#sometimes a lesbian lives in a haunted house so long that she becomes a haunted house ❤️ and that should always win

[oldfashionedmorphine]

(going with the theme of the other ask): Joyce/Karen

Alright hear me out for this one…

So I think they both are bi (though an argument can be made for Karen realizing later in life that she is actually a lesbian)—but for years are of the belief that “all women are beautiful, all women think this way, and wanting to be with a woman is totally normal you just don’t act on it because it’s a sin” and so while there were a couple heated moments in their youth, they never confront it—too scared and ashamed of the implications.

And they both wanted children, so they ultimately sought out relationships with men, and while they love their children, they never stopped thinking about the “what if…” of it all and at times their love lives were lacking…

Most especially Karen. She felt trapped for years in a loveless marriage, and that’s why she reads so many steamy romance novels—imaging scenarios with men who are too perfect to exist, but then one day she realizes sapphic romance novels exist too. She buys one at a bookstore along with a couple other books (a small effort to seem like it was an accident to the cashier) and she reads the hell out of that book, always picturing herself as the protagonist and Joyce as the love interest and it makes her crazy! She wishes that was her life, but she never tries to change it because she has to stay with her husband for Holly… but it also never helped that Joyce remained in her life because her daughter married Jonathan and her son has been in a long-term relationship with Will—Joyce is always there!! Reminding her at every holiday of what she really wanted… it just wasn’t fair. But once Holly turned 18 and went off to college, she finally filed for divorce. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her loveless marriage was keeping her from true happiness…

Joyce was always followed by a string of rotten luck, ever since she was young. It’s true that there’s a lot of choices she regrets, many missed opportunities, and what-ifs that haunted her every night right before bed, of course in the light of day she doesn’t have much time to dwell on it—she constantly has to focus on work work work to raise her two sons. Daydreams don’t pay the bills. Their deadbeat father (oh boy she can pick ‘em) was no help at all… but she found another guy eventually who seemed a decent fella, and she desperately wanted her boys to have a good father figure—she had them in mind and the guy was great, a little boring, but great—but then he died. And that really sucked. Because she was happy enough with how things were going. What other chance was she gonna get? But then she does. Her old crush from back in high school—sparks were flying and he sweeps her off her feet. And once again, she is sure it’ll be great because her kids still needed a father and she truly loves him, no regrets, for once things were finally going right for Joyce Maldonado… but nothing lasts forever and eventually he becomes ill, cancer, probably from all the chemicals from the war and her heart is broken to pieces when he dies too.

But Karen was there for her through it all—all the hospitalizations and all the treatments until the bitter end—she cooked her dinners, helped clean her house, gave her a shoulder to cry on—Karen did whatever she could to help Joyce because she didn’t want to see her suffering. Because she finally could admit after all these years that she had always loved Joyce. No more denial. And sometime later, once Joyce seemed to be more like herself again, no longer dwelling in the dark cave of her room and when she stopped calling her up on the phone in tears, Karen started to invite Joyce out for dinner, dancing, and the weekly night out at the movies, and then one night after having one too many drinks, she finally confesses her feelings… and Joyce reciprocates! Because she had feelings too—buried deep down below responsibility and expectations, but they were always there. They decide to move in together, eventually settling into a beach house, and spend the rest of their golden years as a couple, happy and fulfilled <3

#joyce x karen #joyren #maybe I thought too much about this idk

[stardustedknuckles]

It's bedtime and I'm being very sappy, but I just came across a joke that my ex taught me, way back when, and it was good to have a reason to think of her and smile.

There's a great nothing where we used to be, and I feel like I recall the broad strokes and the bad details whenever I think of her. Her trauma and my unassuming arrogance in trying to help her, the nights she wouldn't reply to my texts because she knew I would stay awake terrified she'd hurt herself, the way the only thing she knew how to do with someone who cared for her was to manipulate them just to feel in control of something, and all I knew to do when I knew someone was trying to be better, when they wanted to be good and wanted me, was to stay with them - more importantly, to never give up being wanted by someone I wanted in return.

But the bad is never the whole story. And it's not excusing the fucked up little ball of issues we made together, but we wouldn't have fought so hard for us without the good. And she did teach me jokes and I did get her to sleep at my house that one time, early on, and I smiled up at my ceiling feeling floaty and warm while she slept because I was safe enough to fall asleep around when nobody else was, and she tried as hard as she knew how no matter what anyone else said. Of course she sucked at it. Of course I should've stood up for myself, of course it shouldn't have gone on for as long as it did. Neither of us even knew we were together until it was over and didn't find out we were lesbians for another five years after the end.

But she brought me to her dorm before I ever really understood the risk she was opening herself up to by having someone in a small and empty room alone, I clearly remember the first time she touched me (head on my shoulder) after months of me being careful not to touch her lest she jump out of her skin or start trembling, the paint speckled up her arms the first day of our class together, and the way it felt to have earned every morsel of her stunted and spiky affection. The nights we lingered in my driveway after she got in her car to leave, the cramps in my muscles after leaning for so long and how bright the stars always looked for all of those extra, stolen minutes. Her body weight across my lap while I threaded my fingers through her fine, fine hair (which I could probably still find attached to something, somewhere, even after 8 years). It was like becoming friends with a feral cat and I got scratched plenty. It's much healthier to read about than to live, I promise.

But it's okay to acknowledge that our explosive and often terrible attempts to care for each other were rooted in the earnest attempt to be good to and for the other, whatever our personal reasons why. And sometimes, many times, certainly more as the years went on, we succeeded. There's still nobody I would rather haunt that town with. Those moments of joy snatched from two conflicting kinds of broken shine all the brighter for the confusing mess of hormones and feelings and pasts we snatched them from. How it felt to be safety for someone who had never known it, to feel that sense of purpose before I was old enough to really understand why that was such a problem. I could go on until the sun comes up, but that's okay. Maybe one day I will. But for now I read that dumb little joke and, just for a second, I can remember how she smelled and the way the light that filtered through the old library windows poured over us like beams of honeyed time unspooling around us, the way I rolled my eyes and tried not to laugh lest I break the hush of the third floor - the wicked pride in her eyes, the surprise in them at discovering how much she liked that she made me laugh... and the smile it brings to me isn't bittersweet anymore.

#I genuinely don't know how I'm going to manage being that open with anyone ever again #Or if that's even a goal I should have #But I'm glad I had those years #I'm glad we had each other #And I think true healing - not just processing - probably comes from being able to wrap myself in the good #Without apologizing to the cop in my head for enjoying anything about it #Because almost every single person I ever told about her said I was in an abusive relationship #And it took me a decade to understand that the fact she didn't mean it to be didn't mean it wasn't #And that it's still okay that I loved her so much #I'm not an idiot for it and I don't need to qualify it and say how much I know better now #It's okay to think back and just remember the good #Anyway if you read all that I have no idea why but there you go #Also yes she's where I got so much of spiky beau from #Especially those early pieces

[evielallemxnt]

"There are T W O types of secrets: those we hide from others ─ and those we hide from OURSELVES."

have you seen GENEVIEVE 'EVIE' LALLEMENT strolling around central park at lunchtime? rumor has it they’re actually A HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE years old, but i’m pretty sure they’re only TWENTY. they’re currently posing as a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR at LALLEMENT LAW, but when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to MANHATTAN by TOWN CAR. apparently they DID attend the met gala this season! @duskintro

* / CHARACTER INFLUENCES: Jake Peralta ( Brooklyn 99 ) + Veronica Mars ( Veronica Mars ) + Nancy Drew ( Nancy Drew ) + Claudia ( Interview With The Vampire ) + Rebekah Mikaelson ( The Originals )

* / ANTHEMS: PRETTY SAVAGE | YOU MADE A MONSTER | 7 RINGS

*** PENNED BY BRI FOR DUSKFELLHQ ***

FULL NAME: GENEVIEVE "EVIE" LALLEMENT

FACECLAIM: Savannah Lee Smith

AGE: 20 ( estimated @ time of changing ) physically | 135 mentally

SEXUALITY: Lesbian

PRONOUNS: She/her

POSITIVE: Intelligent, charming, loyal, brave.

NEUTRAL: Spontaneous, trustworthy, daring, cocky

NEGATIVE: Impulsive, self-destructive, snide, and Machiavellian.

ELEMENT: Fire.

MBTI TYPE: ENFJ.

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic neutral.

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin

AESTHETIC: Breakfast at Tiffany's, fine tailoring, diamonds and pearls and rubies, late-night bubble baths with red sangria, Chanel No.5, bubbly stocked fridge, penthouse parties, drinks @ The Blond, exclusive social club, wigs and disguises, sly smiles, bad decisions, midnight sleuthing, gossiping until dawn, closets filled with Birkins, eyes that hold secrets, smudged lip gloss, devilish temptations

TW: Death, dying, blood

* / BIOGRAPHY: The history of Genevieve Lallement is a tricky one. If you ask her, she became a creature of the night in some whirlwind fashioned tale filled with love, betrayal, and sacrifice -- all the makings of a heart-clenching closed shut story. But the reality? That's much more of a mystery.

Her genesis is one filled with darkness. No memories. No family. No nothing. The only solace coming in the form of her sire -- Cassius. He saved her from a fever that took many in late 19th century England and told her as much as he knew. That he had found her bedridden and sickly in a run-down isolation ward where patients were sent to die more than to be cured. Apparently, she had reminded him of a sister he’d once lost and he acted on an inner impulse to save an innocent. The staff had told him that she had admitted herself under what they proved to be an alias, so there was no way to notify family or even prove she existed.

She was a ghost. Alone in the world. And dying.

So, he gave her new life. Eternal life.

When she’d awakened from the transition, the ripe young vampire found herself unable to remember, well... anything. It was as if the transformation erased everything human about her, wiped her slate clean as she re-entered the world as someone else. Something else. Cassius said that vampirism isn’t a perfected process. There are some ailments that the immortal blood which now ran through her veins can’t heal. By the time he’d found her, her mind had already been overcome with the sickness that was moments away from snuffing her out completely. To drag her back from the depths of near-death, she had to lose some parts of herself along the way. There were some upsides, though. She clung to Cassius like a newborn, and he grew to coddle her as if she were his own. Being inducted into the Lallement family allowed her to see a world that was previously unattainable as a mortal having had come from the dregs of England. He’d brought her to New York at the turn of the century, and it was a sight to behold as she realized…this was HOME.

As the decades passed, the new Lallement glided through life. The adjustment to vampirism wasn’t as hard as it probably was for others. Sure, she had her hiccups, but it was almost as if the lack of memories helped. There was no other way of living for her to remember or to acclimate from. In some ways, there was no true loss. Her new family filled the voids ( even helped her pick out a new name ‘GENEVIEVE” ) showered her with endless love ─ and the bloodlust helped pick up the slack. For a while. As an immortal, it is easy to become distracted by the power, privilege, and play that is now bestowed upon you. But eventually, the semblance of loneliness and eternity creep in. For Evie, it was plaguing thoughts of the unknown that haunted her. Did she have a family when Cas took her away? Did they look for her? Mourn her? Soon all she could think of was the possibility that they somehow survived the plague and managed to continue on. This led her to try to trace their footsteps back to the town Cassius found her in to look for anything, any semblance of a clue that pointed to her previous human existence. Only for Evie to be faced with the harsh reality that the one hospital in town, the very town she’d believed herself to have been raised in, had burned down not long after they’d fled. Along with the patient records. Any possibility of tracing back her roots had been destroyed in a reckless accident and something in Evie c r a c k ed. Never again to be fully healed.

But if anything, she’s a survivor. Evie turned her sadness into something productive, going on to study criminology and criminal justice in the ’70s and '80s, along with a myriad of other majors she probably got too distracted to finish. Evie figured, if she couldn’t figure out the mystery of her own life, then the least she could do is help others figure out the mysteries in theirs. Becoming a private investigator sort of just happened, but it soon became her life’s joy. Piecing things together, going on recon missions, and doling out the truth was something that Evie not only excelled at but truly found fulfilling. At least ─ during the day. When the sun goes down, she resorts back to her party-girl ways, needing to find some sort of entertainment as a method to keep herself distracted. Because, you see, the only thing Evie hates most in the world is being by her lonesome. It leaves time for that inner sadness and loss to come creeping back in, to remind her that there’s nothing in the world to truly call her own. That the Lallement name is a placeholder for the truth. And that’s the one truth she cannot face.

So, she parties, boozes, pushes the limit because she has none, and there is always a need for M O R E. Because boredom is never on the menu. And when the town car arrives eventually to take her back to Manhattan, merely a few hours before she must be up for work, Evie revels in the few minutes of silence and thinks ─

‘Another day down. Only an eternity to go.’

* / PERSONALITY: Evie is, more than anything, fun. She likes to have a good time and to look good while doing it. Sure, her deviousness occasionally gets her into more trouble than intended, and in some ways, her childlike need to be paid attention to can be exhausting to people, but she is not all play. Evie truly enjoys being an investigator and will isolate herself for days, weeks even, if that means cracking a case. Her job and lifestyle have been carefully cultivated to always keep her busy so the facade can stick. No one knows about her growing concerns with the idea of unlimited time or the feeling of wanting a connection with someone -- anyone. Evie doesn't really give into supernatural politics or bias, and her ruthless side only comes out when hangry or when you threaten someone she loves. Then it's all-out chaos.

* / FUN FACTS:

She's gone to college several times and has studied many things but only holds a degree in Criminology and Interior Design

Currently paying a witch to figure out a way for vampires to get tattoos

Obsessed with all things horror and true crime

Officially identified as a lesbian in the late '60s

Has two poodles named Khaleesi and Drogon

Manhattan PD knows her by name

* / WANTED CONNECTIONS:

SCOOBY GANG/HARDY BOYS/7 RINGS - These are her people, her confidantes, her ride or dies. Can be supernatural or human, mortal or immortal. Whether they met decades ago or the night before, tipsy, in the Cosmopolitan bathrooms, they instantly clicked and have been loyal to each other ever since.

ROOMMATE(S) - Evie lives in one of the many ritzy buildings Manhattan has to offer. While having an entire floor to yourself has its benefits, it can feel quite isolating. So, the vampire opened up her doors to allow in some roommates -- free of charge!

ASSISTANT - As a private investigator, sometimes certain cases can become quite tedious. While her work rarely ventures away from mild cases Cassius needs help with, Evie does also take cases from anyone who needs help. Keeping everything organized, going with her on recon, and even offering their own input and theories is what they provide for her.

PLAYTHING - Now Evie isn't evil, she doesn't play with people's emotions ( at least not intentionally ) but she does indulge in the power and influence that comes with vampirism. Not only would this person be someone to go to for the occasional midnight snack ( where they're the snack sowz ), Evie would also indulge in their life. Making sure they're well taken care of, listening to the things they're going through, and being there for them whenever they need her.

FOES/ENEMIES - When you live forever you might make an enemy or three. Evie has ruffled a few feathers over the past century, that's for sure, and she has no problem continually poking the bear if she finds herself bored enough to do so.

also: literally anything else pls plot with me i'll send you kit kats and a coupon for a free taco.

#dusk:intro #i am: tired #but this was so much fun to do #come plot with my bby!

[crayonurchin]

The whole reason Solo went to the circus is because their eldest sister finally had enough and rehomed all the siblings the best way a 17 year old girl could. Most went to fire stations, a few into apprenticeships, Solo went to the circus, but their twin was a bit different.

Breeze as a little kid was the shyest, most anxious thing on earth who could hardly bare to be away from your side for a minute. So, Sunset put her in a shopping centre, told her to wait on the chair for a few minutes, then went to security and ‘reported a missing little kid’ then left. Breeze was found by security, a call was put out, and when nobody claimed her, police and social services were called.

The event was traumatic for Breeze, who was very co-dependant on her twin and had horrid separation anxiety. Luckily, once it was coaxed out how she had been living, she was placed into a foster home for very badly treated children. Of all the siblings rehomed, Breeze was the only one who's rehoming came with therapy.

Her foster parents were two social workers, Li-Na and Li-Jie, an older couple who were specialised in childcare, child psychology, trauma therapy and a slew of other credentials. Their job was to take care of the severe abuse cases, things like csa, torture, abandonment etc, give them a safe home for as long as was needed, and help them process their trauma before going on to another home or growing out of the system. So Breeze fit right in.

Despite all the resources, Breeze took years to settle in. She ran away countless times, desperate to find her twin or sisters and brothers. She was terrified of all the new people, hated being inside so much, was haunted by nightmares of being abandoned.

Li-Na and Li-Jie helped her write all the things she wanted from her twin. They got her a little tent so she could be outside as much as was safe. At night, they helped make her ‘safety spots’ with baby monitors, so if she felt alone, she could use the monitor to see Li-Na and Li-Jie were still in their bedroom, just down the hall.

When Breeze was 6, she began expressing a distaste for boys clothing, and wanted to wear for feminine things. By the time she was 9, her pronouns were set in stone, her wardrobe exactly as she wanted, and her name, though not changed, had a different feel in her mouth- and it felt different when her foster parents said it. She had a birthday party all bug type Pokemon themed.

A few days later, Li-Na and Li-Jie asked if she’d like to be adopted by them. They had one son who was an adult and moved out, and no other adopted children. All their foster kids were their kids, but Breeze was not one they ever wanted to lose. And, since it was becoming very clear that Breeze had nobody else to care for her, and that her need for stability was crucial to her mental state, it was settled.

Now Breeze is 17. She’s finishing her a-level exams, and is looking at universities near by to pursue a degree in entomology. She’s a tall, proud lesbian trans girl, who’s confident, cool, incredibly mature and self sufficient. She still likes hanging with her parents more than anything, and loves to be a part of caring for the foster kids. She sees them all like endless little siblings, and delights in teaching them how this big house works. She has a few friends, though none incredibly close, and it does make her lonely sometimes. She still craves her twin like a fish craves water, but she’s trying to make peace with never seeing them again. It just feels so unlikely.

Now.

There is a chance.

In some timeline.

That Li-Na and Li-Jie get a call for a serious abuse case. A runaway teenager with a child confirmed to be their own offspring, with very clear signs of CSA and physical abuse spanning at least a decade.

And it could be possible someone connects the dots that even though Breeze has been on oestrogen since she was 12, they both look very similar.

But also, let’s say, you’re character has had to run away.

They might just end up in a home for hurt children, run by two incredibly short and incredible kind, empathetic social workers, and their giagantic bug loving daughter.

#character discussion #very randomly felt like writing about breeze #she's fun #and her adoptive parents are fun too! #li-na and li-jie #social workers who take on severe abuse cases and foster the kids for short-longterm periods #except breeze #who they had for about 5 years before going MMMMMM KEEPING THIS ONE #OUR DAUGHTER FOREVER NOW #all their fosters are 'their kids' #but nobody is allowed to take breeze away #she's theirs #5'2 and 5'5 Chinese couple #6'3 daughter with a mohawk #it's great

[theradioghost]

Do you have any podcast recs that are super easy for those of us with audio processing problems? For me specifically that means one voice (or maybe two if they’re very distinct) and minimal complexity in the soundscaping, though if you have recs that don’t fit those that you think might apply to other people w/ different audio processing issues you can talk about those too! :)

I can certainly try! I feel as though I should put it out there that I often have a difficult time gauging where a podcast sits re: audio processing/HOH listeners; the literal entirety of my day job is being good at telling what people are saying in audio, and my own audio processing problems mostly just result in my near-inability to keep up with actual plays, so if any of these are misjudgements on those terms I apologize in advance.

* means that I know there are also transcripts available for the podcast in question!

SAYER: scifi dark comedy/horror. In a morally questionable tech corporation’s moonbase facilities, advanced artificial intelligence SAYER directs employees about their daily routines; this then turns over time into possibly the best story about AI I’ve ever heard. Especially in the first three seasons, virtually all speaking is done by one voice. (Caveat that a few other characters come in later, and they’re actually all voiced by one guy with different filters, but the filters are pretty distinct and characters tend to identify themselves by default at the beginning of every conversation.)

*The Cryptonaturalist: comforting supernatural folksiness. The titular expert on all things strange and wonderful reads poetry, admires nature, and talks about wonderful creatures like foxes that live within library shelves, stick insects that camouflage themselves as whole trees, salamanders that swim in parking lot asphalt, and Owls.

*The Hidden Almanac: comforting supernatural weirdness. Hagiographer, avid gardener, and Mysterious Dude In Plague Doctor Getup known as Reverend Mord gives tidbits of the history of his strange and fantastical world, along with gardening advice. Sometimes his tequila-swigging accidental necromancer best friend coworker Pastor Drom shows up. Written by fantasy author Ursula Vernon and mostly voiced by her husband Kevin. Extremely relaxing to listen to; the show ended last year but they put out five-minute episodes three times a week for eight years so there’s plenty of it. The first year or so actually doesn’t appear on most podcatchers so maybe check out the website.

Everything Is Alive: poignant, heartfelt interviews with inanimate objects. While there’s a different object featured each episode, it’s mostly just them and the interviewer, plus occasional phone calls with an expert on some subject brought up during the interview. Hits so much harder than you could possibly imagine given the summary. You WILL be upset about a can of off-brand cola.

*Quid Pro Euro: bizarre comedy mockumentary. A satire of the European Union in the style of a set of instructional tapes for EU employees made in the ‘90s, predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. Their predictions are somewhat off. Only one voice and delightfully it is Felix Trench. I don’t know anything about the EU but I still think it’s hilarious.

*Glasgow Ghost Stories: spooky supernatural. A resident of Glasgow is unexpectedly able to see the many ghosts that reside in the city -- but the ghosts have started to notice her too, and not all of them are friendly. A beautiful and atmospheric single-voice show; plus the feed also contains the very good miniseries Tracks.

*Palimpsest: poetic and haunting. An anthology series about young women experiencing supernatural happenings, each 10-episode season tells a different story in monologue (I think there are literally two episodes with other voices in them). Poignant, gorgeous, and sometimes heartbreakingly sad in the best way. In season one Anneliese wonders about the strange neighbors at her new apartment. In season two, Ellen takes a new job as companion to a supposed fairy princess imprisoned in a strange showroom in turn of the century America. In season three, former codebreaker Josie begins to see the spirits of the dead on the streets of London during the Blitz.

*Within the Wires: alternate history scifi found footage. From a world where a calamitous global war resulted in the installation of a new Society where nations and family ties are banned, an anthology of voices telling their stories. Each season is a single voice. Season one, a set of relaxation tapes deliver unexpected instructions to a government prisoner in a strange medical facility. In sSeason two, a series of museum exhibit guides spin out the mystery of two artists and their work. In season three, a government employee dictates notes to his secretary and begins to suspect a plot. In season four, the traveling leader of a secretive cultlike commune leaves sermons for her followers, and instructions for her daughter.

*Alice Isn’t Dead: lesbian americana roadtrip weird horror. Keisha’s wife Alice was missing, presumed dead. Now Keisha is a trucker, traveling the vast American emptiness to seek her out; but she’s about to become embroiled in the same vast secret war that may have drawn away her wife, and she’s not alone on the roads. Starts with one voice, adds a new one each season for a total of three. Also is finished.

*Station Blue: psychological horror. Matthew takes a job as the lone caretaker of an Antarctic research station for several months. This goes about as well as you’d predict. Very much a slow burn, strange, brooding horror of isolation. Heavy themes of mental illness based on the creator’s experiences of bipolar disorder. 

*Mabel: dark, poetic faerietale horror. Live-in caretaker Anna attempts to contact the absent granddaughter of her elderly employer, the lone resident of a strange and ancient house in Ireland. A love story, a haunted house story, a fairy tale with teeth. This one might be hit or miss; it sometimes tends to the abstract a bit, and there’s more soundscaping and some other occasional voices besides the main two protagonists. Definitely worth trying out, though, this is absolutely an underappreciated gem.

*Janus Descending: tragic scifi horror. Two researchers, Peter and Chell, travel alone to a distant planet to survey the ruins of its extinct civilization. Unfortunately, they discover exactly how that civilization died out. Excellent if you like movies like Alien, and also being extremely sad. Only two voices. Really unique story structure: it’s told via the two protagonists’ logs of the events, but you hear Chell’s logs in order, and Peter’s logs in reverse, with their perspectives alternating. The result is a tragedy where technically you know the ending from the start, but it’s told so cleverly that just what happened and how remains a tantalizing, tense, heartbreaking mystery right until the end.

*I Am In Eskew: poetic, surreal horror. Only two voices and few sound effects. David is a man trapped in the twisting, malevolent city of Eskew, where the rain always falls, streets seem to lead the same way twice, and nothing can be trusted. Riyo is an investigator, making her way through rumors and questions in search of a man long missing and a place that seems not to exist. Maybe my favorite horror media ever? Deeply disturbing and yet even the most awful things are somehow beautiful. Like if Lynch, Escher and Mieville had a terrible, wonderful baby.

*Tides: contemplative hard scifi. When biologist Dr. Eurus is wrecked alone on a distant alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces, her struggle to survive also becomes a meditative exploration of the ecosystem around her, and a recognition that here, she is the alien. Mostly it’s Dr. Eurus; sometimes you hear from her coworkers. It’s got Julia Schifini, what’s not to love?

*Midnight Radio: ghost story/romance. A 1950s radio host who broadcasts a late-night show to her small hometown begins to receive letters from a listener and respond to them on air. I wrote this! It has a total of three voice actors and virtually no soundscaping. I promise it’s good.

#podcast recs #bobbie recommends things #I hope this is useful!! #Anonymous #asks #my posts

[morningsound15]

The Wedding: A Sombre Affair

Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, Theodora “Theo” Crain & Jamie

Rating: G

Word Count: 2,753. Complete.

just a little Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor crossover because it wouldn’t leave my brain! enjoy the drabble

.

Jamie takes a long sip of her whiskey. She hopes it will calm her shaking hands, but they shake all the time, now. Whether she’s sober or not. Age or arthritis or exhaustion catching up with her. It’s hard to say which. All she knows is her joints are stiff and her hands shake.

She rests her head on the cool wood of the mantle, taking a moment to breathe in the silence. The story always takes a lot out of her. She’s perfected its telling over the past few decades, carefully working the cadence of her voice, getting the pacing just-so, drawing out the people in her memories until they’re actual characters, realized and lovely and full of life. She tries to be kind to them, in her retelling. She tries to think of them sympathetically, as all people deserve to be thought of, but she knows that some of her embellishments are too liberal to be fully believable.

Even so, all good ghost stories need some embellishment.

She’s just not sure which parts are real and which are embellishment anymore.

It’s hard to even know how many of her memories are truly hers. Bly Manor feels a hundred lifetimes ago, and with every passing year it feels further and further still. Slipping out of her grasp like the sands of time through her fingertips. It’s a feature of the mysterious house that the memories caught within are destined to wither and fade — to wash away smooth, like rough stone at the bottom of a lake. That’s part of why she tells the story as often as she does. She needs to preserve the memory of Bly and the ghosts within.

That’s all ghosts are, really. Just memories the living refuse to let go of.

It’s a small comfort that Miles and Flora don’t remember much of their childhood at Bly Manor. Children aren’t meant to live through terrible things. The ghosts have long left them behind, and unburdened they have become lovely young people, vibrant and full of life. Flora is married now, and she made a truly beautiful bride. Jamie spins the ring on her finger, thinking of her own marriage-that-wasn’t. It’s not a melancholy memory, not anymore. She once was overcome with sadness and grief over her own loss, the future that was stolen from her, the forever happiness she could once taste on the tip of her tongue, but that feeling has long since faded. She is an old woman now, too old to be overcome with such sadness.

Still, weddings are something of a sombre affair.

“Your story was wonderful,” a voice says behind her, and Jamie straightens, subtly wiping at the moisture in the corner of her eyes.

She turns to see a young woman behind her. She looks strangely familiar, though Jamie is certain they’ve never met. Her hair hangs in loose waves, the dark blue of her dress contrasting with her pale skin. Her face is angular and her eyes are a cutting pale green, so light they’re almost blue.

It’s her eyes that are so shocking. They knock the breath out of her. Jamie stares at the woman for a long moment, unable to speak. Dani’s eyes had been almost exactly the same colour (when they had been her eyes alone, when they had been hers and not Hers).

The woman must see the hesitance on her face. She holds a hand out. She’s wearing a pair of long evening gloves, silk. They go all the way past her elbows. A curious look, for a wedding that isn’t black-tie.

Jamie’s always had a preternatural ability to tell when a woman is gay. She knew Dani was interested in her the moment their eyes met. It had been a dangerous feeling, electric and sharp up through her spine. She ignored it for as long as she could, but Dani was a magnetic presence; not easily ignored.

“Theodora,” the woman says when Jamie takes her hand. “My friends call me Theo.”

Jamie knows as soon as she shakes this woman’s hand that she’s a lesbian. Call it intuition, call it perception. Either way, it relaxes her. She’s long grown tired of explaining her bachelordom to well-meaning young straight women who see her refusal to re-marry as petrifying as a death-sentence. As if to be unloved for a moment is to be wholly miserable. As if there is nothing more terrifying than being an old woman with no partner to hold her at night.

(They misunderstand her. They think that being single means she is unloved. She isn’t. She’s been loved wholly and completely, all-consuming and never-ending, since she was a young woman. She’s never doubted it for a moment.)

(Sometimes she feels arms wrap around her in her sleep. In her dreams she is warm and loved. She feels the presence of another human being in her bed, feels warm breath on the back of her neck. It’s always gone by the time she wakes up, but she chases that feeling, longs for it every time she closes her eyes.)

(She looks for her in the mirror, in the bath, in the silver chrome of napkin dispensers, the dark emptiness of a dormant television, in her makeup compact. No one else ever looks back, no one but her own face.)

“Nice to meet you, Theo.”

She finds young queer women particularly interesting. Sometimes, though not often, she allows herself to think of what her life might have been like, had she and Dani been born a few decades later, had they come of age in a world more prone to acceptance and open-mindedness than the stifling environment they lived in. She doesn’t think about it often — it’s a sad thought, not worth dwelling upon. Besides, she wouldn’t trade their time together for anything. It was perfect, exactly as it was, exactly when it was. It’s not worth thinking of might-have-beens.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Theo says, looking a little uncomfortable. She stares at Jamie intently, as if studying her. As if looking for something hidden in her face. She wonders if she looks as familiar to Theo as Theo does to her. She wonders if that means anything, or if it’s just another occurrence in a life of strange occurrences. A remarkable coincidence of mutual and impossible recognition.

“Are you with the bride’s family?” Jamie doesn’t recognize her, but then again she’s not particularly close to the Wingraves anymore. Not enough to keep track of their extended friends and family.

But Theo shakes her head. “The groom. Old family friends. My sister is getting married next year. John’s going to be in the wedding party.”

“Ah.” The silence between them is awkward. Jamie doesn’t know what to say, nor how to politely excuse herself. “Lovely service, wasn’t it?”

Theo nods. “Very sweet. Short.”

“Yes, short is usually better, as these things go.”

Jamie looks down at her empty whiskey glass and longs for a top off. The reception isn’t even halfway done, and she’s already fulfilled her role as ‘Elder Relative Storyteller’ for the evening. She has nothing left to do but linger until it’s appropriate for her to slip off on her own.

She much prefers being alone these days. Other people are challenging for her, difficult to trust. They find her difficult to understand. Best to be avoided altogether.

“Can I help you with something?” Jamie asks when Theo still doesn’t speak. “You look like you have something on your mind.”

“Can I ask…?” Theo clears her throat, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s about your story. The gardener.”

Jamie swallows the wavering smile and keeps her expression neutral. “Of course. What did you want to know?”

“Why did she stay with the au pair? She knew their love was doomed, but she stayed with her all those years. Why?”

Jamie’s smile is tiny, but she can’t help its presence. Thinking of Dani always makes her smile. Even when it’s tinged with sadness. “The gardener knew that she wouldn’t be able to have the au pair with her forever. But love and possession are opposites. Loving her was never about having her.”

“But the au pair’s spirit never returned. She left the gardener alone. She could have taken her in the lake; they could have been together forever. Isn’t that… isn’t that what they both would have wanted?”

“To truly love another person is to accept the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them,” she says, repeating Owen’s words from a night ago. It is a lovely summation of her own life, though it’s painful to hear. “Dead is not gone.”

Theo takes a shaky breath. She closes her eyes.

Theo has a haunted look to her. Jamie wonders if she has ghosts of her own, hiding somewhere just out of sight. Occasionally she meets others like her; people with histories long-buried, with ghosts lingering in the closet. People who have lost too much too young, who have death sticking to their souls like an unescapable shadow.

She wonders if that’s why Theo sought her out. Those who have been touched by spirits have a certain sadness to them. Prolonged contact with the dead has that effect.

“It really was a lovely story,” Theo says again. Her eyes are wide, kinder now. They shine with something. Jamie wouldn’t call it tears. Maybe ‘melancholy’.

“Just an old wives’ tale,” Jamie dismisses. “Something to set the mood. Weddings have a way of making a person think of her own mortality. And it’s an old house. Old houses deserve ghost stories.”

“Is that all it is? A ghost story?”

Jamie’s lips twitch. “I always thought so. Flora disagrees.”

“Flora?”

She shakes herself. She keeps forgetting. “The bride,” she explains. “When she was a girl we called her Flora. The nickname lingers, though she doesn’t respond to it anymore.”

“She didn’t like your ghost story?”

“She didn’t think it was a ghost story at all. She said it was a love story.”

“Same thing, really,” Theo whispers, and Jamie sucks in a quiet breath.

“Yes. I suppose so.”

Theo continues to stare at her, and it’s getting a little unnerving. She regards Jamie with a gaze that is unblinking and fixed. She traces the lines in Jamie’s face, the grey of her hair, the veins on the backs of her hands. It would be uncomfortable, or maybe erotic, except there is nothing like desire in the woman’s gaze; nothing that says she’s interested in what she’s seeing. More like she’s troubled by it. Or disappointed.

“You still have something on your mind, Theo,” Jamie says kindly. People, like ghosts, have a tendency to linger as long as their business is unfinished. She doubts she’ll have a moment of peace tonight until Theo decides that her curiosity has been tempered. “And I’m beginning to doubt it has anything to do with my ghost story.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to stare. You… look like someone I used to know. And I thought…” She looks down at her own hands, encased in black silk. She pulls at the fingers of her right hand glove, one by one freeing the digits from their confinement.

Jamie watches her carefully. Theo flexes her fingers and holds her hand out again.

Jamie doesn’t know what makes her want to take the woman’s hand. She knows with a settling finality that she’s going to; there are some things that are destined, even tiny moments such as this. And she’s long believed in destiny.

She still hesitates for a moment. She’s not sure what’s going to happen when their skin meets, but the way Theo looks at her makes her think it’s not something she wants to find out. That only makes her more curious.

It’s been a long time since she sought out physical contact. It had been too difficult after Dani. No one else ever touched her the way Dani had, and no one ever could. She used to wonder what she would have done if she’d been able to touch Dani one more time. She hadn’t been able to swim low enough. The Lake was too deep, or Dani hadn’t wanted her to. She’s not sure if those are different things. She’d reached out, longed for Dani to take her in her arms once more and hold tight and never let her go. She’d wondered if Dani’s skin would have been warm or cool to the touch, and which would have been worse — knowing she’d only just missed saving her, or knowing that she’d been taken long ago, and there was nothing in her power that could have saved her from the Lady of the Lake.

Theo doesn’t prod her. Jamie takes her hand of her own volition.

She’s not sure what she expected. Something electric. Some shifting of the world, a re-focusing of spiritual energy maybe. Maybe an apparition appearing behind her eyes, a chill down her spine. The presence of something or someone long-dormant, exploding into being.

The touch is unremarkable. Theo’s hands are soft and warm. Her gloves have kept her skin baby smooth. She holds Jamie’s hand more softly than when they shook earlier, and Jamie looks at where their hands touch, her older sun-damaged skin standing in stark contrast to the perfect youth in front of her.

Something settles in her stomach. It’s not a feeling she can describe, but it settles and when she looks at her hands again they’ve stopped trembling.

Curious.

“The gardener really loved her,” Theo says quietly, her hand still soft in Jamie’s. And Jamie nods, unable to speak.

“The au pair… she loved the gardener, too. That’s why she left her. By leaving she knew she was leaving her true love, too. But… she had to.” Jamie blinks. “If she stayed she was risking them both. And Dani would never risk that. She couldn’t risk you.”

Jamie’s knees buckle underneath her. She drops Theo’s hand as if burned and takes a few stumbling steps back. Her glass slips from her trembling fingertips and it shatters against the floor.

Theo recoils, quickly slipping her hand back into her glove. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, casting her eyes about wildly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

“Who are you?” Jamie whispers. She knows this woman’s face. She’s seen it before, somewhere long-ago… in her dream, or in the shivering surface of a warm bath, or at the bottom of a frigid, misty lake…

“Aunt Jamie!” Miles catches her elbow, steadying her. Jamie blinks, his face swimming in front of her eyes for a few moments before it sharpens. “Are you alright?” He looks towards a nearby waiter. “Come clean this glass up!” he snaps. “Someone could get hurt.”

He leads her gingerly to a nearby couch, despite her protestations. “I’m fine,” she promises. “Just a bit too much to drink. This old house is drafty. I’m fine, I promise.” Still, he doesn’t leave her side until she’s had some water and bread, until her heart rate has slowed and the band resumes playing.

The strange woman in the gloves has long-since vanished, and though Jamie looks for her for the rest of the night, she never sees her again.

.

.

She falls asleep in her room later, and it is a fitful sleep. She curls up on an armchair, uncomfortable and cold, but she prefers to sleep this way. The discomfort prevents her from sinking into a too-deep sleep. It means she is perpetually unrested, but she’s gotten used to the exhaustion. The alternative — that she will sleep through the night, sleep through a visitor, any attempted contact… it’s not something she is willing to risk.

It’s a fitful sleep, full of fitful dreams. Smoky haze and icy water. Dani is there, or maybe she isn’t, and a woman she knows but cannot see, a woman with wavy brown hair and long slender fingers who reaches for her, reaching out out out—

A warmth settles over her, so slowly she doesn’t even notice it. Her dream grows restful again, her breathing steadies. She sleeps as if on the softest bed, wrapped in the warmest blanket. Her mind is empty of all worries. She sees Dani closer now, sharper. Her smile and her smell, her eyes brilliantly blue and all hers, all her.

Jamie smiles in her sleep. The hand on her shoulder tightens. The calm settles over the hotel room, just a woman and her memories, a woman and her ghost.

#dani x jamie #theo crain #the haunting of hill house #the haunting of bly manor #a crossover because i couldn't stop thinking about it #canon compliant #fanfiction #mine

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting! 

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet. 

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy 

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

 Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????) 

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST? 

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot? 

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder: 

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining) 

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

[icariamusing]

CHARACTER BASICS

FACECLAIM: Naomi Scott

NAME: Chloe Vara

AGE: 27

BIRTHDAY: September 30, 1993

OCCUPATION: Event Coordinator at Icaria Hall / Freelance Party Planner

HOMETOWN: Hounslow, London, United Kingdom

PETS: N/A (to her dismay)

POWERS

Localized temperature control, as well as growing or lessening of fire, but is incapable of extinguishing it using her abilities. Her powers emanate from her hands (although the temperature change does not necessarily need to remain where her hands are), so she has trouble if her hands are restrained. Process is relatively slow, but well-controlled. It does not fluctuate based on her emotions, but she may absently alter temperature to suit her comfort level. She can easily regular temperature between around 0 and 50 Celsius, but she can go much higher without a fire present she focuses. While she has a higher than average threshold for comfort in heat than most people, it doesn’t give her resistance to burns.

BIOGRAPHY

Chloe’s father was genuinely good friends with the goddess Hestia for four years before she brought him a baby. Seeing as Daniel Vara, a gay twenty-four year old man, had absolutely no expectations of having a baby, he was thrown face first into fatherhood. Luckily, his favorite sister Dani (naming wasn’t their parents’ strong point) and their two best friends all pitched in to raise baby Chloe in the house they shared. She was an sweet and outgoing child, but not good at keeping secrets. Her parentage was an open secret among the greater Vara family, but she did not grow up knowing of any other demigods.

Growing up with a gay father, an aro/ace aunt, and a bisexual surrogate aunt, Chloe did not have trouble coming to terms with her sexuality at twelve. Until deciding that she was a lesbian, she had proclaimed herself ‘too busy’ for romance. Her home was always welcoming, but the rest of her (very large) family did not always embrace difference. It helped that her wing of the family was focused on ‘assimilation’. It also helped that Daniel was always Chloe’s grandfather’s favorite child, and Chloe took after her father. Chloe got along well with most of her cousins, and appreciated that the majority lived nearby. In the extended Vara family, favorite cousins would remain close well into adulthood, so Chloe even got to know her grandparents’ cousins well- including her third cousin Nikhil.

Chloe enjoyed a loving but formal relationship with her mother. For one thing, she insisted of her own accord on only calling Hestia “Mother” rather than a more familiar term. Her mother would visit not infrequently- in excess of once a year- and would sometimes stay for days. She taught Chloe to become very comfortable with her powers and see them as a useful extension of herself rather than some kind of weapon. They baked together and Chloe relished the hours that they spent alone in the morning before most others were awake. It was always clear to Chloe that Hestia cared deeply for her daughter, but also for her father Daniel. She did not think there was anything romantic whatsoever on either side, but Hestia genuinely seemed to be good friends with Daniel. When Chloe had the chance to speak with other demigods, she came to the conclusion that her suspicions were correct of this being incredibly unusual. Her mother popped up now and again once she moved to Icaria, but typically only around parents’ week. She never felt anything but warmth and love from her mother, but Chloe did wonder if the decline in visits came from her being an adult or because of the lack of her dad’s presence.

The pain Chloe felt after moving to Icaria was almost palpable. Being away from her family (particularly her dad) hurt so much, and the only time she saw them in person was during the rare opportunities that parents were allowed to visit the isle. Taking the risk of being around her family unprotected with a kidnapper on the loose that left some destruction in their wake sometimes was a risk Chloe was unwilling to take. While Chloe called her dad every day, it was not the same thing. She rarely made it obvious just how agonizing her homesickness could get, as her bubbly and optimistic nature was also genuine. Sometimes Chloe felt that she had too many feelings, and it was always easy for them to come flooding out of her.

Chloe settled into Icaria, but never became comfortable enough to call it home. Keeping around forty candles (due to not having a fireplace) helped, but was not enough. She always intended to return to London once the kidnappings were resolved. She got a job coordinating events at Icaria Hall. And she liked her job. Really! But it wasn’t the same making everyone else’s events happen as planning her own. While she kept a party planning business up on the side, Chloe struggled to price her services well enough to make it a full time job. She paid contractors generously, but felt guilty charging equally reasonable prices for her own services.

One of the best parts of Icaria was not having to hide or lie- two things that Chloe found difficult and unsavory. She could use her powers without worrying about having to make up excuses or become the reason why an older house was listed on several ghost hunter forums and websites as haunted (temperature changes in strange places are apparently scary). Making friends with literally as many people as possible on the island seemed doable, and she loved never having to feel alone. She made many dear friends that she knew preemptively she would hate to leave.

The one person that Chloe struggled to befriend was her ex-girlfriend Ulani, whom she dated for three years before an absolutely catastrophic break-up. From Chloe’s perspective, she had been honest about what seemed to be the most important reason: not wanting a big white wedding. She believed that growing closer in a relationship did not need to be benchmarked by such a gesture. She made a point in business from the start of refusing to get into wedding planning- a completely different beast from the rest of making parties happen. It was not like Chloe was a stranger to getting broken up with either- she never had broken up with anybody in her life. Often, Chloe felt a pang of guilt for being most upset that her ex got to keep Tom, the dog that they had previously shared.

Chloe deeply wanted a dog of her own someday, but refused until she was certain that the dog would not need to be alone (and lonely) for too long in the day. But Chloe was never good at staying too upset for long. As long as she had her dad to talk to every day and good friends, she would always be able to bounce back.

LISA| SHE/HER | 28 | PACIFIC

#hestia

[maddie-grove]

Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up (November/December)

Playlist

“Fallin’ for You” by Sheila Nicholls (The Perilous Gard)

“Come on Over to My Place” by the Drifters (A Gentleman Never Keeps Score)

“Bobby Jean” by Bruce Springsteen (Eleanor and Park)

“Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks (One Perfect Rose)

“A Sailor’s Prayer” by Ann Price and Marilyn Maltzer (Broken Wing)

“Winter Lady” by Leonard Cohen (When a Duchess Says I Do)

“Dance Music” by the Mountain Goats (What Hearts)*

“Sweet Talkin’ Guy” by the Chiffons (Jean and Johnny)

“Know Your Onion!” by the Shins (Lost at Sea)

“The Snake and the Bookworm” by Cliff Richard (Tempting the Bride)

“Everybody Loves Me but You” by Brenda Lee (Someone to Remember)

*I also seriously considered both “I’ll Meet You Halfway” by the Partridge Family and “Sports Analogies” from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It’s a complex book!

Best of the Bi-Month

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974): In the late 1550s, grave, awkward Kate Sutton is banished to a remote castle in the east of England. She’s greeted by superstitious locals, shady servants, an often-absent lord, and the lord’s guilt-ridden (and hot) younger brother. Bored and irritated by all the drama, Kate questions the circumstances of the tragedy that haunts the family. I didn’t have high expectations for this book, which I bought primarily for the gorgeous Richard Cuffari illustrations, but I was blown away. Pope creates a sublimely uncanny setting in a surprising way, and Kate is a wonderful protagonist: principled, rational, and compassionate beneath her no-nonsense exterior.

Worst of the Bi-Month

Someone to Remember by Mary Balogh (2019): In her youth, Lady Matilda Westcott rejected Charles Sawyer’s proposal at the urging of her parents, who thought him too wild. Now she’s fifty-six, loved by her extended family but stuck caring for an unappreciative elderly mother. The marriage of her niece and Charles’s estranged illegitimate son brings them together again, but she never expects anything to come of it...like a total fool. This is a cute novella with compelling family dynamics. I also appreciated the solidly middle-aged protagonists, although Balogh presents them a little too timidly, like a mom trying to get a picky eight-year-old to try asparagus.

Rest of the Bi-Month

A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian (2018): Once-popular Hartley Sedgwick is languishing in the huge townhouse his godfather left him, shunned by nearly everyone for his sexuality. Then Sam Fox, a black pugilist-turned-tavern-keeper, tries to sneak into the house to find a nude portrait of an embarrassed friend. Moved by Sam’s decency, Hartley offers his assistance in finding the portrait. As I explained in my post about my favorite Regency romance novels, I adore this book for the way Hartley and Sam’s love story is mirrored and enhanced by portrayals of many other kinds of love, between brothers and friends and parents and children and neighbors and also one very homely dog. 

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2012): Park, a geeky half-Korean teenager in 1986, keeps his head down and barley avoids outright ostracism in his poor, mostly white Omaha neighborhood. Eleanor, the weird white girl who shares his bus seat, is tormented at school and at home. They have no interest in being friends, but they slowly bond and fall in love over music and comics. What I liked most about this bittersweet YA novel was the ways in which the protagonists improved each other’s lives. With Park and his loving family, Eleanor gets to let down her defenses, while Eleanor’s boldness inspires Park to embrace his differences. I do wish that Park’s side of things had been developed more, however.

One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney (1997): Upon learning that he’s terminally ill, Stephen, the Duke of Ashburton, freaks out and goes on an incognito tour of the English countryside without telling his family. He ends up joining an acting troupe run by the boisterous Fitzgerald family and falling in love with their adopted daughter/stage manager, Rosalind, despite the many reasons they have no future together. (Or do they?) This is a good, old-fashioned weepy romance that’s elevated by Putney’s serious attention to the theme of reconciling with one’s mortality. There’s also some extremely late-1990s New-Age-ish stuff going on, which sometimes felt a little silly but was still charming.

Broken Wing by Judith James (2008): When unconventional countess Sarah finds her long-lost little brother at a Parisian brothel, she’s overjoyed, appalled, and relieved that he was protected by sex worker Gabriel St. Croix. Grateful, she offers Gabriel a reward and insists he come to live with her and her family. This is another tear-jerking, charmingly dated romance; I felt like a teenager again, reading top-shelf angsty fanfiction. It’s best in the slow-burn first half, during which Gabriel must adjust to a massive reversal of fortune after a lifetime of trauma. The more action-packed second half makes great use of the unusual late 1790s/early 1800s setting, but it does feel hurried.

When a Duchess Says I Do by Grace Burrowes (2019): Widowed Matilda Wakefield, the Duchess of Bosendorf, has been on the run since getting mixed up in her diplomat dad’s clandestine activities. An encounter with scholarly Duncan Wentworth lands her a live-in secretarial position at his rural estate. They connect with each other, but how can love grow when they’re the object of multiple sinister plots? While this entry in the Wentworth series is not as incandescently lovely as My One and Only Duke, I’m still a sucker for spooky country houses, responsible-household-management plots, and sad early-middle-aged heroes. Burrowes is also an excellent writer, and I’m glad that I discovered her.

What Hearts by Bruce Brooks (1992): Sensitive Asa excels at school but struggles at home, thanks to his mother’s severe mental illness and his stepfather Dave’s emotional abuse. Divided into four novella-like sections, the novel follows Asa from his parents’ divorce in first grade to his first love in seventh. I liked parts of this weird, sober book when I read it as a kid, and I felt the same this time. It’s got brilliant moments, most involving Asa and Dave’s relationship, but there’s a lot of telling-not-showing in between. Brooks also can’t seem to decide on the time period; it’s probably supposed to be set 1965-1971, but it always feels like 1963, and you can only blame so much of that on the North Carolina setting.

Jean and Johnny by Beverly Cleary (1959): Short, bespectacled, and working-class, fifteen-year-old Jean feels invisible at her high school until handsome upperclassman Johnny Chessler starts paying attention to her. She’s thrilled, but her parents and sister warn against chasing him. I didn’t like this book much in middle school, but I revisited it because it occurred to me that Jean was a lesbian. Having reread it, I know I was wrong on two counts: Jean is unfortunately not a lesbian (she clearly thinks Johnny’s hot), and the book’s not that depressing. Jean’s no sad sack who’s doomed to a life of grimly chaste square dancing; she’s a legit snack who becomes increasingly self-assured and assertive. 

Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O’Malley (2003): Raleigh, a Canadian eighteen-year-old, hitches a ride back home from California with some classmates she hardly knows after a meeting with her long-distance boyfriend ends in heartbreak. Lonely and a little disconnected from reality--she maintains the belief that her mom somehow sold her soul, which now resides in a stray cat--Raleigh slowly makes friends with her travelling companions and finds some piece of mind. Although nothing much happens in this short graphic novel, it’s one of the most authentically just-graduated-high-school stories I’ve ever read. I could relate to those feelings of fear and disappointment even in the face of exciting new possibilities.

Tempting the Bride by Sherry Thomas (2012): David Hillsborough, Lord Hastings, has desired Helena Fitzhugh, first-wave feminist and successful fiction editor, since they were kids together, but he’s always hidden behind insulting remarks. When Helena’s affair with a married man ends in scandal, though, she unhappily accepts David’s offer of marriage in order to cover it up. Then she gets hit by a carriage and loses every memory she formed after her mid-teens, which happens to be when she met David. Thomas always has an engaging style and deals with even outlandish plots in a sophisticated way, and her take on the 13 Going on 30 plot is enjoyable. However, it is rushed at the end.

#theme of the bi-month: oh no he's hot #books #reading

[gp-synergism-blog]

Gothic Film in the ‘40s: Doomed Romance and Murderous Melodrama

Posted by: Samm Deighan for Diabolique Magazine

Secret Beyond the Door (1947)

In many respects, the ‘40s were a strange time for horror films. With a few notable exceptions, like Le main du diable (1943) or Dead of Night (1945), the British and European nations avoided the genre thanks to the preoccupation of war. But that wasn’t the case with American cinema, which continued to churn out cheap, escapist fare in droves, ranging from comedies and musicals to horror films. In general though, genre efforts were comic or overtly campy; Universal, the country’s biggest producer of horror films, resorted primarily to sequels, remakes, and monster mash ups during the decade, or ludicrous low budget films centered on half-cocked mad scientists (roles often hoisted on a fading Bela Lugosi).

There are some exceptions: the emergence of grim-toned serial killer thrillers helmed by European emigres like Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Ulmer’s Bluebeard(1944), Siodmak’s The Spiral Staircase (1945), or John Brahm’s Hangover Square(1945); the series of expressionistic moody horror film produced by auteur Val Lewton, such as Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943); and a handful of strange outliers like the eerie She-Wolf of London (1946) or the totally off-the-rails Peter Lorre vehicle, The Beast with Five Fingers (1946).

Thanks to the emergence of film noir and a new emphasis on psychological themes within suspense films, horror’s sibling — arguably even its precursor — the Gothic, was also a prominent cinematic force during the decade. One of the biggest producers of Gothic cinema came from the literary genre’s parent country, England. Initially this was a way to present some horror tropes and darker subject matter at a time when genre films were embargoed by a country at war, but Hollywood was undoubtedly attempting to compete with Britain’s strong trend of Gothic cinema: classic films like Thorold Dickinson’s original Gaslight (1940); a series of brooding Gothic romances starring a homicidal-looking James Mason, like The Night Has Eyes (1942), The Man in Grey(1943), The Seventh Veil (1945), and Fanny by Gaslight (1944); David Lean’s two best films and possibly the greatest Dickens adaptations ever made, Great Expectations(1946) and Oliver Twist (1948); and other excellent, yet forgotten literary adaptations like Uncle Silas (1947) and Queen of Spades (1949).

The American films, which not only responded to their British counterparts but helped shape the Gothic genre in their own right, tended towards three themes in particular (often combining them): doomed romance, dark family inheritances often connected to greed and madness, and the supernatural melodrama. Certainly, these film borrowed horror tropes, like the fear of the dark, nightmares, haunted houses, thick cobwebs, and fog-drenched cemeteries. The home was often set as the central location, a site of both domesticity and terror — speaking to the genre’s overall themes of social order, repressed sexuality, and death — and this location was of course of equal importance to horror films and the “woman’s film” of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Like the latter, these Gothic films often featured female protagonists and plots that revolved around a troubled romantic relationship or domestic turmoil.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Two of the earliest examples, and certainly two films that kicked off the wave of Gothic romance films in America, are also two of the genre’s most enduring classics: William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) and Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940). Based on Emily Brontë’s novel of the same name (one of my favorites), Wyler and celebrated screenwriter Ben Hecht (with script input from director and writer John Huston) transformed Wuthering Heights from a tale of multigenerational doom and bitterness set on the unforgiving moors into a more streamlined romantic tragedy about the love affair between Cathy (Merle Oberon) and Heathcliffe (Laurence Olivier) that completely removes the conclusion that focuses on their children. In the film, the couple are effectively separated by social constraints, poverty, a harsh upbringing, and the fact that Cathy is forced to choose between her wild, adopted brother Heathcliffe and her debonair neighbor, Edgar Linton (David Niven).

Wuthering Heights is actually less Gothic than the films it inspired, primarily because of the fact that Hollywood neutered many of Brontë’s themes. In The History of British Literature on Film, 1895-2015, Greg Semenza and Bob Hasenfratz wrote, “Hecht and Wyler together manage to transfer the narrative from its original literary genre (Gothic romance) and embed it in a film genre (the Hollywood romance, which would evolve into the so-called ‘women’s films’ of the 1940s)… [To accomplish this,] Hecht and Wyler needed to remove or tone down elements of the macabre, the novel’s suggestions of necrophilia in chapter 29, and its portrayal of Heathcliffe as a kind of Miltonic Satan” (185).

This results in sort of watered down versions of Cathy — who is selfish and cruel as a general rule in the novel — and, in particular, Heathcliffe, whose brutish behavior includes physical violence, spousal abuse, and a drawn out, well-plotted revenge that becomes his sole reason for living. It is thus in a somewhat different — and arguably both more terrifying and more romantic — context that the novel’s Heathcliffe declares to a dying Cathy, “Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you–haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe–I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” (145).

Despite Hollywood’s intervention, the novel’s Gothic flavor was not scrubbed entirely and Wuthering Heights still includes themes of ghosts, haunting, and just the faintest touch of damnation, though it ends with a spectral reunion for Cathy and Heathcliffe, whose spirits set off together across the snow-covered moors. These elements of a studio meddling with a film’s source novel, doomed romance, and supernatural tones also appeared in the following year’s Rebecca, possibly the single most influential Gothic film from the period. This was actually Hitchcock’s first film on American shores after his emigration due to WWII, and his first major battle with a producer in the form of David O. Selznick.

Rebecca (1940)

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name, Rebecca marks the return of Laurence Olivier as brooding romantic hero Maxim de Winter, the love interest of an innocent young woman (Joan Fontaine) traveling through Europe as a paid companion. She and de Winter meet, fall in love, and are quickly married, though things take a dark turn when they move to his ancestral home in England, Manderlay, which is everywhere marked with the overwhelming presence of his former wife, Rebecca. The hostile housekeeper (Judith Anderson) is still obviously obsessed with her former mistress, Maxim begins to act strangely and has a few violent outbursts, and the new Mrs. de Winter begins to suspect that Rebecca’s death was the result of a homicidal act…

The wanton or mad wife was a feature not only of Rebecca, but of earlier Gothic fiction from Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre to “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In the same way that Cathy of Wuthering Heights is an example of the feminine resistance to a claustrophobic social structure, Rebecca is a similar figure, made monstrous by her refusal to conform. The dark secret that Maxim’s new wife learns is that Rebecca was privately promiscuous, agreeing only to appear to be the perfect wife in public after de Winter already married her. She pretends she is pregnant with another man’s child and tries to goad her husband into murdering her, seemingly out of sheer spite, but it is revealed that she was dying of cancer.

A surprisingly faithful adaptation of the novel, Rebecca presents the titular character’s death as a suicide, rather than a murder, thanks to the Production Code’s insistence that murderers had to be punished, contrary to the film’s apparent happy ending, and restricted the (now somewhat obvious) housekeeper’s lesbian infatuation for Rebecca. Despite these restrictions, Hitchcock managed to introduce some of the bold, controversial themes that would carry him through films like Marnie (1964). For Criterion, Robin Wood wrote, “it is in Rebecca that his unifying theme receives its first definitive statement: the masculinist drive to dominate, control, and (if necessary) punish women; the corresponding dread of powerful women, and especially of women who assert their sexual freedom, for what, above all, the male (in his position of dominant vulnerability, or vulnerable dominance) cannot tolerate is the sense that another male might be “better” than he was. Rebecca is killed because she defies the patriarchal order, the prohibition of infidelity.”

Wood also got to the crux of many of these early Gothic films (and the Romantic/romantic novels that inspired them) when he wrote, “The antagonism toward Maxim we feel today (in the aftermath of the Women’s Movement) is due at least in part to the casting of Olivier; without that antagonism something of the film’s continuing force and fascination would be weakened.” Heathcliffe and de Winter are similarly contradictory figures: romantic, but also repulsive, objects of love and fear in equal measures, they mirror the character type popularized in England by a young, brooding James Mason — an antagonistic, almost villainous (and sometimes actually so) male romantic lead — that would appear in a number of other titles throughout the decade.

Rebecca (1940)

In “‘At Last I Can Tell It to Someone!’: Feminine Point of View and Subjectivity in the Gothic Romance Film of the 1940s” for Cinema Journal, Diane Waldman wrote, “The plots of films like Rebecca, Suspicion, Gaslight, and their lesser-known counterparts like Undercurrent and Sleep My Love fall under the rubric of the Gothic designation: a young inexperienced woman meets a handsome older man to whom she is alternately attracted and repelled. After a whirlwind courtship (72 hours in Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door, two weeks is more typical), she marries him. After returning to the ancestral mansion of one of the pair, the heroine experiences a series of bizarre and uncanny incidents, open to ambiguous interpretation, revolving around the question of whether or not the Gothic male really loves her. She begins to suspect that he may be a murderer” (29-30).

As Waldman suggests, there are many films from the decade that fit into this type: notable examples include Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941), where Joan Fontaine again stars as an innocent, wealthy young woman who marries an unscrupulous gambler (Cary Grant) who may be trying to kill her for her fortune; Robert Stevenson’s Jane Eyre (1943) yet again starred Fontaine as the innocent titular governess, who falls in love with her gloomy, yet charismatic employer, Mr. Rochester (Orson Welles); George Cukor’s remake of Gaslight (1944) starred Ingrid Bergman as a young singer driven slowly insane by her seemingly charming husband (Charles Boyer), who is only out to conceal a past crime; and so on.

Another interesting, somewhat unusual interpretations of this subgenre is Experiment Perilous (1944), helmed by a director also responsible for key film noir and horror titles such as Out of the Past, Cat People, and Curse of the Demon: Jacques Tourneur. Based on a novel by Margaret Carpenter and set in turn of the century New York, Experiment Perilous is a cross between Gothic melodrama and film noir and expands upon the loose plot of Gaslight, where a controlling husband (here played by Paul Lukas) is trying to drive his younger wife (the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr) insane. The film bucks the Gothic tradition of the ‘40s in the sense that the wife, Allida, is not the protagonist, but rather it is a psychiatrist, Dr. Bailey (George Brent). He encounters the couple because he befriended the husband’s sister (Olive Blakeney) on a train and when she passes away, he goes to pay his respects. While there, he he falls in love with Allida and refuses to believe her husband’s assertions that she is insane and must be kept prisoner in their home.

In some ways evocative of Hitchcock (a fateful train ride, a psychiatrist who falls in love with a patient and refuses to believe he or she is insane), Experiment Perilous is a neglected, curious film, and it’s interesting to imagine what it would have been if Cary Grant starred, as intended. It does mimic the elements of female paranoia found in films like Rebecca and Gaslight, in the sense that Allida believes she has a mysterious admirer and, as with the later Secret Beyond the Door, she’s tormented by the presence of a disturbed child; though Lamarr never plays to the level of hysteria usually found in this type of role and her performance is both understated and underrated.

Experiment Perilous (1944)

Tourneur was an expert at playing with moral ambiguities, a quality certainly expressed in Experiment Perilous, and the decision to follow the psychiatrist, rather than the wife, makes this a compelling mystery. Like Laura, The Woman in the Window, Vertigo, and other films, the mesmerizing portrait of a beautiful woman is responsible for the protagonist becoming morally compromised, and for most of the running time it’s not quite clear if Bailey is acting from a rational, medical premise, or a wholly irrational one motivated by sexual desire. Rife with strange diary entries, disturbing letters, stories of madness, death, and psychological decay, and a torrid family history are at the heart of the delightfully titled Experiment Perilous. Like many films in the genre, it concludes with a spectacular sequence where the house itself is in a state of chaos, the most striking symbol of which is a series of exploding fish tanks.

But arguably the most Gothic of all these films — and certainly my favorite — is Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond the Door (1947). On an adventure in Mexico, Celia (Joan Bennett), a young heiress, meets Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave), a dashing architect. They have a whirlwind romance before marrying, but on their honeymoon, Mark is frustrated by Celia’s locked bedroom door and takes off in the middle of the night, allegedly for business. Things worsen when they move to his mansion in New England, where she is horrified to learn that she is his second wife, his first died mysteriously, and he has a very strange family, including an odd secretary who covers her face with a scarf after it was disfigured in a fire; he also has serious financial problems. During a welcoming party, Mark shows their friends his hobby, personally designed rooms in the house that mimic the settings of famous murders. Repulsed, Celia also learns that there is one locked room that Mark keeps secret. As his behavior becomes increasingly cold and disturbed she comes to fear that he killed the first Mrs. Lamphere and is planning to kill her, too.

A blend of “Bluebeard,” Rebecca, and Jane Eyre, Secret Beyond the Door is quite an odd film. Though it relies on some frustrating Freudian plot devices and has a number of script issues, there is something truly magical and eerie about it and it deserves as far more elevated reputation. Though this falls in with the “woman’s films” popular at the time, Bennett’s Celia is far removed from the sort of innocent, earnest, and vulnerable characters played by Fontaine. Lang, and his one-time protege, screenwriter Silvia Richards, acknowledge that she has flaws of her own, as well as the strength, perseverance, and sheer sexual desire to pursue Mark, despite his potential psychosis.

This was Joan Bennett’s fourth film with Fritz Lang – after titles like Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945) — and it was to be her last with the director. While her earlier characters were prostitutes, gold diggers, or arch-manipulators, Celia is more complex; she is essentially a spoiled heiress and socialite bored with her life of pleasure and looking to settle down, but used to getting her own way and not conforming to the needs of any particular man. (Gloria Grahame would go on to play slightly similar characters for Lang in films like The Big Heat and Human Desire.) In one of Celia’s introductory scenes, she’s witness to a deadly knife fight in a Mexican market. Instead of running in terror, she is clearly invigorated, if not openly aroused by the scene, despite the fact that a stray knife lands mere inches from her.

Secret Beyond the Door (1947)

Like some of Lang’s other films with Bennett, much of this film is spent in or near beds and the bedroom. The hidden bedroom also provides a rich symbolic subtext, one tied in to Mark’s murder-themed rooms, the titular secret room (where his first wife died), and the burning of the house at the film’s conclusion. Due to the involvement of the Production Code, sex is only implied, but modern audiences may miss this. It is at least relatively clear that Mark and Celia’s powerful attraction is a blend of sex and violence, affection and neurosis. As with Rebecca and Jane Eyre, it is implied that the fire — the act of burning down the house and the memory of the former love (or in Jane Eyre’scase, the actual woman) — has cleansing properties that restore Mark to sanity. It is revealed that though he did not commit an actual murder, the guilt of his first wife’s death, brought on by a broken heart, has driven him to madness and obsession.

This really is a marvelous film, thanks Lang’s return to German expressionism blended with Gothic literary themes. There is some absolutely lovely cinematography from Stanley Cortez that prefigured his similar work on Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter. In particular, a woodland set – where Celia runs when she thinks Mark is going to murder her – is breathtaking, eerie, and nightmarish, and puts a marked emphasis on the fairy-tale influence. But the house is where the film really shines with lighting sources often reduced to candlelight, reflections in ornate mirrors, or the beam of a single flashlight. The camera absolutely worships Bennett, who is framed by long, dark hallways, foreboding corridors, and that staple of film noir, the winding staircase.

[aquaticsapphic]

feel free to skip any, but all the oc asks for either Xanthe or Mies? (Or both but I don't wanna give u..... A shitton if u don't want it)

I’m gonna do these in 2 parts!First up is Xanthe :)

What does their bedroom look like?

I don’t have a solid bedroom really, I’m on the move too much. Even if I stay in a room for a while, I don’t typically keep much of my things in there.

(ooc: If she were to suddenly drop travelling in stay in a room, I imagine it would still be pretty bare, but probably small and comfy. Probably a desk for writing and a trash bin with letters.)

Do they have any daily rituals?

Every night before I go to sleep I have a quick check-in with Lulu so she can see how I’m doing or offer advice. It’s nice to have someone to listen and help me feel like I’m not completely alone in the world, you know?

Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often?

I primarily walk from place to place, especially when travelling from one city to another. I used to be very hard-set with exercises, but now I just use whatever I need for day-to-day activities.

What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?

I’d hang around for a while if it looked like they were almost done, but otherwise I’d just leave and come back later, so I wouldn’t bother them.

Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

In the cities and towns I stay in, I try to bathe every day, but as I sometimes spend weeks getting from place to place, the ideal hygiene isn’t always possible. As for the things I own, I’m not too concerned with keeping them in order in my bag, as I know they’ll just get jumbled up on the journey anyway.

Eating habits and sample daily menu

When I’m in town I try to get a bunch of rations and non-perishables like bread, dried fruits, cheese, and jerky. I also try to collect food as I go through the plains though, so any edible plants and animals I can find there will add a bit of variety to what I eat.

Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time

I like seeing how different people in different towns and cities interact with each other. Everybody has such interesting lives and stories to tell, and it’s exciting to be able to view these chapters for a while. It’s a nice pastime when I can focus on it, but if something else is weighing on me, it just heightens my nervousness.

Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging

I don’t typically indulge in things very often, but I guess as far as guilty pleasures go, I try to avoid becoming too involved with situations because whenever I do, things seem to go wrong, but…. It’s hard to keep that promise to myself sometimes.

Makeup?

I alternate between wearing none and wearing just enough to make me unrecognizable.

Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such?

(ooc: Xanthe is… very bad at recognizing that these are problems and admitting that, but: Avoidance, low sense of self-worth, repeated negative thoughts. She started working on trying to be better at managing them, but I’m not sure if she understands the neurological components of it.)

Intellectual pursuits?

I like listening to all of Bufo’s past journeys and everything he’s learned throughout the years. He’s actually really cool.

Favorite book genre?

Fantasy. What can I say, I like talking animals.

Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?

Lesbian. Your sexuality is your own, and no one can decide that for you.

Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.)

I have a few light scars on my arms, a circular scar on my chest/shoulder area from getting shot with a bow once, and it seems like I’ll always have a bunch of small bruises. I bruise really easily.

Biggest and smallest short term goal?

Well I definitely want to get off of this island, but I’m not sure how long that will take.  So for now… talk to Fela. Explore the island.

Biggest and smallest long term goal?

Lulu says going back will help me. I hope it will. I also want to see a will-o’-wisp.

Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress

Someone said I looked good in light purple, so I’ve been trying to add that color into my outfits. I really like loose-fitting clothes, because they’re so nice and airy. But I can’t wear skirts or dresses. They just get in the way and make it hard to move.

Favorite beverage?

I honestly just like water.

What do they think about before falling asleep at night?

If there’s not a lot that happened during the day, my thoughts will ultimately drift back to all the mistakes I’ve made.

Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

“A lady is to be looked at, not listened to. Therefore, if you have to cough, do so daintily, and behind a handkerchief.”

Turn-ons? Turn-offs?

I like open-books. People who know what they want. I can’t stand possessiveness or jealousy.

Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

I’d probably start doodling Bufo. Or Lulu.

How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

Oh, I’m pretty disorganized. It seems like no matter what I do, I always arrive either too late or too early. Luckily I’ve never had much trouble with misplacing things, even though my backpack is a mess.

Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

I’m interested in learning vague details about academics, but I can’t sit through them or put anything into practice.

How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

Wherever I am, I hope I’m happy. And Bufo is happy. And Lulu is happy. And if it’s not too much to ask, I hope they are still with me.

Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t workout?

Lulu thinks it will help to get in touch with old friends. I hope it goes well, but even then, I’ve been fine without them.

What is their biggest regret?

Caerlowyl

Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

Bufo. Definitely Bufo. And….. my mom. All these miles apart and she still haunts me.

Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

There’s always somewhere else I can go.

Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies)

Whatever it is, it would probably be my fault somehow.

Most prized possession?

My handaxe. It was the first weapon that I ever really learned how to use, so it has some sentimental value. Plus it’s useful for cutting things.

Thoughts on material possessions in general?

Keep what you need, leave everything else.

Concept of home and family?

They’re too stifling. I can’t imagine a life like that.

Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?)

The less everyone knows about me, the better everyone will be.

What activities do they enjoy, but consider to be a waste of time?

I like listening to music, even if there isn’t much to it.

What makes them feel guilty?

Remembering. Open waters.

Are they more analytical or more emotional in their decision-making?

I try to be calm, but it’s not always easy.

Would they consider themselves a Type A or Type B personality?

Neither.

What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?

A good, old-fashioned party.

Would you say that they have a superiority-complex? Inferiority-complex? Neither?

I’ve done many terrible things. I think it’s fair to say most people are better than me in that aspect.

How misanthropic are they?

Not much. People are complex, and the complexity is what makes everyone so interesting.

Hobbies?

I like hiking. And fishing. I don’t keep up with a lot of hobbies.

How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self-education?

Ugh, my mom taught me how to be the Perfect Wife for about half my life and it was a load of bull shit.

Religion?

Gods and I don’t get along.

Superstitions or views on the occult?

I’m generally not a fan.

Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds?

Deeds probably. When I act without thinking is probably when I am the most true.

If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal?

Someone who accepts me as I am and doesn’t try to change me. I won’t change just to be someone they want me to be. Clearly defined expectations always help.

How do they express love?

Love is staying together until the bitter end.

If this person were to get into a fist fight, what is their fighting style like?

Depends. If the person deserves it, I’m not afraid to fight dirty. At least until they stop fighting me.

Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not?

I’m not afraid of dying myself. I’d hate to see anybody else die.

#my ocs #long post #thank you! #also I'm doing them all I promise it just takes a while #romanarcadia #everybody talks babe #answered

[againagainagai]

Halloweenie asks 1-50 OwO

When you die, what do you want to happen to your remains?

I want to be buried in a forest and below a sapling so when the tree is growing then it can get the nutrients from my dead body

What is the weirdest thing you own?

The weirdest thing i own would probably be a soap bar because i’m boring and i just wanted a freaking bar of soap

Have you ever played with a Ouija Board?

Yes i have! Nothing happened though soo

Do you believe in ghosts?

Yeah, I do! I think they are really cool

Have you ever had an encounter with things that “go bump in the night?”

No, i haven’t unfortunately, although i think i would be too scared to enjoy it

Do you have a Deja Vu story?

Once i was at school and we were having a intruder alert thing and it felt like i had done that exact thing before so i guess i died or something the first time i tried it. I really like the idea of Deja Vu, it’s really cool and it happens to me a lot and i have a lot of those experiences

Do you still trick or treat?

Yeah!! Of course i do!! I’m only 14 anyways so i kind of want to and I’m in that time where my friends don’t want to go trick or treating but i do… it sucks ass

Have you ever had a black cat cross you and have a streak of bad luck?

I have two black cats that have no patience so they do it all the time so i guess my entire life that i can remember has been a streak of bad luck with a couple of good days

Least favorite thing about halloween?

Probably making my costume,, i don’t want to make it,, i want it to become and then i can wear it

Favorite serial killer?

I don’t have any but if you as my friend @stobitcooper then he’ll tell you all about his faves and his fave school shootings too

Favorite thing to do in a graveyard?

Probably cry?? I’ve never been to a graveyard so i have no idea

Favorite halloween movie?

Definitely Coraline,, It’s so amazing and i would die for her

Favorite ghost story?

I don’t like ghost stories because - like i said - I’m boring

Ever contacted a loved one from beyond the grave?

Sorry to disappoint, I’ve only called my family members on my phone

Your biggest fear?

Probably people not listening to me? I have no idea why i just hate it and it makes me sad and i don’t like being sad

Favorite pumpkin flavored food

My fave pumpkin flavored food is probably pumpkin pie how my mom makes it. It’s really good even though i haven’t been able to have it in a long while

Candy corn or popcorn balls?

POPCORN! IS NOT! SUPPOSED! TO BE! SWEET! (so candy corn)

trick , or treat?

Treat bitch,, what kind of idiot do you think i am?

Best halloween you ever had

Prolly 2016 halloween bc all of my friend raided all the people houses we didn’t like… I had a blast

Do you go to corn mazes?

I love them!! They are so fun and love doing them with my fam because they all have amazing senses of direction so i just follow them around

Haunted houses?

I want to go to one but i’m not sure if my family wants to or not,, i love them regardless

Do you own any human remains that aren’t your own?

Nope, and proud of it!

Have you ever smashed a pumpkin?

Umm,, no? That’s disrespectful to the pumpkin and it’s murder

Do you like apple cider?

Yes!!! It’s amazing especially when it’s warm and your lips are chapped and you’re sitting on your back porch and your cat is rubbing against you and your eyes are watering because you have a head cold and you cough so hard that the cider spills all over you ruining your favorite shirt! Those are my favorite days

Do you live near any ‘spooky places’?

I live kinda near an abandoned house but it’s really moldy and disgusting so i don’t go there

Do you ever get goosebumps?

Yes in fact, i do! They are so weird i hate when i do but they look so cool

Have you ever seen a dead body apart from a funeral?

Uuh,, no i don’t know anyone else who has either sooo

Have you ever broken into an abandoned house or building?

Unfortunately, me and my friends are law abiding citizens

Do you believe in vampires?

Kind of? They are cool and i like them but i’m not sure if i think they exist/ if they do,, that’s totally awesome! If they don’t then i am slightly disappointed

Your scariest memory?

My scariest memory would probably be when my dad had road rage and he was tailgating this guy so the guy in front of us braked all of a sudden and my dad had to swerve out of the road so then he wouldn’t hit the guy. That’s really lame but that was the most scared i’ve ever been in my entire life.

Ever hear white noise from a turned off TV or radio?

My hearing is too messed up for that. I can’t hear anything because of the constant ringing in my ears

Weirdest coincidence?

The fact that me and my friends all wore our marching band show shirts from last year on the same day,, it was great and i cried

Have you ever bobbed for apples?

No, i haven’t, is it fun?

Ever had your fortune told?

Not but i want to be told my future

Favorite skin disease?

I don’t have one?? I haven’t heard of most of the skin diseases anyway

Do you see figures in your prefferal vision?

Sometimes but it’s very rare

Have yo ever seen someone die?

No and i hope to never

Ever caught something large on fire?

Besides a tree branch no

Favorite fictional bad guy or monster you wish to be real

MOTHMAN, MY ANSWER IS MOTHMAN AND WILL ALWAYS BE MOTHMAN

Do you believe in multiple dimensions or worlds?

Yes! I believe in another dimension i would be typing no!

Ever held a seance?

Who do you think i am? A witch?? I want to be in one though, even though i afaird of spirits

Ever made a potion of any kind?

Okay, so when i was little me and my friends would make these “potions” and we would hand them out at recess and it was a love potion. You rubbed it in between your hands and then whomever you touch next will be your soulmate. And of course my lesbian ass touched my best friend at the time and said that she was amazing and all the gay shit but how you made it was you take a twig and you stick it in the sap of a tree and then you put sand on the wet part and then you rub it between your hands for ten 2nd grader seconds and then yo go touch someone and you’ll fall in love with them.

Ever worn funeral attire not at a funeral?

No? Not really…

Have you ever made a blood pact?

I’ve made a spit pact before but that was in 2nd grade

Have you ever worked a spell?

No, i want to try to though

Do you believe in curses?

Yeah, i think i do. They are a pretty big deal in my city but it’s not that apparent

Ever had an animal or pet see something you can’t?

Nope,, sorry to disappoint

Have you ever gotten lost in the woods at night?

No,, that’s another thing that i’m afraid of

Have you ever caught a photo of a ghost?

No,, i want to though. I’ll probably run but you know how it is

Have you ever played Bloody Mary?

No because i’m too chicken

[alexheathen]

Growths

This is the story of my life, from the perspective of my relationship with my mother and her 13 years with cancer. I’ve posted bits and pieces of it before, but I felt like I could finally write it, and anon asked, so here it is. Warning: long as fuck.

The experience of my mother’s illness is central to my biography, without a doubt. Our relationship was incredibly close. I am the firstborn son in my family, so I suppose it was inevitable. She read to me almost every night when I was little: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, and then Winnie the Pooh after the epic fantasy well dried up. I was discouraged from sports and imbued with the generalized fear/caution many of us 90’s kids seemed to get growing up. In fewer words, I was super nerdy, and I 100% had mom to blame. 

For much of her life, my mom’s best friend was her older sister, Patricia, or Pat, for short. Pat received her first breast cancer diagnosis in 1993, fairly late in the tumor’s development. Treatment was aggressive, as it tends to be on the first go round - both breasts removed and intensive chemotherapy. Still, the disease progressed and eventually spread to her ovaries; she died in 1995 due to complications from chemo (treatment is inevitably worse than disease when we talk about cancer). My mother was devastated, and I was five years old and confused. Why was everyone crying? What happened? When my grandma told me my aunt was just sleeping, mom scolded her for lying to me. “She’s gone to heaven,” mom said, “and she’s not coming back.” The Lion King came out that year, and they played “The Circle of Life” over her memorial slideshow at the wake. A wake that was held at the high school I would attend, over ten years later. My sophomore English teacher was the woman who had been hired to replace my aunt after she died, and she passed along one of my aunt’s annotated books, which she had kept all those years. That was a very spooky day.

Breast cancer haunts my family; the genetic specter of the BRCA1 mutation looms large in my family tree, comorbid with clinical depression. My grandmother had two run ins with it, and though she only had a double mastectomy as treatment, she lived well into her eighties. In addition to my aunt, there is a cemetery of second cousins and great aunts I never met. Among the women of my generation, getting tested for the gene mutation is something of a rite of passage. 

My mom’s first diagnosis was in April of 2002. Being a bookish and political child, I had been rocked by 9/11 the year before: the day after the attack I threw up on the bus and mom had taken me home. In less than a year, mortality entered my life, first on a grand scale, and then on a very personal one. My schoolwork suffered and what social life I had withered, since I relied on my mom to arrange it. As is often the case, I withdrew into books and videogames. In hindsight, I realize I was profoundly depressed, but as the oldest I took it upon myself to make sure no one worried about me - this was the only way I had control of my situation. 

Fearing the swift and painful demise of her sister, my mother opted for an even more aggressive course of treatment - severe chemotherapy, the removal of both breasts and her uterus. In those days, our house was a still as a crypt. Every day, I would come home from school afraid she had died while I was gone. Many afternoons were spent sneaking into my parents bedroom to make sure she was still breathing, then falling into my own bed to weep or scream into the pillow before falling into an uneasy sleep. I have distinct memories of recurring nightmares from this time of my life, where my soul would leave my body and float around my house, completely out of my control.

This relatively brief period, less than a year, would define my adolescence. Even after her disease had gone into remission, I did my best to make sure mom had no cause to worry, even as my grades slipped in and out of dire straits. I was determined to make sure my parents had no cause to worry about me being “one of the bad kids" and I had also been marked by the unresolved experience of my mother’s illness, so I was indelibly separated from most of my peers. As a result, I missed out on a lot of teenage degeneracy, and most of the developmental milestones of that period as well. I struggled to separate myself from my parents. Teenage mawkishness was made worse by trauma. I had hoped college would be a clean break; in ways it was and in ways it wasn’t. 

The summer of my senior year of highschool my mom received her second breast cancer diagnosis. This time, however, I at least had some agency. I made myself useful as I could around the house, cleaning and mowing the lawn, and I drove my mom to and from her chemotherapy appointments. When I left in the fall, she still had three more months of treatment to go, but the fear of death was not present as it was the first time. Separated from the events of my mother’s illness, I was able to use it as a motivation instead of a burden for the first time in my life. I excelled my first year of college - three semesters on the honor, and I won an iPad from the freshman writing competition. I wrote the winning essay the night before it was due, after smoking heavily. It was supposed to have been a work memoir, but I hadn’t worked much at that point, so I made up a job at Barnes and Noble and wrote most of the essay about taking care of my mother that summer. In a small way, I hated myself for it - in high school I always resented the kids who wrote sob stories to win contests while I proudly suffered in silence.

By junior year, however, I was severely depressed again, as I moved off of campus and lost my social support network. There was a semester I missed half of the classes in two courses, having become deeply confused about what I wanted from life and entered into existential catatonia. Still, I didn’t seek help, beyond smoking cigarettes, weed and taking the occasional acid trip. This turned around a bit, fall of my senior year, when I had my strongest experiences of friendship and creativity, and began to study mysticism and spirituality, but it was short-lived.

Come January of 2013, suspicious dark spots appeared on one of mom’s regularly scheduled MRI’s. The doctors waffled back and forth over whether or not it was cancer; but I think we all knew. The day my mother called to tell me it was officially back, I had spent the morning chanting Om Mani Padme Hum and had found a unique tranquility, like a warm green sun was holding my heart. I met that devastating phone call with grace and tranquility - and then had it decimated over the coming months. 

I could barely keep it together to deal with school - I was okay in class but I didn’t have the presence of mind to work on assignments. As much as I could afford to, I smoked weed - which wasn’t very much - I was unemployed and my dad was tightening the purse strings to encourage me to look for work. One day, stoned, desperate, and staring down finals feeling completely helpless, I shaved my head and eyebrows, hoping to elicit some sympathy/be forced into talking about my dire situation. And it worked - three of my four professors passed me, to some degree or another, even though I either turned in the final essays late or not at all. The only one that didn’t, amusingly enough, was a 100-level course I had put off until the end of my degree - “Honors 105: Religious Worldviews and Ethical Perspectives.” I failed that course twice and didn’t graduate because of it. 

My family didn’t know I had shaved my head; when my mother came to graduation she was deeply disturbed by it, because it was an explicit reminder of the impact her illness had on me. The night before graduation, I smoked the last bit of resin in my bowl and went into uneasy sleep. I woke up an hour late the next morning, threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed my cap and gown and ran for the bus. I didn’t have time to go to the bathroom, so I ended up shitting in the bushes in front of Soldier’s Field, Chicago, which was near where the ceremony was held. I eventually made it; mom was pissed, dad was confused, and my middle sister, I would later find out, was going through her own mental health troubles.

I should’ve moved home immediately, but I spent June through August in another existential catatonia. I was supposed to be looking for jobs; I read manga, watched Super Sentai, drank beer and smoked cigarettes. In September my dad came in a moving van to take me home; the night before we left he parked in a grocery store parking lot, and to add insult to injury, it got impounded and he had to pay $500 to get it out. 

I spent the rest of 2013 and most of 2014 in near catatonia again, playing shit loads of video games - I remember playing Dishonored, Deus Ex HR, and Dark Souls in particular. I also remember playing Borderlands every damn day for a month when they were doing a “win a million dollars!” promo. My sister was about to graduate high school, had blue hair and was trying on being a lesbian. We became really close during this time, sneaking around to smoke cigarettes and supporting each other through our misery. I also got really close to my mom; sometimes we would spend whole mornings talking over coffee, both feeling guilty over the pain we had caused each other. 

I eventually started seeing a therapist and taking 20mg of Lexapro daily, and finally I got the monkey off my back. I found a job, first working in a warehouse, and then a bank. Mom’s condition worsened, of course. You don’t survive a third diagnosis, so the chemotherapy she was taking was only to extend her life bit by bit. April of 2015, she was on so many fucking drugs she was getting loopy, culminating in her telling me “You were the beginning of the misery in my life,” while I was putting away the dishes one night. I brushed it off, but when I was alone I completely lost it, just burst into tears, and I confronted her, and she was shocked at her own behavior. She had no explanation. She was hospitalized for the last week of April, they recalibrated her meds, and she entered hospice care in May.

She lived for another six months, until October 15th, 2015. I got reassigned at the bank to one of the most hellish, tedious jobs I’ve ever experienced. During lunch I would go out, guiltily smoke cigarettes and contemplate jumping off the parking garage. I was catastrophically lonely August through September.

The night mom died was a Friday. I had gone to pick up some hard cider after worked - Rhinegeist Red. The day before, she had gone to the clinic where she received her chemo and said goodbye to all the technicians - some of these people she had known for ten years. I have to imagine those are some of the most peculiar friendships in all of human experience. She and dad also went to say goodbye to the neighbors from the house I grew up in. Dad was surprised that night - she seemed stronger than she had in months. This “golden day” is apparently typical for people in hospice care.

Friday morning, mom had started to have trouble breathing around 10:00 am. She just couldn’t catch her breath, and she was in a lot of pain. The hospice nurse came by and upped her morphine dosage, and told my father to continue to administer another dose every half hour. 

When I came home, it seemed like the house was empty. I put my cider on the kitchen table, and suddenly the bathroom door opened. Mom had braced herself against the door frame; dad was holding her up. As he carried her into the kitchen, I saw death like I never had before.

My mother’s left eye was cast toward heaven. The right one wobbled ghoulishly in its socket. Her skin was the color of old glue. Her eyes had been off kilter for a few weeks - somewhere a tumor was interfering with her ocular nerve - but the pallor was new.

Dad called the hospice nurse again, after putting mom in the hospital bed that had become a fixture in our living room. I drank a can of cider. Mom fluttered in and out of consciousness. 

My yoga teacher had suggested I read to her while she lay in bed, and out of sentiment’s sake I had chosen Winnie the Pooh. I was in such a poor state that I had only done it once before that day, though, so I started the second chapter as we waited for the nurse.

As fate would have it, it was the story where Pooh goes to Rabbit’s house, eats too much honey, and gets caught in the door on his way out. Wouldn’t it be odd, I thought, morbidly, if this was the last story I read to her? This story of a sweet old bear caught halfway out the door.

The hospice nurse arrived, checked mom’s vitals and swabbed the saliva from her mouth, as she could no longer swallow. The nurse walked dad and I into the other room, and told us she probably had a week to live. It was like a grenade went off in the room. I needed to steady myself, so I went upstairs, got on the computer, and read comics reviews.

Shortly thereafter, mom’s morphine pump ran out of batteries. Dad went upstairs to get the replacements. When he was halfway down the stairs, the nurse shouted “Steve, she’s going!” He vaulted the rest of the steps, and I followed shortly thereafter.

When we arrived, mom sputtered out her last few breaths. Dad said, “I love you Mel. I’ll never forget you, as long as I live.” All I could say, was sorry, over and and over again.

Dad stayed with her body, and I went to pick up my sister from college. It was a I miracle I didn’t get into and accident. I bawled and wailed the whole way there, a and then I was done. 

The day of the funeral was sunny and crisp, autumn at its most sublime. The service was held a the church mom had grown up in, a small Lutheran chapel with stained glass windows.

I wrote my mother’s eulogy. I had planned to for years. It was the best speech I ever gave - my diction was clear, my gaze met the crowd. Afterwards, they would tell me they saw her standing behind me.

I didn’t stutter until the very end, when I said the words she wanted to be remembered for:

“Life is short; be kind, and be memorable.”

And then I sat in the pew, and shed one last tear.

I wish I could tell you I fixed after that, but I wasn’t. I spent another four months at that hellish bank job before I quit. When I quit, I took up yoga again, and started cooking. I began to rebuild myself. During that time, my friend’s mother helped me find a teaching job, here in Korea, and that’s how I finally began living again.

Is everything perfect now? Of course not. I still have trouble getting close to people; I’m a twenty six year old virgin. But things are a hell of a lot better, and it’s getting easier all the time.

#damn it anon you made me cry

[shrubforhire]

Asks 1-99

i rly thought i was in the clear,,,

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? inevitable by orla gartland nine in the afternoon by panic! fake happy by paramore epic III from hadestown say my name from beetlejuice haunted house by sir babygirl

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? hayley williams

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. Tally ran toward the garden.

4: What do you think about most? going back to school

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? Good! Morning!

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? clothes on,,, my family dont b respectin boundaries how yall live like that

7: What’s your strangest talent? i can make my eyes shake

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) girls... are so pretty and wonderful and they could do whatever they want to me. boys.... can be p cool sometimes

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? yes!!!! my girlfriend wrote me a sonnet eeeeee

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? i......cant remember

11: Do you have any strange phobias? nah

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? probably

13: What’s your religion? jew by blood

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? going somewhere else

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? behind, i always look weird on camera

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? paramore

17: What was the last lie you told? i told my mom her fitbit isnt a worse model

18: Do you believe in karma? yea

19: What does your URL mean? i made it when i was finally mostly sure i was a lesbian but it kinda leaves some ambiguity. and now its just kinda like hey maybe lets not

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? im super insecure; im persistent

21: Who is your celebrity crush? stephanie scott

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? no

23: How do you vent your anger? pacing & long walks, doing something else

24: Do you have a collection of anything? i have hella pokemon dolls i used to collect

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? i like talking on the phone cause then im not thinking abt my appearance the whole time

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? almost

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? knife on a plate; hot metal going into liquid

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? what if they dont like me

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? yea, and no

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. a pillow. my own leg

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? nothing lol, its just air

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? texas

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? east coast

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? uhhhhhh,,,,, i guess like a younger billie joe armstrong

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? to be happy!

36: Define Art. something that makes you feel stuff!

37: Do you believe in luck? yea

38: What’s the weather like right now? sunny, but not deadly hot yet

39: What time is it? 10:43

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? yes, no i have not yet knock on wood babeyyy

41: What was the last book you read? boleslavsky lmao

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? YES

43: Do you have any nicknames? lil c, mini straub

44: What was the last film you saw? arthur

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? i tripped and my cheek got stabbed with the corner of a coffee table and i had to get stitches

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? no

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? musescore

48: What’s your sexual orientation? less bien

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? not rly lol, no ones rly cared enough to do tht

50: Do you believe in magic? a lil

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? yes, but after 4 years i give them a second chance

52: What is your astrological sign? taurusss

53: Do you save money or spend it? save

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? a subway sandwich

55: Love or lust? love

56: In a relationship? y e s hehehhhe

57: How many relationships have you had? techincally, 3. but the first 2 lasted for like 2 weeks so they really dont count. p much just this 1

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? no :(

59: Where were you yesterday? at work lol

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? a spray bottle

61: Are you wearing socks right now? no ;)

62: What’s your favourite animal? giraffe

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? god i wish i had one,,, usually just tryna not b annoying lol

64: Where is your best friend? at rehearsal

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. positivewlwvibes lesbian-bottom-memes meaningfulsuggestion okay-pie atomicanderson haha bitchessssss

66: What is your heritage? white people soup

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? watching danny gonzalez 

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? hellman

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? no, i only clock out when I've worked my 9 hours. but noice q 69

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? yea,, i send memes and im a crackhead

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? this job is seasonal bitch,,,, save that mf pupper

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? i would tell my pals, i would spend all of my money doing dumb shit, and id be scared as fuck bitch!!

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. this is a weird fucking q. i guess trust bc its a form of love

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? girls like girls

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 6071

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? communication, checking in w the other person, making sure everything is all good

77: How can I win your heart? playing a song,,,,, bonus points if u wrote it ohymogd

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? yes absolutely

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? moving away from home for college

80: What size shoes do you wear? 6 1/2

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? pepparoni and chaese

82: What is your favourite word? effervescent 

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. tubes

84: What is a saying you say a lot? we cant all be winners

85: What’s the last song you listened to? i got you by karmin

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? lavender and p much any pastels

87: What is your current desktop picture? the gravity falls floating stan balloon that says i eat kids

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? i’d say trump, but then we’d have pence and it would be worse. 

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? idk,, theres so much embarrassing shit you could ask me i rly cant narrow it down

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? say whats up bro

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? telekinesis

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? going to the beach w pals and riding bikes and looking at the ocean :’)

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? my dads existence rofl

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? hayley. mf. williams

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? maryland

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? not anymore!

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? nope

98: Ever been on a plane? yup

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? raid the ice concentration camps

[southboundhqarchive]

MEET AISLING,

FULL NAME › Aisling MacKenna (goes almost exclusively by Ash) AGE › thirty GENDER › Cis female (She/Her/Hers) FROM › Boston, Massachusetts RESIDENCY › Songbird Avenue (Midtown) OCCUPATION › Tattoo Artist and Piercer at Outside The Lines NOW PLAYING › Make Me Feel by Janelle Monáe

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: homophobia, homophobic slurs, physical abuse

The MacKennas were a perfectly normal family who lived in a perfectly normal house and lived a perfectly normal life, thank you very much. If asked, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about Luke and Caitriona MacKenna at all. They were high school sweethearts, married in a rush before they were barely 19 years old and had two wonderful children; their eldest, a son called Aidan, born only two years into their marriage and their youngest, Aisling, born seven years later. They were a wonderful family and nothing could ever be wrong in the MacKenna house. No one would dare assume it.

For the most part, it was true. Luke worked most of his days as an electrician while Caitriona spent her time at home, supposedly raising the children. It was a meagre wage to live on but the kids hardly noticed. It was hard to notice when they spent most of their time turfed out to family members just so Caitriona could get some peace from their squabbling. It was hardly anything serious but, with two kids so diametrically opposed in personality and with such a big age gap, Aidan and Aisling’s fights could get explosive. The worst of which occurred when Aisling was only seven and Aidan was fourteen. Her wonderful big brother tore up a drawing she had worked so hard at during school and Aisling went wild. That outburst landed her at her grandmother’s house for a week and a half.

See, life was fairly regular until Aidan moved away for university. From then, everything seemed to spiral out of control for Aisling. Her father lost his job and suddenly, what was a meagre wage became no wage at all. It wasn’t unusual for her to hear screaming matches every night and, more and more, Aisling found herself running away to her grandparents, just to hide for a night or two, just for a moment of peace. It was just exhausting to feel so much. Being around her parents drained her. Instead, she would curl up in her grandmother’s kitchen and sketch pictures for hours.

The fights never seemed to cease. Occasionally, there would be quiet spells - brief moments of silence, especially when Aidan was home - but it was never fully over. There was always something - something dark and bitter and twisted simmering beneath the surface and Aisling loathed it. She stayed at school late, went to her grandparents’ house every night, only went home to sleep. Anything she could do just to avoid a house that was beginning to feel like poison seeping into her veins. For some reason, Luke and Caitriona just wouldn’t call it quits. There had to be a breaking point eventually but it seemed like they were both so determined to cling onto a past painted in rose hues that they refused to see that they had already careened past said breaking point.

Aisling meanwhile decided to pick up an extra art class at school when she was fifteen. She had fast found that art was her passion and, while she was never the most academic of souls, the art department of her school had become a second home for her. One that was a damn sight more welcoming than her own. She was one of two in the class. The other, a girl by the name of Lisa, was a solace for her. She was warm and funny and so kind that it made Aisling’s soul ache. She loved her. That was the plain and simple truth of it. She loved Lisa with everything in her.

And that terrified her. She had no idea how to even begin to reconcile the fact that she was queer with anything she had ever been told. For as long as she could remember, it had always been expected that she would fall in love with a man. This had never come up. So she buried it. As deep as she could. She shut out Lisa as best she could, dropped the art class, started skipping class and hiding away in parks and the like. Her grades started to nosedive, she could feel herself starting to spiral and she had no idea just how to sort it. She did know one thing however. She couldn’t live like this for the rest of her life. She had to tell her parents that she was hardly the perfect daughter they had wanted.

It wasn’t like she had ever made an exact plan as to how to tell her parents that she thought she might be a lesbian but the way she went about it was hardly ideal. She got home late one evening, half drunk from cheap vodka someone had bought for her and absolutely belligerent with rage as to how unfair all of this was. Of course, when she got in, her parents were screaming at each other about…god knows what. Seemed like everything they did got on each other’s nerves. Aisling came storming in that night, slammed her hand against the wall and declared that she was so sorry that she was such a disappointment but they can all bite her and she hopes they never come to see her when she gets a wife.

She didn’t expect her mother to slap her hard across the face, spitting insults at her that stung more than any slap. That sobered her up fast and Aisling went scrambling up the stairs, fear lancing her blood. She knew she had to get out. She just didn’t know where she could go. All the same, she packed a bag with her most prized possessions, some clothes and a bit of cash she had been squirrelling away for years. She left that night after her parents had fallen asleep and took to walking aimlessly until she stumbled across a busier road.

And so it began that Aisling started hitchhiking across the country. On a whim, she texted Lisa and asked where she was. A little while away but manageable to get to and willing to put her up for as long as she needed. Now with a destination in mind, Aisling got to work trying to make her way through the states. Somewhere along the way, her phone died and she got all turned around on the highway. Now with no idea where she was or how to get to where she was going, Aisling found herself sitting roadside, just hoping someone would stop and give her a ride. By the time someone stopped to ask her if she was okay, she was desperate. They asked if she would be okay with being dropped off at the nearest town since that’s where they were headed anyway. She agreed and climbed into the car with this stranger without another word.

Eventually, she asked where they were going. Boot Hill was the answer she received.

She intended to phone Lisa from a payphone or something as soon as she arrived and let her know that she had been detained for a little while. That never happened. Instead, they rolled into Boot Hill and Aisling was struck with exactly how different the whole place felt. She holed up in the motel but soon found that she had no real desire to leave. Instead, she found herself wanting to make a life here.

Within a few weeks, she was working at the movie theatre and earning just enough to rent a tiny little place in Silver Spurs. She was doing okay. Truly. She had a chance to reinvent herself here and, within the year, she had found herself thriving in this odd little place. She had decided to drop her original first name, cutting the legacy of her family, and going solely by Ash. Without any of her past coming back to haunt her, Ash was free to be exactly who she wanted to be.

This was furthered even more when the tattoo parlour opened in Boot Hill. Perhaps this was exactly what she had been waiting for. So, at 20 years old, Ash became the first apprentice at Outside The Lines. It took her just under two years to fully qualify and since then, she’s been working as an artist and piercer at the studio. It gives her a chance to explore art without the fear of her family hanging over her and without anything tainting it. Instead, Ash finds herself absolutely delighted with her life at Boot Hill.

She never wants to leave.

Except…sometimes she thinks of Lisa. And she wonders if the girl ever waited for her.

❝ my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Kate Siegel AUTHOR › Rebecca

#kate siegel #rp #rpg #oc rp #town rp #{ all. } #{ f. } #{ local. } #{ over thirty. } #{ rebecca. } #homophobia tw #physical abuse tw

[cynthiajayusa]

Tony Adams: The Marrying Man

If you want someone who “looks the part” to do the honors at your upcoming nuptials, Tony Adams is your man. With his ascetic bearing, fine features, and raven brows — all offset by a glorious shock of white hair — Adams looks like a parish priest straight out of central casting.

Which. In fact. He was. Way back in the ’80s.

Unable to reconcile his gay identity or moral values with a relentlessly (and hypocritically) homophobic Vatican, Adams eventually left the Church. But he never lost his call to ministry, which is why he gladly returned to the nuptial business almost as soon as marriage equality became a reality in these United States.

Since then, Adams has joined scores of LGBT couples in matrimony (holy and… less so), a service the snowbird performs both in South Florida and New York City. We sat down with this unconventional man of the cloth to get the skinny on life as a same-sex marriage officiant: the outfits, the vows, the horror stories.

How long have you been officiating?

As a Catholic priest, I officiated at weddings for many years until I left active ministry in 1982. I wanted to help LGBT couples who were denied marriage by their anti-gay Catholic Church, so just a few days after marriage equality became law in New York — July 24, 2011— I married two gay couples in Central Park in front of a huge crowd of cheering friends and strangers. A beautiful day. No dry eyes.

What kind of accreditation do you have? What did you have to do to get it?

I am a minister of the Universal Life Church, which is one of a handful of churches recognized by New York City for the purpose of becoming a licensed officiant. The application process is easy, all spelled out on the [New York] City Clerk’s website. Oddly, singing ability is not required. Most of my weddings have no religious overtones, but if asked, I’ll honor the couple’s traditions — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise.

Is your accreditation limited to a particular state or states?

Yes, requirements vary from state to state. There are some startling differences between New York and Florida, for instance. In New York City, there’s a specific licensing process. In Florida, your officiant needs only to be an ordained clergyman of any kind — and there’s no proof required!

Also, in NYC, the officiant must return the completed license to the City Clerk’s office within a specific number of days. Here in Florida, the officiant can return it whenever he or she feels like it! Of course, if it doesn’t get returned, and no wedding certificate is issued, a justifiably irate couple will probably hunt down their negligent officiant with more force than any Florida sheriff.

How many couples have you married?

I’ve lost count.

Lesbians as well as gay men?

Yes, both.

Any opposite-sex couples?

I would not discriminate against an opposite-sex couple.

How do you prepare for a wedding? How much do you work with the couple?

Working with the couple is key. I have to get a sense of what they envision, and I have to honor their wishes 100 percent. Sure, I’ll give them advice, but it’s their day: Casual? Formal? Relatives? Rings? Vows? Pets? Children? Music? God? No God?

A good officiant isn’t just a plug-in. He orchestrates the ceremony, making everyone comfortable so that they can celebrate what they feel in their hearts for the couple. Humor among strangers is tricky; a good officiant uses it sparingly but will pour out good will by the bucket.

Do you have a set script? Or does it vary from service to service?

Never a set script, but there is one thing I always do when I know that there are straight relatives and friends in attendance. I start the wedding by thanking them for rising above any personal prejudices or religious beliefs they may have. I thank them for the courage of their presence honoring and supporting two people in love.

I address my words to the oldest people present because they have grown up in a time when LGBT people were closeted, invisible, and condemned. The older ones are also more likely to know the truth about marriage and how it works. I honor their presence. I always get a little choked up when I thank them and see them blink back tears, but hey, if you can’t make ’em cry, it’s not a wedding, right?

What do you wear?

I take my cue from the couple. If they want me in black, I’m there. If they want me in flip-flops, I’m there. I recently did a wedding on St. Patrick’s Day that meant shopping for a green shirt. I once attended a wedding in Key West where everyone was naked except for leather masks and harnesses. The exchange of rings was eye-popping! I’m glad they didn’t ask me to officiate, but if they had, I’d have worn latex.

Do you ever help the couple write their vows?

Yes. Often the couple is not sure what they want to say, so it’s helpful for me to submit a list of words and phrases. They are never shy about then telling me what to avoid. For instance, an old-fashioned phrase like, “Will you be obedient to your spouse forsaking all others?” can sometimes elicit snorts and eye-rolls. The majority of the couples I’ve married have specified that there be no mention of god or religion. I also never presume that their vows will include sexual exclusivity.

Do you recall any particularly memorable vows?

I have had to learn some phrases in Hebrew, Ukranian, Spanish, Italian and Polish — just enough to honor the heritage of the couples. Sometimes, I’m not quite sure what I may have actually said! I enjoy delivering the final blessing in Latin if the crowd is Roman Catholic but only if the couple asks for that. It’s part of what sets me apart from other officiants.

Where have you performed marriages?

All over Manhattan and Brooklyn, including several spots in Central Park. In Fort Lauderdale, I’ve officiated on the beach, on yachts, and on a bridge over a pool at a private residence.

What’s the most memorable ceremony you’ve performed?

I cherish the memory of each one, none more than the other. I’m friends with almost all the couples I have married, so I would never rate or rank those ceremonies. Each one was beautiful.

Do couples usually invite you to attend the reception?

Yes. I love socializing with folks in the context of a wedding. Great fun!

Have you witnessed any wedding mishaps? Do tell.

The guests had arrived and were milling about in a restaurant in Greenwich Village a half hour before we were to start the ceremony. The couple had a cute little dog that would be the ring bearer. The rings were tied to his diamond collar with a festive ribbon. When I tried to take a picture of the dog that had been scampering through the crowd, I saw that he had chewed through the ribbon and that the rings were lost somewhere on the floor of the restaurant.  Everyone was enlisted in the search and they were located. What do performers say about working with dogs and children?

In Central Park I married two lesbian couples by the Bethesda Fountain. Pouring rain meant we had to go under the Bethesda Terrace, but a Halloween haunted house had been set up there and we were kept out. One of the lesbians got spooked by the sounds of devilish recorded screams from within the haunted house, and she refused to go on with the ceremony, saying it would be cursed. She calmed down, umbrellas were located, and everything ended well as the rain turned into a gorgeous snowfall.

What made you decide you wanted to officiate weddings?

To make up for having been a priest in the anti-gay Catholic Church. It’s my way of making amends.

While you were a priest, did you marry any couples?

Maaaaany.

I’ve heard you charge no fee for officiating. Is that true?

I refuse to accept even a penny. This is another way I make amends for having been a priest in a Catholic Church that makes money via the distribution of its sacraments. When the couple asks about a fee, I suggest they make a donation to The SMART Ride via my rider page. [The annual two-day benefit bicycle ride from Miami to Key West raises funds for groups providing HIV/AIDS service in South Florida.] They have all been amazingly generous.

In your experience, what makes a wedding ceremony memorable or moving?

In a world in which half of all marriages fail, and given that many in attendance have had failed marriages, if I can make people feel hopeful again, and able to set aside the past or their fears for the future, and if I can make them believe that love can last forever, I’ll have done my job — and I can feel it in the air.

What should a couple look for in an officiant?

Efficiency! A good officiant never waits to the last minute when working with a couple. A good officiant is never late or unprepared for glitches! Beyond that, I think it’s part instinct, part compassion and part wisdom. I’ve lived with the same man for 35 years, married to him for nine. I’ve been around, and I got stuff to say about it!

Some couples will have a friend get accredited to officiate at their wedding. Good idea?

Maybe, but will that friend know how to set the tone and pace and roll with glitches in the ceremony? I think it is better to ask your closest friends or relatives to read, recite, or sing something, as long as they keep it brief!

Do any of the couples you’ve married stay in touch with you?

I am in touch with all of them, even if it’s just on Facebook. I am happy to report that they are all still together. “Who’s your daddy?” should be my officiant motto!

Tony Adams, a minister of the Universal Life Church, can perform weddings in Florida and New York City. Contact him at [email protected] or via his wedding page on Facebook: facebook.com/Tony-Adams-1532614977002074.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/05/03/tony-adams-the-marrying-man/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/05/tony-adams-marrying-man.html