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ava-candide · 3 years

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Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

The newly married heart-throb actor learnt to paint left-handed for his new role, and he’s still daubing now, he tells Ed Potton

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath Leonardo

I’m trying to work out where Aidan Turner is Zooming from. Is it London, where he moved to in 2017 after his Ross Poldark became the drooled-over king of Sunday-night television? Dublin, where he grew up, trained as an actor and returned to spend the first lockdown with his parents? Or Rome, where he shot his new series, Leonardo, in which he plays a young Leonardo da Vinci?

“None of the above!” Turner says. “I’m in Toronto.” The enigmatic charm, feline eyes and gleaming locks that he deployed so mercilessly in Poldark, The Hobbit films and Being Human are all there. “My missus is working here,” he explains, and so is he. That’s the American actress Caitlin FitzGerald, his partner of three years, whom he met when they starred in the 2018 film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. At first I assume the “missus” is laddish affectation but it turns out that it’s official: Turner and FitzGerald, both 37, got married in secret in Italy in August after filming finished on Leonardo. You can almost hear the sighs of disappointment ripple around the world.

Turner won’t say any more — he is famously guarded about his personal life — but he looks insanely happy in the couple’s rented apartment. FitzGerald — whose grandfather Desmond was a CIA agent and organised several plots to assassinate Fidel Castro — is shooting a series, Station Eleven, in Toronto while her husband works on another project that he’s not allowed to talk about. In their downtime they’ve been watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO documentary series about the Golden State Killer, and, on a lighter note, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles. They share the apartment with Charlie, an ebullient Norfolk terrier that Turner has to eject from the room halfway through our interview when he starts yapping. “I’m surprised he behaved for so long,” he says

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping history

Like many of his fellow thesps, Turner has been doing a great deal of lockdown painting. “We have a roof garden here and the light has been really good,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this because I don’t know if the landlord knows. It’s not messy work anyway!” Unlike some of his peers — I’m looking at you, Pierce Brosnan — he has yet to unleash his daubings on the world. How would he describe his style? “I struggle to say abstract, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.” Did it help with playing Leonardo? “I don’t know. If you saw my paintings, you’d assume very much not,” Turner says. He has a studied line in self-effacement, honed after years of “sexiest man on TV” questions.

Leonardo premiered in Italy last month and was watched by seven million, many of them doubtless keen to see Turner brooding in a succession of smocks. The eight-part series has been criticised for warping history, having the artist accused of murder and featuring an apparently fictional muse, Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis from The Undoing. Luca Bernabei, the chief executive of Lux Vide who produced the series, defended it stoutly. “Matilda De Angelis’s character did exist. She was a model Leonardo asked to paint,” he said. “We have been really careful in our research. But this is not a documentary, we are not historians and this is not a university history lecture.”

And if the history pedants are spluttering, the art pedants should be happier — the series goes to considerable lengths to make the painting look authentic. Each episode is themed around a different masterpiece, from the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci to The Last Supper to the Mona Lisa, and the candlelit cinematography is often sumptuous. Turner’s research included a private view of a Leonardo exhibition. “I spent some time alone with the actual paintings, which was brilliant,” he says. “They’re just like high-definition photographs. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a human had done this.”

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming started

The series opens in Florence in the 1460s, with Leonardo a pupil of Verrocchio, played by the veteran Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini. Before the shoot Turner and his co-stars went on an artists’ boot camp (brush camp?) supervised by professionals. He says the hardest part was learning to paint, as Leonardo did, with his left hand. He compares it to learning to ride a horse for Poldark, which he pretended he knew how to do before going on a crash course when he got the part.

Brushwork was the same, he says. “I realised I had to get good quite quickly and look like I knew what I was doing with my left hand, which is more difficult than you would think. It’s keeping it steady — you find it just moves around a lot. Leonardo was very slow and precise — I think I got it down. After a few weeks you start picking up the brush with your left hand, it becomes natural.”

Leonardo was a vegetarian, Turner tells me, “and apparently later in life opened some sort of vegetarian restaurant”. He was also gay, something that, despite reports, the series does not shy away from. Was this Turner’s first time kissing a man on screen? He laughs. “Of all the things I was expecting you to ask next, that wasn’t one of them! In a lot of ways it was just another love scene. The fact that the gender was different — that was never a thing. No, it felt right. It didn’t feel any different at all. But yeah, to answer your question, that was the first time, which I’d never really thought of until now.”

What did feel weird, he says, were the Covid protocols. “Suddenly people are wearing masks and shields and hazmat suits. We had a big sanitisation machine as we walked in that would spray us. You take off the mask when you shoot the scene and it’s a bit strange for a second. Then you realise it’s the first time you’ve seen your co-star’s face that day. It’s not conducive to a very creative environment, for sure. But we made it work and nobody got sick.”

Turner spends a chunk of the first episode painting De Angelis, and both actors know what it’s like to be ogled. She has been asked endlessly about her naked locker-room sequence in The Undoing, just as he has been reminded of his shirtless scything scene in Poldark. Before that there was his lusted-after vampire in Being Human and his sexy dwarf in The Hobbit — branded a “dwilf” in some quarters — although that “definitely wasn’t the intention”, he says. “I think I just had less prosthetics on my face. My make-up call was 20 minutes and everyone else was sitting in the chair in the morning for three and a half hours. It wasn’t good to be around the other dwarfs in the mornings, that’s for sure.

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

We move on. According to a recent survey Cornwall has overtaken London as the most desirable place to live in Britain. Does he think Poldark played a part in that? He laughs. “Maybe we nudged a few people in the right direction. I think people forgot how beautiful that side of the world is. One of the first reviews of Poldark we read was like: ‘We can’t believe that this is our country, it looks like the south of France.’”

Could Poldark return, and would Turner be in it? If they stuck to the chronology of Winston Graham’s books they would have to leap ahead a few years. Maybe he could play an aged-up Ross Poldark in latex and fake paunch? “I don’t know if I’d be keen on the ageing-up thing,” he says. “It never really works. I don’t know whether they need to be too strict with that gap anyway. There’s the possibility someday, maybe. I enjoyed working with everybody on Poldark, from the writers right down to all the cast and crew. It really is like a family. So I’d be open to chat about it. But not for a while.”

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

“You want what’s best for the film. And if you don’t fit into it, you don’t fit into it,” Turner says in the tone of hair-shirt devotion that actors tend to use when talking about Malick. With a cast including Ben Kingsley and Mark Rylance as Satan, the movie is meant to tell the story of Jesus through a series of parables. Turner doesn’t really have a clue, though.

“You don’t necessarily know what you’re signing up to. You’re signing up to Terrence Malick,” he says. The director has “a great way of working. Everything is around ‘where is the sun’ at this particular time. That’s our natural light and it’s all we use. So things happen fast. There’s no trailers, hair, make-up, we’re just all together. You don’t know from day to day what you’ll be doing. It’s quite renegade stuff. That’s the way I always wanted to work.”

It’s closer to the immediacy of the theatre, which is where Turner started out. The son of an electrician, Pearse, and an accountant, Eileen, he represented Ireland at ballroom dancing before falling into acting. After studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin he acted in plays for five years and in 2018 he returned to the stage to rave reviews in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in the West End. Rave being the operative word — his performance was bracingly unhinged. “I can’t wait to get back to the theatre,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at probably next.”

Turner’s character in The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an Irish freedom fighter, but he is reluctant to talk about the prospect of Irish reunification (“So I don’t get shot when I get home,” he told one interviewer). Culture is safer ground, and his native country is going through a purple patch with Sally Rooney in literature, Fontaines DC in music and the likes of McDonagh, Jessie Buckley and Denise Gough in drama. “It tends to happen in waves,” Turner says. “Coming out of drama school, Colin Farrell was such a big thing. When these actors really make it you can feel some of their light begin to shine on the industry back home.”

Like Farrell, Turner is an international star, although it has mainly been in period roles: Poldark, Leonardo, Andrew and his breakout turn as the 19th-century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It must be something about the hair.

That could be about to change, though. Toronto often stands in for New York, which suggests that his current mystery project has a contemporary setting. Does he yearn to act in jeans? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says with a laugh. “After Leonardo, I think tights and knee-length boots are out for a while.” Many would beg him to reconsider.

#aidanpics

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thewhovianperson · 3 years

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It's round six of my doctor who companions with each doctor series, which means we have Ben and Polly, another couple that I absolutely refuse to separate. So without further ado, let's get down to business to defeat... The Faceless Ones?

1: Ben and Polly would have pretty much the same reaction to One as Ian and Barbara did, that is to say bemusement crossed with slight horror occasionally. However as they'd click with Susan I think One would be more amicable to them. Standout story for Ben would be The Reign of Terror, and Polly would be brilliant in Planet of the Giants, purely for her resourcefulness.

2: Hot take but we needed more stories with Ben, Polly, and Jamie because this TARDIS Team had some class A antics. Also they deserve a better goodbye than the one they got (even if The Faceless Ones is an absolute banger). I'd love to see them with later 2, where his mysterious side comes out, and I think the Land of Fiction would be an interesting time for them.

3: Three, Ben and Polly would make strange bedfellows, but I think it could work sometimes. Polly would probably find Three exasperating at times, but Ben would fit right in with the UNIT family, and I think that both would have major respect for Three after their reaction to The Silurians.

4: This would essentially be Two, Ben, and Polly dialed up to eleven (and I don't mean the Doctor's incarnation, okay yes, that too, but one doctor at a time). Honestly this grouping would be pretty cool, and the crazy vibe would be off the charts. Polly would 100% build a crazy weedkiller that saved the world in The Seeds of Doom.

5: Young, (probably) gay (I headcanon Ben as bi and Polly as an ally), but with them on board, the team size would be way too high. They'd get swallowed in the mix, and Polly and Tegan would definitely clash.

6: They would be upset by Sixes arrogance, as they'd have largely avoided 1's, this would be their first pairing with an incredibly arrogant doctor. However as Six mellowed out they'd enjoy their trips and definitely establish a strong rapport together.

7: As soon as Seven put one of them in danger the other would slap the shit out of them. That being said you can't tell me that Ben and Polly wouldn't cause an equal amount of devastation to the Daleks as Ace did in Remembrance. Honestly I'd love to see a "what if" style episode with them in there.

8: "Ben and Polly travel the universe with a romantic queer who teaches them about the beauty of the stars" is a premise I can 100% get behind.

War: I feel like in the early stages of The Time War this duo would do well because of their resourcefulness and ability to work well under duress. They'd definitely help War with some of the more difficult aspects of the Time War, but they're only human. I can't see them surviving after the big players actually pulled out the meaningful weapons.

9: Ben is a post war sailor, who probably fought in Korea, and 100% knows about trauma from battles. Imagine if you would, a scenario in which the Autons are in 1966, and 9 meets these two flatting together. Polly would pull some gymnastics movements out of nowhere, antiplastic would be spilt, and then Ben would offer Nine the journey of a lifetime... to a therapist's office.

10: This has the same vibe as 10 had with Martha and Donna in my head, so essentially fuck yes this would work.

11: Matt literally modelled his character after 2's, and considering they went so well together this grouping would too. 11 occasionally gets a little darker than 2 did when they were with them, but I think they'd vibe for the most part. If they can deal with hypnoBen and giant sentient crabs, they can deal with Slenderman and co.

12: If you can survive 1 you can survive 12 (unless you're Bill), so 12's grumpiness wouldn't hurt them too much. Assuming they were with the end of 11's tenure too, I think that having the Paternoster Gang to help them through the change would be good too. They might clash over Ben's occupation a little bit though.

13: Thirteen seems to need an emotional support family, so hell yeah these two would do well. I would also love the implication that they're technically older than Graham but also younger, I can see that being the butt of one or three jokes between them. Honestly considering their age and time period, this group would be amazing.

Ruth: I've said it before on this post and I'll say it again: Ben and Polly are some of the most resourceful companions The Doctor has ever had. As long as they were alright with a Doc who essentially wakes up and seems to choose violence each morning, I think they'd do well.

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captain-ross-poldark · 3 years

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Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

Ed Potton

Friday 2 April 2021

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath LeonardoJUSTIN SUTCLIFFE/EYEVIN

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping historyPA

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming startedVITTORIA FENATI MORACE

With his wife, the American actress Caitlin FitzGeraldREX FEATURES

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

Turner with Eleanor Tomlinson in PoldarkMIKE HOGAN

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator ofThe Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

All episodes of Leonardo will be on Amazon from April 16

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poldarks-aidan-turner-on-playing-leonardo-da-vinci-wnmqhxqxr

#Sunday times #aidan turner #Leonardo

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miskatonicaquarium · 4 years

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Weird Fiction/Cosmic Horror Recommends

In a time of general uncertainty and anxiety, one thing that is certain is that weird fiction/cosmic horror has got your back. If you like to combat your growing sense of existential dread by reading about other people’s growing sense of existential dread, this is a list for you. Where texts and shows are available online, I have included links. Where they are not, I have included links to where they are available to buy.

Books

Agents of Dreamland – Caitlin R Kiernan

Government agents, ritual murders, a doomsday cult and a glitch in NASA’s interplanetary probe all feature in this deeply frightening and deftly written novella that takes classic Lovecraftian tropes and expands on them with mesmerising skill.

Wanderers – Chuck Wendig

When a sleepwalking epidemic hits America, those affected head towards a destination known only to themselves. Desperate to keep their loved ones safe, ‘shepherds’ follow the growing group to protect them on their journey. This is an incredibly rewarding read stuffed full of complex characters, apocalyptic horror and a long hard look at human nature.

Winter Tide – Ruthanna Emrys

After the government raid on Innsmouth, Aphra and Caleb Marsh are the only inhabitants of the town to survive the desert internment camps. When confidential, dangerous magic is stolen from Miskatonic University, the FBI are forced to turn to the last of the Marsh’s for help. An evocative and sympathetic novel that takes the antagonists of Lovecraft’s works and paints them in a new light.

The Fisherman – John Langan

This is considered to be a modern classic of the genre and for good reason. It’s best to go into this one as blind as possible so I’ll just leave you with this little quote: "I know Dutchman's Creek runs deep, much deeper than it could or should, and I don't like to think what it's full of."

Carter and Lovecraft – Jonathan L. Howard

A homicide detective turned Private Investigator finds himself embroiled with the last known descendant of H.P Lovecraft, Emily Lovecraft. When deaths that have an eerie resemblance to the writing of Emily’s ancestor begin to plague the area, the investigator finds himself drawn into a world he thought didn’t exist beyond fiction.

Rosewater – Tade Thompson

The first in an award-winning trilogy that blends science fiction into the weird in near future Nigeria. When an alien biodome manifests in the landscape, a select group of people in the surrounding area begin developing psychic abilities. A winding, disturbing tale with an original setting, voice and characters; this is the perfect read for those looking for a fresh take on the genre.

North American Lake Monsters: Stories – Nathan Ballingrud

I am hugely obsessed with this – Ballingrud uses tropes and characters we are all familiar with and uses them to tell stories that shed light on the plight of rural, poverty-stricken America. He is a masterful author with a true gift for atmospheric writing (‘Late summer pressed onto this small Mississippi coastal town like the heel of a boot. The heat was an act of violence.’) and this collection will appeal to fans of Ligotti and Barron as well as those who are unfamiliar with the genre.

The Ballad of Black Tom – Victor LaValle

This is essentially a retelling of Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook (but without the blatant racism, hooray!). A slow burn, cosmic horror noir featuring a who’s who of the Cthulhu Mythos, for those interested in the genre who do not get on with Lovecraft’s writing or the man himself, this is an excellent way to get all the good stuff without the bad.

Anthologies

A Lonely and Curious Country: Tales from the land of Lovecraft

Seventeen stories about Lovecraftian horrors in the most unusual of places. Lots of these work as mini-sequels to Lovecraft’s original stories so this is a good companion for those familiar with his work.

Lovecraft Unbound

As I’ve said before, Ellen Datlow is a powerhouse of anthology editing. Featuring a great spread of familiar mythos faces and more thematic takes on the genre, Lovecraft Unbound is one of the best collections out there.

Book of Cthulhu

There are a couple of these! All feature some of the best contemporary authors writing weird fiction. Quality of individual stories sometimes varies in Lovecraftian anthologies but that is not the case here. The first is particularly good as it also contains stories from older, more obscure writers who are hard to get in print.

Shadows of Carcosa

Twelve short stories that feature everything from the land of carcosa to the traditionally Lovecraftian setting of the cursed hills of New England. All of these are shorts written by classic writers such as Poe, Stoker, Bierce, Chambers and Blackwood.

Lovecraft’s Monsters

Another collection edited by Datlow. This one is particularly fun as it features illustrations, as well as a story by Neil Gaiman. Lovecraft’s Monsters is amongst my favourite of the anthologies as it is based solely around the creatures that crawl and squirm through the mythos. It’s also available as an audiobook!

Children of Lovecraft

Fourteen short stories including authors like Stephen Graham Jones, Orrin Grey, Caitlin R. Kiernan and Livia Llewellyn. Full of body horror, dread, surrealism and one of the best opening sentences to any short story.

She Walks in Shadows

A monumental, fascinating collection comprised of exclusively female authors. Offering a long overdue look at and development of the female aspects of the mythos, this collection gives a voice to the previously unheard. For those looking for a diverse, original and often deeply disturbing reading experience, this is your anthology.

Available online for free

The Lovecraft Ezine has a great archive here of all its previous issues

Weird Fiction Review is an excellent resource for online fiction – both excerpts from books and stand-alone short stories.

The Online Books page has direct links to the issues of Weird Tales magazine published between 1923 – 192.

TOR.COM is an amazing resource for all kinds of science fiction and fantasy shorts. This is a link specifically to Lovecraftian fiction. There’s also lots of interesting things to read under the tag cosmic horror here.

Graphic Novels

Fatale - Sex, violence, cults, cosmic horror, imaginative period settings and gorgeous artwork. Fatale is one of the best comics set in the mythos out there.

Locke and Key - Many of you will be familiar with Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s hugely popular (and now televised) series focused on a house above a portal to the plains of Leng.

Harrow County - Creepy, rural-based, folk horror series centred on a young woman who finds herself to be joined to the forest and the land in ways she could never have imagined.

The Squidder - A postapocalyptic Lovecraftian mess, I have included this because it is worth buying for the artwork alone. Ben Templesmith is an acquired taste but an incredibly talented illustrator whose work is uniquely suited to the mythos.

I have talked about these several times before but it is always worth checking out I.N.J Culbard’s graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories, as well as the two anthologies that were released several years ago.

***

Films – Cosmic Horror

I have linked to the trailers for each of these, some are classics you will know, some are new.

The Colour out of Space

Die Fabre

The Dunwich Horror

The Endless

Event Horizon

The Void

Europa Report

Black Mountain Side

Films – Folk Horror

The Ritual

They Remain

The White Reindeer

Night of the Demon

Apostle

More generally, some good online resources for old/weird/out of print books are

Project Gutenberg – an online library of over 60,000 books in the public domain

Internet Archive – a great resource for obscure books (particularly historical)

Europeana – items from Europe’s galleries, museums, libraries and archives

Digital Public Library of America – similar to Europeana, but for America

Classic Literature – lots of 19th century gothic goodness in particular, but great for all the classics too!

And when it all gets too much and you feel like being your own creeping dread, Here is a link to a fun game where you can be the rats in the walls.

#this is an extremely long post y'all my apologies #lovecraft #weird fiction #book recommends #eldritch reads #cthulhu mythos #film recommends #graphic novels #lovecraftian #hp lovecraft

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nnnnoooooooooooo · 3 years

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My Ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s 25 Favourite Films Poll

The following is my ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s poll for their readers’ 25 favourite films of all-time. It contains a dozen or so favourites, several compromises, and a handful of personally foundational texts.

Seven Chances (1925, Buster Keaton): It ain’t easy to only choose one Keaton. This is one of Keaton’s films with a racist blackface character, which gave me some reservations. Still, this is a solid contender as his funniest picture, and, more importantly, this is Buster as I love him the most. Keaton’s characters were always the most cerebral and lost, keen observers with no understanding. An inability to communicate one’s emotions drives the need to convert it into a physical experience; Keaton inevitably becomes the object that cannot be stopped. His full forced desperation and athleticism, he is a master of locomotion. Featuring the finalization of the chase gag, along with a generous serving of his brand of surreal.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin): Comedically and emotionally devastating.

Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch): Lubtisch’s portrayal of Continental aristocracy on the cusp. Containing love, melancholy, desire, rivalry, loyalty, betrayal, criminals, and thieves-- all saved by his grace alone, achieving a rare bliss of comedy and romance. Normally, I’d say that, in a temporal world, perfection exists only as a process, but then how would I explain this?

La grande illusion (1937, Jean Renoir): In the best of Renoir’s films, I find a type of harmony I find lacking in the rest of the world.

La règle du jeu (1939, Jean Renoir): In making this list, I never doubted either of these Renoir films having a place. Now, trying to write about my list, I find myself becoming frustrated at not finding the words to explain why I chose them. I’ve never been a great communicator, and I doubt that’s Renoir’s fault. I think it’s best for me to move on before I start misplacing my frustrations with my inability to write onto the film itself.

How Green Was My Valley? (1941, John Ford): Possibly the greatest movie ever made under Hollywood’s Studio System, and perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Hedy Lamarr might have seen in John Loder. More than any other actor, Sara Allgood carries this film, in her role as the matriarch of the Morgan household. This is chock full of great character actors and moments as you’d expect from Ford. It’s the magic of childhood, the safety of the womb, the cyclical nature of a town where nothing ever seems to change, and the devastation of entropy. I lost track of how many times I cried.

To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch): This is my choice for a comedy from the 1940s, despite stiff competition from Hellzapoppin’, and the 11 movies Preston Sturges released over the decade. I had the privilege of seeing this at my local Cinemateque with an introduction by Kevin McDonald. I was late, and the audience had already begun to talk back. He rolled, and we were soon laughing before the “projectionist” could hit ‘play’ on the Blu-Ray. My friend came later. It was a packed house, so we weren’t able to sit together. I enjoyed hearing the variances in people’s response*, and the timing of their laughter. Trying to pinpoint my friend’s laughter from the crowd, I couldn’t help but hear our host’s generous laughter throughout the film. What a joy it was for all of us to experience this film together. I guess I haven’t had a chance to share those other movies the way that I was with this one. *A nice change of pace, as this usually makes me self-conscious

Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock): I find Hitchcock’s women’s pictures to be some of his richest texts. Besides which, any film asking me to sympathize with Theresa Wright already has a lot going for it. Alongside The Wrong Man as Hitchcock’s most tragic film.

Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean): My favourite romance, whatever that says about me. A passionate extramarital affair between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), told in flashback. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this placed among noirs, but I think this could be an example of a women’s film noir. There’s a thick sense of transgression and fatalistic mise-en-scene, along with an inability to escape, which ends the film on an unconvincing return to safety. After the two lovers part for the final time, Johnson returns home. Her husband, Stanley Holloway, asks for nothing, and expresses gratitude for her return. However, for all of that loveliness, Johnson has learned that the world is far more fragile than she ever dreamt. The husband is portrayed as a bit childlike, and, coupled with the affably stiff upper-lipped nature of their marriage, Johnson is unable to confess what’s occurred, which only preserves her turmoil. Unable to consummate, sustain, or forsake her romance with Howard, she may find some refuge with her husband, but salvation eludes her.

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur): RKO Pictures, film noir, Jacques Tourneur, and Robert Mitchum– These are a few of my favourite things. As a prude, I don’t care to admit that I love cigarette smoke in B&W pictures as much as I do, and it’s deployed here to its zenith, courtesy of Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography. Daniel Mainwaring’s script, along with Tourneur and Mitchum, use underplay in order to create a heightened effect. Mitchum’s somnambulism grants his portrayal of Jeff Bailey an omniscient cool, which extends to his character’s bisexuality. There’s such delight in hearing Mitchum, one of the best voices in movies, deliver the film’s lyrical dialogue in his disaffected baritone.

The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang): Perhaps Lang’s most cynical film? The culmination of all his conspiracies. The law vs. criminals, no longer as separate from one another, but as sides of the same coin: the establishment. Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) engages in total war against Lagana’s (Alexander Scourby) crime syndicate. Those caught in between end up as collateral damage, pawns in their game. Each dismantles the family unit, Lagana disposes of Bannion’s wife (Jocelyn Brando), and Bannion displaces his child, so that both sides can carry on unfettered. The happy ending finds Bannion happily back at work in the homicide department, where they’re informed of a grisly murder. Oh boy, here we go again! Gloria Grahame, a sister under the mink, reigns as my favourite actress in all of film noir.

The Sun Shines Bright (1953, John Ford): It’s not easy to film a miracle, a feat for which I’d pair this with Carl Th. Dreyer’s penultimate film, Ordet. Speaking of Dreyer, if you have 15 minutes to spare, here’s a great video of Jonathan Rosenbaum discussing this movie alongside Dreyer’s final film, Gertrud. The responsibilities and limitations of society. Communities are built through sacrifice, as we give of ourselves, which accounts for the film’s sometimes funereal tone. One’s resting spot as the place to make a stand, but what good is taking a stand if it doesn’t lead anywhere? Our redemption lies not in preserving ourselves, but in guiding the world to a place that no longer needs us. Thus, not a dying world to save, but an understanding that we must pass in order to bring about renewal. Funerals become parades, and parades become funerals, as we walk the strait and narrow path between tradition and progress. Don’t take a stand while the world marches on, but lead us into thy rest.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953, Roy Rowland): This is a musical written and designed by Dr. Seuss, which is to say that I think you oughta see it. Still, it’s hard to justify why I chose this over The Band Wagon. I’d probably better enjoy watching The Band Wagon, which I’d wager is Hollywood’s greatest musical, but there’s something about The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T that gets under my skin. I saw it on television when I was very young. Old enough to remember seeing it, but too young to remember more than three details: twins joined at the beard, the nightmare-inducing elevator operator, and a large piano requiring an exponential amount of fingers. This forgotten foundation, along with its Seussian imagery, grants the film a dreamlike feeling. Just as every good boy deserves fudge, every Hans Conried deserves a role like the one he has here, playing the titular Dr. T.

The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton): A kid’s film featuring the personification of evil, not in Mitchum’s portrayal of the preacher Harry Powell, but in Evelyn Varden’s Icey Spoon. This movie is so full of indelible images that I sometimes forget LOVE/HATE tattooed on Powell’s knuckles. There’s a dreadful unease from the inability to fully save or preserve Ben & Pearl within a society whose systems turn on them so easily. Their safety is drawn and quartered at every turn, and so Ben & Pearl flee society, finding a guardian out yonder. Still, there’s a limitation to their newfound guardian’s protection. Their angel and their demon sing in harmony; evil becomes instructive to the children’s growth. It’s a hard world for little things, but there is hope. Mrs. Cooper (Lillian Gish) manages to find her redemption in protecting these children while she can. Perhaps we need them as much as they need us. This was Charles Laughton’s only film as a director, as well as the final of James Agee’s two films as a screenwriter. It isn’t right.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick): This is my favourite film noir, possibly the nastiest as well. Of course, I cackle throughout the entire picture. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis at their bests; the tension between a malevolent god and his jester/would-be pretender played as flirtation, conducting assassinations as though they were composing poetry. Shot on location in New York by James Wong Howe, giving us a view of Babel from the gutters up. Also, I’m just a big ol’ softy for Emile Meyer, who plays Lt. Kello.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin): As I see it, this is the best sex comedy of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Tashlin previously worked at Termite Terrace, making Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and did a brief stop making Screen Gem cartoons over at Columbia in the middle. After having brought feature film techniques to his cartoons, he brought cartoon imagery into his live-action films. This is a vehicle for Jayne Mansfield, who may have been the most cartoonish of the era’s blonde bombshells, and so it is a happy marriage indeed.

Playtime (1967, Jacques Tati): This is cinema. Ah! Tati, Ah! Modernity

Out 1: noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette & Suzanne Schiffman): Rivette’s movies feel alive in a way that I haven’t found anywhere else. The films I’ve seen are about conspiracy, games, and the development of theatre troupes: things that exist only in our minds, and are dependant on our cooperation with others. Things get so twisted that you wonder how they’ll ever untie it all, only for the shared illusions to be revealed as a complex series of false knots. I broke my rule with this film, in choosing a film that I’ve only seen once. I didn’t make the time to revisit this or Céline et Julie vont en bateau, my other favourite Rivette film, so I went with the larger labyrinth to lose myself in.

F for Fake (1973, Orson Welles): This is Orson Welles’s most playful film. I love Welles, the personality, almost as much as I love Welles, the director, so I chose a movie that features both.

Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May): Perhaps the most tense and dark comedy I’ve ever seen. May reaches her highest levels of drama here, and does so without any cost to her usual standards for humour.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra): I wasn’t sure about including this, given that it’s not even my favourite James Stewart Christmas movie, but what can I do? It’s a Wonderful Life is an institution in my family, we’ve watched this every Christmas Eve since I was grade 6. There was a year or two in the early ‘10s where we might have missed it, but, otherwise, we’ve been devout. This is also one of four sources that laid the foundation for my love of movies, and, in particular, older movies. I hope to continue to watch this every year. It just wouldn’t be Christmas. Growing up, my brothers and I used to be allowed to open one gift the night of Christmas Eve, which evolved into my brothers and I exchanging our gifts for each other. The first year my brother’s and I exchanged gifts, we happened upon CBC playing It’s a Wonderful Life in a 3-hour timeslot. Filling in the gaps of my memory with ego, I’d say that I instigated our watching it. I was always the biggest sucker for holiday specials, as well as being the most drawn to B&W. It was an instant hit with all of us, and so two traditions were born that night. For those curious as to what year this took place, I gave my oldest brother a 3 Doors Down CD. My older brother got me the Beast Wars transmetal Terrosaur figure. And. It. Freakin’. Ruled. CBC continued to air It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve, and we continued to tune in. My brothers and I continued to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve for about another decade, but now my family has a better Christmas Eve tradition to pair with our holiday movie: Chinese food, and, less dogmatically, vegetable samosas. Leftovers become brunch. We’ve watched the movie, I think, twenty times now, which includes one viewing of the unfortunate colourized version, and once in theatres. It’s a great movie to come back to each year. There are lots of little moments, lines, and details to zero in on, and each year I get to internally test and brag to myself about naming and recognizing the various character actors and bit players that pop up. Still, I sometimes find myself resisting its charms. A couple of years ago, my view of Frank Capra changed. I no longer saw him as the director I had previously thought him to be*. I wondered whether this movie stood on its own merits, or if I was holding onto it for sentimental reasons. I have since settled on this film being a genuine classic. Another source of resistance is that I’ve never watched this on its own, there’s a lack of an individual foundation to my relationship with the film. I’m so accustomed to viewing films on my own, I think there’s a relief in a taking a private experience, and having it succeed in a public forum. The two support each other, which is part of why a couple of films ended up on this list. However, when it’s a film I’ve only seen in the company of others, I become suspicious of my experience. I believe in the power of cinema when it’s to my benefit, only to doubt it when I fear that it has the power betray me. I guess that I lack faith. *The director I once thought Frank Capra was, I now find Leo McCarey to be.

Doctor Who: The Lost in Time Collection (1963-69, various): This was a last minute decision that ended on a mistake. I ought to have chosen Daleks: The Early Years instead, which has the proper framing of a retrospective documentary. Daleks: The Early Years is a VHS release hosted by Peter Davison, featuring interviews with key people from ‘60s Dalek stories, cannibalizing clips from Dalekmania (another documentary on Daleks in the ‘60s), and orphan episodes and snippets from otherwise lost ‘60s Dalek serials. It’s also one of the VHS tapes that I grew up with, and my introduction to the fact that, at the time, over 100 episodes of ‘60s Doctor Who were missing and presumed lost. This was my introduction to the concept of lost media. Since then, a further 12 episodes have been found, and the number of missing episodes has dropped to 97. Instead, I chose The Lost in Time Collection, which is a 3-disc collection of orphan episodes and surviving clips from otherwise missing ‘60s serials, not actually a feature in itself. It’s a really nice sampling of the Doctor Who’s best era, and the episodes and clips are sometimes more interesting without the rest of their serial for context. While I didn’t get this collection until I was an adult, I had managed to see most or all of its contents growing up, mostly on various VHS compilations, as well as some clips online. As the deadline for submissions approached, I chose the one I enjoy more, rather than the one that first changed me. I suspect that Doctor Who was the first work of science-fiction that I got into, as it predates me in our household. My brothers and my getting into Transformers predates my memory, but it does not predate my being around. Doctor Who also served as my first exposure to B&W viewing. I was really into science-fiction growing up, and the genre was really my first interest in older films. The interest didn’t really bridge its way from my youth into my present. Heck, I wasn’t even particularly a movie person until into my twenties. In early adulthood, after fading for a bit, my fondness for science-fiction was more directed towards video games and books. So while it didn’t lead into my love of film and B&W, it laid a lot of the groundwork for what I’d eventually come to love. My oldest brother remembers staying up late with our parents to watch Doctor Who, and my older brother has memories of trying to stay up with them, but it was no longer airing on any of the stations we had by the time I was kicking. Loved, but unseen, it developed a sort of mythic reputation in my young mind. Over the years, we managed to see a bunch of serials on VHS through our local library system, and we eventually got 5 VHS releases of our own before the decade ended. We got a book, The Doctor Who Yearbook, which had listings and synopsises of every serial ever made. The classic Doctor Who series lasted 26 seasons, consisting of 153 serials, and just shy of 700 episodes. No matter how many episodes of Doctor Who I managed to see when I was growing up, it was only ever the tip of the iceberg. My younger self liked daydreaming about all of the adventures, planets, aliens, robots, and monsters, but that would begin to dissipate with age. While I loved Star Wars for the many of the same reasons as I did Doctor Who, the advent of more Star Wars wasn’t all that fulfilling, with Episode I: Racer for the N64 PC as a noted exception. More than the fact that I was caught up in the cultural backlash against George Lucas, the lack of a well defined characters and society in the original trilogy was a virtue. The toys and books really capitalized on this. I was the kid that wanted to know every weirdo and background character’s life story. I was such a mark. The more movies they made that added to the lore, the smaller their galaxy seemed to be, in opposition to an expanded universe. Each piece promising to add to the larger picture only seemed to reveal a smaller whole. More movies telling the same stories with different versions of the same characters. A galaxy that once seemed so vast now revealed to be comprised of maybe two dozen people, many of which are related or connected to each other in some tired and unnecessary way. Eventually, I got really into Jonathan Rosenbaum, and began to project my ego all over his preferences, to which Star Wars became a victim. I gave up on the series after sitting through a showing of Episode VII. Fires subside, and, these days, I’m mostly indifferent towards the series. Undergraduates can be a bit much, y’know? While the new Doctor Who series also fell out of favour with me, it was easier for me to divorce it from the original series. Having seen the series only in disparate pieces, rather than a linear narrative may have helped. I have no illusions that the original series is anything more than a silly kid’s show that mostly takes place in corridors, which is a fine thing to be. It’s enough to be a delight. The deceit of nostalgia is that I can return to these works I once loved with the same feelings and wonder that I had as a child. While I remain fond of Doctor Who, the whole of a serial is often less than the sum of its parts. After all, being a serial, half of the adventure is meant to take place in your head during the week between episodes. It’s the opposite of binge-watch material. It’s hard to commit to working your way through such a bulky series at a deliberately slow pace. Besides, even spacing the episodes out some, it’s still not going to capture my mind the way it would when I was a child. The virtue of the Lost in Time Collection is that you’re never seeing a serial as a whole, only as individual pieces. The collection consists of 18 complete episodes from 12 serials, with clips and bits from an additional 10 serials. Only one serial has more than two episodes featured, The Daleks’ Master Plan, a 12-part epic, which has its 3 known surviving episodes on the set. Freed from the responsibilities of being part of a larger story, you get to enjoy the pleasures of each episode as its own entity. Charm exists outside of context, and what may have been stretched and strained over half a dozen episodes can easily be sustained in the single episode or two that remains. A piece of Starburst may not keep its flavour any longer than a piece of Hubba Bubba, but at least it has the decency not to overstay its welcome. The less that remains of a serial, the more interesting it becomes. For some serials, the only surviving clips are the scenes that were cut by censors, and so you’re only seeing the juiciest bits. Protected by obscurity, just as recording in B&W protected this era of the series against its lack of budget, the childlike sense of wonder remains. Any missing serial could have been great. We lack evidence to prove otherwise. What little remains from these serials is enough to imagine what may have been, and it’s easy to give the benefit of the doubt to an old friend. No longer just a science-fiction adventure, the series has grown into a larger and more engaging adventure in film & television preservation. Thanks to its cultural status and following, questions as to how these stories were lost, why years of episodes were junked, how they were returned, in which disparate places were episodes found, who has been hunting for them, what were their methods, to what lengths did they go, what places remain to be searched, what remains to be found, what’s trapped in the hands of private collectors, and what has been lost forever have all been thoroughly explored, though some answers continue to elude us. For those interested, Youtuber Josh Snares has an extensive series of videos that breaks down many of these questions as best as one can with what’s publicly known, and, despite being on yotube, I don’t think he’s annoying. Doctor Who best represents my film lover’s sense of discovery, combining the joys of hearing about a film that piques my interest, trying to track a film down, discovering or rediscovering a new favourite, learning about film history, and the efforts of film preservation. Hearing about films I’d like to see can be nearly as rewarding as actually watching the films themselves. The more that I see, the more there is that I’d like to see. The harder something is to find, the more interesting it can become. Film is a physical object, so there is a battle against time for us to discover, recover, restore, and preserve works before they’re lost to time. The good news is that many efforts are being undertaken, both by professionals and by amateurs. The advent of crowdfunding has really helped to create more opportunities for completing these endeavours. Following an Indiegogo campaign, Netflix stepped in and completed Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. Many of Marion Davies’s silent films have been restored in recent years. Thanks to the efforts of Ben Model and his team, I will soon have the pleasure of seeing eight Edward Everett Horton shorts that haven’t been in circulation since the silent era. Steve Stanchfield (Thunderbean), Jerry Beck (Cartoon Research), Tommy Stathes (Cartoons On Film), and their cohorts are doing God’s work in finding and restoring old cartoons, and giving them an audience once more. I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be so out of touch.

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley): The Muppets’ movies were a staple of our household growing up, and this ranks alongside The Great Muppet Caper as the best of them. This movie has a very self-aware humour to it, exemplified by the introduction. The camera wanders through a studio backlot, following a car carrying Statler & Waldorf, who provide us with the first dialogue of the film, announcing their intent to heckle the film. Inside, the Muppets are waiting for a private screening of The Muppet Movie to begin. It’s a disaster. A monster tears out one of the seats, the visibly deranged Crazy Harry blows up another, people are dancing in the aisles, and chickens are flying about. Objects being thrown include, but are not limited to, popcorn, Lew Zealand’s boomerang fish, and paper airplanes. A full-sized Muppet looms in the background, a giant colourful bird with enormous unblinking eyes, leaning a bit from side to side. An acknowledgement that somebody has let the animals in charge of the zoo. Still, a coziness remains amidst all of the chaos. Kermit attempts to introduce the movie to his peers, the lights go down, and he takes his seat. The movie opens in the heavens, where the credits and a rainbow appear. It clears onto a long, long shot of a swamp, slowly zooming in to reveal a frog on a log, playing a banjo, singing Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher’s The Rainbow Connection. We’re taken away. One of the most vital aspects of the Muppets is that they exist in our world, something that gets lost in their 90’s trend of literary adaptations. An entire world of Muppets isn’t much of a utopian vision, but the idea that these animals, monsters, and whatevers belong in society alongside ‘real’ people is. This trend was part of a larger regression throughout the years with the Muppets. What began as a self-aware humour turned into a self-depreciating humour, and, eventually, a self-loathing humour. The Muppets used to take on the world, but, in later years, they seemed unable to dream of anything more than getting back together once more, so that they could reaffirm their lack of success. Bring them back to life so they can take one more dying breath. This Muppet movie is filled with celebrity cameos, in part a tribute to their variety show, as well as to the vaudevillian origins of most of their shtick. Here, the cameos serve the Muppets. Later, the Muppets would take a backseat, and become vehicles for others, not even allowed to star in their own movies. I wish they were given better opportunities to shine. As good as this film is, I have to admit that this film’s treatment of Miss Piggy is embarrassingly sexist. While they don’t look like Presbyterians to me, at their best, I think the Muppets have almost as much hope to offer as any religion.

Transformers: The Movie (1986, Nelson Shin): Watching this movie gives me the feeling I always hope that I’ll feel whenever I’ve bought concert tickets. I don’t watch this so much as I sing along to it. I even knew Vince DiCola’s score down to a ‘T’. With all due respect to Storefront Hitchcock, this is my personal Stop Making Sense.

Air Alert V. 4 (late 2000’s, TMT Sports): First, and most importantly, I do not recommend Air Alert nor any other paid for vertical jump program. I cannot stress that enough. They’re not designed by people who really know what they’re doing, the marketing is predatory, they’re unjustly hard on your joints, and they’re methods are not in conjunction with their promises of wild vertical gains. While I hope to stop finding that people have also done Air Alert, I immediately feel a strong kinship with those I learn have also been misled. Air Alert is a 15-week vertical jump program that makes the dubious promises of adding 8-14 inches to yer vertical leap to everyone, regardless of their current physical condition. It promises to add explosiveness to yer hops, but its means are an exponentially increasing amount of jump exercise repetitions. This is to say that, in practice, Air Alert actually builds jumping endurance, which teaches yer muscles to conserve energy, rather than to expend it in an explosive manner. Like all jump programs, it also fails to address that much of your jumping’s height comes from a combination of your core and upper body strength, as well as technique. The version I got also came with an advertised-as-new Air Alert Advanced, a further 6 weeks of yet more intensive exercise routine to add another 3-6 inches to yer leap. I did the 15 weeks of Air Alert, and, like everybody else I’ve known, I got 2-3 inches added to my vertical. After the recovery week suggested following completion of the program, I tried dunking at the church. You had better believe that I told my dad to bring his digital camera, ’cause this was gonna be a big deal. Being able to dunk was surely going to usher in a whole new era in my life. Now, I had been wrong about these sorts of things before. I had become skinny, I got a couple of nice shirts, I listened to what I though was the right unpopular music, and I had stolen some jokes, but my life largely remained the same. It seemed as though my life couldn’t be redeemed by vanity and trivialities, J still wasn’t dating me, but this would be so much more. This was dunking. This was going to be different. We went to the church, and I had the same problems as before. I could get high enough, but I couldn’t throw down. The further you extend a limb from your core, the less strength it has at its disposal. I had little upper-body strength to begin with, and, fully extended, my hand is pretty far from my body. I’d always lose the ball on the way up, or lose height putting more of my strength onto the ball. Legs can only take you so far. At my best, I’ve brought the ball to the rim, lost it, and, thanks to momentum, had the ball go off of the backboard and in. A lay-up isn’t a dunk. My knees have been crunchy ever since. After a further month of letting my joints recover, I tried my hand at Air Alert Advanced. After the first week, which consisted of 3 days of 2000 individual jumps, some of my friends reunited to play soccer at our old high school. I was proud to see that the goals we had rescued were still on the field. However, I found that my joints were so worn down that I could only run at a steady pace in a straight line. Turning, accelerating, and decelerating were all, sadly, out of the picture. I decided not to continue onto the subsequent weeks. I was still a fatuous pauper, single, and working at a shoe store while friends had gone on to do other things, so what did I manage to accomplish? Well, for starters, I gained some athletic ability for the first time in my life, which was neat. I gained a lot of leg strength, endurance, and quickness, as well as the previously mentioned 2-3 inches to my vert, all of which I treasured. Despite being the skinniest guy on the court, my legs were strong enough to anchor me in the key, and contend with guys up to double my weight. I went from being a guy who showed up to Dunkball, to becoming a guy that people wanted on their team. While others got tired throughout the night, slowly losing their vertical, I managed to jump just as frequently and just as high in my last game of the night as I could during my first. As both the tallest and the lankiest guy at Dunkball, my height advantage now increased in the air. I’d let people box me out, only to jump and reach over them. I felt so free. I was, and remain, Dunkball’s most improved player. Of course, it helps to have the advantage of having started out lower than everybody else. Once, somebody brought a friend who was taller than me. It was awful. As for dunking? Well, I could dunk small balls at the church, if I could close my hand on them. I managed to dunk a flat soccer ball on an outdoor net at a school yard once, but I never verified its height. I could dunk at the Academy chapel with the rim fully raised, though that rim sags in the front, so I’m guessing that rim was about 9’10”. Still, that won me a game of H-O-R-S-E or two. Sometimes, when warming up for Dunkball, someone would instigate a dunk competition, and I managed to develop a trademark dunk which nobody could replicate or stomach: the underhanded dunk. Norm was the only person not to loathe it, bless his heart. While I never managed to dunk on a proper 10’ net, I was able to goaltend, which has no use outside of being a dick to a friend. I was smarmy enough to do it once. Even at Dunkball, I never became much of a dunker, except on turnovers or tip-ins, or unless I had a guard who could do the work of setting me up. I’m more opportunistic than aggressive, besides, who am I going to beat off of the dribble? On my worst nights, I was still a tall guy who could jump, so I always drew the interest of a defender. I’ve always preferred defence to offence, and my favourite offensive play is to box out their post-player, either to be in a better position to rebound, or in order to prevent them from goaltending. Defence is where Air Alert made the most difference for me. They either had to box me out in order to stop me from goaltending, or try banking it in. I could sit low enough to the ground to defend outside players without losing speed. With a lower net, some players didn’t arc their shots as much, allowing me to swat them away with ease. There was nothing better than blocking a dunk. Some people took it personally, and would try coming at you on the next play; we all loved blocking Joseph. Still, the best was blocking Norm’s dunks, even if it meant landing on my back. It was summertime, the final game of the night, with uneven teams and lopsided match-ups, but, somehow, it’s neck and neck. Not only are we still in it, we’ve had the lead. Will is shooting, Nathan is hustling, and I’m blocking everything. My greatest defensive game ends prematurely after I block one of Norm’s dunks, landing horizontally, with all of my weight squarely on my tailbone and elbows. I call it a night, and, in the morning, learned that we had lost immediately after I left. At this point, I had memorized Air Alert’s number of sets and routines, and so I lent the DVD to Graham. He promised to return it soon. This was in 2010. I learned how to juggle that August, but that didn’t save me either. I kept up my jumping exercises, doing week 4 as maintenance, losing consistency once I started university that fall. Dunkball slowly lost consistency, too, and so I eventually took up the reigns of organizing it. People changed wards, got married, moved, and started families. It was hard to motivate people to come out without a guarantee. At some point, I became one of the veterans. As Dunkball continued to lose consistency, and as I went through occasional bouts of burn-out withorganizing things, Dunkball changed from being year-round into seasons, and, later, patches, of activity. The benefit of being the one to organize Dunkball is that it allowed me to filter out the jerks between patches of activity. There aren’t a ton of rules, you can make a pass off the wall, you can charge, you can play it in the hall, and goaltending is a way of life, but life is too long to spend it with people who can’t play sports without yelling. We weren’t as athletic as we once were, but the new players were generally pretty skinny, so we were still able to push them around. I stopped buying bus passes after my first year of university, which helped me to maintain most of my leg strength. While I was in university, I managed to keep most of my vertical, but my confidence became precarious, which affected my intensity. I wasn’t soaking through my shirts anymore, I started to let people push me around. After I dropped out of university, I grew into a much more sedentary lifestyle. The leg strength I had used to define myself diminished. I’ve had a really hard coping with that. At times, the prospect of playing Dunkball felt more embarrassing than motivating. I felt lost out on the court. I didn’t feel strong enough to bump around in the key, and I felt sluggish trying to play on the outside. Still, I had now been around long enough that I was able to lead a team, if necessary. I’d hide from my refuge until I felt strong enough to return. Volunteering and winter each got me walking again. Collin organized a soccer team the summer before the pandemic, which got me running and jumping again. I felt more determined, and began to feel better. No longer trapped by where I was, or where I felt I should have been, I was content with making progress. I think that I handled the early months of the pandemic better than most people. With our usual routines in disarray, I stumbled out of the feedback loop I was caught in. Finding some self-compassion and focus, I created structure to my quarantine in order to work on some goals. I was going to come out of the quarantine dunking. I was joking this time, but I need to dream about something while exercising. Otherwise, I’m just jumping in place, staring at the door. I went through weeks 1-7 of Air Alert, ending with the rest week that marks the halfway point. After which, I returned to doing week 4 to maintain strength. With churches closed, activities cancelled, and others on lockdown, I started secretly meeting Nik on Saturdays to shoot the ball around. This was back when we were allowed to keep small circles of contacts. The benefit of having keys. The only downside was that the building didn’t have any air circulation outside of facilities management’s offices. Regarding the pandemic, our city still didn’t have any cases of community transmission. Two of us shooting the ball around became three, and soon we were playing 2-on-2. Dunkball was back, baby! Sans the titular Dunkball, which had gone missing, stolen by missionaries. I knew that it was only a matter of time before they got rid of the Academy chapel, so I was really motivated to play as much as we could while it was still safe. It took us a little bit before we managed to get six players out on the same day, and we still ended up playing 2’s some nights. We weren’t getting many guys out, but we always had good games. Everyone who came out hustled and was a solid atmosphere guy. We’d mostly play best-of-5 or 7 game series, maybe switching teams up for a final game or two. The series managed to stay pretty tight, with nobody ever reaching a dynasty. Facilities management leaves the building at 5:30, and, with nobody else around, our secret combination was free to schedule Dunkball whenever we pleased. We were playing twice some weeks. We were able to accommodate people’s schedule. Marvin, my favourite teammate, was able to come out. I hadn’t been able to play with him in years. A high percentage of our small group of players were relatively new to the game. It was really exciting to see them develop, even if Jason blocked me that one time. I had found my place again, having regained some of my leg strength and quickness. My core and upper-body strength, elusive at the best of times, had become memories, but I worked around that. My game is mostly designed with those absences in mind anyways. Consequently, my play became much more lateral, rather than vertical, after the 4th and, later, 5th game, as Collin noted. I also managed a new trick or two, like learning to bait people into banking their shot, and then blocking it off of the backboard for a quick turnover. My intensity was up, or at least the A/C was down. I was soaking through my shirts again, and I was happy. It was a hot and humid summer. I missed Jason’s birthday, so I brought some blackout chocolate banana bread to celebrate. As it turns out, a thick moist cake is not refreshing when you’re exhausted and sitting around in a hot and stuffy room you’ve spent the past 2-3 hours further heating up with yer friends. Collin became the MVP the following week when he brought a box of freezies with him. All my life, I had never seen their true worth or potential. I took them for granted in my youth, and turned my nose up at them as I grew older. Now I understood. I had Dunkball, I had friendly players who responded when I tried organizing things, we had freezies, and, as the Ward Clerk, I had convinced my Bishop that we should buy a new ball (despite the fact that playing at the Church was still verboten.) I was grateful, but I still longed for a day where we had more than 4-6 players, so that we could have subs between games. It’s nice to be able to switch up teams between games, rather than trying to push Arles all night. It’s even nicer to sit down every once in a while, especially after failing to push Arles around. Our province was still fairly safe, but that was beginning to change. Two regulars had at risk family members, and we began seeing community transmission. I planned to end what was to be the penultimate season of Dunkball after Labour Day. I was concerned what would happen once the school year started. Before then, we had eight* people come out to Dunkball one morning. Four pairs of family members, in fact. This gave us rotations between games, and a variety of playing styles, leading to more interesting match-ups and dynamics. Whoever loses would get to take a break; excitement was in the air! I questioned Collin’s choice of shoes. He reminded me that I’m solely responsible for their condition. I lend Collin my shoes. He likes the shoes, and I like his freezies. *the ideal amount is 8-9 people Shoot for teams: Graham, Collin, and I hit our shots. Collin has speed, Graham has range and strength, I have the height, and we all rebound. We win the first game easily, manage to survive the second, and win our third. Dynasty! Shoot for teams again, and I’m back on the floor with David and Marvin. David anchors the key, allowing me to cheat on defence, while Marvin generates offence and creates mismatches. We all defend. Three more wins, and it’s another dynasty! Marvin and I sit this time, and watch as Jacob (handles), Graham, and Jason (positioning) steal the game. Marvin and I go back on with Limhi, a guard heavy team playing an post-player’s game. They shoot and pass, drawing out the defence, while I set picks, prevent goaltending, and try to clean up on the boards. They cover the outside, while I guard the inside. When the other team goes to the inside, I make their post-player turn away from the net, where either Marvin or Limhi, cheating off of their man, are waiting to strip them of the ball. We win the first game, taking back the floor. They carry me through the second. Last game of the day, and the other team starts to fall apart. As per tradition, we extend the game, but only to to 15, because only Graham and I want to play to 21. We stumble as they regroup, but Jacob gets frustrated, and their chemistry falters. I assume that I’m to blame, become self-conscious, and begin calling fouls on myself whenever I make any contact with the other team. Of course, this happens on every play, because I’m trying to box out my brother. I get some weird looks as David sighs, he just wants it to be over. I get a clean stop, Limhi scores, and the day ends on a third dynasty. I remain undefeated. Freezies for everyone! That was the third to last time we played Dunkball. We had another night with six players, and ended the season with a morning of playing 2-on-2, after which we ran out of freezies. I was optimistic that we’d be back playing sometime in the New Year. We barely registered a first wave of the pandemic, but restrictions ended prematurely, and school started back up. Cases kept climbing. I was scared in October, but that was only the beginning. When we first started playing Dunkball that summer, our province was first in the country. By Christmas, we had become the worst. We began to curb the number of new cases, but restrictions were eased before hospitals finished dealing with the second wave. In May, we began transferring patients to other provinces. For some reason, the plan is to reopen in July. For some reason, a duo tried organizing ball in March. I declined. Our congregation was changing buildings, so Nik and I went over to grab some stuff. I found that our Dunkball had gone missing again, but I found the original Dunkball, which hasn’t held air since 2015, and brought it home. In April, facilities management began clearing out the Academy chapel, in anticipation of listing the building for sale. They didn’t inform our Bishop until later that week. He went over to pack anything worth keeping, only to have found that they had already junked everything belonging to our congregation, as well everything belonging to the Yazidi community group that had been meeting there prior to the pandemic. I don’t know the building’s current status. Nik and I kept our keys in the hopes of playing again, but it’s unlikely that things will be safe to go back to normal in time. Dunkball exists as a time and a place: Thursday nights after Institute class at Academy. Last fall, they moved institute classes over to the stake centre. The Academy building is being sold now, and Dunkball is over as we know it. As I previously mentioned, I lent Graham, the Gordie Howe of Dunkball, my Air Alert DVD and booklet back in 2010. For the past ten years now, he has meant to return it, only for it to slip his mind. I usually forget about it, myself, only for him to remind me when he apologizes. In the moment, I sorta feel guilty that he worries about it. I mean, it’s fine, I don’t need it. He’s put it on his desk, he’s placed it by the door, and though he’s either seen me or a member of my family at least once a week for the past decade, my copy of Air Alert still hasn’t made its way back to me. I’m not even sure that I want it back, but I appreciate his sincerity. It’s become tradition for him to maintain this false tension between us. At this point, I’d hate to see it go. What if this tension is what’s sustained our friendship throughout all these years? What if Graham’s only been coming out to Dunkball because he feels guilty? I won’t see him at Dunkball anymore, and, as of this week, he won’t be seeing me at church anymore. It’s things like this that keep us alive. I hope that Graham never returns my copy of Air Alert, but I hope that he always tries. ”There is no end to matter, There is no end to space, There is no end to Dunkball, There is no end to race.” - If You Could Hie to Kolob Dunkball, by W.W. Phelps.

I could have gone on about my legs, honestly. Now, I only included those formative texts that I’m willing to admit are still a part of me. I did not include those works whose influences I feel that I have repented of, which is why the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage of Bigfoot from Bluff Creek, California, The Weezer Video Capture Device, Newsies, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, nor anything related to Dorm Life or MST3K are not included on my ballot. In any case, I’m sorry not to have found room for Johnny Guitar.

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avarogers021 · 3 years

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Updated List 2021 For Netflix Cancelled & Renewed Shows

Platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime are watched by a number of people all over the world. Both of these platforms telecast movies, shows, and series which are related to different genres. From thriller to action, anime, mystery, documentaries, history, and more, everything can be seen on these platforms.

Before getting started let us first talk about the shows/series you like to watch? Friends, Riverdale, Game Of Thrones? Well, all of them has a huge fan following. I personally can never get enough of watching Riverdale and Friends. Whether I am back home after work or I wanted to spend some time, Netflix has always been a savior. However, lately I got a news and it just felt like the end of the world.

Were you aware of the fact that some of the Netflix shows have been going off air and cancelled real soon? Yes, you are reading this right. The reasons behind the cancellation of various reasons bring together a plethora of reasons. Of course some shows like Dear White People and Dead To Me have a huge fan following and will be missed for sure. However, since we know that sooner or later good things do make their way, all these shows also came to an end soon.

Have you been wondering which shows got canceled? This is the piece which is apt for you. You will be able to find out all of them here itself. Hence, let’s get started without any further ado.

Netflix shows that have been renewed and cancelled in the year 2021Below mentioned is a list of the top twenty shows that have been canceled this year. Check them out to find the reasons behind the big decision. In addition to this, you will also find out if they are coming back anytime soon.

Ozark: This one has been renewed for season four. The famous television series is coming to an end in 2021. You could find this series on Netflix. Even after gaining so much of popularity, the show is gong off air this year. The show did receive a number of nominations of awards and has also won numerou titles. Some of them are the Guild award, and Emmy award. To people who have watched this series, the fourth season has divided into two different categories. Each category consists of seven episodes. However, at present the director wanted to take a break and made sure that the series is remembered by the fans.

Cast of Ozark

Jason Bateman

Alik Bateman

Andrew Bernstein

Ellen Kuras

Daniel Sackheim

Amanda Marsalis

Benjamin Semanoff

Phil Abraham

Cherien Dabis

Dead To Me: This one has been renewed for season three. The series is known to end in the year 2021. However, the series finale is a big hit and funny. But, this one did not gain too much attention. Time changes, and so does the audience. This is why it is now time to bid adieu to this series, Jenny and Judy. Even though the series was loved by some of them till date, it is finally coming to an end yet not off air.

Cast of Dead To Me

Kat Coiro

Geeta V. Patel

Minkie Spiro

Abe Sylvia

Amy York Rubin

Tamra Davis

Jennifer Getzinger

Liza Johnson

Silver Tree

Elizabeth Allen

Lucifer: The series is renewed for season six. Another fantastic which is coming to an end is Lucifer. The series premiered on 25 January 2016. With time the first season received mixed reviews from critics. A number of them praised certain characters and Elli’s performance was no exception. With time more and more seasons were released. However, they did not gain much popularity. Platforms like Netflix also cancelled the pick up of the third season.

Cast Of Lucifer

Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar

Lauren German

Kevin Alejandro

D B. Woodside as Amenadiel

Lesley as Ann Branch

Scarlett Estevez as Beatrice

Rachael Harris

Kevin Rankin

Tricia Helfer as Mum

Tom Welling as Lieutenant Marcus Pierce

Inbar Lavi as Eve

You: This one got renewed for season three. There are only very few Netflix series that have grabbed the attention of people. However unfortunately, this famous thriller series has come to an end now. However, a statement was made by the director where he said that the series will be ending with a season three. The series is based on a novel which was written by Caroline Kepnes. The main role was played by Penn Badgley who was a bookseller. During the second season, the seller was a movie from New York to LA. Even though this is an irresistible show, the fans may not get to watch it anymore.

Cast of You

Penn Badgley

Victoria Pedretti

Ambyr Childers

Elizabeth Lail

Luca Padovan

Jenna Ortega

Zach Cherry

James Scully

Carmeta Zumbado

Nicole Kang

Shalita Grant

Scott Speedman

Travis Van Winkle

Atypical: This show has been renewed for season four. With the season finale, this show is going off air in 2021. However, it will still remain in the hearts of so many of them. No reasons have been found as to why the show is going off air. However, some of them are saying that the reason is because the show is very underrated.

Cast of Atypical

Keir Gilchrist

Brigette Lundy-Paine

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Michael Rapaport

Nik Dodani

Amy Okuda

Jenna Boyd

Graham Rogers

Fivel Stewart

Nina Ameri

Raúl Castillo

Ariela Barer

Graham Phillips

Sara Gilbert

Rachel Redleaf

Allie Rae Treharne

Eric McCormack

Casey Wilson

Angel Laketa Moore

Christina Offley

Kimia Behpoornia

Karl T. Wright

Major Curda

Marietta Melrose

On My Block: There is no official announcement related to the renewal of On My Block. However, it is going to end in 2021 mainly because of the pandemic. The show gained popularity but is still ending. Centered in Los Angeles, this one was based on high school teens who face different challenges.

Cast of On My Block

Diego Tinoco

Sierra Capri

Jason Genao

Brett Gray

Jessica Marie Garcia

Julio Macias

Ronni Hawk

Peggy Blow

Jahking Guillory

Paula Garcés

Danny Ramirez

Reggie Austin

Eric Neil Gutierrez

Eme Ikwuakor

Emilio Rivera

Lisa Marcos

Angela Elayne Gibbs

Ada Luz Pla

Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson

Shoshana Bush

Rob Murat

Mallory James Mahoney

Raushanah Simmons

Gilberto Ortiz

Dear White People: This series is renewed for season four. This one is coming to an end in 2021. The final episodes will show you the nest conversational end.

Cast of Dear White People

Logan Browning

Antoinette Robertson

Brandon P. Bell

Ashley Blaine Featherson

Marque Richardson

DeRon Horton

John Patrick Amedori

Giancarlo Esposito

Tyler James Williams

Caitlin Carver

Jeremy Tardy

Obba Babatundé

Brandon Black

Sheridan Pierce

Nia Long

Ally Maki

Quei Tann

Brant Daugherty

Wendy Raquel Robinson

John Rubinstein

Jeff Larson

Alex Alcheh

Francia Raisa

Rome Flynn

Luke O’Sullivan

Taylor Foster

John Paul Jones II

Tessa Thompson

Ratched: This series is renewed for season two but is going off air very soon. The series is about a nurse Ratched and is based on a real story. As of now it is twisted and ended with a superb episode.

Cast of Ratched

Sarah Paulson

Cynthia Nixon

Finn Wittrock

Sharon Stone

Judy Davis

Jon Jon Briones

Charlie Carver

Amanda Plummer

Corey Stoll

Alice Englert

Sophie Okonedo

Vincent D’Onofrio

Hunter Parrish

Brandon Flynn

Harriet Sansom Harris

Rosanna Arquette

Jermaine Williams

Michael Benjamin Washington

Don Cheadle

Linda Bisesti

Annie Starke

Teo Briones

Emily Mest

Liz Femi

Jeff B. Davis

Robert Curtis Brown

Kirk Bovill

Grasie Mercedes

Siaka Massaquoi

Ben Crowley

Elinor Gunn

Clayton Farris

Aaron Jay Rome

Patrick Duke Conboy

Zabeth Russell

Albert Malafronte

Jake McDermott

Heather McPhaul

Lita Lopez

Lucas Barker

Greg Ballora

Alfred Rubin Thompson

Germain Arroyo

Kristin Charney

Fred Maske

Casey James Knight

Glow: This one is straightaway cancelled. A very famous wrestling drama, this had to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

Cast of Glow

Alison Brie

Betty Gilpin

Marc Maron

Kate Nash

Jackie Tohn

Sydelle Noel

Sunita Mani

Britney Young

Gayle Rankin

Awesome Kong

Britt Baron

Ellen Wong

Chris Lowell

Kimmy Gatewood

Rebekka Johnson

Marianna Palka

Shakira Barrera

Rich Sommer

Bashir Salahuddin

Geena Davis

Victor Quinaz

Ursula Hayden

Alex Rich

Andrew Friedman

Elizabeth Perkins

Annabella Sciorra

Brooke Hogan

Breeda Wool

Kevin Cahoon

Horatio Sanz

Wyatt Nash

Joey Ryan

Toby Huss

Paul Fitzgerald (actor)

Eli Goree

Marc Evan Jackson

Phoebe Strole

Amy Farrington

Ravil Isyanov

Messiah: The series was cancelled because it had to go through ups and downs. However, for the year 2021, this high class show has been canceled. The reason behind this is the dropping popularity.

Cast of Messiah

Mehdi Dehbi

Michelle Monaghan

Stefania LaVie Owen

Rona-Lee Shimon

Sayyid El Alami

Melinda Page Hamilton

Wil Traval

John Ortiz

Fares Landoulsi

Jane Adams

Beau Bridges

Philip Baker Hall

Dermot Mulroney

Teenage Bounty Hunters: This one got cancelled too. Even though this was considered as one of the best teen comedy series, it came to an end. The series received amazing reviews from the critics and the jury.Sadly, the first season of this show fails to draw the attention of the audience. This is one major reason why the series ended.

Cast of Teenage Bounty Hunters

Maddie Phillips

Anjelica Bette Fellini

Devon Hales

Kadeem Hardison

Virginia Williams

Spencer House

Mackenzie Astin

Myles Evans

Charity Cervantes

Method Man

Eric Graise

Given Sharp

Shirley Rumierk

Randy Havens

Jacob Rhodes

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: The series got cancelled even after umpteen gigs and comedy episodes.

Cast of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Anya Taylor-Joy

Taron Egerton

Nathalie Emmanuel

Mark Hamill

Simon Pegg

Jason Isaacs

Helena Bonham Carter

Andy Samberg

Natalie Dormer

Keegan-Michael Key

Caitriona Balfe

Alicia Vikander

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Mark Strong

Harvey Fierstein

Theo James

Toby Jones

Awkwafina

Lena Headey

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Shazad Latif

Donna Kimball

Harris Dickinson

Benedict Wong

Sigourney Weaver

Hannah John-Kamen

Neil Sterenberg

Louise Gold

Beccy Henderson

Kevin Clash

Dave Chapman

Warrick Brownlow-Pike

Helena Smee

Bill Hader

Theo Ogundipe

Kemi-Bo Jacobs

Dave Goelz

Eddie Izzard

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj; This American show has grabbed the attention of so many of them during the lockdown. However, the show is now cancelled and no reasons behind the same have been found out yet.

Cast of Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj

Hasan Minhaj

Joyelle Johnson

Arnab Goswami

Andrew Yang

Cory Booker

Maeve Higgins

Adi Ash

Michelle C Bonilla

Rahm Braslaw

Julian Zane Chawdhary

Sean Hartman

Alexis Landry

James Adam Tucker

Rayan Zaim-Sassi

Emily Grace Buck

Vava

Vinod Chaproo

Joan Dickson

Michael Eric Dyson

Jann Ellis

Sonia

Lori Hammel

Smith Harrison

John Hodgman

Siraj Huda

Jacob Dylan

Aurea Jolly

Kevin

The Summary

These are some of the famous Netflix series and shows that got cancelled in the year 2021. As mentioned above, the reasons behind the cancellation differ from series to series. However, you need not lose hope. Netflix still have amazing series coming up. Whatever genre you prefer, keep that in mind and start searching for them. This way you will surely end up finding the ones that will be suitable for you. If not Netflix, then you can check out IMDB. This is a platform where you can search for various shows and movies. While doing do, what you can do is check out the ratings. This way you will find out whether or not the show should be watched or not. IMDB shows new series ans shows that are released every week or month. Search for the one you want to watch and get started without any further ado.

We hope this piece has helped in understanding which and why the shows got cancelled. However, you need not worry about anything. There are a plethora of shows you will come across on this platform, and something or the other will surely be worth watching. Thus, do not wait further and make use of the time this lockdown. Do not let the cancellation and lockdown spoil your mood. Your mood will be cherished and who knows you find out facts you never thought could happen? Also, exploring various genres never goes waste. So, why not make use of this wonderful opportunity?

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sunriseverse · 4 years

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rec listtttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

fair warning there’s a lot of different fandoms here—i have, uh. twenty-two pages of bookmarks. lots of newmann though, i promise. in no particular order, i give you a fic rec list

the future’s owned by you and me by kaiyen (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 7k, Not Rated)

Years after they stopped writing each other, Newt and Hermann run into each other on the steps of Cambridge University Library. Quite literally.

Newt stares at him, expecting more. He doesn’t get any. “Come on, man, who are you? Maybe I’ve read something.”

I doubt it, Hermann barely catches himself from saying. “Gottlieb. Hermann Gottlieb.”

And Newt looks like he’s struck oil. “Oh my god,” he says, and something flickers behind his eyes, like there’s more than just recognition there, and before he can wonder any more about what it is, Newt blurts, “Oh my god!” and Hermann flinches and makes a face like a disgruntled frog.

What you can expect: emotions, opprotunities missed, and opprotunities taken. I absolutely adore this fic, though I might be biased by the fact that it has Newt as bipolar, and that’s something I always crave (more bipolar Newt fic when???).

Survival is for Nerds by Annabeelee (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 46k, Teen and Up)

It's three hundred and two years after humanity lost to the Kaiju and two hundred and twenty one since the Kaiju left. Not that it matters to Hermann. In relation to following a neurotic genetic experiment across whats left of the Northern American continent while dodging alien predators and hostile subgroups of humans, its possibly the least helpful thing to keep in mind.

What you can expect: scifi, tension, and a very intersting world. Post-apocalyptic, technically, but the way it’s written makes it almost hopeful. I love how the setting and writing makes it feel like a blend between victorian steampunk and futuristic in tone.

people can surprise you (or not) by pdameron (James Bond, James Bond/Q, 10k, Teen and Up)

“I’m not you, Bond. I don’t exactly have a technique for getting rich strangers to like me.”

“Just do your naive cute puppy thing, and they’ll be doting on you in no time,” Bond replies as he pulls up to the grand estate.

“My what?” Q asks incredulously. Bond doesn’t answer, simply giving him an indulgent smile. The fucker.

(or: 00q meets Gosford Park. Except not really.)

What you can expect: humour, murder, and some light espionage. Also, fake dating.

Infinite Distance by lachatblanche (X-Men, Erik Lensherr/Charles Xavier, 7k, Teen and Up)

When they encounter an unfamiliar and seemingly-abandoned ship in the middle of nowhere in space, Captain Charles Xavier of the spaceship Graymalkin heads out to investigate.

What you can expect: drama! Intruige! It’s set in space! I read this a while ago but I have memories of it being rather riveting despite the relatively short length.

Gertrude’s Goulash by lollzie (Gotham, Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot, 7k, General Audiences)

Ed needs a new roommate. Oswald needs a room. Oswald may just be the most amazing person Ed has ever met. Shame he's not single. Cue wooing via the medium of cooking.

What you can expect: pining, misunderstandings, obliviousness, and a lot of goulash as a method of romancing.

Death Of The Author by happygolovely (Gotham, Edward Nygma/Oswald Cobblepot, 9k, Mature)

Edward Nygma was never intended to be anything more than a secondary character.

The Riddler demands otherwise.

What you can expect: a story within a story within a story. You think you have it figured out, and the next moment the carpet is yanked out from beneath you. Fairly dark, possibly disturbing, but my goodness if it’s not engaging.

we make our friends, we make our enemies by ORiley42 (Mission: Impossible, Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt, 52k, Teen and Up)

Benji finds out he has a new neighbor. This new neighbor happens to be off-the-charts hot. Hijinks, friendship, more-than-friendship, and secret agent drama ensue.

What you can expect: pining. There’s spy stuff going on too, and it eventually gets brought up, but my gods, the pining. Also, it’s fucking hilarious, and, at just over fifty thousand words, the perfect read when you’ve got an hour or two and you want something that’ll make you both laugh and cry.

Self-Sabotage by EmilyweepsforPilfrey (James Bond, James Bond/Q, 2k, Teen and Up)

For some reason, whenever he's alone with Bond, the most ridiculous things come out of Q's mouth.

Or 'the one where Q accidentally invents a girlfriend'.

What you can expect: Q being an utter idiot. It’s hilarious. Nice quick bite of humour if you fancy it.

The Long Con by harleygirl2648 (Hannibal, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, 19k, Teen and Up)

There are two kinds of cons: long and short. Short cons mean short-term gain, with smaller rewards, mostly just everything you have in your pocket at that moment. Long cons mean lots of time, effort, costumes, masks, props, sets, and other characters all looking to set up the downfall of the mark and take them for all that they've got.

Con Artist/Thieves AU: Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter are both interested in acquiring a Botticelli, but both of them are quite fond of each other's short games. For both of them, it's the deception and thrill of the game that's worth more than the payout.

And well, after all, aren't the easiest people to scam are those who think they are smart enough to not get scammed?

What you can expect: no cannibalism, a lot of banter, and, of course, con artistry. Quite delightful if I do say so myself.

deus ex machina by coloredink (Hannibal, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, 26k, Teen and Up)

"What the hell?" said Katz. "Is that--"

"Yeah, I know, it's kinda flashy." Will shut the car door behind him and patted his pockets for the little fob to lock the car.

"Isn't that Hannibal Lecter's car?"

The car beeped to indicate it was locked. "Yeah, I guess so." Will walked away, toward the field, Katz on his heels. "I needed a new car."

"So you bought the cannibal car?"

-----

You asked for it: the one where Hannibal is a murderous self-driving car.

What you can expect: what it says on the tin. Quite funny, especially with the element of magical realism meaning Hanni-car is sentient. The Hannigram is more vaguely implied than an actual thing, owing, probably, to the fact that Hannibal is, well, a car.

adapt, evolve, become. by peupeugunn (Alex Rider, Gen, 3k, Not Rated)

“This is how you get out. You're slowly moving towards a desk job.” A pause, then, “you know, most people do it the other way around.” Alex chuckles softly and and shuffles towards him to lean against his shoulder, burrowing into the crook of his neck. Ben’s arm winds around him, shields him from the world, a solid weight on his back. “You're going to miss the adrenaline rushes, kid.” There's something almost sad in his voice. Alex doesn't want to understand why. Down that road lies madness.

What you can expect: a character study, in a bit of a roundabout way.

A Sharp Dressed Man by Avelera (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 12k, Teen and Up)

Hermann's latest book needs an author photo. However, when he's given a makeover and a suit that actually fits for the photo shoot, his appearance is so transformed that Newt mistakes him for his (much hotter) older brother, Dietrich.

Hermann decides to play along.

What you can expect: gods this fic is so good. It’s the first Newmann fic I ever read, and I’ve reread it a good six times since 2018. I would say more, but I think the fic speaks for itself.

Gestures by Actually_Crowley (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 7k, Teen and Up)

Newton finds out what Hermann does with his rare free time, but the discovery leads him to believe that Hermann honestly and unequivocally hates him.

What you can expect: the rituals are fucking intricate. I love this fic so so so much. And the eventual reveal/confession...scream.

Fate’s Horrifying Ways (also known as: CHRISTMAS GODZILLA) by linearoundmythoughts (Pacific Rim, Newton Geislzer/Hermann Gottlieb, 4k, Teen and Up)

Your name is Newton Geiszler and you’re going to have to break things off with your sort-of online boyfriend because you’re cheating on him. Sort of. [AKA the most dramatic summary of a humorous crackfic ever ok]

Originally written for the Pacrim Secret Santa back in 2014.

What you can expect: first off, it’s not second person, I promise. It is, though, really fucking funny, owing to the misunderstandings that ensue. There’s much pining, some angsting, and, of course, humour.

Letters From Berlin by spenshi (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 12k, Teen and Up)

Newton keeps in touch with his family when he's shipped off to the Shatterdome. Jacob and Illia send care packages to the K-Science Lab.

What you can expect: Geiszler-family feels. A lot of them. Also, Newt and Hermann slowly growing closer to until they can finally admit they’re into each other.

Wishbone by cypress_tree (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 8k, Teen and Up)

Hermann doesn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving, so Newt invites him over for food, family, and a little bit of flirting. Just a warm, fuzzy college AU to get you through the holidays.

What you can expect: fluff, softness, general feel-good fic. It’s really good, and it has Geiszler-family feels. Reading this fic is a bit like drinking hot cocoa on a cold day.

next days by catbeans (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 5k, Teen and Up)

Hermann had never felt an ache quite like this one, and he had felt plenty. He had been running on adrenaline first, and then on the necessity to keep running, pain and bone-deep exhaustion falling to such a low priority that he couldn't even consider it one anymore, and then it had stopped.

(the 18 hour nap date these guys deserve)

What you can expect: Newt and Hermann cuddling. A lot. That’s really it, that’s the fic. It’s 100% indulgent and I love it for that.

Tebori by SkysongMA (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 7k, Not Rated)

Newt squints. "It's really not a sex thing? 'Cause I'm not opposed to it being a sex thing, mind you. I just don't want to come in the lab tomorrow and not get to throw things at your stupid face."

Hermann lets out an endless, long-suffering sigh. "It's really not a sex thing, Newton, honestly. We hate each other. That's worked out very well for us so far, and it will continue to work out for us in the future." He doesn't mention that they haven't always hated each other and that, at one point in their long relationship, showing up unannounced at Newton's door for the purpose of sexual favors would not have been so far out of the realm of possibility. Had been, in fact, one of those things Hermann had considered late at night long ago, when he couldn't go a week without a fat envelope in the mail full of Newt's ramblings.

But that was quite some time ago, and he means it. They each get more work done than they would ever have separately, even if only because they like to rub their progress in the other's face.

Anyway, admitting anything different would just give Newt ammunition

What you can expect: Newt gives Hermann a tattoo. There’s a lot of feels.

Newt Inherits a Bar by orphan (Pacific Rim and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 11k, Not Rated)

The scary part is the bar looks exactly like Newt remembers.

What you can expect: you’ll probably tear up a bit. This one hits pretty hard, honestly, but it’s so, so, so good.

First a Darling, Then a Marvel by isozyme (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 20k, Mature)

Newt runs a simulation given three constraints:

1: Newt wants to clone a kaiju 2: Hermann does not want Newt to clone a kaiju 3: Newt is going to clone a kaiju anyway

What you can expect: a lot of sciencing, a lot of feels, and two repressed idiots. There’s like, a paragraph or two of smut but it’s pretty clear when it’s going to happen so it’s easy to skip, which is great. The tl;dr of this fic is Newt clones some kaiju, Hermann reminds him how fucking horrible of an idea that is, and everything more or less works out in the end.

Tea and Sympathy by osprey_archer (Torchwood, Owen Harper/Ianto Jones, 13k, Teen and Up)

Soon after Jack's disappearance, Owen takes sick. Ianto goes to check on him.

What you can expect: crabby doctors, put-upon Welshmen, and a fuckton of emotions that everyone is trying to ignore. Not particularly happy, but then, when is Torchwood ever? It’s good while it lasts, though.

Pareidolia by hal_incandenza (Pacific Rim and The Black Tapes Podcast, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 102k, Mature)

It starts as a profile of paranormal investigator and professional skeptic Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. But it seems the further journalist Newt Geiszler delves into his cases, the more mysterious Dr. Gottlieb becomes. What is he hiding? What is he looking for? What is the truth? What is the difference between a journalist's idea of truth, and a scientist's?

Seeing is not believing. Believing is believing.

What you can expect: suspense, mystery, horror, pining, and apocalypse cults, with a dash of an ambiguous ending. I love this fic so much. I literally would stop what I was doing to read it when I got an alert that there was an update when it was still a work in progress.

Meet Me There Across The Water, And We’ll Start An Endless Storm by Skepticamoeba (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 35k, Teen and Up)

Hermann, an honorably discharged veteran has retired to continue working as a Keeper at a Lighthouse. It is perfectly solitary, and with little in the way for incidents. Newton is the sailor that washes up on the seashore after a summer storm.

[Late 19th century Lighthouse Keeper AU--or the one where Hermann was an aspiring artist whose dreams got a bit derailed, and Newt is the sailor that needs to learn to take his time with things.]

What you can expect: the pining........the intricate rituals............the denial.........*chef’s kiss*

and I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted by Lvslie (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 24k, Teen and Up)

He still smells like Newt; bears traces of his recent nearness. Clothes sleep-wrinkled from the proximity, from the way Newt’s ankle has during the night hooked around the calf of Hermann’s good leg and dragged his whole body seamlessly closer. Cheek half-flushed from the face unconsciously nuzzled his into the side of Hermann’s neck—evidence of his presence, fast asleep, as Hermann lay still and fretful for hours an end, staring at the ceiling and feeling sick with wanting.

[An early 20th century AU inspired loosely by Maurice and Age of Innocence.]

What you can expect: wistfulness, pining, repression, denial, lots of feelings. You’ll probably tear up. There’s an achingly happy ending for both of them. This is one of the fics I want a hard copy of so I can mark it up because, fuck, I love it so much.

leave the car running by Macremae (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 1k, Teen and Up)

It is clear that, after everything, Newt doesn't like to be touched.

What you can expect: touch starvation, mutual pining, Newt finally getting the human contact he deserves. I wrote my own version of this since it was initially a prompt, but quite frankly, I like Newton’s version better because it hits.

The Man Who Invented Sherlock Holmes by Calais_Reno (Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 15k, Teen and Up)

John Watson, struggling young doctor, doomed to live an ordinary life, dreams of writing detective fiction. If he can just figure out his hero's name, the story will practically write itself.

What you can expect: Watson sort of, kind of, maybe invents a man into being. Oops. I haven’t read this one in a while but I remember it being quite a lot of fun. There’s elements of what I would say is probably magical realism, but it’s never quite clear.

Newton Isn’t Dead by Macremae (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb and Vanessa Gottlieb/Karla Gottlieb, 32k, Mature)

Newton Geiszler is currently being possessed by a genocidal alien race known as the Precursors. They’ve taken over his body, leaving him a prisoner in his own mind. However, Newt has a totally awesome plan. He’s going to make a deal with them: let him prove that Earth is worth saving, and if he can’t do that, they can have his body. But convincing a hivemind full of mega-colonizers that one blue planet can be wonderful isn’t going to be easy. He’s going to need the help of his kind-of-ex Hermann, his best friend Vanessa, and one awesome Footloose remake to pull this off.

So, naturally, they go on a road trip.

What you can expect: pining, world-saving, eventual confessions and happy endings. I had the great honour of reading the chapters before they were published, and this fic is one of my top five favourite fics. There were multiple points where I yelled, both literally (quietly) and through text (slightly less quietly).

it takes time, but time moves slow by prettydizzeed (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 2k, Teen and Up)

Hermann conducts a cost-benefit analysis every class period of sitting in the back of the lecture hall versus walking down the stairs to the front. He wishes he had hard data for this, to get some actual statistics, and perhaps after a while, if he records his pain level and his ability to read the board and pay attention after each class, he will be able to predict the outcomes given either choice on a particular day.

Two curves, traveling in opposite directions, inversely proportional: pain goes up, concentration goes down. It’s comforting, somewhat, to make it a numbers game. Impersonal. Absolute. Not a tragedy, and not his doing, only his to interpret, a smudged scrawl across his left knee in an unfamiliar handwriting, his to analyze, to decrypt.

What you can expect: the fic may only be 2k, but it will leave you feeling like you were punched. It’s fantastic.

I Could Be Jew-ish For You by Macremae (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 10k, Teen and Up)

When Hermann agrees to spend Chanukah with his family in an attempt to wheedle some desperately-needed funding out of his father, Newt insists that he shouldn’t face Lars alone and tags along as his “emotional support family rage distraction”. What they fail to realize are two things: 1. When Hermann brings Newt with him to the festivities, assumptions will be made, and 2. Newt may be half-Jewish, but he sure wasn’t raised as one.

What to expect: fake dating fake dating fake dating— (can you tell I have a favourite trope?) In which Newt is Jew-ish, Hermann is both exasperated and pining, Lars is disliked, and we all get the Jewish romcom we deserve.

It Was Love At Second Sight by rednights (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 35k, Teen and Up)

Hermann receives the first letter when he is eighteen years old.

or: Kaiju don't attack the Earth, but Hermann and Newt still write letters, botch their first meeting, and fall in love, not necessarily in that order.

What you can expect: feels. So many fucking feels. There’s no kaiju but that doesn’t mean you won’t be on the edge of your seat.

hello my old heart by firebirdsuite (The Magnus Archives, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, 15k, Teen and Up)

Peter’s wrong, of course. When it’s all over, Martin does still want to tell Jon everything. It’s just—well, there’s a few things they need to work through first before they can get there.

Martin and Jon find each other again in Scotland.

What you can expect: tenderness, domesticity, and love. The perfect trifecta.

the truth about me (and the truth about me) by danimagus (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 11k, Teen and Up)

Newton suffers from a bout of memory loss and is told Hermann is his fiancé.

Hermann plays along, to his endless shame.

What you can expect: two words: fake dating. Gods, I love this fic, as Mary can attest from how I unceremoniously started screaming at her about it in her tumblr messages the day of/after it was published. This fic is great because it subverts the trope a bit, and thus avoids issues of consent that may otherwise have occured.

speak right to my heart without saying a word by thekaidonovskys (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 13k, General Audiences)

“Your eyes. Your expression. Your smile. I’ve worked with you for ten years, Hermann, and words have never been our primary method of communication.”

What you can expect: to be knocked the fuck out emotionally. This one hits pretty hard, and that’s what makes it so good.

Transducer by hal_incandenza (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 85k, Teen and Up)

“I need you to hide something for me.”

“Oh, excellent. Of course, Newton, please allow me to jeopardize my career. And yours as well. My pleasure. Do go on.”

“Yeesh, relax,” said Newton. “It’s a personal thing, not a work thing.”

“As if there is any division between the two,” Hermann snapped.

If only you knew, Newt thought.

What you can expect: intruigue, alien tech, light espionage. This fic will have your little nerd heart beating double-time. It’s very very good.

A Really Private Person by astolat (Person of Interest, Harold Finch/John Reese, 18k, Mature)

The end of the world started on a Wednesday in March.

What you can expect: badassery on Finch’s part. One of the few fics I have bookmarked for this fandom, and it’s bookmarked for good reason.

Party For Two by ProblemWithTrouble (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 18k, General Audiences)

“My mother’s parents have a home in the Black Forest that has a guest house. They’ve often allowed me to stay there when I could spare the time.” Hermann looked distant as if he were remembering something; the warmth of a fire and a nice book and the smell of freshly made tea. “It will be quiet, and possibly too boring for you-”

“It won’t be. I could use some quiet after the decade we’ve had. I could actually compile my research. And sleep. It sounds amazing.”

After the world doesn't end Newt and Hermann take a vacation together to live in a cabin and finally relax, as friends. Cue the pining, the longing, and the living together as best friends.

What you can expect: a fic that will wrap you up like a warm blanket. Mutual pining, vacationing together in a cabin, lots of feels—what more can you want?

Dream Drifting by MooseLane (Pacific Rim and Inception, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 5k, General Audiences)

"You're running an extraction on that spastic PPDC biologist, is what I hear." Chau fixes him with a side-eye. "I know I wouldn't want to go poking around in that little bastard's head."

(There are not enough Inception x Pacific Rim crossover fics, so I decided to change that.)

What you can expect: Inception meets Pacific Rim. There’s no other way to say it, really.

I’ve Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy In New York) by gyzym (Inception, Arthur/Eames, 19k, Teen and Up)

Arthur's a corporate lawyer, Eames owns the coffee shop across the street, and all good love stories start with a quadruple shot latte.

What to expect: Arthur is stressed, Eames runs a coffee shop, and, through the power of friendship and a lot of stress-baking, everything works out happily for our intrepid protagonist.

Kalimat/كلمات by rainbowagnes (The Old Guard, Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicolò di Genova, 3k, Teen and Up)

Yusuf translates medical texts for Niccolò from Greek and Persian into Arabic, and Niccolò spots the substratum of the ideas of the classical authors that he had once believed the basis of his own civilisation that he would go to the sword to defend, translated and passed down and sewn into a no longer foreign script. There are words Yusuf does not know how to translate. They will never, ever know all of the words. The prospect is thrilling. --- It takes Niccolò lifetimes to learn Arabic.

What you can expect: if you, like me, are, especially natively, multilingual, this might hit the sweet spot of Language Feels. It did for me. Also, Joe calling Nicky hayati? Yeah.

i never liked that ending either by Macremae (Pacific Rim, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, 15k, Mature)

You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? - Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

Once upon a time Dr. Flick Tucker, K-Sci head of Biology, fought a bunch of highly scientific dragons to save the world. Then, they took over her life. It didn’t end well.

Once upon our time Dr. Newt Geiszler, marine biologist, sci-fi aficionado, and accidental discoverer of dimensional travel, got a chance to take her place. He has a couple of ideas.

In which Uprising is still a bad movie, musings on the nature of choice and personal autonomy are made, and somewhere, probably, a coin is showing heads every time.

What you can expect: everything’s fine this is a perfectly normal fic come here i want to cause you as much emotional damage as I can

Not Allowed by acedott (BBC Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, 1k, General Audiences)

Gwen has been dealing with self-imposed touch starvation since she was a child. Morgana sets out to challenge this.

What you can expect: gays. Pining. Touch starvation. Need I say more?

Rocky Horror Pancake Show by ChuckleVoodoos (Daredevil, Matt Murdock/Franklin “Foggy” Nelson, 19k, Teen and Up)

Foggy falls asleep at exactly 12:00 AM, and he’s making a wish. He wakes up at 12:00 AM too—twenty-four hours before he fell asleep.

"Let's do the time warp again!"

What you can expect: Ground-hog Day style time-loop, lots of fluff, and a happy ending.

Ain’t No Nancy Kerrigan by cleverqueen (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Leonard Snart/Mick Rory, 13k, Teen and Up)

It's 1994, and young Lisa Snart's jumps aren't strong enough for an Olympic singles skater. Thankfully, her older brother has an athletic friend who can match her in pairs.

Mick Rory is hopelessly in love with Leonard Snart, though he'd never say anything about it, so he jumps at a chance to do Len's little sister a favor. If he's patient and works hard, maybe he'll even get to skate with her older brother.

What you can expect: pining, ice-skating, and general goodness. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it has a happy ending.

#rec list #ask #a good 40% of these are mutual pining but really who's surprised. i love a good mutual pining fic #hopefully all these links work because i spent. an inordinate amount of time compiling this.#let me know if any of the links need to be changed #c.txt

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kelyon · 3 years

Text

Golden Rings 15: A Sheriff

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

Emma steps in

Read on AO3

Emma Swan was having a craptastic day.

After ten years in a row of solo Valentine’s Days, she didn’t expect the holiday to still get to her. And yet it had.

Maybe it was Storybrooke, with cutesy paper hearts in the windows of almost every store on Main Street. Maybe it was her roommate Mary Margaret, who kept believing in True Love no matter how hard she was proven wrong. You’d think a woman sneaking around with a married man wouldn’t be such a romantic. But you’d be wrong.

Maybe it was Henry. Regina had put her foot down on them spending much time together, and it had been a few days since she’d seen him. For all the confusing feelings Emma had about Henry and about the thought of being his mother, she missed the kid. He was good company. He was a believer too, and he wanted her to join him in his delusion, the whole fairy tale thing. True Love’s Kiss and Happy Ever After and Good Triumphing Over Evil. Too bad he looked so much like the person who had put the nail in the coffin of her ever believing in True Love again.

That night was supposed to be girl’s night. Mary Margaret had called it “Galentine’s Day,” which was very Mary Margaret. Emma joined the group at the Rabbit Hole for an evening of forgetting about the men in their lives. Or the absence of men, as the case may be.

The good times had lasted about an hour, until Ashley’s boyfriend Sean showed up at the bar with a ring and a bended knee. Ashley said yes and they left together. After that Ruby drifted over to some rowdy college guys and Mary Margaret announced her desire to go home to the only men who would never let her down--Ben and Jerry.

Later, as she walked around town, Emma had seen David Nolan in the window of Dark Star Pharmacy. He’d had his back to the window, in front of the Valentine’s Day card display. He’d walked away with two pink cards, despite the fact that he only had one wife. She didn’t know whether to feel worse for Mary Margaret or for Kathryn Nolan.

In the end, this was yet another Valentine’s Day alone. Not just single, but without friends or family too. At least this year she had a job and a decent place to crash.

Emma had considered spending a quiet night at the station. It had been months since she’d been elected Sheriff, but she still hadn’t gotten a handle on all of Graham’s old files. There were a lot of them, and none of them were dated so it was almost impossible to get an idea of the timeline of criminal activity over the years.

But then she heard a woman shriek over by Granny’s Diner.

Sometimes Emma missed the days when she could stumble on a situation like this and then decide to turn around and walk the other way. A big part of surviving in all the various tight spots she’d been in was knowing when something was Not Your Business. Best way to get out of trouble was to never get into it in the first place.

But she was Sheriff now. Duly elected by the people of Storybrooke. As a public servant, public safety was Her Business.

“I can’t go with you!”

The woman’s voice shouted again and Emma picked up her pace. The woman sounded drunk and upset. The fact that the man talking to her sounded calm and sober did not ease Emma’s mind.

She turned the corner and saw Gold.

Landlord, loan shark, pawnbroker and power broker, he’d been at the top of Emma’s list of shady characters for a long time. The fact that he’d helped her get elected only made him more suspicious. A man like that didn’t do things without an ulterior motive and she already owed him a favor because of that thing with Ashley and Sean’s baby.

Gold had his hands out to a woman who was bent over and crying. Had he hit her? Was he about to?

Emma had never officially met Mrs. Gold, but she had seen her around town. She was usually dressed like she was now--big hair, high heels, clothes either too short or too tight or both. Graham had a stack of files on Mrs. Gold. People could be close-lipped about their landlord, but everyone had a wild story about his wife.

Nobody ever mentioned how young she was.

It was hard to tell with the heavy makeup and the heavier crying, but Mrs. Gold looked barely out of her teens. And Gold was easily in his fifties. Everyone talked about them like they’d been married for years. How old had she been when they’d gotten married?

Emma’s opinion of Gold went down another notch.

“Is everything alright?”

It was a pretty standard opening question for a cop. Part of Emma was still surprised to be asking it instead of hearing it. She put her hands on her hips to clearly display her badge.

“We’re fine.” Gold held up his hand. Like he could stop her from getting closer.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Emma said calmly as she pushed past him.

Mrs. Gold was bent over double, clutching her stomach. What the hell had he done to her? Squatting on her heels, Emma touched her on the shoulder.

“Mrs. Gold, are you okay?”

Drunk, red, teary eyes slowly tried to focus. Mrs. Gold’s mouth opened, but then she shook her head and started crying again.

“Sheriff, I appreciate your concern. As you can see, my wife has had too much to drink and I’m trying to get her home.”

Emma looked at Mrs. Gold. “Do you want to go home with him?”

This time, instead of shaking her head, Mrs. Gold closed her eyes and sank lower to the ground. Still balanced on her heels, she curled herself into a ball. Emma stood up and looked at Gold.

“That isn’t a yes.”

He rolled his eyes, which did not help his case. “Please, Miss Swan, this is a private matter.”

Emma made a show of scanning Main Street up and down. “Pretty sure it’s happening in public. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I already did: Mrs. Gold had too much wine at dinner and now she’s throwing a fit. I’m trying to get her back to the house, where she won’t be a public nuisance any longer.” Gold’s consonants were clipped, and he spoke with a biting quickness. He was irritated.

Irritated. While his wife was crying in the street.

She crouched down again. “Have you been drinking, Mrs. Gold?” Obviously she had, but it was important to let the woman speak for herself. Gold had to know she wasn’t just going to take his word on what was going on.

“I had a bottle of wine,” Mrs. Gold’s voice wobbled. She was still crying. “And I didn’t eat dinner.”

“That’ll do it,” Emma nodded. She held out her hand. “You wanna try standing up? I can take you in the diner for some food, coffee.”

She shook her head. “I wanna roll in a ditch and stay there forever.” She broke down in a fresh wave of sobs that toppled her over and landed her butt-first on the sidewalk.

Emma winced and picked Mrs. Gold up. The woman clung to her as they stood, like an old cartoon of a drunk leaning on a lamppost.

“Thank you, Miss Swan,” Gold said smoothly. “Do you want to try to walk her to the parking lot or shall I bring the car around?”

Emma adjusted her grip on Mrs. Gold. She was light and tiny--helpless. “I haven’t determined that she wants to go home with you, Gold.”

He looked shocked, offended. “What difference does that make? The state she’s in, she doesn’t know what she wants.”

Is that the way you like her? Emma was smart enough to not voice her suspicions out loud. But she knew enough about Gold to know that nothing was beneath him. This woman wasn’t safe.

Gently extracting herself, Emma put her hands on Mrs. Gold’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Mrs. Gold, can you talk to me for a sec?”

Mrs. Gold put a hand up to her mouth and nodded.

“Can you give me a word?”

After a moment’s thought, Mrs. Gold closed her eyes and said, “Yeah.”

“Do you know that man standing behind us?”

This question was met with a glare, first at Emma, then at Gold. “Mr. Gold is supposed to be my husband,” she slurred. “He’s supposed to care about me.” She began to push against Emma’s grasp, shouting at Gold. “You’re supposed to love me, you bastard! I put up with so much shit for you!”

“Okay.” Emma cut off the drunken rant before it could build up steam. “Do you want to go home with him right now?”

“No.” Mrs. Gold was swaying on her feet, but she knew her own mind.

“Okay,” Emma nodded. “I won’t let that happen then.”

“Sheriff Swan, this is ridic--”

“She said no.” Emma spun around to face Gold. She didn’t yell at him. She didn’t have to. Sometimes doing the right thing was complicated and messy, but sometimes it was amazingly simple.

She left Gold standing in silence and turned back to Mrs. Gold. “Now, do you have somebody you can stay with tonight? Friends? Family?”

Mutely, Mrs. Gold shook her head.

“Do your parents live around here?”

Her face crumpled like a paper bag and she began to cry again.

“Okay.” Emma gave her a few awkward pats on the back. “It’s okay. We’ve all been there.” She’d certainly been there more times than she could count.

“As you can see,” Gold’s cane tapped on the sidewalk as he stepped closer, “my wife doesn’t have anyone in her life but me.”

And who’s fault is that? Emma wondered. Out loud all she said was, “Not while I’m around.”

“What, precisely, do you intend to do with her?”

“We’re going back to the station.” Emma helped Mrs. Gold get her arms into her coat and began to half-lead, half-carry her down the street. “Is it okay if I help you walk?”

Mrs. Gold nodded and took a few staggering steps on her own. If it weren’t so cold, Emma would have told her to take off the heels.

Gold followed behind them. “Sheriff! You can’t just run off with my wife!”

Emma looked over her shoulder at Gold. “Well, I could arrest her for public drunkenness. And I could arrest you for interfering in police business. I could get out the handcuffs and the tasers and the billy clubs, because you two are clearly a danger to the safety of the town.” Emma took a moment to let her words sink in.

The problem with being the only cop on duty was that she had to be both Good Cop and Bad Cop.

“Or,” she went on. “We could, all three of us, take a nice walk to the station. Maybe the night air will clear our heads. I sincerely hope Mrs. Gold finds a quiet place to throw up because the sooner she gets sober the better.” She started walking again and shouted back to Gold. “You can come with us or you can go to hell, but I’m not gonna drag both of you.”

****

Emma was able to get Mrs. Gold all the way to the station bathrooms before she threw up. Gold trailed behind them the whole way. Was he slow because of his cane or because he didn’t want to come? Either way, he was standing outside the women’s room when they emerged.

When she saw her husband, Mrs. Gold shrank back. But she didn’t start crying again.

“Office is through that door,” Emma pointed behind Gold’s shoulder. “Feel free to have a seat, we’re gonna go get some water.”

She took Mrs. Gold to the water cooler around the corner. The tank was made of glass, likely from the fifties or sixties. The whole station was outdated like that, a time capsule. Maybe that was why Graham had so many paper files. The budget didn’t have room for a computer made after 1983.

Mrs. Gold took quiet sips out of a paper cup. Her face was splotchy from emotion and booze. Mascara had smeared all over her red-rimmed eyes. She was staring into the middle distance, swaying like she was about to tip over.

“Hey, now that you’re inside, you should take off those heels.”

It seemed to take Mrs. Gold a minute to register what Emma had said. Slowly, she nodded and stepped out of her shoes. Now she looked even smaller, even younger, even more vulnerable.

Everyone she’d talked to about Mrs. Gold acted like she was worse than her husband. That she was loud and lewd--shocking in how boldly she flaunted their sex life, whether people wanted to hear about it or not. Emma had gotten the impression that she was some kind of accomplice, an equal partner in a two-person reign of terror.

But that wasn’t what she saw in front of her. True, appearances could be deceiving. But if Emma had to guess which version of Mrs. Gold was an act, she’d put her money on it being the heartless, hypersexed, trophy wife. Not the pathetic lightweight shaking like a leaf the middle of in a police station.

She had to get to the bottom of this.

“How are you holding up?”

Mrs. Gold took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Been better,” she croaked out after a minute. “Been worse, too.”

“Scale of one to ten where one is the best and ten is the worst?”

“Eight,” she said after thinking about it. “Maybe nine.”

“What’s a ten?” Emma asked, genuinely curious. If getting so drunk she fought with her husband in public and got the attention of the cops and then threw up in front of a total stranger wasn’t the worst night of Mrs. Gold’s life, then what was?

But Mrs. Gold just shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” Emma backed off. As much as she wanted to get the full story on this woman, there were more important things to deal with right now. “Let’s get back to my office.”

Gold was standing by one of the desks in the bullpen, reading the paperwork some idiot officer had left out in the open. When they came in, he opened his mouth to speak, but Emma hurried Mrs. Gold into the office and shut the door.

“Do you want me to make him go away?” she said before she sat down.

“How?” Mrs. Gold’s voice was thick. “No one can make Mr. Gold do anything. He can do whatever he wants.”

“Can’t be that hard. I’ll just kick him the knee.”

To her surprise, Mrs. Gold snorted at the joke. “Ankle,” she corrected. “It’s his ankle that gives him trouble.”

“Good to know, next time we get in a fistfight.” She looked Mrs. Gold in the eye. “But seriously. Would you feel more comfortable if he was somewhere else?”

Mrs. Gold shook her head. “I’d only feel more comfortable if I was somewhere else.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach and sank into the chair across from the desk.

Opening a drawer in the desk, Emma pulled out a box of Kleenex. She also grabbed some of the protein bars she stored in the office for lunches. And, out of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, she got the big stuffed Officer Teddy that they gave to kids when they were in crisis. Mrs. Gold was not a kid, but by God she looked like she needed a teddy bear.

Emma set everything on the chair beside Mrs. Gold. She didn’t take anything but a tissue.

“Do you mind talking about what happened tonight?”

“I should get a lawyer,” Mrs. Gold whispered. Then she cracked a miserable smile. “But Mr. Gold is my lawyer!” She pressed the Kleenex to her eyes and sobbed.

“Hey,” Emma tried her best soft voice. “It’s okay, Mrs.-- Hang on, what’s your first name?”

Mrs. Gold looked up, suddenly suspicious. “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” Emma said quickly. “It’s just weird to say ‘Mrs. Gold’ all the time, like you’re my third-grade math teacher.”

“Well, get used to it, Miss Swan.” She sniffed and straightened up. “I work damn hard to be Mrs. Gold, and I’m not going to be called anything else.”

Walking behind Graham’s desk--her desk--Emma leaned back in the rolling chair. “Is it always work? Being married to him, I mean.”

“Didn’t used to be,” she said quietly. “It was always a challenge, but it used to be fun, you know?”

“Not really,” Emma admitted. “I’m not big on commitment.”

“He used to be wonderful.” There was a misty light in her eyes now. “Especially when I was good, when he was happy with me. He could be so inventive and dedicated.” She sighed. “Mr. Gold could do things to me I didn’t even know I wanted.”

“But only when you were good?”

The rumor mill had plenty of stories of Mrs. Gold proudly walking around town with bruises and burns. Apparently no Valentine’s Day was complete without her stocking up on rope and duct tape. Was that for when she was good or when she was bad?

Mrs. Gold shrugged and looked away. “I don’t expect you to understand how Mr. Gold and I are together.”

“I understand BDSM,” Emma said evenly.

Mrs. Gold looked at her, with a blank confusion that didn’t come just from being drunk. She didn’t say anything, so Emma went on.

“That’s what it is, right? Sado-masochism? Dominance and submission? Bondage?”

A blink. “What?”

Emma put her feet up on the desk, trying to look cooler than she felt. It was weird to talk about this stuff in an otherwise normal environment while she was on the clock. But apparently the Golds got a thrill out of shocking vanilla people. So she’d better not act shocked.

“Not everybody’s from Storybrooke, Mrs. Gold.”

She slumped forward. “I didn’t realize there was a name for it. Do a lot of other people do this stuff?”

Emma’s attempt not to be shocked didn’t last long. She sat up in the chair, took her feet off the desk. “You didn’t know? Wait, are you two not a part of a community?”

“What do you mean?”

Yeah, that made sense. Gold was one of those doms. Self-titled, self-taught, probably got kicked out of any reasonable BDSM group he tried to get into. Predatory. His current wife was young, maybe curious about kink, and he’d been oh-so-happy to be the only teacher she had. He’d trained her to trust him, to rely on him completely, so he could abuse her any sick way he wanted to. He probably told her it was all okay because they were kinky. That living in fear was what the lifestyle was all about.

Son of a bitch.

Mrs. Gold looked over her shoulder through the windows that looked out at the bullpen. Gold was still standing there, leaning on his cane. Waiting.

Emma clenched her jaw. “There’s… a lot… I want to talk to you about, Mrs. Gold. But right now the most important thing is making sure you’re safe.”

She shook her head. “I’m safe.”

“Earlier you said you didn’t want to go home with him.”

“I was drunk,” she shrugged. “I was upset. I made Mr. Gold angry and I was afraid to face the consequences.”

“Are you afraid of him a lot?”

“No-o.” Mrs. Gold looked down at the tissue in her hands. “Not a lot.”

Emma pressed in. “When was the last time you were afraid of your husband?”

Defiance flashed in her eyes, but then disappeared. Mrs. Gold hung her head. “Last night,” she whispered. “I did something really bad and I thought he was going to hurt me. Like, really hurt me, you know?”

“More than just a spanking, huh?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “But he didn’t! That has to count for something, right?”

Emma closed her eyes so Mrs. Gold couldn’t see her rolling them. “Maybe something, but not much.” She took a deep breath. “I’m gonna ask you a question, and I want you to think for a second before you answer it: Do you think your husband respects you?”

“No, of course not.” Apparently she didn’t need to think about it. “I’m just a stupid whore, Sheriff. Why would Mr. Gold respect a trashy slut like me?”

“Because you’re a person!” Emma shouted and Mrs. Gold winced. From the other side of the glass, Gold looked up.

She balled her fists, trying to keep her anger from getting the better of her. Emma liked action. If there was a problem, she wanted to do something about it. If the thing to do involved punching a violent predator, then that was even better.

But she couldn’t do that now. Cursing Gold out about the meaning of the words “safe, sane and consensual” would make Emma feel better, but it wouldn’t help Mrs. Gold. Right now, the most important thing was giving this girl the mental tools to protect herself. Or at least let her know that she was in danger.

“Mrs. Gold,” Emma said after a minute. “It’s important to me that you understand some things. I don’t know what your husband may have told you, but I want you to trust that I’m telling you the truth. Can you do that? Can you trust me?”

Mrs. Gold swallowed. “What are you going to tell me?”

“Just that… you and your husband are not the only people in the world who like doing stuff that other people might think of as unconventional. There are a lot of people who like, say, mixing pain and sex. Or pretending to be roles that they aren’t.” She hesitated before she admitted something personal: “I was with a guy who told me he never felt safer than when he tied himself up with rope.”

It had meant a lot to Emma, the first time he’d asked her to tie his hands behind his back. He’d told her he trusted her, and she had trusted him--right until it had all fallen apart.

“Are you serious?” Mrs. Gold’s brow was furrowed. “There are other people like us?”

“Yep,” Emma nodded. “More than most people think. In fact, there are enough people like this that they can get together and talk about it. They talk about this stuff so much that there are rules that a lot of these people agree on.”

“What kind of rules?”

For a second, Emma didn’t know where to start. As much as she was talking, her real experiences with kinksters was very limited. Even in the best circumstances, she wasn’t one for clubs or social groups. Nothing with the promise of a community or lasting relationships--that wasn’t her style. One-on-one was better. Emma liked semi-anonymous one night stands. No strings, just rope.

But that wasn’t what most people wanted, and it definitely wasn’t what Mrs. Gold needed.

“Consent is a pretty big rule for most communities. Making sure that a person isn’t put in a situation they didn’t agree to. So communication is important too. The person being done to has to say what they want and the person doing the thing has to say what they’re planning on doing--and they both have to agree. Am I making sense so far?”

“So it’s like a deal?”

“Yep,” Emma said, glad that something was clicking with Mrs. Gold. “Negotiation is a big part of it.”

“I already made my deal with Mr. Gold.”

“Well, it’s not something you only talk about once.” She lowered her voice. “Does your husband talk to you before you do a scene?”

“A ‘scene’?”

No surprise that Mrs. Gold didn’t know even basic vocabulary.

“Yeah, before sex or play or punishment--whatever it is you do when he has power over you.”

“Mr. Gold always has power over me. He can fuck me whenever he wants to. That’s the deal.”

Emma frowned. “Does he get to hurt you whenever he wants to?”

“He can,” Mrs. Gold admitted with perfect calm. “He can do anything to me, or make me do anything. And that’s consensual. I agreed to it when I married him.”

“Does it ever stop? Do you ever have, like, a time out? A rest period? Or are you guys always… in that zone?”

Mrs. Gold looked away. There hadn’t been a trace of embarrassment during the rest of the conversation, but now she looked ashamed.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s… It’s been a while since we’ve actually done anything.”

Interesting. “And whose decision was that?”

“Oh, Mr Gold’s. I’ve offered tons of times, but he hasn’t touched me in months.”

“So he decides when you don’t have sex as well as when you do?”

“I guess.”

“Was that a part of your deal?”

She shifted in her seat. “I never thought it was a possibility that he wouldn’t want to do things to me.”

“But you really like it? You think he’s a good partner?”

Mrs. Gold’s blue eyes looked up at Emma. Every fiber of her being radiated sincerity. “The best.”

“Wanna tell me how you feel about not having sex for months?”

She looked away. “I hate it.”

“Have you told him that?”

“No!” she almost laughed. “I was starting to tonight, but it didn’t work out for me.”

Emma didn’t laugh. She rested her arms on the desk and leaned in to look Mrs. Gold in the eye. “Listen, I’m not a marriage counselor. I’m not an expert in kink. I’m a sheriff. There is clearly a lot broken with your relationship, but I’m not going to be able to solve any of it. No one will be able to fix you guys unless you’re both willing to admit that there’s a problem and work towards a solution.”

Mrs. Gold looked down. “We never had problems before.”

“No, you did. But it sounds like Gold was really good at making you think they weren’t problems. Point is, there’s only so much I can do from a law-enforcement standpoint. I can arrest your husband--but only if you’re willing to press charges and make a statement about any past mistreatment.”

“Wait, who said anything about arresting Mr. Gold?”

“I’m just trying to think of a way to keep you safe. It’s my opinion that the easiest way to do that right now is to keep you separated from your husband. Now, you said you don’t have anyone you can stay with. If you want, I can pay for you to get a room at Granny’s.”

“I don’t need your fucking charity!” Mrs. Gold spat out the last word.

“Okay,” Emma went on. “My other option is to keep you here in the station overnight. You admitted to being drunk, I can give you a safe place to dry out.”

“But you also want to make up some charge to put Mr. Gold in jail?” Her voice rose as she spoke. “That’s ridiculous! If those are the choices, then yes, by all fucking means, arrest me instead of him!”

This was wrong. Emma knew that it was wrong. Putting Mrs. Gold in the holding cell would be a completely a bass-ackward perversion of justice.

But she was damned if she could think of a single other way to fix this.

If Mrs. Gold insisted on blaming herself, if she wasn’t going to press charges against her husband, if she didn’t even see that she was being abused--then nothing Emma did or said would change her mind. If Emma forced the issue, then she would be telling Mrs. Gold what to do instead of letting her actually make a choice. And if Mrs. Gold was ever going to be able to break out of her situation, it had to be her choice.

“Do you wanna put me in handcuffs? It wouldn’t be the first time!”

The transformation was so fast Emma almost didn’t recognize that it was the same person speaking. So this was the version of Mrs. Gold that everyone had a story about. The version of Mrs. Gold that was in Graham’s file. Sparkling voice, chipper smile. She was even posed with her legs splayed open like a pin-up model.

Emma sighed.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. Remember that. You don’t have to throw yourself under the bus for him. And you don’t have to do things you don’t want to do.”

“It’s really cute that you think that, Sheriff!” Mrs Gold stood up and stepped back into her shoes. She dropped the crumpled Kleenex on the floor and kicked it out of the way with her shiny black heels.

She didn’t stagger or wobble as she opened the door to the office, but she did stop in her tracks when she saw Gold. Emma was close enough that she could hear her swallow.

Taking a strange kind of mercy on the girl, Emma pushed in front of her to talk to Gold herself.

“I’m keeping Mrs. Gold in the holding cell overnight, just until her blood alcohol level goes down a bit.”

“That’s not going to happen, Sheriff.”

He didn’t move any closer, he didn’t try to reach for Mrs. Gold. He stood very still, with both hands on his cane in front of him. Emma narrowed her eyes.

“Are you going to try to stop me?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said smoothly. “But I couldn’t help overhearing the end of your conversation. Mrs. Gold offered to have herself put under arrest. Allow me to make a counter-offer.”

“She doesn’t want to go home with you.”

“I know,” he said. “So my offer is that I stay in the station tonight.” He looked over his shoulder at the jail cell behind him. “Assuming, of course, that you make sure Mrs. Gold gets back safely to the house.”

This was ridiculous. Emma crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you confessing to a crime, Gold?”

“Quite the opposite.” Bastard had the audacity to grin. “I’m hoping this act will prove my innocence.”

Emma clenched her jaw. He was full of shit, but how could she prove it? Gold was giving her exactly what she wanted. There had to be a catch.

“Is this your favor?” she asked. “Are you calling in what I owe you for Ashley’s baby?”

He gave a little shake of the head. “What this is, Miss Swan, is the right thing to do.”

“Why?” Mrs. Gold’s voice pierced through the quiet station. When Emma turned around, she saw she was crying again. “Why would you do this for me?”

Gold’s expression softened. To Emma’s surprise, she actually believed that he was capable of feeling sorry. Either he was very good, or there was more to him than she’d thought.

“Like I said, Mrs. Gold, it’s the right thing to do.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. He set them on the nearest desk. “You didn’t bring your purse to dinner. You’ll need a key to get back in the house.”

Mrs. Gold just stood there, confused and stunned. Emma stepped forward to take the keys and give them to Mrs. Gold.

“I’ll drop you off,” she told her. “It looks like the car key is on here, but you’re still in no state to drive.”

Nodding slowly, Mrs. Gold looked at the keys in her hand. Then she looked up at her husband. “I’ll give these back to you tomorrow.”

“That’s fine,” he agreed. He shifted his gaze to Emma and smirked. “Assuming I’ll be a free man tomorrow?”

Emma rolled her eyes and began to usher Gold backwards to the cell. “Since I’m not actually booking you for anything, sure.” Once he was inside, she shut the door. “I swear, if this whole thing has been some kind of kinky game--”

“It’s not, Sheriff,” Gold said calmly. “The wellbeing of my wife is the most serious matter in the world.”

“Uh-huh.” Emma locked him in. “You’re gonna have to work harder on that.”

#golden rings #rumbelle fic #rumbelle fanfiction #rumbelle

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willpowerbutch · 3 years

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Willpower Butch and the Son of God

By the Reverend Willpower Butch

We found ourselves in a dour, tangled wood, having strode excellently to the north of the ruins of London. We were safeguarding ourselves from the Homosexual by burning his nail polish and thrusting our pelvises as we walked – I, by virtue of my untrammeled virility, and Timpani Gayparade because I was repeatedly kicking his ass – for this display of breedful lumber-hauling intimidates even the most unhyperbolic Gay into hours of aesthetic crying. My un-non-sodomized companion, Paragon Shag, halted us before a gully, grimacing as he did at its detestable and wet resemblance.

“Quite Anti-Rimbauded Stoics,” spake he into the gap in the David’s pants, “were you capable of womanly regard for your environment, I should caution you now to take protective hold of your erections. For I scent among the pungent mosses a grievous concoction of defensive sarcasm, elderflower, and fear of guns.”

“No!” shouted Top-a-mée Christopherhitchens tremulously at Shag’s injunction. “That odor could only announce one thing: an Anglophilia of Transgendereds!”

No sooner had the flaccid, strawberry-incensed brat danced this were we come upon by these self-same Transgendereds. They were crudely crayoning beards and boobs onto the yearbook photos of children while singing the “Internationale” in Esperanto. And they were, without exception, slathered in a gloopy, glittery sludge.

“Alas, they have fornicated with Boy George,” Shag supposed.

“Nay,” I overruled him, speaking the truth because I am a Man, “they are the undead. See how they rise from the ground like a Gay asshole thrashing up toward Papalism. See how they have returned from Tim Curry’s House to torment their enemies.”

For, in the center of that discoing mass, there stood the trifecta of swallowing come at somebody else’s orgy and then complaining about the taste: Graham “transplanted his ass onto his face” Linehan, Germaine “spectacularly missed the point of her own life’s work” Greer, and JK “spent the nineties roleplaying a little boy and is desperately trying to deflect” Rowling.

The trifecta hailed our entourage, noting that we were not party to the Transgenders’ Dostoevskian lower bureaucrat fetish. “Help us!” they cried.

Marzipan Dostoevsky, friend of Vladimir Purina and King Gay of Sierra del Fuego. His infamous bent nose is the result of giving too much head.

Forthwith, we left them and continued on our way, crossing the border into Scotland.

As we plowed further into the wilds, we encountered a strange portal carved into the rockface of a proud spire. Drawing closer, Michael Sheen exclaimed, “This is it! The secret cavern where Franc’n’o has kidnapped God. But how may we come inside?”

There was, indeed, no discernible way through, for the doorway was a mere carving on stone. Near the top, there was a message scrawled in Scotlandenisishlatin.

The David stepped forward, the arches of his hips and back as sturdy and graceful as a yew, and his mouth as red-pink, as inviting, as absolutely forbidden as yew berries, gyrating as he read the words to himself.

“Read homo in the face of Man, and enter,” he translated for us. Turning toward me, his expression was puzzled. “Homo in the face of Man?”

“Shag,” I said frowningly, “what do you make of this?”

“Perhaps it’s a riddle. Omo represents the eyes, the ridges of the brow, and the nose in the face of Man, for facial hair is too powerful to render in this Nancy language,” Shag considered. “What we do not know is the symbolism of the ‘h.’ What could that be?”

“A cowlick?” suggested Gayparade.

“One ear?” ventured Michael Sheen.

“The tongue, sticking out?” lilted the David.

“The tongue, sticking out,” I murmured, repeating him. “Why else would Franc’n’o construct such an opening? He means for us to enact something that no Man would ever do, for the genital of the Gay is magnetized to the tongue of the Straight Man.”

My companions were much astonished at this, but also greatly impressed that I had retained so many facts about the Gay from only one drunken viewing of their episode on the Discovery Channel.

Looking between them, I could perceive the fear in their rapid flacciding. “Nay!” I shouted, mustering all my strength, “MEN!” And thus, I kicked through the doorway, sending out a shockwave that turned every blushing, pristine flower for miles into beer-soaked charcoal, scented with entitlement. And we were through.

Treading into the dark, it was several minutes before we came upon a peculiar thing. At the end of the hall was a garish, stadium-lit roller-skating rink, but unlike any we may see in the world above, for this rink was tiled with a material smoother than any quality of marble or varnished wood: twinks. Our metal-toed boots clanged as we approached, and upon this clamor, the twinks rolled around, alarmed, and like cats puffing their tails, they sprang their stiffnesses at us.

“Gentlewomen!” exclaimed the vile Franc’n’o from his throne of unsexiness. “You think that I’m greeting you to your faces, but in fact, I’m admiring your thighs!”

It was in this moment I knew that Franc’n’o had succeeded in becoming a Gay at last. And I mourned, my lords. I mourned the children unborn because Ben Whishaw and his cohort have made western Europe into a writhing accumulation of sexually ambiguous style magazine cover-shoots. I mourned that the poppy fields of yesteryear are become the pansy fields of today. And most of all, I sprayed three-in-one shampoo/conditioner/bodywash into Franc’n’o’s eyes, for this confuses the radar of the Homosexual.

Notwithstanding this, Franc’n’o pounced. And, like a quietly imposing youth who always sits alone at the bar and vanquishes toxic masculinity by making engaged straight men curious about bottoming, his fierce countenance froze me to the spot. But just when all hope seemed lost, there emerged a shot a pearly white from behind him, disintegrating the villain into innumerable molecules of coming-of-age movie nosebleeds.

At first, I could not make out the source of this blast through the shimmering dust of a thousand twinks vanishing back into the realm of the fae. But as they dissipated in the air, I saw him directly. He was a titan of a Man, impossibly contoured, possessing flawless bronze skin and a statuesque comportment. He had hair that no beauty appliance had homosexed, and yet it was both as firm and as silken as victory garlands. He beckoned Shag and me to him, and when he spoke in his engorging baritone, it was a language otherworldly and supreme, far too masculine to pass the lips of any mortal man.

Gesturing to me, he boomed, “У него толко сер��, но у меня большой молот.” And then, he turned toward a large set of doors, and we could only infer that he meant for us to follow. We passed into another long, dark hallway, which culminated in a yet larger portal which emitted an indescribable glow. “Зови меня капитаном подлодки, потому что я углубляюсь,” he spoke again and urged us inside.

We were blinded altogether, so bright was that interior. Droplets rose to Shag’s eyes and to my hardness. A voice still deeper, still richer, still more impossible accosted us. “Do not fear, my good Men,” it said. “This is my Son, whom mortals have met before. He returns to you rebranded as his true form, and his name is Panzer Dzheesaskrist.”

Dimly, I made out the irresistible figure who had addressed us. At once, all was clear. Such a vision met me, my indomitable brothers with extreme personal space, that I shall remember and love forever: it was God, the Manliest Man of all.

About the Author

The Reverend Admiral Willpower Butch, who recently topped the human race by releasing God from a pervert’s Scottish underground fetish athletic studio, is hard at work on his petition to remove fruit from public markets on the basis that it is gay propaganda. Paragon Shag, his brave correspondent and roommate, is coming out with a line of deconstructed cars to raise money for Brothers In The Comintern Have Enlarged Scrota, an anti-communist mission. Their secretary and Russian fairytale character who gets no dialogue, Dead Summer Days, is treading on thin f*cking ice with his decision to start wearing sweatpants.

#willpower butch #paragon shag #manly men! magazine #this one's kind of short #but at least it's finally finished

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elliot-orion · 3 years

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I know a lot of your main ships but are there are “minor” ones? Also, do you have any crack ships of your own characters? Like any that will NEVER be canon but you kinda ship them anyway?

for the other being duology, there’s Esmerelda and Hazel who are... kinda the only couple in the entire book because Nathan is ace aro, Doll doesn't have normal relationships, cole is a vegetable, and Creep is lonely. In the second book, people will probably ship Doll and Blake, and i semi do, but they have like. Hannibal and Will Graham kinda relationship, like ‘this isn't even remotely healthy but we are both extremely fucked up so who gives a damn’ sorta vibe. For crack ships i’ll be honest i really love Creep and Nathan, but not romantically, i’d just love them to be in a QPR (and who knows they might one day once Nathan stops being suicidal as shit) so i guess that’s crack?

in other stories... i ship Morty/Oliver/Ben so fuckin hard but Oliver refuses to be in a relationship but if he didn’t he 100% would no hesitations and morty and ben will be, at some point when they get their shit together so that’s not exactly crack...

Oh wait, i do have one crack ship that’s still not exactly crack level but whatever - Vincent and Kier. they are close friends by the end by having experienced the same vein of trauma tho not the same by a long shot, and they bond over that, and also Vincent’s one of the only people to speak up for Kier when Tempest and Stardust continue to exclude them. This is not really their fault admittedly, Kier’s extensive drug history has gotten them hurt and other people killed before so no exactly is mad that they have a hard time trusting Kier, but they are working on being sober and they need to try again, which Vincent argues for. They wouldn’t really be a good couple, Kier is a bit too, how do you say, violent, chaotic, and actually sorta insane for Vincent’s anxiety and need for stability and quiet, but still, kinda ship it a little. Kier does end up with Dinah, who helps them get sober, and i adore their dynamic so i’m not exactly itching to change the book of course. I swear the two are just like Dinah holding a very enraged poodle on a leash going ‘no we don’t torture him for looking at me weird. no Kier we don’t steal i don't care if it smells good. no Kier, if you try to get more drugs i will call your sponsor and she will ream you alive. now sit and tell me if my makeup looks ok. she first met them when they saved her from a hate crime and she took one look at them and said ‘you’re coming to my apartment and i’m making you pancakes, come on’ and Kier just went with it. Oh and Dusty’s brother Danny has a wife, Madison and they have a very cute daughter named Anna Grace who Dusty adores.

Thanks so much for the ask!!!!

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hippohead · 3 years

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I was recently tagged by the wonderful @jazziergin to list my top ten female characters and today I was tagged by the equally wonderful @anderhummel to list my top ten male characters so here they all are:

Also, wait - I am absolutely going to overthink this so bare with me. Also also feel free to ignore this as I will absolutely be rambling rather than listing.

1. Ann Perkins from Parks and Recreation. This slot is very easy to fill because she is my absolute favourite character, period. My whole heart belongs to her truly and if I could go back in time, I would go back to 2009 and let the Parks writers know that she’s a lesbian (someone let me do my Operation Ann re-write, PLEASE) 2. The next one is easy as well and it’s Leslie Knope, also from Parks and Recreation. Have I expressed how much Parks means to me? Anyway, ily to my favourite blonde steamroller xx 3. This is where I get stressed? I love so many women. Help. Okay I am going to say Abbi Abrams from Broad City because I am literally her and she is wonderful and fills my heart with happiness. 4. Can I say characters from novels or are we just doing shows? I am making up the rules and I say I can so: Anne Elliot from Persuasion by Jane Austen. i love u, u pining idiot, i do! 5. And continuing with making up the rules, I am going to do movies, too: Catherine Stewart of Cutie Pies from Amy Poehler’s film directorial debut, Wine Country (2019). If you haven’t already, watch this film and then agree with me that Cath & Tammy are in love and then read my fic about it 6 & 7. Okay the next two are both from Glee and I adore them: Mercedes Jones and Tina Cohen Chang. I wish we got more and I’m grateful for everything we were given 8 & 9. Paris Geller and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls. Paris falls into the same category as Ann in the sense that she, too, is a lesbian! or at least sapphic. ASP let me chat to you! And, I mean, Lauren Graham? Need I say more? 10. Last spot goes to Valencia Perez from Crazy Ex Girlfriend. Honestly I LOVE all the women on that show but Valencia has my heart the most (don’t worry Paula, ur right there too xx) and her s4 storyline? thank you to god (Rachel Bloom) for that amen

1. This spot belong to Kurt E. Hummel and as it should! God, I just adore him so much and I WILL get emotional if I get into it too much so I won’t but. he’s number one and that’s important. 2. I feel like a monster for not immediately putting Blaine but if I am being totally honest, number two spot belongs to Patrick Brewster in my heart. Watching Schitt’s Creek was such a special experience for me and meeting Patrick for the first time and watching his arc unfold was so very, very important to me. 3. Ok and NOW it is time for Kurt’s HUSBAND Blaine Devon Anderson. what a dummy! i love him so much! My relationship with is Blaine is this: Blaine is Mona-Lisa Saperstein saying, “I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life” and I am Dr. Saperstein saying, “I know this, and I love you” 4. For legal reasons, I have to put the ice clown himself, Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation, here because, like, are you kidding me? That man is the ONLY man. i love u calzone-boy xo 5. I keep splitting up the husbands and I’m so sorry but David Rose from Schitt’s Creek because he’s everything and also a mess and I love him. 6. WILL COOPER I LOVE YOU. Ok I almost forgot about Will for a hot sec but I take back what I said when I said that Ben Wyatt is the only man because there are two men and the second one is Will Cooper from Single Parents (rip to my little heart sitcom i miss you dearly every single day) 6. Mr. Darcy but SPECIFICALLY Colin Firth’s Darcy from the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. I would die for that man. 7. Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place for being a Hot Mess and relatable and listen,,, William Harper Jackson can Get It 8. I must not forget my moody diner-owner Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls. If I knew that man in real life I would simply have to shake some sense into him sometimes but alas, I cannot blame Luke for ASP’s downfalls and really what I must do is listen to my heart and my heart say ily Luke Danes. 9. I’m going to give this one to Burt Hummel because I love him. Everybody else was just playing around but Mike O’Malley was doing the most. 10. I’m running out of men so... Remus Lupin, because even though we don’t acknowledge the terf, this man has lived in my heart since the Prisoner of Azkaban book release and that’s special.

I... apologise. It’s just that when I’m given an opportunity to talk about something I love I tend to take it and run with it and, anyway, feel free to skim this or not read it at all. But here is some of my heart! I’m absolutely going to think of people I missed and stress (already: Xena! Donna Meagle! Katherine Mayfair!) but this was fun!

#about me #me vs rambling about the things i love #it's just that i love them SO MUCH

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ruthoakenshield · 4 years

Text

The Lady in the Black Leather (Ch 21)

Catch up here [chapter 20]

Aiden x Scarlett, Graham McTavish, Reader

You, Aiden & Scarlett visit for a while, then Graham shows up with a pretty bouquet of brightly colored daisies and mums with a big sunflower in the middle of it, and a tray with two coffee cups and a brown paper bag in the other hand. He had a ‘get well’ balloon also for you, which was tied to the vase of flowers.

You giggle and thank him for them. He grins and sets the flowers and balloon down on the windowsill next to the ones from Aiden and Scarlett.

He comes and gives you a little hug and kisses your forehead. “How’s my girl doin?” he asks.

You grin, “Don’t let Rich hear you say that!” you tease.

He grins, “Well, me and Gwen laid claim to ya before Rich did, so he’ll have to just deal with it.” He says cheekily, making you giggle. “So, how are ya doin?” he asks.

You shrug. “Tired, my leg hurts, and I’m hungry.” you reply and grin when he sets a bag on the table and hands you a french vanilla cappuccino from the tray.

“Well, breakfast is here now, so at least ya won’t be hungry anymore.” He chuckles. “Don’t they have ya on pain meds?” he asks you.

“Yeah, but I told the nurse I didn’t want them till I had some breakfast in me. I’ll get them in a bit.” You tell Graham.

Grinning, you dig into the bag, seeing pastries like what Todd has delivered each morning. You look up at Graham. “Where did you get these from? They look like the ones Todd has delivered each morning at the shop!” you ask.

He grins. “I got them from the pastry shop that he gets his from. They asked why his shop was closed and then saw the note Rich left on the door this morning. They said to tell ye and Todd that they wish ye both a speedy recovery!” he says with a smile

You grin and take a bite of a strawberry scone and let out a happy little groan. “I love these ones! These and the doughnuts with the icing and the strawberry or cherry fillings! OOOooohhh they are the BEST!” you giggle.

There’s a knock at the door and a young lady is standing at the door with two big bouquets of flowers. “Excuse me Miss, but are you Harley?” she asks.

You nod. “Yes.”

She comes in and tells you, “These are for you. Where would you like them?” She asks.

Your jaw drops. One bouquet is two dozen red and pink roses with baby’s breath and purple lavender filler. The other is a bouquet of 6 yellow roses, brightly colored fuji mums and daisies that were colored brightly with food coloring.

Scarlett gets up and takes the bouquet of red and pink roses. She sets it down on the table and looks for a card. “Aaahhh! Here it is!” she says and hands you the card.

You open it up and see it’s from Richard. “For the love of my life. You mean the world to me, Sweetheart. I hope these brighten your day. I’m thinking about you & know I love you more than anything in the universe! Xoxo – Rich”

You grin and show it to Graham, Aiden & Scarlett. They all smile, and Scarlett puts the card back on the plastic stand and Graham takes the bouquet and puts it on the windowsill next to the other ones.

The delivery gal hands Scarlett the other big bouquet and then heads out to do more deliveries after you thank her for bringing them up.

Scarlett digs around in the bouquet and finds another card. She hands it to you, and you open it up to see it is from the Police Department that Alex, Todd and Jack worked for. It said, “Heard what happened, wishing you a speedy recovery! Our thoughts and prayers are with you! – Inspector Kathleen Walsh & your friends at the NYPD 19th Precinct.”

You look at Graham and Scarlett in surprise. “The police department sent me flowers?” Graham chuckles. “Apparently so Sweetheart!”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Well, that was nice!” you state.

They all nod. Graham takes the flowers and puts them on the windowsill as well. “You’re getting quite the collection, Sweetie!” Scarlett teases you.

You grin. “They’re making my room smell nice, that’s for sure!” you say, grinning.

Your doctor knocks on the door casing and then steps in. He talks with you for a bit and checks the wounds on your leg after shooing everyone out into the hall.

He asks you about all the scars on your legs and you explain they go all the way up onto your crotch. You tell him that the ones on your legs were from your last three boyfriends you had before meeting Richard. And you tell him the ones on your crotch were from the ex-boyfriend, Ben, who shot you. You ask him to make a note of you telling him that to put in your medical file. That you don’t want anyone thinking it was Richard who gave you them. You explain you never had reported the abuse from your ex boyfriends because of fear since the ex-boyfriends had all threatened you that if you told they’d go after you and your family. He nods in understanding and makes a note of it in your file.

He tells you that he doesn’t want you walking on the leg for a few days, and that you may use the crutches ONLY to get from your bed to the restroom in your room and then back to your bed for now. You nod. He asks if you need any stronger pain meds and you shake your head.

“I’m due for them when the nurse comes back with them. I told her I wanted to wait to take them till I had some breakfast in me first.” You reply.

He nods and tells you he will check in with you tomorrow morning then and tells you to have a good day.

Your friends come back in after the Doctor leaves and they have another two bouquets. You roll your eyes and giggle. “Now who are these from?” you ask.

Graham sets a small oblong flowerpot on the table with Hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and crocuses on the table in front of you. You grin and take a deep breath. “Oooohhh! Those smell wonderful!!!” you pull the card off the flower pick and read it. It’s from Captain Angel L. Figueroa Jr. & the NYPD 1st precinct and says: “Wishing you a speedy recovery, Harley! Our thoughts and prayers are with you as you recover!”

“Awwww! That’s sweet!” you say and put the card back on the flower pick.

Scarlett takes the planter and puts in on the shelf by the sink so you can smell them when people open the door to enter and exit.

The other bouquet is pink and white stargazer lilies and hot pink roses and lighter pink carnations with some greens. You look at the card and see it’s from Lee Pace. It reads: “Wishing you a speedy recovery and hope you and Phantom are doing well.”

“Oh! Those smell lovely too! It’s gonna smell like a flower shop in here!’ you giggle.

Graham and Aiden chuckle and Graham adds the flowers to your collection on the windowsill.

Scarlett looks at the time and nudges Aiden, who glances up at the clock and sees they need to get going to the studios. “We gotta get going, Harley. I gotta film some scenes this afternoon, and Scarlett’s gonna go check on the shop for you and Todd.” He tells you.

They both give you a hug and tell you they will see you later on. You wave goodbye and they head out.

The nurse comes in with your pain meds. “Are you ready for your meds, Harley?”

You nod and she gives them to you. You down them with your water and she makes a note in your chart on the hospital’s computer. Then she heads out after seeing if you needed anything.

You look at Graham and say, “Now what do we do?”

He chuckles. “Well, what would you like to do?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. Graham, can you tell me about your family? I don’t even know their names, you said your wife told you to tell me ‘welcome to the family’.” You said. “You must’ve been telling her about me.”

He chuckled. “Aye, Lass, I told her ‘bout you. How I met you, and how I was tryin’ to hook ya up with Rich. She wanted to see what ya looked like, so I sent her the pics I took.” He explained. “Didn’t want her worrying if the Papparazzi snuck photos of us when we all do stuff together.

Scarlet told me your parents died a few years ago and I mentioned it to Gwen… It was her idea, actually, to ‘adopt’ you, so to speak.” He giggled. Gwen is my wife. Our two daughters are Hope and Honor.” He tells you, “Honor was born in 2006 and Hope was born in 2012.” He says beaming with pride. “I’ll show you pics of them later.” He says. “They live in New Zealand where we have a house.” He tells you.

You look at him surprised. “I thought you were from Scotland, though?” you ask.

He chuckles. “I am, Lass, but I’ve lived all over the world. We decided to settle in New Zealand, though, after living there while we filmed The Hobbit.” He explained.

“Oh! I saw a lot of the bonus features on my Extended Edition DVD’s of the Hobbit. It looks absolutely wonderful! It’s on my bucket list of places to visit someday.” You tell him with a big grin.

He chuckles, “Well, Lass. I’m sure Rich wouldn’t bat an eye taking you to come visit us there. He loved it there as much as we did and considered buying property there, but he’s so busy with filming and such, he said he’d rather wait till he got older and started to slow down with work.” Graham tells you.

“Graham?” you ask.

“Yeah, Sweetheart?” he replies.

“I want to do something special for Rich, but I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, so trying to find out what kinds of things he likes, I’m finding is rather difficult. Do you think you could help me?” you ask. “I know he likes chocolate ice cream, wine, legos and reading. But that’s about it.”

Graham chuckles. “Yeah, he is an introvert and shy, so whenever people ask him personal questions, he tends to shy away from them.” He tells you. He gives you a few ideas of things Richard would like and suggests to just be observant, “You’ll learn more about him from just observing and listening, than from anything else, Lass.

He’s moody and grumpy sometimes, but don’t let it get to you. It’s just how he gets into characters he portrays. He’ll often take them home with him and struggle to let ‘em go. Maybe having you around will help ‘im with that, Lass.” Graham tells you.

“There’s so much I don’t know about the film industry.” You sigh. “I’ve never seen how one is made from start to finish. He asked if I’d come with him when he travels for the promotional stuff for the film too. I’ve never traveled very much tho. He said something about finding out the details for taking Phantom with too, so I’d feel safe.” You tell Graham.

Graham grins. “It would be nice for him to have ye with, Lass. I know I’d enjoy having you with us. My wife and kids don’t travel much with me. It’s such a long flight from New Zealand to the US and Europe that they don’t make it very often to join me for premieres. It’s a whirlwind of a time, and is exhausting, but it’s a lot of fun too. You get to meet a lot of people and just sit back, relax and talk about the film with interviewers. If you do come with, we’ll be sure ya are well taken care of.” He tells you.

You giggle and grin. “Graham, did you get my dress from Aiden’s? Don’t let Rich know anything about the dress. I don’t want him to see it or see me in it until he picks me up for the event! I want it to be a surprise!” you tell him.

He gives you a positively evil smirk and says, “Your wish, is my command, Sweetie. And yes, I picked it up from Aiden’s last night before I headed home. It’s in my closet in my bedroom, which he won’t dare go into. Scarlett said I should hang it up so it wouldn’t crease the velvet.” He tells you. “I’ll take ye to go have it altered to fit ye when they let ye outta here.” He says.

You grin and happily clap your hands. “I can’t wait!

Graham chuckles and rubs his beard, thinking.

“Graham, do you ever do Skype or Zoom or FaceTime your family? You’re always saying I remind you of your daughters.” You tell him. “I thought it would be nice to say hi to them and talk with them and your wife, if it was okay with you. I don’t know how the time differences work between there and here though.” You mention to him.

He glances up at the clock and you can see him working out the time differences in his head.

“Well, Lass, it’s about 1am there right now. Well, if ya can wait till around 3 or 4 pm our time this afternoon which should be able to give them time to get up and get ready, then we can give them a zoom call, we’ll say “Hi” and I’ll introduce ya to them!” he tells you.

“For now, though, what do ya want to do?” he asks. Phantom comes over and sniffs all the flowers on the windowsill and ‘wuffs’ at them.

“What? Don’t you like all my pretty flowers, Phantom?” you ask. He chuffs and comes walking over to your bedside. Graham smiles and gives him a good scratch. “Do ya need to go outside, Boy?” he asks.

Phantom gives a short yip and Graham stands up. “I’ll go take him out to do his business, then we’ll be right back, Sweetheart. Did someone take him out last night or this morning?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe the officer had one of the nurses take Phantom out. You’d have to ask him.” You tell Graham.

He nods and clips the leash on Phantom after he adjusts the service jacket. They head out and Graham stops to talk with the officer. The officer tells him he had one of the nurses take Phantom outside when he needed to go to the bathroom, and she brought him right back up. He did say they played with the rope toy for a bit having a tug of war.

Graham chuckled. “All right. Well, we’ll be back in a bit.” He tells the officer.

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