieved that he’s now dead, although I suspect that some of them will be sorry that he didn't suffer a great deal more’.
Interestingly, Lee and Herring - as they’ve stated publicly - weren’t brave prescient voices. Hanging around Television Centre in their mid-twenties, they’d become aware of this - to them, absurd - rumour that Savile troubled the corpses. They decided that if nothing else it was game for a laugh, presumably with a BBC lawyer standing nervously in the wings and demanding they not get too specific.
Until Savile’s death, this remained a rather murky Soviet truth, and Savile himself remained a respected public figure. Within the third millennium, even as Chris Morris was being castigated for the Paedogeddon special of Brass Eye, BBC brightly-coloured-blobs children’s show The Tweenies had one of its blobs dress up as Savile as a bit of lighthearted fun - in an edition of the show which was, unwisely, repeated in 2013.
(Side note: the same tabloids which threw an ape over the obviously satirical Paedogeddon regularly ran pictures of topless 16-year-olds, until a change in the law in 2003 forced them to stop.)
It’s all out now, of course, but like the sun is one of those things people are wary of looking at directly for fear of the damage it could do. Savile made full abuse of his position as a public figure, to the point that he himself admitted to the necrophilia in idle conversation. Even by the loose standards of the British constabulary they admit there were over 200 actionable complaints made against Savile over the years.
The crux is this - Savile having committed all these beyond-the-pale acts becomes a very convenient way to paper over the point at which, in the broader consciousness, paedophilia went from ‘crime’ to ‘unforgivable, lowest-circle-of-hell crime’ in the vein of necrophilia. Because it was far more acceptable not too long ago, as many legendary musicians can attest. Gary Glitter generally just seemed shocked people were suddenly taking it so seriously - as did Jeffrey Epstein. 
Louis Theroux’s rather regretful pair of documentaries about Savile has the man himself being quite blase about his attitude to underage girls - as were the girls themselves, some of whom, while young at the time, were by their own account quite aware what might be on the cards. Does this make them culpable? Of course not, they were children. But there are those who would disagree. At the time, many would have and did disagree - including, quite likely, serving police constables. The Rotherham grooming gang, so beloved a talking point of those who just want to have a go at Pakistanis in general, were enabled top to bottom by a police force who considered their victims to be ‘slags’.
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taylibrarian · 3 months
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Lover era performances & the masters heist
This started as quickly collecting images from each ME, YNTCD, and Lover concert and quickly grew into a gif strewn masterpost, well, the masters heist and Lover era live performances.
April 24 - Taylor performs at the Time 100 Gala
Not quite Lover performances, but in a full Lover color palette right before ME! came out two days later on April 26.
This is her softest and lightest outfit of the era, contrasting sharply with the previous Rep blacks.
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April 25 - ME! is announced in an interview with Robin Roberts
Taylor is wearing a striped blue pink yellow and white dress, and mentions she was crying in the green room and might write a song called Midnight Rain at NFL Draft Day 2019.
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April 26th - At midnight, the ME! music video is released
It's a candy coated wonderland inside of Taylor Swift's mine that's everything that makes her, her! Taylor wears a kaleidoscope of outfits throughout the music video, starting in black and white and ending in screaming color.
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May, or the month of ME!
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May 1 - Taylor performs ME! at the Billboard Music Awards in a pink and yellow outfit.
May 23 - Taylor performs ME! at Germany Top Model in a cute mint jumper.
May 24 - Taylor performs ME! on the Graham Norton Show.
May 25 - Taylor performs ME! on the Voice France.
These are slowly going dark but not at an alarming rate. We're still in ME and lover color schemes.
Pride month performances
June 2 - Taylor "goes full rainbow" at Wango Tango Performance as Variety put it.
She takes off a beautiful fringed pink blue and yellow jacket to reveal a yellow shirt with pink and yellow shorts.
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June 15 - Taylor drops by Stonewall Inn
She gives a surprise pride performance in a pink shirt with gold shorts and pink and gold shoes with daisies on them.
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June 17 - Taylor releases the You Need to Calm Down music video
wearing a variety of outfits including fries and a purple blue pink wig.
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June 30 - Taylor posts about Scooter Braun purchasing her masters on her Tumblr.
She says, "This is my worst case scenario," discusses bullying, and all around it's a horrible thing to read. No idea what she's wearing and not like it matters, although she later discusses this in a white button down shirt on GMA on August 25.
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Amazon Prime Day Performance
July 11 - Taylor performs at Amazon Prime Day in a black and purple jumpsuit.
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July's Archer promo release
July 23 - The Archer is released as a promo single with a pink, purple and blue lyric video with the lyrics in gold glitter. It's markedly different tonally from ME and YNTCD.
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August slipped away into Lover promotion
August 22 - Taylor announces she'll rerecord her records on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts
She performs You Need to Calm Down in a pink buttondown shirt over a black bodysuit, pink shorts, and black shoes.
We're still in the Lover color palette but our first hints of the era's new, darker undertones.
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August 22 Lover Live Lounge album announcement
Taylor sings the Archer in a cheerful yellow and pink outfit with purples and blues behind her. Her band and backup singers surround in her black outfits.
They'd previously matched vibes for ME! performances, so this stands out in stark contrast.
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August 23(ish) Taylor sings a devastating performance of Daylight at Sirius XM
She's in a black jumpsuit with Lover colored polka dots, a pattern that will follow soon.
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Post Lover release blackout
September 3rd - BBC Radio 1
Taylor gives a 40 minute long performance promoting Lover in a black outfit with Lover colored stars on the shirt.
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September 9 - Lover Live from Paris
Taylor performs in a full black outfit with a mostly black stage after You Need to Calm Down until Daylight.
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October 7 - SNL Lover promo
Taylor performs Lover and False God on SNL in a full greenscreen green and then a black outfit with a sexy sax.
Not sure what to make of the green other than "if the story's over, why am I still writing pages?" I'm still waiting for her to release something over like a music video over this greenscreen outfit.
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October 20 - Live at The Hollywood Bowl
The performance has the usual blues and purple pink skies since the Archer. She's in an all black outfit.
Between the Midnights samples and the sky behind her, it's almost like we've been deep portal time traveling back to previous eras since this time.
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AMAs stolen records outfit
November 14 - Taylor posts that Scooter and Scott stopping her from performing her old music, which could have prevented Miss Americana from coming out and stopped any other Lover era performances until November 2020. Taylor does perform at the American Music Awards 10 days later, starting the show in a white button down with her stolen records written on it.
Is this just the start of the folklore black, whites, and greys?
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December 19 - Britain's Strictly Come Dancing
Taylor performs Lover on in a black and white pinstriped jumpsuit.
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Soon You'll Get Better as the pandemic soundtrack
April 18, 2020- Taylor performs Soon You'll Get Better, officially closing out the Lover Era performances in the pandemic, wearing a black sweater to suit the mood.
She's probably already halfway through folklore with Aaron Dessner at this point.
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Final thoughts
I knew this era's performances reflected the masters heist but I hadn't realized how obvious the demarcation was. Mid June, Taylor's at the Stonewall Inn and releasing You Need to Calm Down with a cadre of friends.
Then the master heist was announced June 30th, the Archer promo single was dropped, and the performances and outfits took a more somber turn.
We're more than halfway through the rerecords, which are obviously a smash hit that have pushed Taylor to a new peak in popularity and stardom.
But 2019 was a rough ride, and the Lover era had already been changed before it was officially cut short.
And I do think it's significant that we moved through the greys of folklore, the sepias of evermore, and that we're still in the dark blue skies of Midnights.
Will we see daylight soon?
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burtonandtaylor · 3 months
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Richard Burton Interview with BBC reporter John Simpson (1977) - shortly after his 1976 divorce from Elizabeth Taylor.
I was the BBC’s radio correspondent in Johannesburg at the time when the African scenes in The Wild Geese were filmed… . The prospect of meeting Roger Moore, Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger was, of course, an attractive one, though I probably didn’t mention that side of it. It would scarcely have sounded sophisticated. 
“If you remember, I asked for an interview with Richard Burton.” … I wasn’t expecting anything. If Richard Burton was too grand to have lunch with the others, he would certainly be too grand to be interviewed by me. The PR man came back looking apologetic. I was ready with a sharp reply, assuming I would be given a crisp turn-down. 
“He says if you don’t mind the mess in his caravan… . . [H]e’s just going through it a bit. That’s all.” 
He certainly was. Richard Burton’s ravaged, pockmarked face looked even harsher in reality than it did with all the care of the make-up artists. And despite the fierce sun outside he looked pale and unhealthy. 
But nothing could affect the voice. 
“Come in, come in, my dear boy,” he said, gripping my hand and pulling me up the steps… . The warmth of his tone outdid the afternoon heat. 
“Really sorry not to be down there with the others for lunch,” said Burton. “The fact is, you see, I’m on the wagon at the moment, and it doesn’t feel all that good, I have to confess… . Wish I’d been teetotal, like my old schoolmaster told me. But the stage, you know. And the company I’ve kept.” 
He gave a huge laugh, which seemed to make the entire caravan shake. It was a big one, with room enough for a sizeable (unmade) bed and a table covered with books, make-up bottles and photographs in silver frames. The biggest photograph was of Elizabeth Taylor. I had wondered how to broach the subject, after their divorce. But with Burton, whether it was because of the influence of the bundu or his free, open nature, there was no trouble at all. 
He saw the direction of my eyes. 
“Ah, Elizabeth. Isn’t she the most beautiful animal you’ve ever set eyes on?” 
… . I nodded, and felt emboldened. 
“So, you don’t feel bitter towards her?” 
“Bitter?” The caravan shook again. 
“Look, if she’d have me back I’d leave this sh—y film and this ghastly heat right now, and charter a plan to go wherever she was. Actually I know where she is. She’s in Malibu. I kind of keep in touch, you know.” 
“So why… . .?” 
“It’s the old thing: can’t live with her, can’t live without her. But I adore Elizabeth, and I always will.” 
There was a catch in his voice, and he looked out of the window at the baobab trees. 
“I don’t drink now, you know. I’m not pretending it’s not painful, but I’ve given it up for good. It was what Elizabeth hated most in me, I think, even though she’s pretty partial to it herself. It was like pouring petrol over our marriage. And now I don’t do it anymore. I hate it, in fact.” 
… . It seemed to me that a tear was glittering in his eye… . 
“What is it about her that you love so much?” 
“Ahhh,” he said expansively, waving his arms at the baobabs, “where does one start? ‘Age cannot wither her… .’ She’s a magnificent actress, you know, if only they will let her be.” 
“She’s lazy, they say, and they also say she’s not very bright, though that happens to be an outright, damned lie. It’s just that her brightness is a natural brightness, not necessarily a college brightness. She may not know all about Shakespeare or Marlowe or Albee, but she understands the emotional truth, and that is what she projects.” 
… “Director wants to know if you’re all right, Mr. Burton.” The voice was muffled by the door. 
“Tell the director to go and f—- himself. I’m reminiscing here about the divine Elizabeth, and mustn’t be disturbed.” 
“You were telling me about her understanding of the emotional truth of a part.” 
“Was I?” … “But you see, what I should have said was that she was a lass unparalleled. A woman of the most charming but also the most natural kind. She could take care of a man, you know.” 
He glanced at me. 
“No, I don’t mean that. What I mean is that she could be so normal, so natural, so caring. 
Listen. Once I took my brother and my business manager to Twickenham for the Wales-England match. Wales won; they always did in those days. And of course we had too much to drink, even my little runt of a manager. Much too much. And we came back on the Tube, and fetched up for some reason at Tottenham Court Road station. I must have said I knew a bar near there. It was late, you see, about midnight. 
There was a gang of about a dozen skinheads at the top, all tattooed with England flags on their chests and faces and arms; a rather fearsome sight. 
Well, it was too late to turn back, so we decided to take them head on. When I say we, I mean my brother and me. The last I saw of my manager, he was shouting, ‘You can’t hit me, I’ve got a briefcase.’ They gave us both a pretty good going-over. I think they were worse to me, though I don’t think they’d seen me on the screen. Maybe I was just bigger and uglier than my brother. 
And then they left us lying there at the entrance to the Tube. My brother said he thought he could manage to get home by himself, and he hailed a taxi for me. He had to do quite a lot of persuading, because my entire head was a mass of blood. But at least I didn’t seem to have any bones broken. I told the driver to take me to the Dorchester, and gave him a tenner. Which was pretty good money in those days. 
They wouldn’t let me in at the Dorchester, of course, till I told them who I was and demanded to see the manager. Then they were niceness itself, and two of them helped me to the door of our suite, though I told them to leave before I banged on the door for Elizabeth. 
But, you see, she was magnificent. Utterly magnificent. She didn’t have a fit of the vapours, she didn’t get excited, she didn’t even tick me off for being drunk and getting beaten up. 
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ was all she said, and she rang down for bowls of water and towels and bandages and God knows what. And when they sent up some kind of quack to look after me, she shooed him away. 
She sponged the blood off my face, and found that my left eye was halfway out of its socket, so she carefully put it back in. Would you ever imagine that someone like her would be able to do any of that? But she was tough, you see, and brave too. And she tucked me up I in bed with the bandages over my head, and at nine o’clock the next morning, when I was starting to feel a bit better, she ordered up a magnum of Bollinger to cheer me up. And then she sat on the side of the bed and toasted me and Wales’s victory.” 
He paused, and looked away from me and the microphone. 
“Magnificent woman, in every way. Magnificent. If I’m honest, my life is a little empty without her.” 
He thought for a moment. 
“No, if I’m honest, my life is horribly empty without her.” 
I (author) said goodbye not long afterwards, and shut the door of the caravan on him. He waved me out in the most courtly fashion, but I think he was probably glad to be left alone with Elizabeth Taylor’s picture.
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variousqueerthings · 5 months
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Got my DW magazines (including the latest where all those brainmelting quotes are coming from) and there really is so much loveliness in them, including a letter from RTD:
"The First Great Seismic Shift in Doctor Who was in 1966 when the lead character slumped to the floor and... what? He did what?! He changed into a different actor? For good?! Can you imagine that happening unannounced now? in 1966, there seems to be comparatively little record of the reaction. Did we question less, then? Did we just... watch?
I've got clearer memories of Seismic Shift 2, 1970, the move into colour. Though that didn't mean much; we didn't buy colour TVs overnight, I was still watching in black and white until, ooh, Planet of the Daleks...?"
[...]
Things happened, and we simply kept on watching. We might complain about today's online world, but aren't we wiser now? Less passive, more engaged?
[...]
You probably know the later Seismic Shifts. The return, in 2005. Steven Moffat's astonishing, brilliant, glittering Doctors from 2010 onwards, with the Master becoming Missy. And with a slinky Seismic Shuffle, the Eighth Doctor, who'd disappeared off screen in 1996, finally got to regenerate in 2013 but only on the BBC Red Button! And then Jodie Whittaker fell through the roof of a Sheffield-bound train with an impact so great, it bumped the entire show on to Sunday night, and then she stood up in the wreckage and smiled a smile so bright, it changed the Time Lord and television drama and the whole bloody culture for good and for better.
It really is the most fascinating show because it changes, changes, changes... and yet, it stays the same. 'Doctor Who is all about to change!' say the fans, but I sit here planning the next story in which a police box lands and the Doctor steps out and foils an invasion of Earth thinking to myself, well, is it? But I know what you mean. The feel of the show changes, the essence. Jo and the Doctor and that silver car are a different world, a different style, almost a different genre to Clara facing a Raven on Trap Street.
And now, in 2023, that high-wire-tension of approaching change is in the air. The Doctor mysteriously has a face he's had before. And by the time December rolls around, he'll have yet another new face, in a show that now drops worldwide on a vast streaming platform -- new and old at the same time, as it still stays cradled in its Saturday night home of the good old BBC.
But as I said. Voices are louder this year. Shouting and rage and horror sometimes circle around Doctor Who. And often, that's not about Doctor Who itself, it's expressing anger and fear about life, about love, about self. And I get that! These discussions are us, growing up. In the old days we'd sit in our bedroom and work out the world all on our own. We could only sing along to pop songs to express our lovely,lonely hearts. Now, we type it out, and that's always going to be clumsy. Because expressing yourself isn't easy. Even birthday cards are hard work! So trying to say what you think about life and love and sex and telly in the form of words typed on a page and read by strangers, oh, nightmare! No wonder it goes wrong. But now...
I think there's only one way to meet the changes to come.
With joy.
I'm not asking for good reviews (I've got myself for that, I think these episodes are FABULOUS!) But if you don't like the something, don't exhaust yourself. Just smile and be glad that some people are happy and wait for the next Seismic Shift to come.
Because this programme has trained us well! We have embraced flying cars and the Red Button and the Watcher and the Garm and hey, maybe 'granddaughter' is Gallifreyan for 'friend' (though I don't think so) which means we can delight in anything. And right now, the TARDIS is heading for Skaro, and a wounded spaceship is heading for London, and Shaun is taking an extra shift in his taxi cos he's short of money, and Sylvia is delivering a curry and Donna Noble's daughter needs to go shopping for eyes -- for eyes?! -- and as all these things converge, hold on tight, clutch those tins of beans, cos the next earthquake is rumbling away on the horizon.
Here we go again!
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mrsbillycranston · 2 years
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For what it’s worth, I think these are the best shows I have watched in the past year. Honestly in no particular order. I love them all.
1. What We Do in the Shadows (This show never quite does what you expect but is consistently funny. Only complaint is I need more of Kayvan in little shorts.)
2. Taskmaster, UK and NZ (Sorry to other versions, I haven’t had time yet, but understand they’re similarly lovely. I will get to you. I just need a moment to revel in a 50 something man covered in glitter spanking himself with a wooden spoon.)
3. Ghosts, BBC and CBS (No apologies at all to haters. I was just as skeptical of the adaptation, but they nailed it. So, in the words of Acaster, suck it.)
4. Our Flag Means Death (I love the flagrant and joyful disregard for historical accuracy, as I too am that sort of person. I once had someone lighting match in a story set before matches were invented. Couldn’t be bothered to look up how a pipe would have been lit otherwise, so I left it. Once, someone left a comment on a fic I had written set in England that was basically “I can tell you’re American because you said store instead of shops.” I also did not change that. What I’m getting at is sometimes the vibe is more important, and Taika knows that.)
5. The Rehearsal (Nothing has made me so uncomfortable in a long time. Nothing has been so weird and defied categorization. Nothing has made me wonder so much if its creator is a well man. Truly nothing quite like it, for better or worse.)
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denimbex1986 · 9 days
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'I almost knock into Andrew Scott before I see him. He’s just dashed out of the Tate Modern, frantic and slightly late: “There’s just so many entrances!” he exclaims. His patrician forehead crinkles, and the brown eyes charmingly plead: Forgive me! He was just inside, picking up his membership card. Surely he can get in for free? “Excuse me,” he huffs, “I’m a fully paid-up member.” Then he flashes the broad grin that seduced a legion of Fleabag viewers, and we’re off.
The plan today is to meander in a loop along the Thames. On a midafternoon Friday in London, this involves much ducking and diving through crowds, which suits Scott just fine. The weather is one of those bright, springlike days that convinces you that winter is over—except the rain-swollen river is now sloshing ominously onto the pavement. We slow down to regard an underwater section of our route. “I don’t think we’re gonna get through there,” he says. “I’ve probably got a hole in my trainers.”
We head for the road instead, words pouring out of the 47-year-old actor in that mellifluous Irish lilt, peppered with “you knows” and interrupted frequently by his laugh. It’s no surprise that his colleagues quickly become friends: “It was clear from the moment that I met and worked with Andrew that he was an exceptionally gifted actor,” says Julianne Moore, who starred alongside Scott on Broadway in 2006’s The Vertical Hour. It was both actors’ Broadway debuts, though Scott has juggled screen and theater from the start. “I’ve always done both,” he says, though he acknowledges modestly: “I used to do maybe a few plays a year and one television show. Now maybe it’s kind of the opposite.” That’s somewhat underselling his dramatic accomplishments. Scott has won two Olivier Awards, for the experimental A Girl in a Car With a Man in 2005 and Noël Coward’s Present Laughter in 2020. He has performed in productions of Eugene O’Neill, Oscar Wilde—he’s played Hamlet, too, and was nominated for an Olivier for that as well. “Scott gives carefully controlled, thrillingly virtuoso physical performances,” wrote The Guardian last year, when he performed eight roles from Uncle Vanya by himself, in a much-lauded West End solo adaptation of the Chekhov play. (A New York transfer could not be confirmed when this piece went to press, but seems highly likely.) “He wore his talent so lightly and modestly,” Moore says. “He was joyful and fun and an amazing partner to have onstage and off.”
Scott was born in Dublin, sandwiched between two sisters; his mother is a teacher and an artist, and his father works at an employment agency. As a child, he was brought to art galleries and theaters. A performance by the great Irish actor Donal McCann in Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock when he was 11 or 12 made a lasting impression: “There was just something about the power in his stillness—people think that, in theater, it’s all about the grand gesture, but stillness onstage is absolutely mesmerizing.”
An eerie stillness characterizes all of Scott’s performances as well. As Moriarty in Sherlock, the BBC One show that catapulted him to fame in Britain in the 2010s, he requested fewer lines to play up the villain’s spookiness. And then there is that agonizing stretch of silence in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag right after its titular protagonist confesses her love. Has the line “It’ll pass” ever been delivered with so much pathos? Scott’s acting is all submerged passion; when he does speak, his words have depth. “Andrew has an intensity and a precision in his work,” Moore tells me. “I love his vulnerability, the way his eyes glitter onscreen.”
As a child, Scott was sent to drama classes to get over his shyness. He still remembers his first role, as the Tin Man in a production of The Wizard of Oz. “I felt completely free,” he says, seemingly transported to the moment he launched into “If I Only Had a Heart” onstage. “I felt joy—that’s the word. Not only did I feel it, but I felt that other people felt it when they were looking at me…. Some intuition told me as an 11-year-old: ‘You have to be this expressive, that’s what theater is!’ Nobody taught me that. I just felt it.” Then he swerves to avoid a clutch of tourists on Tower Bridge, and the reverie is lost.
These days, walking around London is something of an ongoing pastime for Scott. During the press rollout for Andrew Haigh’s Golden Globe–nominated romance All of Us Strangers, he and costar Paul Mescal went to their PR engagements on foot. One day, two boys on bikes clocked the pair and started chasing after them in an alarming fashion: “We escaped them—it was quite fun, actually!” Does he ever feel slightly protective of Mescal, two decades his junior? “Not any more than I would with any of my other people in my life. Because he’s got his head screwed on, you know? I absolutely adore Paul,” Scott adds, though he wants to make one thing clear: “Bromance is not the word that we associate with it, because neither of us are very bro-ey.”
Waller-Bridge, who has known Scott for 15 years, describes him as “an absolute pixie of mischief.” When asked to elaborate, she continues: “I could write a novel. But I love how naughty he is. He has the magical ability to make you feel instantly present—no matter what’s going on in your life, you’re suddenly there in the moment and feeling joyful. I think that’s what it’s like to watch him as an actor too…like he can stop time with his honesty.”
Between 2020 and 2021, Scott also traversed the lengths of the Thames, pondering the script from Ripley, his upcoming eight-episode project for Netflix, in which he plays the titular protagonist. “Quite unusually, I got sent all eight scripts at the same time,” he remembers. Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter behind Schindler’s List and Gangs of New York and the director and writer behind All the King’s Men, had written all eight at the outset.
Tom Ripley is crime novelist Patricia Highsmith’s slipperiest literary creation; a pathological liar and murderer with whom she felt a strange kinship—she sometimes signed letters with some variation of “Pat H., alias Ripley.” It is not so much a spoiler as an ongoing feature of the books that Ripley, despite splurging on Venetian palazzi and Gucci suitcases, never gets caught. If anybody comes close, there is always a conveniently located oar or glass paperweight nearby. Ripley, in other words, is the hero of the tale. “That’s why he fascinates so many,” says Scott. “There’s been so many iterations of him. I think it’s because people root for him.” Actors like Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper have tried the role; Matt Damon played him as an obsequious, lower-class naïf; John Malkovich, as a slimy, camp killer. Scott’s Ripley is different; a watchful loner escaping rodent-infested poverty, more at home among art than he is around people. Musician and actor Johnny Flynn plays his first victim—the monied Dickie Greenleaf—and Dakota Fanning is Dickie’s suspicious ex-girlfriend. “I find Tom quite vulnerable,” Scott tells me. “I don’t think he’s necessarily lonely, but I certainly think he’s solitary…. He seems to me by his nature that he just can’t fit in. He’s trying to survive.”
In Ripley, Zaillian extracts maximum Hitchcockian dread from every creaky footstep. But most sinister of all is Scott’s face, which exhibits a sharklike steeliness throughout. It’s a performance that exudes queasy force. Is Ripley a scammer, a psychopath, or both? “There’s so many things lurking beneath him that I’ve been very reluctant to diagnose him with anything. I never thought of him as a sociopath or murderous,” Scott declares. “It’s up to everybody else to characterize him or call him whatever they want.”
As we weave through tourists near the Tower of London, barely anybody notices Scott, save for a faint glimmer of recognition among mainly young women. He seems to draw reassurance from it. “I don’t like to think about it too much, if I’m honest,” he muses of fame. “I find it a little bit, er, frightening.” He is known but not blockbuster-recognizable, although he is in the upcoming Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. What stunts did he do? “I can’t give that away, I’m afraid, or somebody from Netflix will come and shoot me in the head.”
What’s been on Scott’s mind the most hasn’t been acting at all, in fact, but art. As a 17-year-old, he was offered his first movie role on the same day he was given a scholarship to study painting. He chose acting, but has recently been thinking about Oliver Burkeman’s philosophical self-help tract from 2021, Four Thousand Weeks, which makes the case for focusing on the five things you truly want to accomplish. “For me at the moment, it’s like, What do you want to do? What do you want to say?”
He scrolls through his phone to show me his work. There’s a watercolor of a couple arguing in a restaurant in rich reds and greens, line drawings of friends and people on the beach, and two self-portraits. “It’s a bit weird,” he acknowledges of his depiction of himself, all bulbous forehead and Pan-like tufts of hair. His brisk, nervy lines are reminiscent of Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, who turns out to be one of his favorite painters. “Well, God, I’ll take that,” he mutters at the comparison. He would like someday to go to art school. “I don’t ever regret it,” he says of acting. “But I suppose you just get to a stage where you think, What else? That’s one of the big painful things in life for me, where you can’t quite live all the lives.” As he gets older, he feels the tug toward revisiting old working relationships, including with Waller-Bridge: “We’ve definitely got things cooking,” he smiles. “I’d love to work with her again. She’s just a singular, wonderful person.” For her part, Waller-Bridge says: “I’d love to see him do a fully unhinged slapstick comedy character. Someone who is outraged at everything, all of the time.”
As we round the pavement and the Tate Modern looms back into sight, he recalls a poster he received in 2017—a monstrously large graphic that detailed every week in a human life span. “It’s your entire life if you live to 80—you have to fill in all the bits that you’ve already lived,” he remembers in awe, “a visually terrifying gift.” What did he do with it? “I didn’t hold on to it for too long.” Easy come, easy go: We finally finish our loop around the Thames and, as Scott disappears back into the throng, anonymous just the way he likes it, it occurs to me that the actor has many lives to live yet.'
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