#you know patti was like “why you dressed like that IN THE THEATRE” | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

awakenee · 2 years

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hsmtmts . ep 101

july 5, 2022 - 8:07 pm cst

i had to scroll through my "continue watching" d+ list for a solid minute before finding hsmtmts 💀

woah, the first episode is 40 minutes long?? i knew it was the longest out of both seasons (or at least i think so) but wow

the "we're all in this together" intro gives me strong deja vu hsm flashbacks lol

this intro music is so iconic

ew, i changed tabs and suddenly my subtitles are on the left

is it bad that i didnt realise these were ricky and big red until a few episodes shy into season two

"aHAHA"

"first costume change" icon

"junior year, baby" reminds me of "september 1st, 1989. dear diary:"

spoiler alert: big red did not grow a mustache.

oh look, my subtitles are back to normal

AYE, MY FAVORITE BACKGROUND DANCERS ARE IN THE BACKGROUND. NICE. lauren and steph and someone else whose name i dont remember i think

"today's the day we start over" poor ricky

back when i first saw this thing and nini was showing kourt her music man stuff i didnt think anything of it but now that im a theatre kid this gets me all excited and peppy

"i know who that is, nini!" yes, it's shirtless ej looking like he just saw someone take a big dump

omg olivia is such a baby,,, i miss her

gina just passed in front of kourtney lmao

"yo nini" sounded like "young nini"

the office moment

ricky seems so dumb rn,,, my poor, poor boi

gina's still in the background

also i've never seen the office

why does nini know whether ricky's feet stink or not and why does she think it's cute

nini has a lion plushie in her bed, i think it's featured in the hsm con novel

NINI MY LOVE,,,,

AHHHH ITIKYK

this is so sweet i cant

unrelated but i just got an email offering me 1776 broadway orchestra seats from 99+, pretty neat

are people commenting on this video live, or...?

why is ricky's IG username "@skateratricky"

ok but nini resting her head on ricky's shoulder

dear @missschmotzer who commented "why are you always in the ensemble?!?!!", wouldn't we all like to know that

"davidgutierrezslc" is that the principal,,, imagine

seb my love

argh nini is so pure i want to hug her for eternity

help she sounds like she's going to cry

RICKY YOU LITTLE SH-

who in sh has a back to school kickoff

"you're blowing me off for some theatre punk" ricky, all i ever want in my life is a theatre punk to love me.

yes, idk whether to spell it theatre or theater

"at a lake???" KIKIWAKA KIKIWAKA

spoiler alert 2: kourtney never dismantles the patriarchy

lmao gina is staring at nini and kourt as they walk away from ricky and big red and making an "OHHHHHHH" expression

"love is dead" ricky,,,,

"fRiDaY!!!!!!!"

ok but why would you wear your cheer uniform to the first day of school? im not american so maybe that is normal over there but still,,,

may the guy with the glasses rest in peace after being smacked with that t-shirt

way too many "high school"s in one sentence

i want to have carlos' confidence

nini right before the opening card rolls in is me during social studies thinking about my plans to land on broadway one day and become the next patti lupone

oh god that step carlos is doing is so familiar to me,,, i'm getting lion king flashbacks

OH YES HERE IT COMES ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC LINES FROM THE SERIES

AHAHAHWHEHEHYY YES GO CARLOS

"i pay for ad free spotify"

is "sue me" the equivalent of "fight me"????

can we talk about how this series has had plot holes since the pilot? miss jenn's financial issues were never brought up again

we dont have hall passes here so...

oh boy im only 8 minutes in and this is already a big ass text block

mr mazzara looks so annoyed oh my god

carlos looks so happy when she says "watch out world"

WAIT WAIT WAIT. i just noticed something. miss jenn's office number is B110, and i'm, like, 99.9% sure that's the number of the dressing room in which ricky and nini kiss. how does that work

"hollywood dream world" no, sir. hollywood and broadway are two very different things.

"we're the east high leopards. always have been. 😎😎😎"

their lunch is so nice

kourtney is me @ my mom

okay i actually agree with nini on this one,,, that dress would've been too much

"bAbE"

*natalie and seb gasp*

more featured dancers in the background

i wish someone would slide pizzas under my door

wtf nini's so short

isn't playing sports and doing theatre at the same time illegal? /j

ok but i love ricky's jackets

my dude why are you making faces to yourself

nini was one of the most amazing trees featured in the pictures evan was sending to connor, duh /ref

uno destroys friendships and relations, this goes against the rules of the universe

ywbf flashbacks

do dreams ever mean anything

mike dropping the raw chicken on the floor >>>>>>

ouch

my ricky needs therapy counter is officially on 1

i want big red's gaming thing

yeah, ricky, i think that's weird too but i'm still a raging theatre kid

"it's about zac efron dancing with a basketball" well, he's not wrong

angsty ricky

ricky's hair >>>>>> troy's hair

ricky looks like a deer in headlights lol

gosh, that's intimidating

ej, kindly, shut up

THE SUBTITLES JUST LISTED CARLOS AS "woman"

dancing, the bane of my existence

dancing isn't that impressing in hsm tho

"that was the warm up????" mood

"not with a friend" my anxiety says no

GINI GINI GINI GINI

understudies are the best

help, nini looks so scared

"new lab" those computers look kinda outdated, no offense

i want to smack mr mazzara and ricky

steph: *squeals*

"i'm dying, i'm deceased"

isn't adding a new song to the musical illegal? coughs in the s2 menkies

how does gina know which scenes are they going to give her???

omg seb looks so nervous and cute

go nini

GO SEB

seblos moment

"your chosen-last-for-dodgeball" hey, that's me!

ricky's a criminal guys

help, i know ricky's gonna barge in and i'm getting so much second hand embarrassment right now

seb my love

nini looks so in love with him

pretty sure that's less than 16 bars

run richard, run

ok but gina would be an amazing gabriella, just think about it

NINI BRITISH ACCENT

where's my supportive theatre punk

nini my beloved

*war flashbacks*

ricky i want to slap you into oblivion right now

yeah, nini, be more chill!!!! tAkE yOuR hAnDs oUt oF yOuR pOcKeTs /ref

i want nini's bedroom

the background music is depressing

RCIYK AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ricky you little sh

ACTUALLY, CARLOS, TROY NEVER ARRIVES ON TIME. THAT'S SOME GREAT CHARACTER WORK RIGHT THERE.

shut up ej

YES AHHHH

getting so much nostalgia from this

why are you guys shoving cellphones in her face

oh my god this is so awkward

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS GO

oh my god im so proud of my little baby nini

ok, hear me out. i love s1 nini so, so much but i just dont think she's right for gabriella if you get what i mean?

great timing, light people

"i only needed 32 bars" that was like 32 bars ma'am

we love a supportive big red

ricky ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

sir, you're supposed to be off-book

what are you doing

miss jenn really went for the underdogs

this is making me feel so many things

ricky needs therapy counter: 2

to be continued because of the character limit

#hsmtmts analysis #hsmtmts fandom #ricky bowen #gina porter

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only-johnny-deppp · 2 years

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8 years ago, on this day (February 15), Johnny Depp attended and was honored during the 2014 MUAHs Awards, the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Awards, held at the Paramount Theatre, in Los Angeles, California.

On that day Johnny was honored with the “Distinguished Artisan Award”, which is given annually to those whose body of work in the film and TV industry was richly enhanced by the consistent collaboration of make-up and hair styling artistry. On that day, the award was presented by his long-time makeup artist and friend, Joel Harlow. Johnny also gave a speech:

> Speech:

“This is a great honor, but looking up, glancing occasionally at the screen, I realized: ‘What a ridiculous thing I’ve done’… (chuckles) I mean… Seriously… Why are they still giving me jobs? It’s ridiculous… (chuckles) No, when I first started out making movies I started out by accident because of the guitar player who needed to make money to support my habit to be a guitar player. It was hard to be on this movie called “Nightmare on Elm Street” with Wes Craven who really took a chance on me. He hooked me up with a guy to take a mold of my face, this guy Dave Miller. I found oddly that I liked being encased all that stuff, you know like, I liked being isolated to that degree. So like, you know, the idea of being shocked beyond recognition it’s kind of what, you know, sorta what I strive for. I think that trying something different, each time as an actor, you know, with the luxury and the amazing help of mega and the artists who apply as made my whole - whatever they call it - 'career' - answer to call out that 'my job'. But I have the great honor of working with wonderful people, you know, VeNeill, who’s just been, you know, she has been the love of my life for a very, very long time - not many people talk about that because he likes to keep it buried… That’s my girl… Patty York, who has made me so many different strange things you know, from me coming in with my inability bonded and broken and shattered on you know films way back and Gilbert Grape, you know, and then he ought to have the opportunity to work with this guy who is, you know, again in a way far following the artist’s way some Jack Pierce traditional, the great, great makeup artists who don’t just want to create but need to create, you know. And I am… yeah. But there’s a lot of things… I should probably apologize for a few but I won't… (chuckles) But there’s no way in the world that I would have been able to find the root of those characters, or the heart of those characters, without the artists that I spoke about earlier such as being Patty and Joel, for example, but I would have been able to do, come close to any of the characters, you know. if I came closer at all. I wouldn’t become an able account so close without these amazing people who dressed me into that skin. So, I thank you very, very much, it’s great honor, really.”

#Johnny Depp #Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Awards #February 2014 #2014 MUAHs Awards #Paramount Theatre #Los Angeles #California #On this Day #Honorary Award #Distinguished Artisan Award #Joel Harlow

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heresathreebee · 3 years

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Wearing THAT

[Dewey Finn X Female Reader]

Summary: Reader teases Dewey in a Poison Ivy costume. You have a really hard time saying exactly what you want... Masterlist Next

Word count: 3.1k words (no beta)

Warning(s): 17+ | teasing, lots of teasing and boners, lap sitting, near nudity, touching

AN: only Thots here, thots about Dewey Finn also is Ned British? He's British in my head

This was some sort of test. It had to be. God was testing him through you and you were not playing fair. It’s a costume party not a competition, you pompous little sycophant. And yet he can’t help but tug at the collar of his shirt. It’s not even anywhere near his throat but why else would he feel so constricted? It’s certainly not because of you…

You walked into his shared apartment wearing that and you had no idea the effect it had on him.

Dewey watches you sling an arm around Ned and kiss Patty’s cheek in greeting. “Hi guys! Thanks for inviting me, I’ve been dying to put this on.”

“Oh you look lovely,” Patty coos. She plucks at one of the plastic leaves on your corset. “Did you make this?! It’s so intricate.”

You bark out a laugh. “Oh hell no! I have this cousin, right? And him and his fiancé own this shop where they make costumes for movies and theatre and if you pay ‘em right, ‘personal use.’ And they don’t ask questions what ain’t their business either.”

“Well, I’m sold.” Ned raises his beer for a toast and Patty clinks it with her bottle of mysterious green juice. “Prost! What’s the name of the shop? Wanna see if they’re online– you know, for... support.”

“Ned,” Patty swatted his empty hand (no need to be shy, we already know they’re freaky).

You pat your friends on their backs and take a step towards the kitchen. “Gonna get myself a beer.”

“Oh honey you don’t have to do that. Dewey!” The man in question nearly covered himself in his own drink when he heard his name. “Be a good host and get this lady her beer!”

“Yes captain,” Dewey salutes and Patty can do nothing but glare in her Star Trek yellow shirt costume. Original series, of course, nothing but the best for Patricia Di Marco.

Dewey takes a hold of the moment he has his back to you to take deep, calming breaths. He will not let this be the end of him. Your friendship means so much more to him than that and a little fancy green corset was not going to make him fuck things up with you.

He’s ready for you when he hands you your beer. Your one arm hug is appreciated because he’s sporting a bit of wood and he’d hate to find out your corset isn’t thick enough to hide it– or god forbid you feel him on your thigh. And god, your thighs… those sheer green nylon tights were doing unspeakable things to him. Maybe if he kept you close and kept your legs out of his peripherals he could make it through the night without embarrassing himself.

Or maybe not.

“Are yoooouuu a college student?,” you ask and point at his inconspicuous clothes.

“Actually– ” he opens the buttons of his shirt to reveal another shirt with a superman logo on it and buttons it back up clumsily as you laugh. “Ssshhh! Don’t tell anybody. Protect my secret.”

“Of course,” you giggle. God you feel good hanging off him– usually he loves how physical you are but he has to figure out a way to keep his distance without offending you and quickly. “You like mine?”

The way you pick up a thick swirling red lock and direct his attention to the very thing he’s trying not to look at is killing him. Of course you look even better up close. The leaves of your corset give the thing depth and texture, your gloves are fingerless and go over your elbows, and your heels are high, like make- him- feel- his- below- average- height high.

“I like these.” Dewey plucks at the ring of leaves at the top of your gloves. It’s a way to keep his mind off your everything else. “Did you dye your hair?”

“It’s a wig.” You tug on the top and then the bottom, wincing a little. “Sew in, so don’t go snatch it.”

“I would never!”

“Poison Ivy, eh? Think that’s one of Dewey’s favorites,” Ned blabs.

Dewey sends him a death glare so powerful Ned chokes on his beer but you’re looking at your Spock-dressed friend so you can’t see it.

“Oh, really?” You return your gaze to Dewey and say, “well you must be loving this, then.”

Dewey swallows. No words come to him and there is nothing to stop the awkward silence that follows. You appear unbothered by it, maintaining eye contact as you smile almost knowingly…

“We should play twister,” he says with the most unsure voice ever.

“We don’t even have twister,” Patty mumbled. “Come on, there are like twenty other games setup, let’s play!”

Dewey gives it a minute and when he’s free from you, he catches Ned by his pointy green ear and drags him into the hall. “Hey? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Whah– what are you talking about?” Ned slaps at the hand fisted in his shirt but Dewey doesn’t budge.

“You can’t just go telling people I’m into them, dude! Do you know how close you came to giving me away?!”

Ned scoffed. “Her? I hardly think she’s ignorant to your feelings, you’re not like that Steven from Austin fellow.”

“– Are you talking about stone cold Steve Austin?"Dewey buries his face in his hands- "It’s his last name, not his birthplace–”

“And besides…” Ned peeks around the corner to see you in the middle of some sort of posing game. Everybody's trying to take the form of some sort of vehicle, and you've got Chloe in a headlock and Vance's leg in the other hand. Ned never got to finish his thought because someone dropped a huge bowl of popcorn and that too became a game of ‘how many can you eat off the floor before Patty cleans it up.’ Ned’s got to help and he’s got to help now.

Dewey finds himself on the couch with his fifth beer of the evening. Vance, Jeremiah, and Chloe are talking baseball stats when suddenly Dewey’s vision is filled with green and red just before you sit down. Right between his legs. He unconsciously scoots up to make room for you and before he catches on to your game, you nestle into his space by the arm of the couch and sling your legs across his like you belong there.

Ok, something is definitely up with you.

Would he describe you as cuddly? A little. Perhaps a more appropriate word would be… hands on. Long before he started wanting more than friendship with you, you two were always just touching. Your presence and your love language was physical. Dewey never felt like you were invading his personal space or overstepping his boundaries because he simply had none with you and the feeling was mutual. But this was something else. Something that wasn’t there before.

Was it him? Was he fucking up his perfectly in sync companionship with you because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants or (his heart for that matter)? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to drag you closer or push you flat on your ass right now.

You were listening to Chloe chew Vance out for hating Gritty the mascot when you felt Dewey plant a hand on your forehead. “Hey, are you feeling ok?”

You gently shake him off and raise a single eyebrow. He seems serious, his voice gone all soft and making you feel gooey inside.

“You just seem… I dunno,” he fumbles, “do you want me to take you home after this?”

Hellooooo opening! “Actually, can I stay here tonight?”

“Yeah, of course.” Fuck, who said that? Dewey? Ah, shit…

“Thanks,” oh oh you should not be rubbing his thigh right now… “I think I’ll go change here in a minute.”

Oh please do, please please puh-leeaaase–

After a brilliant movie drinking game (which Dewey tapped out of), the crowd began to disband. 24 became 20, then 18, then 12. You went out to your car to grab your overnight stuff and Dewey was hoping for a brief reprieve from the assault of your visage. He just needed a few more people to leave so he can sequester himself and rub one out– you know, get his head straight. Ever since you left his lap he’s been rock hard, there’s not enough blood flowing to his brain. The guest count is down to 3– 2 with you in your car, and he can’t wait anymore.

Dewey slipped into the only bathroom in the house and prayed to god nobody noticed him. He barely got his hand wrapped around his shaft when Patty’s fist banged on the door demanding he help clean up. Sulking and agitated, Dewey managed to calm down while cleaning up red solo cups, glass beer bottles, cans, and small pocket sized objects that would need to be returned to the guests after their hangovers subsided (no keys, thankfully, everybody’s got a DD). His “predicament’ is nearly forgotten when you finally return with a bundle of clothes, disappear into the bathroom and reemerge in loose sleepwear with your makeup wiped clean and uh… braless.

You catch him looking. Dewey– surprisingly sober after he gave up drinking half way through his sixth beer– does nothing short of raise a slightly irritated eyebrow at you. “Cold in here, huh?”

“Shut up. You know how uncomfortable it is to sleep in a bra?”

You help him collect a couple bottles that rolled under the couch and walk with him down to Ned’s car. Patty would sort the recyclables from the trash in the morning (late morning, she did a couple rounds of tequila shots thanks to you). It’s almost like the party never happened; you’re shooting the shit again and everything is right in the world. He’s got no ulterior reaction to putting a hand on your hip– that’s just a normal thing in your perfectly platonic relationship. God, he really must have been imagining things, he was beginning to think you were actually trying to flirt with him!

Ned’s bent over the kitchen sink with Patty and holding her hair back. He looks up as you enter the apartment and shakes his head. You and Dewey make yourself scarce by slipping into the shared bathroom to hide. You try to giggle quietly as Dewey surveys the skincare products you covered the counter with. He points to your head and asks, “you wearing that to bed?”

“It’s sewed in, I’m not taking this off for three weeks at least,” you answer. “Get my money’s worth. I can work it like my natural hair.”

Dewey nods. You rub your arm nervously and look for something to say, something to circle back to the whole point of showing up looking like a sexed up goddess. What do guys like? Girls wearing their clothes, right? But you need to phrase it perfectly…

“Dewey?” He looks up from the scrubby lip balm in his hands. “I’m not quite ready to go to sleep yet and it… it is a little chilly in your place. Can I wear your jacket?”

Just to bring your meaning home, you tug on his sleeve– the very jacket on his back. You don’t want just any jacket, you want that one, already warm and scented by him. You don’t miss the way his eyes glance past you like he was reluctant to comply. And yet…

“Yeah, here.” He slips out of it with ease and drapes it over your shoulders. You miss the sigh of relief he makes when you pull the zipper closed and obscure your pebbling nipples. “Think I’m gonna go help Ned put Patty to bed.”

Ned was a scrawny little thing and couldn’t carry her by himself, and she needed to be carried. Competitive by nature, it’s easy to talk her into virtually anything, especially if it feels like girl time. You need Patty in a deep sleep for your plans tonight (sorry not sorry). Dewey’s very sexy as he bears most of Patty’s weight. She’s clinging to Ned, arms around his neck and babbling incoherently while Dewey’s got an arm around her waist and legs, keeping Ned on his feet. You skirt ahead of them and open the bedroom door, help pull her shoes off, her captain insignia, her earrings, you even wipe the spit from her lips and the eyeliner smeared on her cheek.

“You’re my favorite ever,” she whimpers, “I love you so much, you’re like my best friend ever…”

You shush her gently. “You say that about everybody when you’re drunk, baby. I promise I’ll make you a fat breakfast in the morning but you gotta go to sleep now, OK?”

Patty nods. She snuggles into her pillow just as Ned is taking up position as the big spoon when she looks back up at you and asks, “can we go for a run together?”

You blink evenly. “Yes.” You already regret it as she smiles big and wide. It would be just your luck this is the one thing she doesn't forget in the morning.

Finally it's just you and Dewey in the hallway. It feels like you're standing between two choices: his open bedroom door and the living room. But it seems like only you can feel the weight of it.

"Are you sure you want to stay over?," Dewey asks, "you can use my bed."

You perk up out of your heavy mood. "Really?"

"Yeah, I'll take the couch tonight."

He can't possibly miss the way you instantly deflate but he's still not putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "Dewey. I'm not going to kick you out of your own room."

He shrugs. "Suit yourself. I'll grab a few blankets."

There's a storage closet in the main building with this one extra soft blanket that Dewey knows you'll love. You on the other hand have got no more patience left. Once the man leaves, you stomp your foot and decide to try one final act.

Dewey returns to the apartment to find an empty, quiet living room. Ned and Patty are in bed, but where are you? He wanders past the bathroom door because it's dark inside and checks his room. There you are reclining on his bed. He could have sworn you were wearing pants before but your legs are bare and his jacket hugs the tops of your thighs. He also could have sworn you were wearing a shirt. He finds both items folded neatly beside you with your underwear right on top.

Oh…

This cannot be happening right now. He just survived tonight by the skin of his teeth and now you were doing this to him. He’s going to pull his hair out, going to scream, it’s so frustrating because he can’t just ask you what you want– you’ll turn the question back on him and he’ll fuck it up. He lets the blanket fall from his grip and with a heavy sigh he whispers in a weak voice, “straight answers only. What are you doing to me? Why you doin’ this?”

You cock your head and answer leisurely, your eye drifting across the items in his room. “You know that’s not how I roll, but if you want me to address the elephant in the room: I'm naked in your bed right now."

Against his better judgement, Dewey moves closer. "I can see that."

One step closer and your eyes find him again. Like an invitation you lean back more, even uncross your legs but go no further. Dewey swallows his tongue and waits for you to elaborate and every second is agonizingly slow.

"You think you can just walk around here with your pretty face and cocky little attitude like it’s nothing,” you said accusingly.

Dewey glared at you. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Well we're in agreement then,” you’re almost sneering at him, but he knows it’s because you’re really frustrated with yourself, “I look and I touch and I feel but I don’t know, you know?”

“Not a clue,” he sighs and sits himself beside you. He’s done trying to keep his distance. “Let’s go back to you being naked in my bed.”

“Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?,” he repeats incredulously. Dewey leans back on his elbow to look you over from top to bottom. You look damn good in nothing but his jacket. You’ve got the long ends of your red hair in braids that sweep down to your navel. The zipper rests tantalizingly right below your ribcage. Dewey dares to reach out a mollifying hand and give a tiny stroke to that silver keeper. He cannot bring himself to speak above a whisper as he nods, “yeah, I… I like it.”

The tension leaves your shoulders and you wear a small grin. “It’s not too late to take it back. Say no, and I’ll put my clothes back on and sleep on the couch like none of this ever happened. This,” you point between the two of you, “doesn’t change unless we want it to.”

… this was real. In answer, Dewey’s chin wrinkles and he watches his finger travel upwards, drawing a light line up the expanse of your chest between your breasts to feel you shiver at his touch. Thing is he doesn’t want to say no, but wouldn’t it be better? Safer? He asks the question he’s been dying to know all night. “What do you want from me?”

“Whatever I can get,” you answer truthfully. “Whatever you’ll allow. Don’t trouble yourself with labels and things ‘cause what we have has always been so much more than that.”

Dewey feels a weight lift off of his chest. His hand works around your waist and drags you closer, halfway under him and he rests his perspiring forehead on your breastbone. Whatever happens next happens, for better or for worse.

You’re not troubled when Dewey moves the jacket to expose one of your breasts, however you are taken aback when he bites you. You barely manage to stifle your yelp when you feel him growl against your flesh and the sound vibrates straight to your core. Dewey drags his head up and stares you dead in the eye as he kneads your savaged breast.

“All night,” he growls, “all fucking night for this? We could have done this ages ago. The salon, the drive in, Chloe’s cat’s birthday– grocery shopping last week. But no, instead you pick a party full of people and you’ve had me riled up for hours.”

Dewey pinches your hardened peak and you keen. “‘m sorry…”

“No you’re not, but don’t worry: you will be.”

AN: Check Out Part 2 @hoodoo12 @go-commander-kim @escape-your-grape @softbeej @imma-fucking-nerd @werwulfy

#Dewey Finn #Dewey Finn x reader #three bees writing #🐝🐝🐝✒#black reader insert #🖤❤💛#dewey finn x female reader

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hexalt · 4 years

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CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.

#crazy ex girlfriend #crazyexedit #cxg #ceg #crazy ex gf #writing #mine #mental illness #bpd #mental health #spotify #music #playlist #essay #*

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nostalgic-pancakes · 3 years

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F is for friends who do stuff together - the awake at 2 AM remix

Joan needs a swear jar, Talyn's a lightbulb, Valerie is tired and valid, and Thomas+Sides are very confused)

Summary- Thomas has had his sides around for... a long time. That's for sure. And he knows that nobody else can see them (except maybe Lilly, but she has sides too, so).

Pairings- Pintroverts, Thomas and friends, Thomas and Sides

Read on AO3

Word count- 2666

Warnings- It has character!everyone, and NOT their real life counterparts. Please remember this.

Other notes- AU where instead of Vine, c!Thomas left chemical engineering for signing with a really dope theatre company with his friends. He still meets Nico at the mall, but Nico's a new writer for the company! All the sides are friends too! Enjoy!

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Look, the first time was an accident, okay? Joan was tired and a bit incoherent and what was Thomas supposed to do?!! Leave them be? No! So Joan ended up staying the night.

Except, the next morning was when everyone had entered the courtroom together and they'd gotten WAY too dramatic over whether to lie to them about a text they'd made like… two days ago and that Thomas had only seen after combing through a barrage of memes and that Joan probably wouldn't remember, come to think about it. But that was hindsight and after the utter nightmare that was a whole day (A whole day!!) with Aunt Patty the day before, Virgil and Patton were absolutely freaking out, probably giving Deceit (Who, in hindsight, Thomas knows as Janus) a little extra leeway into the conversation that day.

Either way, Joan had stayed the night in order to recover from the utter sleep-deprivation that they'd been going through, and Thomas had forgotten about the fact that Joan was even there for most of the morning, only seeing them after the entire courtroom spectacle (and a suspiciously dire warning from Virgil) at breakfast, and them leaving to see Talyn a little after (with plenty of hugs involved, duh).

Then Thomas told Joan the truth over the call, and Joan had said The Line (as Roman, Virgil and Janus call it with an oddly cryptid-like voice) and Thomas felt himself go frigid.

Since when did Joan know that Thomas talked to his sides?! Had they learned their names? Figured out that Thomas might just have a few extra screws loose than they might have initially thought?

"Maybe they even hate us now because we got so crazed over one little text and--”

“Virgil. Not helping!” Thomas yelps, and Virgil catches himself in his spiel of worst case scenarios, looking a bit sheepish. Patton and Thomas smile at him reassuringly (he hopes) and Logan clears his throat, causing everyone to turn to him.

“Well, Joan seems to be aware enough of the fact that you speak to us, but mostly considers it as you, as they had said, ‘talking to yourself’, and besides, you didn’t name-drop us too many times, anyways. And while it’s not really...ideal, that Joan thinks you talk to yourself for this long-”

“You can say that again, Stephen Hawk-Nerd”, murmured Roman. Logan winces, and Thomas kind of wants to hug him, so he does.

“Yes, Roman, and as bad as that nickname is, note that this is not, in fact a worst-case scenario. This can be put down to the fact that Thomas has some strange personality quirks-”

“Did you just do some wordplay there, kiddo?” Patton beams at the implication, while Logan, currently being shared by Thomas and Virgil, just groans and descends further into the contact.

“No, I did not, Patton, but what I am saying, is that this is not too bad. We can talk about it as a general personality quirk. This is fine.” Logan finishes, and becomes a heap in the total hug-pile of Thomas and Virgil, flopping over. Huh, he (as usual) has a point. Maybe this can work.

The second time was a pretty near miss, but once again, it was unexpected! He and the sides were just watching Mulan together as usual! They were piled up together, blankets in hand, and yeah, it might look weird to anyone who can’t see the sides, he guesses, with the blankets stretched out in places that have nothing to stretch onto, but once again, he wasn't expecting someone to come over! But anyways- whatever happens, happens. He's trying to be better about it.

It really doesn't stop Janus from pulling out all the stops (teaming up with Virgil, even!) when it comes to having to come up with an alibi to Terrence over why the blankets are arranged so strangely, even though there is literally nothing keeping it afloat. In the end, it's not the most believable lie, but Terrence is busy with Valerie just after, so he probably doesn't really think about it too hard. Besides, Thomas has always been a pretty quirky guy! ("Which could be an insul--" "Jack and Sullen, we love you very very much, but please, for the love of all things Disney, please breathe and take out your fidget cube..") So hey, what was a new quirk when added to everything else?

Meanwhile, Terrence is trying to figure out what the fuck he just saw, because he's pretty sure that there were more than one Thomas there, and Thomas only has two other brothers. Also none of them dress like twenties mobsters or are semi-transparent.

Nico was having a good day. In fact, he still is!

He and his (amazing) boyfriend were sitting on the couch- though more draped on top of each other than anything while binge watching ELITE and Tiny Pretty Things, while also being pleasantly high (as opposed to stoned).

Things only entered strange territory when during one of the flashback murder-y scenes in Tiny pretty Things, a strange man who looked like an even more chaotic Thomas with some grey hair on him entered the room from seemingly nowhere, and proceeded to occupy the sparse space on Thomas’s lap with his head, essntially just napping on his boyfriend’s lap while also being kind of see-through (???!!!???AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH). Thomas noticed, waved a small wave and started playing with this weird guy’s hair.

Nico is now a little high from the bong that he and Thomas had shared, but not enough to hallucinate, especially since, when the high was pretty much gone, the guy was STILL THERE. MIERDA. At this point, he’s just going to call it ghosts. Thomas doesn’t seem to mind too much anyways, so they must not be harmful. Nico decides to table this for another day and go back to binge watching crazy maniacs with his very soft and warm boyfriend, and let the remainder of the high coast along.

"We have to talk about the Thomas thing." Is the first thing Joan says without any bullshit, as soon as everyone except Thomas himself, Gavin (because it's two AM) and Quil are packed together in Thomas's living room, where he just binged Parks and Rec with everyone. They've all finally managed to shove Thomas and Quil back to their respective areas of sleep after 42 hours without said sleep, and nobody was allowed to talk loud enough for them to wake up.

"The… Thomas thing?" Asks Valerie. Oh that sweet summer child. Joan once again quietly calls everyone's attention by asking Talyn to shake their hair around like a neon-coloured alarm bell. This was especially effective in the otherwise dark kitchen where they were trying out glow in the dark hair dye.

"Well, as of lately, we've been seeing a lot, and I mean a lot of really weird shit coming from Thomas. Everyone, recount your experiences." Joan says in the most serious voice they've got. "I'll go first."

They wave their hands like Matt Mercer, as if they were setting up a dope DND campaign. Quietly, of course.

"Well, about a month ago now, I was cleaning here, at Thomas's, because I was sleep-deprived and would have crashed and died if I'd tried to go back to mine and Talyn's. So most of the night goes normally, as one would expect, but when I wake up in the morning…" Joan readjusts their beanie. "I hear Thomas in the living room, talking to people called Logan, Roman, someone called Pat, Virgil and 'deceit'. And this debate becomes an ordeal, alright? He re-enacts a whole entire ace-attorney style courtroom scene with these imaginary people? I called him out on it over the phone when he apologized for some random thing- I don't remember, and he kind of just… admitted that he talks to himself? And moved on.

Everyone absorbs this new information. Camden keeps braiding Talyn's hair.

"But that's not too big of a deal, right Joan?" Whispers Camden, tying up the elaborate mini fishtail plait in Talyn's hair. "I mean, thanks Thomas we're talking about. He could have been rehearsing or something- isn't he JD in the next production of Heathers?"

Terrence speaks up next. "Yes, this would have been all well and good, had the Blanket Incident ™ not occured."

Valerie shakes her head. Why are her friends like this? Oh wait. They’re all theatre nerds, queer and D&D players.

"In the blanket incident ™, I was walking past Thomas's room, as one does. HOWEVER, while he was watching Mulan, I noticed something wrong with his blanket pile!"

"What, that they don't have any Vetal Miking references on them? Because that's the true tragedy here."

"Nope, sorry Tal, the weirdness here was not about Vetal Miking references, but the fact that parts of the blanket were freaking floating, in thin air! I have discreet pictures!"

"What the fuck, Terrence." whispered everyone in a strange, haunting unison that could only be possible at two AM as they saw the very strange pictures.

"And that's not it!" Pipes up Talyn, who is now realising that they are very close to becoming too loud for 2 AM kitchen chats, and makes an effort to quiet down.

"At breakfast today, Thomas's waffles were making themselves- Thomas can't cook, y'all. And he can't even use is fucking waffle iron. And he was on the other side of the room! Talking to Quil!" After Quil left, he told the waffle creator to chill out because the stack was getting too tall!"

"Is this about Thomas's ghosts, guys?" Asks Nico, the new cute boyfriend and new theatre company writer as he plops down in Quil's usual spot. Nico's nice- everyone likes Nico except maybe Nico, to which, well, mood. ALSO- ghosts?!!

"Nico what the fuck do you mean by ghosts, you serial killer in training?"

"One, just because I have to write a serial killer in this new script and I'm enjoying it, it doesn't mean I'm gonna be a serial killer, you tonte. Two: yeah, the ghosts that follow him around and look just like him? They seem nice enough." At everyone's super unspoken request to elaborate, for fuck's sake, he takes the hint and does.

“Oh! So the first time I saw them, I was at the mall. You know, where Thomas and I met?” everyone nods, and Talyn readjusts their braces.

“So there was this guy in a hoodie- Virgil, as you said, and the Disney prince. Roman, I think. And they were just kind of… there? Roman was holding Virgil’s shoulder affectionately, and that’s about it. They were only really visible after about three or four hours of us talking, though.” Some of the people hum.

“Then, we were watching a movie and these two guys who also look a lot like Thomas just kind of lounged? On the couch? They were pretty faint, like if their brightness was decreased to about thirty percent in Photoshop.”

“Hey, same!” says Terrence.

“Yeah, so those guys- the one in the green t-shirt that has the legs on the bus meme- so weird- kind of just stretches onto Thomas’s lap and stays there, while the twenties mobster just… curls up to his side? And thomas is probably like, used to this because he kind of just lets it be and curls the meme shirt-”

“I think it’s Remus.”

“-Remus’s hair absentmindedly and moves on.”

“Fuck.” Whispered Joan very softly, but with great feeling.

“So what do we do about it?” asks Camden. There, finally, someone asks the real questions.

“Well,” puts forward Talyn. “They’re not harming him, right? And he’s had them around for a long enough time, right? So what’s the harm? Thomas is just haunted and will probably be on Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural at some point when he dies but hey, if he’s cool with it, we are too.”

Everyone seems to agree with that, and they’re in comfortable silence, until Valerie asks everyone to go the fuck to sleep, we’re still doing the Heather’s costume rehersals and Death Week starts in two days. With groans and cracked joints from Talyn, everyone hobbles off to their respective rooms in the duplex.

Meanwhile, a certain white-streaked side and his hoodied companion are listening through the wall, far away from what anyone can see, and they both visibly sigh in relief. That didn’t go too badly. The question remains: what do we do now?

“They KNOW????” exclaims Thomas, the next day in the (thankfully empty) breakroom, in between rehearsals- Candy Store is being run through and that means that everyone else is outside.

“Yes, Thomas, they know. Or they somewhat know, I suppose.”

“Yeah, because they think we’re-Thomas is being HAUNTED!!’

“Are you not haunted, then?” comes a voice, and Thomas turns around, forgetting to let the sides dissipate in his surprise. It’s Nico, with Talyn and Valerie close behind, who are clearly taking in the six other guys in the breakroom. Well, fuck. The cat’s out of the bag for good, he guesses.

“Could you get everyone else during lunch break? I’ll explain then.” Talyn nods and leaves with a smile, telling him that they’re not mad at him, while Nico asks, voice farther away “So are you haunted or not?”.

“So they’re… aspects of your personality that you’ve been able to manifest since you were a kid?” Camden asks, a bit disbelieving, even as Logan, Roman, Patton and Janus drape themselves over Thomas on one of the beanbags in the breakroom, filled with other nerdy gay young adults. Logan pushes up his glasses, ready to go on another tangent. Go wild, you funky little dude.

“Well yes, that’s exactly what we're saying. I myself am the embodiment of Logic- every fact that Thomas has ever learned, and his, and these are his words, not mine, ‘the only braincell’. He makes the air quotes to go with the expression, but is also smiling fondly.

“Classic Thomas.”

“Yes, Valerie, I am inclined to agree. However, this is not specific to Thomas. Other people can, in fact, do what Thomas is. Lilly Singh is one of them- the reason that she and Thomas are even friends is because in high school Thomas caught her talking to one of her sides in the art room.”

“So wait-- we can summon sides too?!” asks Nico, and he and Camden look genuinely excited, but Thomas knows the answer to that question.

“Unfortunately no, not really. You have to have an extremely active imagination, and also be ‘innocent’, as society would put it. I’d say näive.”

“For example, I couldn’t make any more sides after i was fourteen, because I watched the news by then.” pipes in Thomas. Joan seems to process this first, nodding and grinning sardonically. “Ah yes, the news. Wrecking childhoods since forever.” everyone nods in gay syncing, because gay minds think at the same time.

Valerie suddenly speaks up; “So how many sides do you have, Thomas?”

Thomas perks up, because his sides are possibly his favourite metaphysical beings (as narcissistic as that might sound) “I have six! My logic, morality, both creativities- Kids and Family and PG13-and-up, anxiety and deceit! I have two creativities because of catholic guilt and my mind’s inherent need to cause chaos, I guess.”

“Valid” replied Valerie.

The rest of break passed by pretty smoothly, with questions being passed back-and-forth about what the sides truly were, considering they clearly were not just Thomas, and Virgil even felt okay enough to come in later! So that was good. Though he kind of wishes Remus had made fewer Heathers jokes- Camden was starting to look squeamish, even as Nico frantically took notes of gorey facts to use in his script.

Honestly, Thomas thought to himself. What was I scared of?

Irrational things. And rejection, replies Virgil in his head. He laughs and pulls him in for a hug, and tries as he might to deny it, Virgil is looking pretty chuffed.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #character thomas #nico flores #nico flores x thomas sanders #pintroverts #not rpf #do not repost #ts virgil #ts logan #ts remus #vee's writing #2021 #f is for friends verse

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that-shamrock-vibe · 3 years

Text

Movie Review: Wonder Woman 1984 (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I haven’t been able to see this movie when it came out here in the U.K, so had to wait until a couple of days after Christmas to both watch and review it. If you haven’t seen this movie by the last week of the year and want to avoid spoilers go and watch it before reading on.

General Reaction:

I have finally seen Wonder Woman 1984, the first new superhero movie I have seen in 2020 outside of The New Mutants and my god it has been a trial to be able to watch this.

Being from the U.K, which was surprisingly a factor with one minor part of this movie, we over here usually get the big blockbusters particularly of the comic-book variety before or on the same day as the U.S. However, thanks to this fakakta pandemic and the new world order that movie studios and theatres find themselves in during 2020, I have been reduced to watching a blockbuster movie for the first time initially on my laptop rather than on the big screen as movies like this should be brought out first as.

I am fully aware that this is a global pandemic and that watching movies in the cinema pales in significance to what needs to be done to combat and eventually defeat this crisis, but being from an area where all cinemas are closed I’m out on a limb basically.

I won’t turn this part of the review into a COVID rant because frankly I am sick of talking about it but I do feel COVID will be a factor with the performance of these upcoming movies.

That being said, the second real world rant factor I have for this is WW1984 I feel has suffered due to constant schedule shifting and I feel a fairly uneven advertising campaign.

I went into this movie not thinking I was going to see the villains the way they are in the trailers or the comics and honestly it does seem that Cheetah and Max Lord, who are both credited Wonder Woman villains, have their roles reversed and the one who you think is going to be the biggest threat pretty much becomes a henchman and the one mainstream fans may not know a lot about is surprisingly the big threat but you’re also meant to feel sympathetic for both of them to a degree.

It seems a complete 180 spin from the first Wonder Woman movie which was a very grounded and gritty WW1 story to now be in the zany 80s...which as a decade has aspects of being zany yes but the way in which this movie plays out genuinely made me think of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies...but the best of them rather than Emo Peter.

There are so many plot points in this movie that more or less spawn from the main McGuffin of the movie which is the Dream Stone allowing people to make wishes but grants them with a sacrifice. The movie has several sub-plots that are the repercussions of the wishes that everyone makes and individually all of these sub-plots are very interesting...it’s when you then try to tie them all together for the big climactic battle that is when you get a bit of a mess,

Also, there is hardly any action in this movie and as both a Wonder Woman movie and a superhero movie in general, I am longing for some action sequences this year and the fact there are almost no good v evil fights would be disappointing, if not for the fact I understand where Patty Jenkins and the writers are trying to accomplish with this movie in comparison to the first movie.

I am not a massive Wonder Woman fan, I know the basics of Diana, the two Wonder Girls, Cheetah and Max Lord enough to understand what is going on. But the one thing that has always drawn me to her is that she is a hero with two distinct sides.

Firstly there’s the warrior that most mainstream fans would be aware of which is more played up in the first movie, but then there’s also the diplomat and the ambassador who attempts to always get across her message of peace which is more played up here.

If I think about it from that perspective, I can forgive the lack of action.

That being said, there is still a jumble of plot points that once you do untangle them all lead to the same conclusion, but there are too many ideas in 2h30 to make the movie coherent.

That’s the main negatives out of the way, the positives somewhat outweigh the negatives, let it be known I did enjoy this movie and there are some brilliant moments and sequences, but a lot of scenes aren’t developed enough or some aspects seem to be kept on the backburner maybe for a sequel.

Characters:

Diana:

We have to start with Wonder Woman herself, but as I mentioned before I am calling her Diana rather than Wonder Woman in my subheading because there wasn’t a lot of Wonder Woman action in this movie. If you’ve seen the trailers you’ve seen pretty much everything.

Going back to that first action piece when we are reintroduced to Wonder Woman at the shopping mall, I do understand why she’s doing what she’s doing by acting as a vigilante rather than a public superhero and not using violence does keep in step with where we first met her in Batman v. Superman during present day where she claims not to be about fighting or saving mankind anymore and to be honest here she does keep with that. She’s given up her Godkiller sword and shield but still makes full use of her lasso of truth along with her bracelets of submission and Aunt Antiope’s Tiara in a defensive manner but never to outwardly cause harm.

But yes, this entire sequence could easily substitute Wonder Woman with Spider-Man and her lasso and tiara with his web-shooters and feel like the good parts of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. It’s just borderline corny and somewhat cartoonish particularly when she’s saving the two young girls by either dropping them on a rocking horse or spinning them into giant teddy bears.

Also there’s that Cairo highway chase scene which sees Steve and Diana chasing after Max Lord who has just achieved his goal of claiming an army. I both like and dislike this scene. I like the scene for showing the starting effects of Diana’s power loss which is later explained to be the cause of Barbara’s wish to be like her which means she is syphoning Diana’s power.

On the flip-side, I really don’t like the overall action in this scene. Firstly, she seemingly has her armour on underneath her clothes because as she’s getting out the car she has her clothes on one minute and her armour in the next shot with no spinning involved.

Secondly, she gets out the car and starts running almost instantly while the car is still moving...I get she’s a demigoddess and therefore normal laws of motion may not apply to her but there’s no dodgy transition or stumbling or anything, she just starts running...Baywatch style to a remix of her theme which is brilliant but because of her losing her powers she is somewhat weakened and therefore you see her bleed. The whole scene just seems rather sloppy.

Regardless of the somewhat lacklustre action of the movie, Wonder Woman 1984 excels in presenting a different form of battling with words rather than weapons. Diana’s message of hope and love at the end of the movie may be a complete switch around from how she was all for being the god-killer in the first movie where Ares was involved, but it’s definitely a good message and, particularly in these times, a needed message.

Sometimes love and hope is enough, Diana does try and see the best in everyone and cannot understand or comprehend evil unless there is no other option. Ares was the God of War and as such a personification of hate and therefore evil. Max was simply corrupted and misguided and Diana could see that, just as Barbara was.

All of this is sold in Gal Gadot’s performance. You can tell from the start Diana is doing what she’s doing because she feels it is what’s right, but particularly when Steve comes back and the ultimatum is either saving the world or keeping him she is definitely torn at one point. Steve is the only thing she has ever wished for herself other than becoming a warrior and protector so why shouldn’t she be rewarded for her decades of servitude?

Also, much like every movie she appears in, Gal Gadot looks stunning throughout this movie. Not just in her Wonder Woman and Golden Armor but also in her Diana persona, she wears what appears to be a boiler suit at one point in this movie and still looks like it could be modelled on a runway. I know Gal is/was a model but she is never defined by that. When she’s acting she’s an actress first and a model second and the clothes never wear her.

My favourite look of hers which I now have in Funko form is her gala dress because not only does it honour her Amazon roots but it just looks stunning.

Her Wonder Woman armour here is made somewhat more cheesecaky than her other versions and it does make Diana look somewhat like Wonder Woman barbie but because of the vibrant 80s setting this movie is in and particularly with who else shows up in the movie offering a great parallel to it, it actually won me over. If this is how Wonder Woman looks as a diplomat I’ll allow it.

I really do enjoy the parallels between the DCEU’s Diana Prince and Bruce Wayne in terms of the detective/vigilante combination. Because there was little fighting here, Diana was allowed to be the detective more, travelling to different places tracking down Max Lord and figuring out that the Dream Stone is the cause of Steve returning from the dead.

However, while they may be pushing Diana and Bruce together in the present day, Diana’s true love is Steve Trevor and the two do have a fantastic blend of a working and romantic partnership on par, for me, with Ant-Man and the Wasp from the comics.

Outside of Steve though, Diana definitely has no love-loss for other men until the end of this movie. She sees right through Max Lord’s childish bravado at the start of the movie, she’s quick to repel any letchy guy throughout this movie, and it isn’t until Steve effectively gives her permission to move on at the end that she does...albeit seemingly with the man whose body Steve took over which seems a little backwards to me but I’ll allow it.

Wonder Woman also gets some fancy new upgrades in this movie. Not only do we have more functions of the Lasso of Truth with showing memories and broadcasting a voice, but also Diana gets her invisible jet through the means of a new power being able to make things invisible which she says is inherited from her father (Zeus) who used the power to hide Themyscira from the world.

The jet is a great precursor to what comes later because while flying in the jet, Diana talks about her longing to be able to fly which we all know as fans that she can do in pretty much every other incarnation yet all we’ve seen her do in the DCEU is leap long distances.

So the payoff when she actually flies after letting go of Steve finally was fantastic, honestly a fist-pumped the air and startled my dog because I got that excited. I do love how she still uses her lasso to propel herself and swing from lightning because it’s kind of like training wheels but seeing her fly at the very end unaided was everything.

I can’t decide how I feel about the ending, I do love how Diana saved the day in terms of using words over weapons, but it’s the fact she is pretty much looking directly at the camera while giving this big hope and love speech implying that she is talking to us as an audience as well as the world within the movie. It just seems very much a #BeKind movement which, again, is an important message particularly in today’s climate. But why does this need to be in a superhero movie?

Gal Gadot continues to be rather funny in the role as well. As with the first movie though, her humour is never really in jokes or in her actions but rather in serious dry whit. This kind of humour is right up my street. From her rejection of Max’s offer to buy her a TV to teaching Steve about the advancements in the 1980s from his time it was all rather well handled.

Diana simply continues to be a very warm and welcoming hero and Gal Gadot radiates these traits effortlessly. You feel bad whenever she feels bad, you want to cry whenever she cries, you get angry whenever she gets angry and you smile whenever she smiles. Gal Gadot continues to be as perfect in the role of Wonder Woman as Johnny Depp is for Jack Sparrow and Rosario Dawson is Ahsoka Tano.

Max Lord:

Okay so this is where things get complex because, to the best of my knowledge, this version of Max Lord is not the same as the one from the comics or any other media I’ve seen...I genuinely actually think they say Lord isn’t even his actual surname in this movie.

Alright, so this is where I’m slightly conflicted on this character. Maxwell Lord from the comics and Smallville where I first became aware of the character is a meta with the ability to control minds.

Becoming the Dream Stone doesn’t really give him the same power as effectively it makes him a genie but the power of the dream stone being equivalent to that of the Monkey’s Paw which grants wishes with consequences I guess is of similar elk.

Also, it’s not stated but shown that Max has some sort of degenerative condition before obtaining the stone but using the power of the stone seemingly sped up the condition because by the third act of the movie he looked like a shell of a man.

Obviously he knew of this which is why he wanted to utilize the stone’s power to a mass audience in order to grant their wishes and in return syphon their health and wealth but this is why I say that neither he nor Barbara were true villains because they were corrupted by the power the stone gave them.

I have a very weird stance of sympathetic villains, Cheetah is supposed to be a sympathetic villain to a degree but I’ve never really seen Max as such. In Smallville he is pretty much a henchman or underling whereas in Supergirl he was somewhat an anti-hero towards the end but mainly a villain.

I get the movie’s message of “Nothing good comes from hate” is in reference to the stone which was made by a trickster god and as such is inherently corrupt which makes its users also corrupt but not evil. But considering I originally didn’t think Max would be the main antagonist of the movie, when it was revealed he was I wanted to see some evil for evil’s sake behaviour rather than power corrupts twice over.

Also, in relation to his wishing power, the scene in which he tries to go through numerous clients to regain his health does play off a lot like Lucifer luring out people’s greatest desires.

Speaking of the wishes, two aspects of this I want to highlight. Firstly, when he reaches out to the world and grants everyone’s wishes, that one wish the diner lady utters about wanting the Irish to go back to where they come from...as someone of Irish heritage this is that wish I mentioned being from the U.K. was a surprising factor in for me...despite my Irish heritage being of Republic blood rather than Northern.

Secondly, I have now seen this movie twice and I do not know the reason for the weird satellite light that Max was in during the climax. I mean everything was basically going to hell and Max receiving the energy of the wishes and granting the wishes was basically giving him this protective funnel which Wonder Woman couldn’t penetrate, but was the light from the satellites and why did he need the satellites other to broadcast himself which he’s clearly already doing so what’s going on? I may not be making much sense but I genuinely don’t know what was going on at that point.

Pedro Pascal was still very good in this role, he comes across a lot better in the actual movie than he does in the trailers because the shots we see of him in the trailers I genuinely thought he was wearing a hairpiece, and he still might be but it looks more natural throughout the movie.

I know Pascal to be a rather funny individual in interviews and behind the scenes of other projects, but I’ve never seen him actually be funny in character...again I’m not sure how I feel about a comedic villain, but between this role and his role as Agent Whisky in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, he has the makings of a great villain actor.

There were times when Pascal played the character like Steve Carrell voice’s Gru in Despicable Me which again plays into the comedic villain angle but overall I felt his motives were clear and the way in which he went about achieving his goals was bold, ballsy and well executed.

I get why they added a son for Max in this movie and I am glad they stuck with the fact Pedro Pascal is Latino despite I don’t believe the character originally is but it added some diversity to the movie along with Gal Gadot’s Israeli accent. But yeah the point of the son was to personify what Max sacrificed in exchange for his wish because all he wants deep down is to be a success in his son’s eyes and feels this is how to go about it, but when it’s the choice between his son’s safety over the completion of his dynastic plan, similarly to Diana choosing to give up what she wants (Steve) for the greater good, he chooses his son.

Also I will say this. When Alastair tells Max that he already loves him because he’s his dad and strokes his face...Had I actually seen this movie when it came out in the U.K. it would have been two days before the finalé of The Mandalorian Season 2. But because I saw that finalé first and the very emotional scene between Din and Grogu...to see that pretty much replicated here felt slightly lacklustre.

Max doesn’t die at the end, no one dies in this entire movie (technically) so there is room for him to return unless they do another time jump. I’m not sure why he would return unless he goes full villain for villainy sake rather than corruption but I am actually happy he survived.

Having said that, one of Wonder Woman’s most famous moments from the comics is snapping the neck of Maxwell Lord. This could have easily been the climax of the movie but I feel thanks to Man of Steel giving this plot point to Superman when he snapped Zod’s neck, despite chronologically this coming first it would lose it’s momentum,

Cheetah:

I will admit I was not as disappointed with Barbara as I thought I would be going into this movie.

Having said that, I’m going to start with the negatives before talking about the positives of the character.

Firstly, both Barbara and later Cheetah are redheads, Kristen Wiig is naturally not but for the role of the character she could have easily worn a wig or died her hair for the role because not only is Barbara being portrayed as the ditzy blonde at the start of the movie a little redundant at this point, when she became Cheetah it did not look right with her as a blonde.

Now let’s talk about the actual Cheetah look. We’ve seen that one shot of her in the DC Fandome trailer but it was so dark and so quick that there was practically nothing to analyse, seeing her appear in the final 30 minutes of this movie...which is how long she actually appears as Cheetah...it’s both a lot to take in but also a lot to be disappointed in.

So Barbara’s turning point to villainy I feel isn’t when she beats up that man who attempted to assault her, but instead when she fears Diana and Steve are talking about killing Max to save the world because he absorbed the stone and the stone needs to be destroyed to save the world from carnage.

At this point she appears at the White House just as Diana has Max captive, dressed in this admittedly trendy Cheetah-print attire, incapacitates or possibly kills the White House security team and gives both Wonder Woman and Steve a whooping.

Firstly, the very fact there was no mention of the fact Barbara could tell Diana Prince and Wonder Woman were the same person just shows how daft the secret identities of some of these DC Heroes is.

But secondly, when Max retreats, Barbara hitches a ride with him and gets another wish for saving his life. Rather than wishing to be like Diana this time, she wishes to become an Apex Predator and is therefore granted the anger and vengeance of all the people Max grants wishes to via satellite.

This combination somehow turns her into a Cheetah as when we next see her she is Cheetah...a very badly CG’d undeveloped version of Cheetah but this is our Cheetah.

My version of Cheetah is from Injustice 2 and I know a bit of her backstory in the comics enough to know she was an archaeologist who was cursed to become the Cheetah and how in the DC Rebirth Wonder Woman, Barbara and Diana were friends but then when she became Cheetah, she felt betrayed by Diana and became her enemy that way.

That’s kind of similar here but it’s not a Cheetah curse that made her Cheetah, it’s a wish and a very literal interpretation of the wish “I want to become an Apex predator”...what’s an apex predator? A cheetah, get it?

Also as Cheetah, she just looks like Barbara styled her hair different and bought a Cheetah onesie. I wish she had gone full cheetah with the face, instead we get some very weird make-up which seems to wash off when they land in the water and some weird contouring or something to give Kristen Wiig a different nose...they could have continued the Cheetah fur on the face, given her cat-eyes, bigger fangs, something!

Again, Barbara’s villainy stems from power corruption, Barbara’s first wish was wanting to be like Diana and because of this got her powers so went a little bit power mad when she discovered she had super strength and speed.

Interestingly though, despite being electrocuted, Barbara does survive and when all the wishes are renounced she reverts back to a human...or does she?

Keep in mind that we never see Barbara take back her wish, in fact she is quite adamant in not doing that which leads Diana to making the hard call. The fact is it was by Max’s hand that Barbara finally became Cheetah so when he took back the wish of becoming the Dream Stone, that wish was rescinded…but Barbara’s original wish of becoming like Diana and thus gaining the powers of an Amazon demigoddess actually might still be in tact.

It’s implied that she is still pissed at Diana even after reverting back to human, so I do see her returning more than I do Max Lord but in her return I hope there’s a Cheetah redemption.

Steve Trevor:

I am really starting to be won around by Chris Pine as an actor. Originally in my list of “Hollywood Chris’” he was at the bottom because he isn’t Marvel, but now I think I actually would put him ahead of Pratt. Not only do I love him in this role here but also Rise of the Guardians which I’ve re-watched over the holidays.

So when it was announced that Pine would return as Steve Trevor in a movie set decades after the first movie which he died in, I like a lot of fans were curious as to how they were going to accomplish this. I mean we’re dealing with the DC variation of Greek Mythology and so I thought maybe Hades could be a factor, but then when the MacGuffin known officially I think as a Dream Stone became a factor with the trailers, the idea of him being resurrected as a wish by Diana was speculated which was kind of true but there was a catch in that he only came back to Diana but taking over another man’s body.

The movie I think beautifully brings Diana’s childhood lesson taught to her by Aunt Antiope about cheating full circle with the wish she makes to see Steve again. In her defence, Diana did not know what she was doing or that she was actually wishing on a wishing stone, but when she realises the impact that this seemingly innocent wish is having on the world, ultimately she has to wake up to the fact that this is a cheat because Steve is dead but Diana has brought him back in another man’s body...without his consent. Again, NOT DIANA’S FAULT, but she is pseudo-responsible and so can’t win because she cheated. This is a plot point I wish they had developed further or highlighted more because, having seen it twice now in the past 24 hours, that is probably my favourite message of the movie. Cheaters never prosper, not even Wonder Woman or Cheetah.

Steve being introduced to the 1980s was a great chance to reverse the fish out of water story Diana had in the first movie but while hers was one of both wonder and humour, Steve’s was mostly wonder and it was so endearing to see.

I loved how we didn’t take too long on Steve exploring the 80s, I liked how organically it was woven into the ongoing story. We did get that great small touring scene of Diana showing Steve the art and the breakdancing, but that he discovered pop tarts and his wonder in wanting to fly that jet rather than simply get on a plane to travel to Cairo, it was all very well done and that’s mostly on Chris Pine.

I did find the body-snatching a little bit creepy at first and at the very end. We didn’t meet the guy that Steve inhabited (for want of a better word) so I don’t feel strongly positively or negatively about him because we don’t know him, but when we meet him at the end when we somehow flashforward from July to Christmas, I did feel weird that not only did it seem that he and Diana were interested in each other but also the fact it wasn’t even mentioned that he couldn’t remember the time that Steve was in his body.

As I said before when talking about Diana, the blend of the romantic/working relationship between Diana and Steve is (sorry) #relationshipgoals for superhero couplings. I am aware that Steve Trevor isn’t a superhero but neither is Lois Lane but both civilian halves of these superhero couples are very potent in the comics and I have never understood this particular relationship until now.

Steve is as strong a part of the duo as Wonder Woman is because while he doesn’t have her Amazon physiology, he has that core inner strength that he had in the last movie which is why he sacrificed himself originally...now yes he pretty much did the exact same thing here but this was after he was pretty much carrying Diana through that D.C. street and seeing all the chaos that these wishes were causing...genuine anarchy....that Steve knew the only way Diana could regain her strength and save the world was for her to let go of him.

It was the most emotional scene of the movie for me and the only scene to almost make me cry. after crying at the Mandalorian finalé I am not crying at another show or film for a while but still, because not only could you tell both of them didn’t want this to happen but also as Diana pulls herself away from Steve not looking at her as the camera pans away from him you just hear his voice saying “I will always love you Diana, no matter where I am”. There’s never been a more potent portrayal of a superhero couple in my opinion in the movies. Tony and Pepper came close in Avengers: Endgame but this tops it for me.

Do I see Steve returning again? Yes, because I feel when you’re dealing with a property about gods and magic there is always potentiality for anything. I mean this movie is the definition of potentiality for anything because I think if it does succeed then they get away with a lot that other properties wouldn’t, but anyway yes I want Chris Pine to return to this role because I love him in it.

Amazons:

This is another scenario where the advertising lets the audience make up what is in store for us with announcements because announcing that Robin Wright is returning as Antiope after dying at the start of the last movie does raise suspicion.

The obvious solutions were resurrection, vision or flashback and for the majority of Amazon scenes save for one it was all flashbacks which I’m not going to grumble at because I enjoyed that opening scene.

I like how Themyscira basically has their own version of Ninja Warrior and that this scene was most likely set chronologically after Antiope agreed to train her. Which begs the question why her mother was so okay with it considering even as an adult Hippolyta has issues with Diana becoming a warrior but her contribution was so short I let that slide.

I’ve already mentioned how Antiope’s lesson of cheater’s never prosper was utilized so well in this movie but, similarly to Chris Pine, I just love any reason to bring back Robin Wright.

Aside from Hippolyta and Antiope though there was a third minor Amazon focused on in a couple of scenes in this movie, that is the ancient Amazon warrior Asteria.

Asteria was mentioned a couple of times, firstly by Hippolyta in reference to her statue as someone to strive to become and then by Diana to Steve when discussing the origins of her Golden Armor. During this discussion we see a flashback of Asteria in a crouched position being whaled on by Neanderthals protecting the Amazons as they retreated to Themyscira. We only see her eyes and at this point in the movie I thought Asteria was a throwaway character and so Connie Nielson was doing double-time as Hippolyta and Asteria.

However, this proves to be untrue as in the only post-credits scene we get we see Asteria walking down seemingly the same street we left Diana on in Washington, though they never clarify where it is. Furthermore we originally only see the back of her and she is dressed a lot like Diana with the same hair and clothing style. She even effortlessly stops a pillar or lamppost from crashing down.

But it isn’t Diana, at least not the one Gal Gadot is portraying...as it is revealed to be Asteria portrayed by Lynda Carter in a fabulous short, sweet and somewhat cheeky sequence where she states “I’ve been doing this for a long time” with a cheeky wink directly to the camera. I mean she basically echoes lines Diana says in the movie, but the fact it’s OG Wonder Woman and knowing we’re also getting Michael Keaton returning as Batman in the upcoming Flashpoint movie, it’s all just brilliant.

Obviously for fans of the Supergirl series, Lynda Carter had a recurring role on that as Earth-38′s President of the United States who was an alien and I have also seen her in Sky High, but looking at her here she just looks flawless.

Does this mean we’re going to see Asteria in Wonder Woman 3? I can’t wait to find out.

DCEU:

Speaking of the larger DCEU, this movie does absolutely nothing to connect itself to any other DC movie or property. We’re in 1984...Bruce Wayne is 12 so at this point has lost his parents, the original Black Canary is potentially crime-fighting, it’s the year Lex Luthor is born, Clark Kent is living in Smallville, Amanda Waller would just be starting out in the career that would see her become director of ARGUS. There are so many possibilities particularly as we haven’t had a movie set in the 80s within the DCEU before.

This is where DC continues to flounder where Marvel succeeds. They do not grab the opportunities for a cinematic universe expansion and instead keep everything contained. I don’t even think the events of Wonder Woman were mentioned outside of Steve’s death.

Particularly as we now have to wait until August for The Suicide Squad as the next DC movie (outside of the Snyder Cut), it would have been nice either if there would have been a tease to lead into that or even if something in this movie links to the Snyder Cut of Justice League.

Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, it’s a very enjoyable movie if you manage to follow all the threads the plot weaves into this movie, because they’re not seamless.

I’ve actually paid attention to the box office, reviews and CinemaScore for these movies since Birds of Prey and I have to say for being a focussed Wonder Woman movie it is underperforming from the first one with a B+ here as opposed to an A there, but considering Diana’s first outing was in Batman v Superman with a B score, I think the fact both Justice League and this have a B+ bodes well as it averages out with middle of the pack superhero movies, and that’s a good way to describe this movie.

It’s not better than the original, and there are many tangles within it, but it’s not a terrible movie. Again I’ve seen it twice in the last 24 hours and neither time got old for me.

So that’s my review of Wonder Woman 1984, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

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sincerelyreidburke · 4 years

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Hey again! So like, you are under no obligation, and I send you too many asks anyway but... if you're down for writing Spencer's reaction to A FROSH GETTING EVAN THE AUDACITY I would be so pleased :) lol

First of all: you don’t send me too many asks. I believe the phrase you’re looking for is “I enable you to write fun things often”. Which is highly encouraged, in this establishment.

Second: yes. And for those who aren’t Via, let me enlighten you. Spencer is a Kiersey College drama club OC, part of the group of characters I created to enhance Quinn’s college drama club experience (and to have more fun on “Quinn Theatre Hours” Monday nights). You can read a comprehensive introduction to the drama club cast in this fic, which tells the story of the week leading up to Quinn’s casting in Dear Evan Hansen his freshman year.

Spencer is... hm, how shall we say. A giant asshole. He’s a junior theatre kid who fully expects that the role of Evan will land neatly in his lap. This ficlet depicts as much. It takes place pretty much simultaneously with the casting fic I linked to above.

This is also a precursor of sorts to a longer drama club fic, which I’m working on, that Via has also asked after. Stay tuned for that, because there is where you’ll see some serious, well... drama.

Until then: Spencer can choke. I’m entertained by the fact that I’m now being asked to write things from the point of view of the bully. Here’s what you asked for!

Today is going to be an amazing day.

And here’s why. Spencer has been waiting— all week, certainly, but also for months, even since the school year began, to see something he finally gets to see today. During all three of his years at Kiersey, the spring musical has been something to look forward to, but especially this year, with so much riding on it. Today, the cast list goes up for the biggest show of his life. Today, he confirms his place in a role he’s been dreaming of playing for months. Today, he starts to lead this year’s cast.

He knows that the show was chosen for him. Dr. C is notorious for it— she’s not shy about choosing shows based on who she has available for casting. It’s resourceful, Spencer has told her time and again; after all, you have to work with what you have. It’s like how she chose Book of Mormon last year for him— well, and for Reid, he guesses, but mostly for him. And how the director at his and Kelsie’s high school chose Thoroughly Modern Millie for the two of them their senior year.

He planted the seed for Dear Evan Hansen in Dr. C’s head last spring, an offhanded mention in a conversation, right around the time Book of Mormon was closing. He forwarded her a few articles over the summer, just to jog her interest, and he and Kelsie even went to New York to see the show in June, so he typed up a review and sent it her way. When he arrived on campus this past fall, he was thrilled to hear she’d taken his advice. It would be their spring 2018 show.

His audition went just as expected, and he read for Evan during his callback. So this morning, when he rolls out of bed at five-thirty sharp, it’s the first thing on his mind, without a doubt in it. Today is the day he starts being Evan Hansen.

He deserves this.

To start his great day, he grabs a morning workout, like always. In the gym, he sees one of the freshmen who auditioned, using an elliptical and wearing pink leggings. She has curly, golden blond hair piled into a high ponytail, full lips, and tan skin. Her name is… Maddie? Mallory? He isn’t sure, but what does it matter anyway. She was in callbacks with him last night, and she wasn’t projecting well.

So he doesn’t say hello, and doesn’t even think she’ll notice him until he passes her as he’s leaving. She’s refilling a water bottle with stickers all over it, and she waves. “Hey, Spencer.”

“Oh!” He pretends to be surprised. “Hi, Maddie.”

“Uh.” She chuckles a little, and shakes her head. “It’s— Maggie, actually.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” He stops in front of her, and bends down— she’s a little short— to deliver a word for the wise. “Hey, by the way… don’t take it too hard if you aren’t cast in a bigger role today.” She arches an eyebrow, and he continues, because she ought to know. “There just aren’t a lot of roles that would fit… you, y’know?”

It doesn’t look like Maggie understands what he means, but she shrugs and folds her arms, all standoffish. “Well, good luck to you, too.”

“Thank you!” He flashes a smile. “It’s always great to see beginners joining the musical.”

Maggie purses her lips and scowls as he turns to go. Huh. What a bitch. He was only telling her what she needed to hear.

Well, it’s her loss. Freshmen rarely ever get speaking roles. And it’s not like Zoe is going to anybody besides Kelsie.

He texts his girlfriend on the way out of the gym. Kelsie is an early riser, too, but she doesn’t work out in the morning like he does. By now, in her morning routine, she’ll be through with her shower and doing her hair.

They meet for breakfast every morning, but this morning, it’ll be a quick affair. The cast list goes up at 9:00 sharp in the Beckett Performing Arts Center lobby, and they have every intention to be the first ones there.

So Spencer showers and gets dressed, donning a blue shirt for the occasion. He meets up with Kelsie in the lobby of their dorm, and they walk to the dining hall hand-in-hand, leaving right around 8:00. It’s sunny out today, but still freezing cold.

“So,” she asks him, as they stroll down the sidewalk. “Any bold predictions?” She pauses to grin and bump against his hip, as she adds, “Besides the obvious.”

Spencer beams. He loves their relationship for so many reasons, but especially because they support each other so well. “Well,” he begins, pulling his stocking cap down on his head. “I think Reid is a dead ringer for Jared.” Which will be easy, because although Reid is unfunny at best, Spencer is used to working with him; he got well accustomed to it on Book of Mormon.

“Oh, absolutely.” Kelsie nods. “And I think… Claire, as Heidi? I can’t be sure, but—” She pauses for an exaggerated eyeroll, which is absolutely warranted, because Claire is such a goody two-shoes it’s insufferable. “I know Dr. C likes giving her principal roles.”

“Which I, for one, do not understand,” he quips.

“Tell me about it.” Kelsie sighs, then shakes her head. “But I could see Claire going that way.”

“I could, as well.” He pauses, racks his brain of the names on the audition list. He checked it religiously, to see who was trying to get involved, even after he had secured his spot as first on the list. “And… hm… alright, I’m not saying I’d like to see Danny Cho as Larry, but given they didn’t run his part in callbacks at all last night…”

“Mm,” Kelsie hums. “I think you’re right. That’s a shame. His singing is suspect at best.”

“And his acting…” He sighs. “I hope he can pull it off.”

“Maybe he can.” Kelsie swings his hand a little, and they sidestep for a rushing student who must be late to their eight-AM class. When they regain sidewalk space, she looks to him, smoothing her bangs, and asks, “And Connor?...”

“Hm.” Spencer’s mind lands on someone, but it’s an underwhelming thought. “Cole?”

“Oh.” Kelsie pauses, like she forgot he existed. Which is easy to do, because Cole, the sophomore he’s thinking of, is quiet and irrelevant. Spencer was surprised to see him audition; he played guitar in the pit for Book of Mormon, and from there he always assumed he was a fly-under-the-radar type. But he read all of Connor’s parts in callbacks. “Well, he has the look.”

“It’s a typecast,” he agrees. “He seems… sketchy?”

“Right? Kind of a weirdo,” Kelsie says. She raises an eyebrow at him, and asks, “Do you think you could work with him?”

“Well, it isn’t like I’ll have much of a choice,” he remarks. “But who knows? Maybe someone else will get Connor.”

“Maybe.” Kelsie pauses, then smiles and says, “You can do it.”

He kisses her cheek, as they walk along. “Thank you.”

From there, they move onto a rehearsal schedule tangent. It’s not until they’re almost at the dining hall that casting gets brought up again. “What about that kid?” Kelsie asks, suddenly, almost laughing. “The really short one, the freshman? Could he beat out Cole or Danny?”

“Oh…” Spencer thinks he knows who she means. “Scarf kid?” When she nods, he laughs out loud. “I highly doubt he’ll be seeing the cast list. I mean, Kels, he’s a freshman.”

“That’s true.” She shrugs. “You did get Anthony freshman year, though…”

He straightens a little as he walks, because it still makes him proud to think about Sweeney Todd freshman year. “I reserve myself as a small exception to the rule.”

Kelsie grins. “You’re gonna be great, babe,” she says, and even though he knows he will be, it still feels nice to hear it.

Breakfast is very nice. He has scrambled eggs and sausage patties from the grill, and she has a fruit salad with unsweetened tea, in accordance with her New Year’s weight-loss diet. They have a breakfast table in the corner, by tradition, and they even see Reid when they’re in there. He’s eating with his girlfriend, and flashes jazz hands at the both of them, with a grin. “Happy casting day!”

Spencer wonders, just slightly, if Reid has seen the cast list yet. He may be a student, but he’s drama club president all the same, and maybe he has pre-existing knowledge. But on second thought, Spencer doesn’t think Dr. C would do that. She doesn’t even give him advance knowledge of casting, and he would venture to call himself her favorite student.

So he just waves to Reid, because he and Kelsie are on their way out. “Morning, Reid.” There’s something like a shit-eating grin on Reid’s face, so he can’t resist asking. “Have you seen the list yet?”

“Oh, yeah, dude!” Reid kicks back in his chair. “Didn’t you hear the good news? I’m Evan!”

Spencer’s soul leaves his body. “You— I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m so excited.” Reid smooths out his hair before he dusts off his graphic tee. “Tell me— do you think I’ll look good in striped blue?”

This is not real life. “You can’t be serious.”

“No, tell him, Bri!” Still grinning, Reid looks to his girlfriend, this chubby art student who always has ceramic work on display in the admissions lobby. “Weren’t we just discussing how lovely my angelic voice will sound on Words Fail?”

Bri nods, with her chin in her hands. “Oh, for sure.”

Reid throws his hands up, all smiles. “See?”

Kelsie steps forward, like she’s about to say something. And just as Spencer’s heart is set to beat out of his chest, Reid doubles over and bursts out laughing. “Jesus, Spencer,” he says, smacking the table. “I’m just fucking with you, dude. Could you not tell I was joking?”

“Well, he’s a little on edge,” Kelsie cuts in. “We both are.”

Reid shrugs, putting his hands behind his head like his dining hall chair is actually a lounge chair on the beach. “Well,” he remarks. “I have seen the list, but it’s not up for another…” He glances at the big clock on the wall in the dining room. “Fourteen minutes, so you won’t hear any leaks from me.”

“Wait, really?” he asks. “Have you actually seen it.”

Reid shrugs, making a face like he’s just been instructed to ‘do a silly one’ in a family portrait.

Spencer hates Reid Burke. He’s never really been sure about this fact until today. It’s partly the fact that Reid is still kind of grinning, like this is some big joke— Reid treats everything like a big joke— and partly the fact that he knows, even if he resorted to groveling (which he will not), that he truly won’t get any leaks out of him. Even with fifteen minutes left until he’ll see it himself, it’s tantalizing to know that Reid is sitting right here with full knowledge of the cast, and won’t say a word.

And by the way, what the hell, Dr. C? Since when does she leak the cast list to students?

But standing here being mad at Reid isn’t going to make the list go up faster, so he rolls his eyes, as Reid zips his lips, and says, “Well, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” Kelsie adds, like she is less than enthused that she wasted three minutes of her life on this useless conversation. Which is exactly how Spencer feels.

“Idiot,” he mutters, as they walk away, and doesn’t even care if he’s in earshot. “He almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Spence,” Kelsie says, taking his hand to squeeze it. “You know you have nothing to worry about.”

“I know,” he replies, because she’s right, “but what’s up with Dr. C letting Reid see the list early? How does that work? I practically picked the show—”

“It’s bullshit,” she replies, as they bust their breakfast trays. “You should say something to her, later.”

“I think I will,” he says. He’s already planning what he’ll say, as they leave the dining hall and head at a brisk pace in the direction of Beckett. It’s a quick walk, fueled by both of their adrenaline, and when they reach the double doors, Spencer takes one last breath of crisp winter air before walking inside.

Dr. C is in the lobby, crossing from the direction of Beck 1C, where the board is, back toward her office. She’s in a multicolored knit sweater, and she holds her head high, a surefire sign she just did something important. “Good morning, Dr. C,” he says, with a chipper wave. “Is the list up? We wanted to be the first ones to see it.”

“Yes.” Dr. C nods, adjusting her glasses as she stops a moment to talk to them. “It was definitely difficult to cast, and… some people may not be happy, but it’s the best fitting for the programme, as we say.”

Her wording is cryptic, but it always is. Two and a half years in her inner circle, and he knows her well. “Ah, I’m sure you picked the right people,” he says, with a wink.

Dr. C looks between him and Kelsie, then nods. “I’m confident I did,” she says, and it gives him an extra thrill of excitement. A quick glance to Kelsie and she’s smiling like she won the lottery. “Have a nice morning, you two!” Dr. C says, as she starts for her office again.

Kelsie blows her a kiss, and Spencer waves. When they meet eyes again, he takes her hand, and looks to the corner where the bulletin board is.

“Ready?” she asks him.

It’s time.

“Never more ready,” he replies, and together, they walk to the board with its promised sheet of paper.

The anticipation is adrenaline enough. Spencer knows what he’ll find on the list, but is still eager to get to it, to see his name at the top. They round the corner, and there’s the list, fresh white against the board’s maroon paper base. It’s only a few more steps.

When they get there, Kelsie sees it first. She leans forward, then recoils, like she’s been burned. “What?!” she cries, loud enough to be heard inside the actual auditorium.

“Kels? What’s wrong?” He wonders if Claire beat her out for Zoe. He consults the list to investigate, and— and— oh.

Right around then is when the world stops turning.

“Quinn Cooper?” Kelsie is staring at the list, her arms crossed over her chest, a permanent scowl etched on her perfect face. “The scarf freshman? Are they kidding?”

Spencer feels frozen. He stares at the list in disbelief, reads it up and down again and again. He feels like he’s been standing here for twenty minutes, but it’s probably only been two or three.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Cast & Crew List

Evan Hansen: Quinn Cooper

Connor Murphy: Cole Kolinsky

Zoe Murphy: Claire Deshaies

Heidi Hansen: Allison Halterman

Larry Murphy: Daniel Cho

Jared Kleinman: Reid Burke

Cynthia Murphy: Kelsie Wilkes

Alana Beck: Maggie Atkins

U/S Evan: Spencer Bergen

It’s fake. One of Reid’s practical jokes. They’re all out to play a big junior-year prank on him. Everyone is in on it. Including the scarf freshman.

There’s. No. Way.

“This is—” Kelsie sputters, then shakes her head. “I can’t believe this.”

“I won’t believe this,” he says, speaking for the first time since he saw the list. “There has to be some kind of mistake.”

“Um, I would sure hope so,” she says, popping the p in ‘hope’. “This is— this is a joke.”

Quinn Cooper. The freshman the size of a hobbit. Who wears scarves to every drama club meeting. Who’s barely been at Kiersey for half a year. Who just stole the role of his dreams right out from under him.

Spencer absolutely cannot believe this. “I have to talk to Dr. C,” he says, and it’s more an out-loud realization than anything, but he turns on his heel and marches straight for her office as soon as the words are out. “Like. Right now.”

But talking to Dr. C is a useless affair. “I work with what I’m given, Spencer,” she says, sitting behind her desk like some kind of supervillain, more closed-off to him than he’s ever seen her. “The cast may not look exactly how you imagined it, but some of the newer students showed real promise this year.”

“But Dr. C—” He paces in front of her desk. “I suggested the show. I practiced all summer. I thought for sure—”

“Spencer, I chose the show on my own accord,” she says, evenly. “It’s true I take input from students, but that has no bearing on my casting decisions.”

He throws his hands in the air. “But you have to see how this is unfair to me—”

“I think,” she cuts in, in this icy tone that’s usually reserved for people who fuck up majorly, and never for him, not in his entire time at Kiersey, “that once you see how the cast falls together, you’ll respect the casting decisions I made as your director.”

He sputters and rants, but he doesn’t dare disrespect her, no matter how much she’s betrayed him.

And so it goes. He’s lost out on his role, in his spring musical, to some no-name freshman who probably can’t even belt.

And just in case there needed to be a cherry on top, he’s his understudy. Of all things. How humiliating.

Spencer’s life is over.

It’s not until much later that day, when he’s sulking in Kelsie’s dorm room, mourning his lost musical season, that the idea for a solution crosses his mind.

It’s sort of her idea, but sort of his. She, at least, brings it up. “Spence,” she says, nudging his arm. He’s been scrolling mindlessly through Twitter for who knows how long, while she flips through her newly acquired script. “Y’know… you’re his understudy.”

“Well, jeez, Kels, I hadn’t noticed,” he snaps, dropping his phone onto the bed. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“That wasn’t my point,” she replies, scowling. “What I meant was… you’re his understudy.”

He knows she isn’t stupid enough to say the same thing twice over, so he tries to read her meaning. She’s gesturing, like she wants him to get it, and on top of the day he’s had, he doesn’t appreciate being made to feel like an idiot. He’s about to tell her as much when something dawns on him.

Something in the form of very, very useful knowledge. “And that means…” he says. “I perform if he can’t.”

A wise smile crosses Kelsie’s face. “Exactly.”

“So all we have to do is…” He nods. It’s taking shape in his head now. His spring musical season may not be completely lost.

Kelsie’s fingernails dance over his knee. “You’re getting it.”

“Figure out a way to inhibit his ability to perform,” he finishes. He loves her so much. “Kels. You’re right.”

“I’m right?” Her smile goes innocent. “What are you talking about, babe? That was all your idea.”

For the first time since before the saw the list, he smiles, too. He wonders if he looks as conniving as he feels. “I might be able to figure this out,” he says.

“That you might,” she replies, with a nod. “All we have to do is figure out what that looks like.”

To save his musical, Spencer is very much willing to figure that out.

#ficlet #quinn theatre hours #mini quinny #by extension #fuck spencer's rights!#kiersey drama club #drama club drama #the insanely cool reid burke #kiersey college #mel writes

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littlequeenies · 4 years

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BEBE BUELL: MUSING ON MUSES AND OTHER FANS

📷BEBE BUELLJUNE 17, 2020

Before embarking on a musical career of her own, Bebe Buell was a much in-demand model but was most often seen as the second fiddle to the famous rock musicians she was dating. She, however, saw herself as the Muse to these musicians, inspiring and sharing ideas with them. Inevitably, the term “groupie” would arise. As she says, “I’m not opposed to ‘groupies,’ per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter’. Bebe elaborates on this idea for PKM.

I remember the first time I saw a photograph of Oscar Wilde. I was five and it was Easter. We were at the Virginia Beach home of my mother’s friends, Poppy and Tilly, who were hosting a Sunday get together. We were dressed in our pastels and frills and the candy and food was flowing. It was an adult affair and, being the only child there, I wandered off to explore while the grown-ups enjoyed their martinis and snacks. I found myself in a living room study area and on the table was a big book filled with photos of poets, painters, sculptors and scholars. I was immediately drawn to an image of Oscar draped on a chair like a velvet throw! It stuck with me and when I got older I looked him up in the school library. At the age of twelve I read The Picture Of Dorian Gray, but my main interest was in Oscar Wilde, the man and his story. I felt an instant connection, just as I have with all the great inspirations in my life. In 1978, when I was living between NYC, Maine and LA, before finishing the year in London, I never missed one episode of Masterpiece Theatre and their 13 episodes of Lillie about the life of Lillie Langtry, played brilliantly by Francesca Annis. To my delight, it explored in great depth the relationship/friendship between Oscar and Lillie, and I became obsessed with knowing everything and anything I could about their dynamic. I was intrigued, too, by the descriptions of Mrs. Langtry in the press at that time in England and the U.S. She was often called a “Professional Beauty” or “The Jersey Lily” because she was born on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. She was also one of the most featured women in advertising; her face was everywhere. She was the image for Pears Soap and the most respected painters of the day stood in line just to have a sitting with her. In 1877, she met Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, and became his first publicly acknowledged mistress.

One of my favorite quotes was attributed to her from her conversations with Wilde: “They saw me, those reckless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous.” This reminded me of the back room at Max’s Kansas City, the temple of cool when I arrived in New York during the era of everything! It was this platonic duo that introduced me to the role of the “Muse”—that is the Artist and the Muse. Throughout history and especially in the arts, there seems to always be a driving force that brings the flora. In the series Lillie, they emphasized how Oscar would repeat Lillie’s quips and observations in his writing. Their banter with one another fascinated me and I often envisioned myself as a “Patron of The Arts”, in a sense, as I’ve always promoted and sang the praises of those whose work I liked. I felt an affinity with that spirit—the gift of inspiring and sharing special ideas with an artist I admired. It wasn’t just music. I adored musing with photographers, writers, film directors and designers, too. Creative energies have always fed my soul. The first time I referenced the term “muse” was in a 1981 interview I did with the Emmy-winning writer Stephen Demorest for the edgy publication Oui. Its sister magazine in France was called Lui. Playboy had taken over ownership of Oui so it was a glossy, classy, European-style men’s delight, targeting a younger demographic. When Stephen approached me about the piece, he showed me a couple other interviews with “It Girls” that had been published.

One was with Patti D’Arbanville, the inspiration for some of Cat Stevens’ biggest hits. He even used her last name in one of the songs, “Lady D’Arbanville”. I knew Patti from the early 70s and, in fact, it was she who introduced me to Jimmy Page in 1973 on a night out dancing with her in NYC. It was a quick meeting, as I was eager to get home to my boyfriend at the time, Todd Rundgren. A year later, I would run into Mr. Page again and the rest is the stuff of rock tales.

I adored Patti so knowing that both she and Jerry Hall had done this particular interview sealed the deal. Like Patti Boyd, Jane Asher, Linda Eastman, Maureen Van Zandt, Sara Dylan, to name a few, the musical muse is the most often of the muses referenced. I recall how so many people wanted to know my viewpoints and opinions about the word “muse” and why I preferred it to the term “groupie”.

Even in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, his beloved character Penny Lane’s first words on screen are, “We are not groupies. We inspire the music- we are bandaids!”. The film was Cameron’s love letter to women and how even at that time a stigma was attached to calling a woman a groupie; it was not necessarily a compliment. It was almost like a dismissive jab, on par with “she’s such a slut” or “whore”. Another scene in Almost Famous has all of the members of the fictitious band Stillwater squeezed onto a small plane that, they thought, was about to crash. Secrets were spilled and fingers were pointed. In one of the most moving moments, the William character defends Penny when she is described as “that groupie” by one of the band members. William nails it when he points out who and “what” she really is- a bright light and cherished fan. Someone who loved them all and for all the right reasons.

I feel that women have been unfairly branded and labeled without cause. I’ve often said that I’m not opposed to “groupies,” per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter. Summing me up for the life I’ve lived, seen through someone else’s eyes or, worse, exaggerating the truth. I didn’t want those I’ve truly loved or the relationships I’ve had to be considered less sincere because of the visibility of my partner.

Certainly loving music or dating musicians is not derogatory. Isn’t it logical, then, that birds of a feather flock together? Like-minded tribes mate or unite because of chemistry? Rock boys and models have been drawn to each other since forever! In the Netflix series Hollywood, you find that sex and sexual favors were the core of the industry. Several of the movie stars everyone loved on screen had started out as rent boys or nude models to make ends meet. Who decides why someone can give a blow job to the “right” person and get a starring role in a movie and another blow job by an aspiring talent gets tossed into the trash can of regret.

Why, after having four children with Mick Jagger, a successful modeling career and now being Mrs. Rupert Murdoch, would anyone refer to Jerry Hall as a groupie? Or gold digger, another favorite term used to describe women who marry well. Or Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg or Winona Ryder, for heaven’s sake? These are the questions I’ve always had and one of the main reason why I have rejected the term groupie in the press. It’s not a personal attack on those who identify with the moniker. It’s my own rebellion against being labeled and frowned on for the relationships I’ve had.

I’ve taken this stand for a long time, even though it’s also caused some judgement and negativity towards me from other women. It’s almost as if they think I see myself as better than them. Or that I’m not being honest when I don’t just call myself a full-on groupie, and own it. My closest friends tell me it’s just jealousy but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful to have tales and lies circulated about you by people you barely know or those who don’t know me at all. Or to have relationships that lasted for years being reduced to a laundry list of “conquests.”

This is nothing new, of course. Catherine The Great‘s enemies within the Emperor’s Court turned on her and started rumors that she was a sex fiend who had intercourse with horses. That stuck with her throughout her life and even in the museums of Russia, the tale has echoed although it’s completely untrue. Cleopatra and Anne Boleyn were also targeted. Ruining reputations was the way people got their revenge in days of yore. Or in some cases, the reason why some lost their heads to the guillotine. Why is it that women who have power or beauty have been subjected to crazy accusations of sexual voracity or deviance? Eve takes the blame for the banishment from Eden and although she was supposedly created from Adam’s rib, she is seen as a temptress and Adam as her victim.

I believe every woman should identify by how she feels comfortable and for the work she does. I personally prefer to be known for what I do, my accomplishments, my career. However, dating a rock star or an actor should not merit a nasty quip or name calling fest. It becomes unbalanced when just because someone gets famous as, say, a model or an actress and then dates a rock star, that she should get called anything other than what she does to earn a living. I’m not sure “groupie” falls under the umbrella of job occupation. I’d file it under pastime, hobby, passion, or fetish.

The origins of the groupie started with nothing more than a desire to be close to the band—the guys who made the music. Or in some cases, the women. The term came into use in the mid-1960s as slang for women who liked to hang out with musicians. It’s fair to say that not all “groupies” are the same. There are many tiers and pecking orders when narrowing it down. Certainly not every girl who dreams of being with a rock star will waltz backstage and demand sex or give oral gratification. That’s the image I despise and wish would not tarnish the entire viewpoint to the outside world. Some of the girls on the scene want to take the word “groupie” back, to personify what it meant in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. It became something entirely different when the ‘80s rolled around. Bands born out of the LA scene liked a different kind of arm candy than the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. They preferred exotic dancers and porn stars, the girls du jour of the time. Just as music changes with each era, so do the kinds of women who pursue the bands. But, more importantly, what kind of women the bands seek out. One man’s status is another man’s yen.

And then there are those who look at being a groupie as a form of prostitution. I’ve never understood that one because most girls who live that lifestyle don’t charge money to be with their favorite rock god or even their crew. It’s a thrill to be with the band, but it seems the glamor that was once attached to that goal has changed. For me, it was a thrill to fight to say “I’m IN the band”… or even “I AM the band!”

When I was living with Todd, he produced one of the first all-female bands, Fanny. They were so great! June Millington could shred! I felt bewildered when I would hear snide remarks wondering if Todd was sleeping with one of them. I thought to myself that would have never been said or thought if they weren’t women.

The bottom line is preference. We all have a choice. And we all can be whatever we want. We can wear many hats. I see myself as a mother, wife, musician, singer, songwriter, writer, mentor, animal lover… many different things. What I do in my spare time is how I make my soul happy. Who I date is based on connections, fate and karma. We end up with who we’re meant to be with and the experiences we have are all meant to be. I’ve been with my husband Jim for twenty years now. Our 18th wedding anniversary is coming in August 2020. So, I’m writing this piece from the perspective of a wife, mother, working musician, writer and mentor. Not just a girl who had lots of suitors in her youth. Every single little thing is part of the journey.

The first time I saw a photo in Rolling Stone of what they called a “groupie”, I was 15 years old and in the 10th grade. It was 1969, and neither the image nor the word was at all something ugly to me. It just seemed exciting and cool. The girls were so outrageously dressed, and it reflected an almost innocent charm. I didn’t aspire to be a groupie but they seemed like they were the ones who made the guys in the band cool. They helped dress them, created make-up looks and spread the word all over town about how good they were. It didn’t seem to be so much about sex and backstage antics. Maybe I was too young to fully understand everything, especially from the pages of a magazine.

On my first trip to LA with Todd in 1973, when I finally did meet some real girls who liked to be called groupies, it still didn’t seem derogatory. I started to see how it was all just tossed together in some people’s minds. It’s a complex dance between an artist and his muse. None of it is something so vulgar or tainted as being only about sexual conquest. Maybe to some, it’s about that. But for me it was a series of fated encounters that have lasted throughout my life.

Some people see a groupie as a girl who will do anything, including have sex with a roadie, to get to the band. There is that element to the rock n’ roll lifestyle. But it’s not the entire package. Others see groupies as a vibe, the girls who are there when the band makes it, the girls that helped them make it, the on-the-road bestie, or the girls who get the bands drugs and food. Or even give them the clothes off their backs if the band is short a cool stage look. I often joke that that’s how wearing your lingerie out became a signature rock girl look- the band had taken her clothes to wear onstage!

I recall reading where Pamela Des Barres said she was still a virgin when she first discovered her teenage heart being drawn to rock boys. It felt sexual to her and it was also just youthful and sweet. Not a salacious sexual quest. More a desire to be near the music and the men who made it. That’s perhaps what one would define as a “classic groupie”. Or, in some circles, “fan” is the preferred analogy. I can relate to that myself as I knew when I was ten years old, I would hang out with Mick Jagger one day. I knew those were my people… my kind.

Pamela has made a career out of her life as a proud groupie. But certainly she has a right to claim the term because she helped invent it! She now calls it her “groupie heart” and that is something anyone who’s ever had a crush on someone or loved someone’s music so much that it altered your DNA can relate to. Hasn’t everyone felt that way? Every guy or gal who picks up a guitar or slings a mic stand had to have been dazzled by their inspiration or felt a need to pursue that for their own futures. So, my point is this- none of it is negative nor should one word hold so much power that when it’s flung at a woman, she’ll feel shamed or scorned.

When I started to get a bit of fame, the media seemed to want to call me anything but “groupie”. It was “Friend Of The Stars”, “Queen Of The Rock Chicks”, “Leggy Model”, “The Mother Of All Rock Chicks”, “It Girl”… so when the internet entered our lives, I began to see just how judgmental and downright mean people were about the women who hung out with the bands. It started to become something so dirty and taboo that I wanted no part of that term. It’s a thin line, a hard one to walk. Personally, I feel loving music and being attracted to musicians is as natural as doctors and nurses getting along. Humans are drawn to their soul tribe. Music, musicians and all art forms attract me. I’m the moth to that flame.

As an entertainer myself, it always hurt me when what I actually do for my job was ignored or not taken seriously because of the famous names I’ve been attached to. It’s so one-sided to only put that burden on women. It has been the norm for men to be patted on the back and admired for their taste in women and especially if they were able to appeal to many and have tons of sexual experiences. Even in the animal kingdom, the male peacock has the massive plume bloom to attract as many lovers as he can. A male lion can rule the pride with his sexual domination. A male celebrity only becomes more famous if he’s got a beautiful model or actress on his arm. Whereas a woman who’s dance card is busy or even full is often ridiculed or bashed. Branded with the scarlet letter of infamy.

It started to get under my skin when I saw myself defined only by who I’d dated or had close friendships with. It’s the luck of the draw. Some women who are in the public eye can date and marry a celeb several times and be embraced for it. They use it to further their already visible life. They are proud and exploit all their lovers as the playthings that they’ve become. Some have become famous by leaking a porno or being on a reality show. What was once a limited field has become wide open with lots of branches of thought and assumption. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to fight for my image… my persona… my legacy. But I did fight. I turned down almost every request I was presented to be interviewed for groupie documentaries or sensationalized TV shows. Sometimes turning down large sums of money. But I wanted to work hard and felt if I worked hard enough one day I’d be thought of for what I did on a stage, in front of the lens of a camera, as a mother and at times even a manager, more than who I shared my life with. Dare I use the “R” word? I wanted RESPECT.

There’s lots of contrast in the definition of groupie or muse but what about “partners”… the duos who took the world by storm. Sonny & Cher, Karen & Richard Carpenter, Debbie Harry & Chris Stein, Jack & Meg White, Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg, Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham, Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart, Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, etc… Or Chrissie Hynde and Courtney Love, who both married musicians. There’s a kaleidoscope of ways women are seen. It all depends on how you are first perceived. The general public seem to hold on to how they first heard of you even if you go on to do many different things in your life. Marianne Faithfull is a perfect example of someone who has been able to transcend her detractors and carry on like the warrior she is. But it baffles my mind how anyone could call her or Anita Pallenberg anything but tastemakers and trendsetters. They were the women I would stare at for hours as a young girl. They fascinated me almost more than the guys they hung out with. Yet I still hear them sometimes referred to as groupies.

Like any entertainer, I have an overwhelming need to be loved and to give love and positive energy to others. That’s why I crave being onstage. The connection with the audience is almost like having the best sex in the world. Or at minimum, a great, soulful hug that sends sparks through your body. I’ve been doing this since 1980, in public anyway. This is my life… not the talented, special men I dated in my youth. That’s part of my story and I will never regret a single heartbreak nor will I ever regret loving to the point of forgetting myself and my own pursuits. But I want to be remembered for more than my dates or suitors. I gave birth to a child who grew up to become a superstar so the role of nurturer has followed me throughout my life. I’ve accepted the fact that my fate is to be a vessel for talent and to enrich those who possess it. It’s become who I am- all the parts and pieces of my karma rolled into one big bang! My artistic side occupies just as much space as my musing side- equal parts love and creative energy.

Things come full circle especially when I get approached after one of my shows by young girls that call me “High Priestress” or tell me that they are my “groupies”. When I hear the words “Bebe, Im your biggest groupie!”, my heart swells but I also like to immediately remind them that I do what I do onstage because of them. Because of the exchange being a performer gives to my being. It’s like fuel… hors d’oeuvres for the soul.

One morning in 2009, I got a call from an old industry friend who had landed at Interscope Records. I was awoken with, “Bebe, you’ve been touted in a song produced by Pharrell Williams called ‘Bebe Buell’ by a young band from Boston called Chester French.” I remember thinking “wow, that’s a nice compliment” because the gist of the song was that someone like me or Pamela Anderson Lee were the creme de la creme of rock-boy desire. There’s a clothing line called ‘Muse & Lyrics‘ that has a blouse/top called “The Bebe” and the brand ‘I’m With The Band’ has named their leopard scarfs and headbands the “Bebe”. There’s even a cocktail called “The Bebe Buell”.

But I think one of the coolest things was having Cameron Crowe name the lead singer in Stillwater Jeff Bebe. He gave me the original T-shirt that was used in the movie, too, and boy do I treasure it! Cameron sprinkled all kinds of little clues and messages throughout Almost Famous. I was especially touched by the Jeff Bebe nod because he knew how much I wanted to be a singer in a band. I remember him once saying to me that I should just go for it. At that point, people only knew me as a model and Todd Rundgren’s girlfriend. I hadn’t even done Playboy yet, so I was still trying to figure out who I was and how to do it. I finally did but it took me six more years to get in the studio and front a band!

It’s moving to be honored and it’s also nice to be appreciated by the younger generation of pop culture lovers. The first time my name was in a song, I was excited by it. My old friend G.E. Smith had a line on his solo album that was about coming to visit “Bebe and Liz”… he came over to my best friend Liz Derringer’s house to play it for us. We were elated… it was cool. I would never be so bold as to sit here and make a list of my lovers or the songs they wrote for me because it seems so long ago. I’d rather leave that up to the fans of the music to decipher and besides not all songs written for others are acknowledged as such. I’ve had several songs given to me as gifts or written to me in letters.

Sometimes the authors don’t admit it because their feelings change and they don’t want to upset their new love interest. Didn’t Bob Dylan write “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”, “Just Like A Woman”, “Fourth Time Around” and “Like A Rolling Stone” about Edie Sedgwick, only to later deny it? I know the feeling because it’s happened to me. So, at this point in my life, I just cherish the letters (yes, I still have them so one day when we’re all gone they will maybe solve the puzzles) and I respect and allow artistic license to have its day. It’s an artist’s prerogative to change their minds so I hold no hurt feelings. Music buffs are pretty smart anyway and they usually know the truth, so it matters little unless it’s blatant. The one topic that irks me is that I claimed This Year’s Model was about me. Well, that’s impossible because I didn’t meet and start to date Elvis Costello until he was well into Armed Forces. I was living with him in London when he recorded it in the fall of 1978. He included a couple of lyrics from songs on Armed Forces in letters to me but I can say with certainty that “Party Girl” wasn’t one of them. I guess it was the timing of the release that made people speculate I was the subject, but I wasn’t and never claimed to be. He didn’t even know me when he wrote those records. Why this is disputed has always been a mystery to me. The songs Mr. Costello sent me in letters were from later albums, starting with Get Happy. I will always wonder too why he would say something so false and perpetuate a rumor twenty years later in the liner notes of a re-issue. Here’s to hoping it is finally put to rest. And even with the shame and pain I felt at the time, I feel no regret or ill will toward anyone. To me the truth is pretty obvious. Remember the story I told earlier about Catherine The Great? Revenge is often used when hearts are hurt, and it is very common in the entertainment industry.

In summing up my thoughts on the topic, I feel it’s time in our culture to appreciate the roles women have played in art since the beginning of time. Dali had his Gala, Picasso would hide the initials of his mistresses in his paintings and secretly tell them so they would know it was for them, Clapton immortalized his love and lust for Patti Boyd with the ultimate ode in “Layla” and John Lennon may have written the most beautiful love song of all for Yoko in “Woman”. Or was it Paul McCartney with “The Long And Winding Road” about Jane Asher or “Maybe I’m Amazed” about the spectacular Linda Eastman McCartney?

We can’t leave out the spirited and unique George Sand whose given name was Aurore Dupin. She was born in Paris on July 1, 1804 and adopted the name “George” because women couldn’t write professionally with the freedom of men in those days. She became one of the most popular writers in Europe during her lifetime- one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She would wear male attire in public saying it was easier and more affordable than women’s garb. She was a confidant to Franz Liszt and lover and muse to Chopin. She would lie beneath the piano while Chopin composed, saying it sent the music through her entire body instead of just her ears.

Music is primal and it gets into our bloodstream. It’s easy to see why young girls get crushes on their idols and some even grow up to marry their dream man. But the days of defining women by their sexual desires or “conquests” should be on the wane. I never looked at the men I dated or loved as conquests. Humans aren’t territories to be battled over or ceded to. The human connection is divine. Each and every person we cross paths with is part of our magical life story. So, whatever you identify yourself as is fine. That is your privilege and judgement should not follow even if the choices aren’t the norm. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

*Closing side note* As I was finishing this essay, I was doodling with a People magazine crossword puzzle and one of the clues was “GROUPIE”. Guess what the answer was… “FAN”. The timing was uncanny!

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michelles-garden-of-evil · 3 years

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Episode 44 Review: The Second Séance

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, in time for the final episode of Strange Paradise by its co-creator and original headwriter Ian Martin. This marks yet another milestone in the history of this fun and sometimes perplexing soap opera: a little bittersweet, although I know that, unlike viewers in 1969, I can return to early Maljardin whenever I want.

In some ways, Ian Martin’s departure will benefit the show. Like a traditional soap, his SP scripts were generally slow-paced and heavy on recap, with variations of certain lines (e.g. “we must find the conjure doll and the silver pin”) repeated episode after episode. When Robert Costello replaced Selig Alkon as producer, he mandated several changes to the show. His stated reason: to help SP’s other co-creator Jerry Layton achieve his goal of improving the Gothic soap’s ratings:

"New York and Los Angeles stations took it off the air because ratings were poor. And because they are the key stations for money purposes, Robert Costello, who did Dark Shadows for four years, was called in," one of the actors said this week. "Costello took one look at several episodes and said he wasn't going to have anything to do with it the way it was. So the series was changed considerably.”

[...]

In the studio this week, Costello (who produced The Nurses, the Patty Duke Show and Armstrong Circle Theatre) said Strange Paradise was abandoning old voodoo, hallmarks of the first 13 weeks, for heavy occult (witches covens, ESP, apparitions and the like). "The concept, though good, was not completely workable for a day-in and day-out series," admitted its creator and executive producer Jerry Layton.[1]

Naturally, so many changes required a segue from the show’s original format that wasn’t too abrupt, hence the break from Martin’s original plans for the story and the creation of the current weird transitional plotline about the Rabbit of Evil. There are twenty-one episodes of Maljardin left after this one, followed by a shift of setting to Desmond Hall. Like Maljardin, Desmond Hall has its good parts and bad parts, fun characters and not-so-fun ones, but I’ll cover those when I get to them.

Do you remember my Episode 40 review, where I speculated at the end about how the original second séance might have gone? Well, this one is similar in some ways to the séance described in the Lost Episode summaries, but the way it plays out is bizarre. And by “bizarre,” I mean, “What the hell is Vangie thinking, holding it now?”

The (visible) participants of the first séance, from Episode 36 (clockwise from top left): Dr. Alison Carr, Quito, Vangie Abbott, Raxl, Reverend Matt Dawson, and Jean Paul Desmond.

In Episode 36, the choice of who participated and who didn’t participate in the séance followed a certain logic. Four of the six chosen participants had a direct connection to Erica Desmond: her sister Alison, her husband Jean Paul, and her servants Raxl and Quito. The latter two were doubly qualified to participate, both being members of the Conjure Faith, with Raxl helping Vangie determine who could attend and who was forbidden in the previous episode. They excluded Elizabeth, Tim, and Dan for being “disruptive influences” and Holly out of concern for her safety, but allowed Matt because of his strong faith as a man of the cloth. (Remember that, at that point, they still trusted him.) In addition, they left a seventh chair open for Erica’s spirit, making the total number of (invited) participants seven. This, according to Vangie, is one of the ideal numbers for a séance, the other being five. It’s logical, it follows the rules that the author establishes via Vangie, and therefore it makes sense that the second séance would be set up in much the same way.

In my post on Episode 40, I used this logic along with clues from several Lost Episode summaries (including the one for this episode) to try to reconstruct the events of the original second séance, which was slated to take place in that episode before script rewrites. The summaries indicated that Matt would return for the second séance and that Elizabeth would join him, although Vangie’s reasoning for including her in this one is unknown. I excluded Holly from my list because I felt it would be out of character for Vangie to knowingly endanger her life and speculated that Alison may have refused to take part out of justified anger at Jean Paul for making Vangie endanger all of their lives. I also excluded Tim and Dan, because I felt that neither had any reason to participate unless substituting for someone else. In addition, I assumed that Jean Paul would have originally participated in all the séances, being the one who initiated them in the first place, as well as Raxl and Quito for their loyalty to both their dead mistress and to Vangie. I concluded that the most likely participants for the second séance would have been Vangie, Matt, Elizabeth, Raxl, Quito, and Jean Paul: six living/undead participants like the first, but with Alison swapped with Elizabeth.

But what do you do on short notice, while Jean Paul is freaking out in his room, Alison trying to help him calm down, and Raxl and Quito are...sleeping, I suppose? (The episode gives no explanation for their absence, unlike with Jean Paul and Alison.) You hold an emergency séance in the same exact location as before, at a glass-top table identical to the first, with whomever is available. That includes Matt, Holly, and the disruptive influences of Elizabeth and Dan. Vangie claims there’s no time to wait, so emergency séance it is, even if it means breaking all the previously established rules.

Holly lampshading how the second séance comes out of frigging nowhere.

“Jean Paul cannot wait,” says the Conjure Woman. “The need is urgent, the need to find out from whence this locket came. I must choose those of you who will help Jean Paul Desmond contact his wife Erica.”

Holly tries to nope out of it, but Vangie--surprisingly, given her previous concern for her safety--refuses to let her. “You, if the spirits choose,” she insists, “the spirits” here most likely meaning some combination of Robert Costello, Jerry Layton, and Steve Krantz. (Let’s remember that the Serpent previously told her not to invite certain people, Holly included.) It’s a cop-out line, in effect, where the show acknowledges that it’s breaking the previously established rules to obey the new producer’s wish to speed up the action.

The reason why this séance is so urgent? The bloodied locket of Erica’s that Raxl found around the black rabbit’s neck in the previous episode, combined with Vangie’s speculation that the rabbit may be Erica reincarnated. The fact that the locket had blood on it makes Dan even more suspicious of Jean Paul, especially after Matt reminds him that eclampsia (which Jean Paul claims took Erica’s life) is a bloodless death. He begins another tirade about how he thinks that Jean Paul killed both Erica and Dr. Menkin and how he’s going to sail off the island, which Vangie interrupts:

That’s Vangie’s way of saying “shut up.”

Vangie tells the four characters in the room--Holly, Elizabeth, Dan, and Matt--to sit at the table and begin the séance, because a presence has arrived. The first three do, but Dan remains standing and tries to persuade Matt to not take part in the occult ritual.

“You, GO!” Vangie screams at Dan. “PLEASE, GO!” He leaves and, without having anyone join hands, Vangie calls out to her father, the Conjure Man, to ask whose spirit is there. And then she enters a trance and starts screaming, “LET ME OUT!” while breathing heavily. Frightened, Holly runs to her room, while Vangie continues screaming, only to leave her trance a moment later and ask, “Where’s Holly?”

“She couldn’t stand it,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t think that I can, either, or any of us.”

“It was two spirits,” Vangie continues. “One so angry, so confined in some place, in some form.” She rubs her neck as though rubbing scabs left by the chain of an uncomfortable locket. “It’s so dry, so dry!” Elizabeth leaves to get her a drink to quench her thirst.

The way Vangie rubs her neck reminds me of Erica’s bloodied locket.

Their first attempt a disaster, they go their separate ways. Vangie speaks to the portrait of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, demanding an answer to how the rabbit and locket appeared. In her monologue, she reveals that he “[has] always been an enemy” and that he “would laugh at [her] clouded sight”; also that the spirit she felt was “not so much evil as angry, horribly angry and confined!”

Elizabeth offers Vangie some wine. Rather suspicious.

Elizabeth returns with some wine for Vangie’s throat (wouldn’t that only dehydrate her more?) and is about to set it on the séance table when Vangie stops her. “The spirits may not cross it,” she explains, so Elizabeth moves the glass and decanter over to the table where they usually sit.

Vangie picks up the locket and starts thinking out loud about it, when Elizabeth says that she wishes that Jean Paul would just let them open it. This enrages Vangie, who says, “I made a mistake when I asked yo to join the séance. I need all the help I can get, but yours will disrupt!”

“I will not be ordered around!” Elizabeth shouts.

Hearing Vangie scream about how she brings anger, Elizabeth leaves for Holly’s room, where she confides in her about how she doesn’t trust Jean Paul anymore. I think that this is Martin’s subtle way of letting the audience know that her romantic pursuit of Jean Paul/Jacques is over and the new producer and writers have no intentions on continuing it.

Elizabeth’s dress has some interesting pleats/pintucks in the front.

Holly asks her if she believes that the rabbit is Erica’s reincarnation. She thinks it’s ridiculous, but acknowledges that they must humor him while they are stuck on the island because his delusions affect everyone trapped there. “Holly, we need each other,” she says, “if only to exchange notes.” She persuades Holly to return to the séance to keep tabs on what happens.

Elizabeth has come to her senses.

Meanwhile in the Great Hall, Vangie lampshades Jean Paul’s and Alison’s absences again and predicts Dan’s death and Jean Paul’s continued possession. (At least that’s what I think she means by “Jean Paul’s mind and body will hang in the balance by an act of the Devil.”) Still determined to disbelieve in his religion’s personification of evil, Matt accuses either her, Raxl, or someone else on the island of masquerading as the Devil. She starts to try talking him into staying and being part of the séance using his belief in the afterlife, when Dan arrives and announces loudly and in the direction of Jean Paul’s bedroom(!) that he’s going to use one of the boats in the boathouse to escape and tell the police about his suspicions.

That’s when Holly arrives for the séance do-over. This time, it’s four visible characters--Holly, Dan, Matt, and Vangie--plus the spirit, thus making a total of five. Like the first séance, she tells them only to focus on Erica, but this time Dan’s anger disrupts the contact and Vangie flips out on him!

The bad subtitle here, while not especially original, is too perfect.

He storms out and the séance continues. Vangie calls on her father for help, saying, “There is a message...a warning...I cannot bring it through! The path must be clear! What is the warning, Conjure Man?”

And then, all of a sudden, the spirit comes through:

Vangie: (possessed) “Let me out! OUT! Let me out!”

“OUT, OUT, OUT, OOOOUUUUTTT! Is he here yet, Jean Paul? JEAN PAAAAAUUUUULLLL!” [Notice that they’re not touching hands as Vangie insisted that the participants of the first séance do.]

Holly: (possessed) “Out, out, out. Let me out.”

“Out, out, out, OUT, OUT, OUT, AAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Matt directs Dan to the decanter with a tilt of his head and Dan makes Holly drink the wine that Elizabeth poured for Vangie earlier. But, rather than calm her, the wine makes her collapse to the floor in agony:

Holly faints from the poison in the wine.

“If the missing cyanide was in this, I’m afraid Holly is dead!” says Dan after sniffing the inside of the glass. But is it cyanide, and is Holly Marshall dead? I suppose you’ll have to stay tuned for Episode 45 (the episode or the review).

I don’t want you to think that, because I criticized some things about this episode, I must dislike it. Quite the contrary. While some things about this episode do reek of subverting expectations just for the sake of subversion (they didn’t have to film a séance episode on Colin Fox’s day off), the final scene is wonderfully chilling and Angela Roland gets to use her acting chops more in this episode than in any of the previous ones. Also, the missing cyanide subplot finally becomes relevant again at the end with Holly’s collapse after drinking the wine.

Coming up next: A two-part post looking at the best and worst things about Ian Martin’s episodes of Strange Paradise, followed by the Episode 45 review. I’ve been working hard on these and look forward to posting them within the next week.

{ <- Previous: Episode 43 || Next: Episode 45 -> }

Notes

[1] Sid Adilman, “TV’s Colin Fox and his Strange Paradise,” Toronto Telegram, November 29, 1969. I omitted part of this passage to avoid spoilers, but the omitted portion is also noteworthy in that it indicates that they had already begun filming Desmond Hall by November 1969.

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sleekervae · 3 years

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Yoü & I [1.4]

Masterlist

At first thought, eating octopus was not something that was super appealing to Charlotte. Her grandmother had tried to cook it time and time again and she was always adversed to it. It was just never something she could bring herself to like. So, she got shrimp takoyaki as opposed to octopus.

The kids sat on some benches in Prince Shiba Park, the world seeming to pass them by. Luke was feeling much better than he had been before. And Chloe was grounded -- as far as the girls were concerned -- and had her phrase book taken away. They would be leaving Japan the day after tomorrow anyway, and Kimberly vowed she wasn't allowed to pick up any more languages.

Maria was becoming annoyed as Chloe kept picking the octopus out of her takoyaki and placing the fish in her paper carton.

"Really?" Maria glared at her.

"I don't like octopus," Chloe shrugged back.

"Well, then why didn't you get the shrimp one?" Calum asked.

Chloe glowered, "... Because I suck at Japanese, that's why,"

Calum smirked, "You should try learning Spanish first, it's way easier,"

"I tried that bullshit," Chloe replied, "I scraped by with a C,"

"And you just got graded a major F in Japanese," Maria replied, flinging back the octopus into her carton, "Eat your fish!"

"I feel like I'm chewing on latex!"

Charlotte shook her head at her friends, taking another glance at her backpack where the phrasebook was being kept. She felt a tap on her shoulder then, turning around and nearly jumping out of her seat when she found Luke was inches from her face, octopus tentacles sticking out of his lips.

"Oh -- jeez!" she pushed him away, much to his amusement, "Who are you supposed to be? Davy Jones?"

Luke simply shrugged and slurped the tentacles into his mouth, much to Charlotte's disdain, "You got a problem with it, Shorty?"

"You disgust me," she replied casually, "You're like Godzilla, slurping octopus for Pete sakes,"

Michael looked the taller boy up and down, "I wouldn't say so, Charlie," he shrugged, "Luke's the breadstick that comes before the octopus,"

"He's a bland appetizer," Ashton grinned.

Luke proceeded to pout, "What have I done to deserve this, now?"

"We're just teasing, honey," Charlotte smirked, "It's not our fault though that you're a pasty bitch,"

"Oh yeah?" Luke took some of the sweet sauce onto his finger, "How's this for teasing?" and he smeared it over the bridge of Charlotte's nose. She pulled her head away but the damage had been done.

"Really?" she glared back at him, fumbling for a napkin, "Real fucking mature,"

"Says the kid who sucks on lollis at eight in the morning," Luke replied smartly.

"Oh, leave me and my sugar alone, Orange Crush!"

Kimberly quickly interjected, "Alright children. Let's finish lunch and try to get a cab back to the hotel,"

Calum quickly stuffed what little food he had into his mouth and crumbled the carton into a ball, "Actually, that was pretty good," he nodded, "Never had takoyaki before,"

"And I now have a new food pun," Ashton grinned.

Michael glanced at him, "What'cha takoyaki 'bout?"

Ashton glowered back at him, "Hey! I claimed it first!"

"But I used it first," Michael replied.

Chloe crumbled her own carton into a ball, "Well, we never would've found lunch if it wasn't for my great sense of direction," she said, hoping the group wasn't still mad at her.

"Yeah, you did okay," Maria replied, "But from now on, you are not allowed to be our translator. Evangelical Lutheran Church," she shook her head.

"I admit, not my best moment," Chloe nodded, "In my defense..."

The others waited patiently for Chloe to continue, but she was stalled in an elongated pause, "So, what's your defense, Chlo?" Charlotte asked finally.

Chloe simply relented, "I'm an idiot. That's all, really,"

They started walking back, just until they could hail down a couple of cabs and get a ride back to the hotel. The girls were in one and the guys were in another. The ride was silent for the most part, that is, until Charlotte started smiling to herself. Like, a really big smile.

"What is it?" Kimberly asked when she took notice.

Charlotte shook her head, "Nothing. It's stupid,"

"Darling, you're riding in a cab with Stupid," Chloe said, pointing to herself, "Come on, what is it?"

Charlotte only shrugged as the girls had become intrigued. It was a stupid idea, but the more she thought about it the more fun it sounded.

"I don't know, I just thought... what if later on we..."

♛♛♛

A few hours later and Luke was standing in front of the vanity mirror in the dressing room, fixing his hair and popping the collar in his shirt. Just down the hall he could hear the drowned music from Catch the Caper's opener. Right now they were playing a song off of their EP called 'Navy Blue', a sadder song about expired love and reluctantly moving on. It was one of Luke's favorites, not just for the lyrics but for the unexpected bass drop in the chorus that always had the crowd stomping along.

There was a part of him that was expecting another phone call from Melody, and there was another part of him that figured maybe he should go ahead and call her. But he distinctly remembered that she was the one who hung up on him and he pushed the thought aside. He wasn't going to let her make him feel guilty for doing nothing wrong.

"Ya' look handsome, darling," Ashton came sauntering up beside him, ruffling a hand through his floppy hair.

"Oh, thanks sweetheart," Luke replied.

"Everything okay?" the older lad leaned against the vanity table, watching Luke with uncertainty in his face.

Luke simply nodded back, "Fine. Tomorrow we'll try to find the arcade, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ashton simpered, "Got the directions from a guide, there's one just down the street from here. No more Chloe Columbus,"

"The intention was there," Luke said, "And hey, we got to try fried octopus for the first time,"

Ashton grinned at him, happy that he was in much better spirits than he was last night, "How are you doing, mate?" he asked then.

Luke shrugged, "I'm good. Tired but -- can't complain," he replied.

"Good," Ashton nodded, "Ya' know if you ever wanna' talk about --"

"I'm good, man," Luke nodded quickly, knowing fully well what Ash was alluding to, "I swear. I'm good,"

Before Ashton could rebuttal, all heads turned when they heard Michael swearing up a storm in the bathroom, "What the actual fuck!?"

Calum swore under his breath, "Oh, tell me he didn't fall into the toilet bowl again,"

The boys went rushing through the hallway, thinking the worst. Yet, when they arrived, they were quite confused yet pleasantly surprised to find a piece of cardboard had been duct-taped to the bowl with a two inch hole cut into the centre. Around the hole, 'Aim Here' and 'Boss Level' had been scribbled in sharpie.

"I have mixed feelings about this," Calum said, looking perplexed.

Luke just shook his head, and Ashton just clapped his hands together with delight, "Don't tell them, but I'm a little impressed," he giggled deviously.

"The prank war has commenced," Michael announced dramatically, putting his hands on his hips, "The Capers won this round,"

"What makes you say that?" Luke asked.

"They duct-taped the bloody toilet shut! I gotta' pee through a hole!" Michael replied.

"It's no big deal, Mike," Calum said, glancing down between Michael's leg, "I think it'll fit,"

Michael glared down at him, "Fuck off and help me,"

Calum smirked, "Well, which is it? You want me to fuck off or you want my help?"

"I need to take a whizz!" Michael exclaimed, "Quit being a smartarse and help me!"

"Alright, alright!" the two boys crouched down and started to peel off the layers and layers of tape, all the while Michael kept squeezing his legs together so he wouldn't have an accident.

"You know, you could just use the bathroom on the other side of the theatre," Luke told him.

"Are you crazy? He'll wet himself before he makes it past the doors!"

"Shut up, Ash!"

♛♛♛

The concert was another rousing success. Applause was rapid, the screams were deafening and the energy was electrifying. It was easily the best show Catch the Caper had ever played.

Hours later, when the venues were clear, the fans had dissipated and exhaustion was thick in the atmosphere, the girls were somewhat annoyed, somewhat elated when Kimberly had a wild idea.

"Can we try the McDonald's here?"

Maria gawked at her, "Girl, it's nearly eleven at night,"

"I know," Kimberly shrugged sheepishly, "... But I kinda' want a Big Mac. In Japan. Which is like -- double the awesomeness,"

Chloe snickered, "Because she didn't fill up on octopus tentacles..."

Lo and behold, and with little convincing for 5sos, the bands made a quick stop to the nearest Micky D's.

The door to his hotel suite burst open and Luke and Charlotte sauntered in, both of them clutching a small McDonald's bag. Charlotte was curious to try the filet-o-ebi (shrimp) burgers they had both ordered, with a side of fries, of course.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Charlotte huffed as she collapsed onto his couch.

"What're you talking about?" Luke fell down beside her, "We've had McDonald's way later than this,"

"I know," she nodded, unfolding her bag, "I've just never figured McDonald's would be a staple in my visit to Japan,"

Luke grinned as he unwrapped his sandwich, "Having shrimp burgers at eleven at night ain't my usual either, but hey -- I'll try anything once," he pulled back the paper and took a large bite. Charlotte was bemused as a droplet of orange mayonnaise stained both end of his lips. He innocently raised his eyebrows when he saw she was staring at him.

"Wha...?" he mumbled.

Charlotte chuckled and grabbed a napkin out of the bag, "You are a fucking disaster, sometimes," she wiped the mayo from his lips. Luke shrugged back.

"Isn't that why we get along?" he replied, "Eat your fucking burger. It's actually pretty good,"

"Oh, great," she took a tentative bite of her own burger. Charlotte didn't see what the hype was all for; it was shrimp diced up and fried together in a panko patty. She could easily have made it back home. She supposed it was just partaking in the culture -- as culturally relevant a McDonald's could be.

"Tomorrow, first thing after breakfast, we are tearing off for a true, psychedelic Japanese arcade," Luke declared, mouth still full of food.

"I didn't mind today so much," Charlotte shrugged, "I mean -- getting literally lost in Japan is probably the best way to see Japan. And we tried octopus,"

"I ate octopus," he pointed out, "You chickened out with shrimp,"

"You can call me whatever you want, I don't have octopus breath though," she replied.

"You're eating shrimp again!" Luke pointed out.

"I wanted a Big Mac! You convinced me to get this instead!" Charlotte whined, "It's your fault I'm doubling down on my crustacean intake,"

Luke, still chewing away, opened his mouth and putting the mushy mess on display for Charlotte. She gagged and pushed him away, "You're sick,"

It was then Luke's phone began to ring, a shrill scream for attention. Charlotte could see by the disenchanted look on his face she knew Mel was calling, hopefully to apologize.

"I'll be right back," he stood up and disappeared into the bedroom. Charlotte was left alone on the couch. She could hear the faded murmuring from behind the bedroom door, but Luke didn't sound angry or upset. They were making up again.

"I know... I'm sorry too,"

Charlotte had heard those words time and time again, but she was the one saying them. She was the one who was constantly apologizing to Ben after their fights. Luke had fallen into a familiar pattern and Charlotte's concern only grew. She wanted him to be happy, but she didn't want him to circle the drain like she had.

She took a couple of his french fries and popped them into her mouth, the small crunchy ones. She always loved those best and Luke would always get after her for stealing, but she lived for the annoyed pout he's put on afterwards.

Luke came back to stand in the doorway, smiling as he watched Charlotte snatch some of his fries. He snapped his finger to get her attention and she went red, seeing she'd been caught. She flipped him off.

"What time is it over there?" he asked Mel, "We can skype in a bit. I miss your face,"

Charlotte pretended to gag. Luke grabbed the throw pillow off the armchair and tossed it at her. She caught it with ease and tucked it behind her.

"An hour's fine. I'll be up," Luke sat down beside her, "We're having McDonald's shrimp patties. They're not bad actually,"

Charlotte gagged again and Luke shoved her with his foot. Feigning insult, she grabbed the pillow and whacked him with it. Luke covered his head and threw a taunting look her way.

"No, I think they discontinued that McGratin shit. Were no good," he said, trying to ward off more pillow blows from Charlotte.

Charlotte was now like a child begging for attention. When the pillow wasn't working she reached over and squeezed Luke's ribs. He jumped and let out a yelp.

"Jesus! Why?" he whined at her, "No honey... everything's fine," Luke grabbed another pillow and placed it between them. Charlotte was unfazed, she kept reaching over and trying to tickle him.

Luke defended himself as best he could before he couldn't take it anymore, giggling more than he was talking, "Babe, I'll call ya' back. I gotta' take care of a pest!" he didn't even wait for Mel to respond before he launched himself at Charlotte.

"You fucking little shit!" The pair crashed into the cushions, wrestling and trying to pin the other down. They were awash in giggles and squeals until Luke had Charlotte firmly under him, hands darting under her shirt and squeezing her waist and hips.

Charlotte finally kicked him off and Luke dropped to the floor with a hard thud, "That's what you get!" she exclaimed with triumph.

Luke glared back at her with irritation, "You started it!"

"And I also ended it!" with a heavy huff she extended her hand out to him, "Truce?"

"Yeah," Luke grabbed her hand -- only to yank her off the couch with a hard tug. Charlotte screamed before she could even realize what was happened and she landed on the hardwood beside him.

"That was for the toilet seat!"

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vuelie-frost · 4 years

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Frozen Broadway 2.16.20. Caissie and Patti’s last show.

Okay, I'm finally able to write a rundown of the show.

Note that I'm not experienced in writing about Broadway shows- mostly because I've only seen a handful- and I apologize in advance if this comes off kitschy or redundant. Theatre is a foreign world to me, so I observe as an outsider. I mostly want to write this just to immortalize the experience, but via Tumblr I can share it (to the best of my ability) with you all! - My seat was ORCH row A, which is second row, in the right section.

- I went by myself (took the weekend as a "mini vacation" to NYC)

- I did see this show last May with Caissie & Patti, and although it's been almost a year, I do have a "normal" performance to compare it to. Mattea Conforti was right outside the door as I walked in, talking to a doorman. I realized later when exiting that a small slew of the previous young Annas and Elsas were in attendance too- they were sitting a few rows behind me. Waiting for the show to begin, I heard a lot of chatter around me regarding Caissie & Patti finishing their runs. Everyone seemed to be here intentionally for this night. A lot of young adults & older teens (?) in my vicinity. Kids too, as expected, but the number of adults was notable. As soon as the first few notes of that orchestral Vuelie hit, I started to tear up. It literally crashes into the theatre with a swell of vocal harmonies and percussive beats. It's hard to not be overwhelmed. Vuelie has always had this effect on me. It's like it's saying "Come, let me tell you this story." I was reminded of Hadestown and the motif of repetition, how we listen to the same stories over and over again even if we know the end. I wonder why that is. The first scenes with the little girls ran like clockwork- they're brilliant and funny. I remained teary through this whole sequence, because it's just childlike happiness and wholeness before everything goes to shit. Knowing what's going to happen, it just grips your empathy. And then Patti took the stage. Patti entered to the darkened back of the stage as the scenes were shifting between young Anna & adult Anna, which means her entrance itself didn't garner applause. But as soon as that spotlight hit her, it was an uproar. Wild applause. Standing ovation. The music stopped- it had to- no one could have heard it anyway. Tears visible in her eyes, she just looked out and straight ahead. Her face was flushed. It was evident she was emotional & didn't try to suppress it fully, but had to maintain some composure to get through the scene. She kept nodding slightly and pressing her hand to her chest, acknowledging us. This almost broke me. She knew. But she had a job to do, a few lines to sing (which she did perfectly DESPITE CRYING.) Eventually when it quieted she sang. The door swiveled. The light hit Caissie. All over again, a thundering standing ovation. This is where Caissie's brilliance lies, because she was borderline stoic while waiting for us to finish applauding. She gazed out at us for awhile, eventually shifting her focus upward and to her left, and to the door behind her. I don't think she smiled- she might have nodded once or twice. She waited. The emotionality displayed by Patti, which we all love for its honesty, was foiled by Caissie's ability to hold it together, which we love for its professionalism. (Don't even get me started on how in-character these contrasting displays were. I could go on and on about how these women match their characters so beautifully.)

From that second, something shifted in the audience. We were no longer spectators, we were participants in blurring the fourth wall. Not that we heckled or were addressed directly by the company. But we came alive. The actresses knew. We knew. We shared that unspoken sentiment. The show continued.

I don't have specific examples here because it's only something you can observe, but it was very obvious that both women were putting 110% into this performance. I understand sometimes in performance art that for self-preservation or focus, you make minor changes to how lines are said, or the emphasis of certain words, or how your facial expressions change. Sometimes you hold back a bit. Caissie and Patti went all out. Their acting was never compromised. Patti's hilarity as Anna hit every punchline perfectly. Caissie's portrayal of nervousness and fear was so believable. I also wish I could have captured every moment they looked at each other. I mostly saw Caissie's face from my perspective, but the way they look at each other is genuine. I get the sense they have this unspoken communication between them after doing the show so many times together. Dangerous to Dream was beautiful per always, and at the moment Patti kneels upstage, I again saw tears glimmering in her eyes. How this woman can do a whole show so obviously affected and STILL NAILING IT is genius. At the end of Love is an Open Door, Patti and Joe took a moment to just grin wildly at each other and grip each other's arms and bear-hug. I didn't realize this was Joe's last show as well, so it was their last duet of that song. Let it Go was spellbinding. Caissie took every opportunity to option up not just on the final few notes (which have been unfortunately bootlegged, and you've probably heard already) but in tiny points along the whole song. She actually did this with all her songs. If there was a half step variation she could do, she did it. It was remarkable. You get the sense she was having fun, trying to engage us. I remember an interview where she once said on certain shows or nights if she's feeling up to it, she likes to give the audience a little something extra. This was THE night. As she walked back before the dress change, I could feel people around me suddenly shift to get a better view. We all knew and we all wanted to see it. In a recent interview she said she just stands there and braces. You wouldn't know it- it looks effortless. The nanosecond the dress changed: standing ovation. This is where she started really grinning wildly and belting her lungs out. She was at the foot of center stage, riffing and optioning up a storm. Her expression was so joyous. She's said before that this is her favorite part of the show. Every time she optioned up (which was like, each one of the last four notes) there was a massive wave of cheers and applause. I expected her to do maybe one or two. She did four or five. And keep in mind this was her SECOND SHOW OF THE DAY. The song ends abruptly with her turning around with a swish of her cape & the lights going nearly out, and I get the sense that the thunderous applause wanted to keep going because we wanted her to SEE us. We wanted to face her and give her the recognition. We wanted to stop the show like in the beginning and show her how much she means to us, and how honored we are to hear her last Let it Go. But the choreography doesn't let that happen, because immediately the lights come back up for intermission, and she's gone. I wonder if she secretly likes that sequence, as Caissie seems to be the kind of person whose humility doesn't let her drink in compliments or praise. She was able to give us everything she had, and then disappear. Such an Elsa move. Monster had some riffs (which is not in any way disappointing because Caissie gave us 200% in Let it Go, which was enough to satiate me for years) but I did want to mention one in particular. If you watched Jelani's backstage videos on YouTube from the first few months of the show, he does this segment where he gets Caissie to riff. She does one from Monster for the line "Would that take the storm away/Or only make it grow." I'm not going to try and phonetically replicate it, but that. She did that. I was hoping she would, as it's one of my favorite variations of hers, and she did. I was ecstatic. The finale song is where Patti started crying again and from the moment they started walking backstage to the rising platform, it was applause all around. In that sequence they're facing away from the audience and I can only imagine the exchange- spoken or unspoken- between them. They did it. Their run was over. There are a few lines at the end that may just be me projecting, but they felt poignant in how Caissie delivered them & her expression looking at Patti (again, Patti was facing away from me, so I didn't catch her expression.) I get the sense they had a triple meaning, as they not only marked the end of the show but represent sentiments two sisterly women would have.

"The magic one is you." (This is perhaps my favorite line in the whole song.) "Let the sun shine on" "Let's fill this world with light and love/And now surrounded by a family at last/We're never going back, the past is in the past." The final "let it go" line in the song Caissie looked joyous. She was all smiles. She grinned at Patti. There was a look of pride in her eyes. At bows, apparently Caissie and Patti have this tradition where they say “I love you” at the front of the stage before bowing. I could only see Caissie, but she mouthed “I love you” to Patti with such a big smile and so much happiness. If Caissie cried at all prior to bows & acknowledgements, I didn't notice it. It's possible she's just very very good at hiding it. Even during Robert, Bobby, and Kristin talking at the very end, she only wiped her eyes once or twice. (I won't recount this part very much because many people filmed it and you can watch it yourselves. I've seen it on Instagram, though I haven't browsed Tumblr for it yet.) Patti, of course, could not hide her feelings. Caissie kept hugging her and squeezing her and holding her hand during all the kind words. At once point she wiped her thumb on Patti's cheek. Patti is a treasure. I have to respect the woman for being brave enough to show all of herself to us, even if it was involuntary. And I need to reiterate that she did the whole show perfectly even while crying & feeling a lot of feelings. She's a rockstar. Caissie, while fielding a slew of compliments from Robert & Kristin, would every once in awhile look down and do a funny little shake of her head. I get the sense she has a hard time accepting praise. Knowing she’s such a perfectionist at heart, she was probably internally fighting back with reasons why she didn’t deserve those kind words. I get it. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, you will always focus on the things you didn’t do or didn’t do enough. For someone of her caliber, it’s utterly fascinating to watch her humility. One last thing I want to point out. I mentioned earlier that from the moment of our first standing ovation, the atmosphere in the crowd changed. We went from spectators to a living, breathing mass. It was electric. Once you felt the gravity of the cheers and claps and whoops, you realized what you were part of. I heard from a reviewer on Twitter that he hadn't been part of such a lively audience-performer relationship since the closing show of In the Heights. Because that's what was different about last night. We crossed some sort of line where the art itself was no longer performance, but we partook in it. There's something really holy about the invisible exchange between performers and the spectators. Frozen is a masterpiece on its own, and we were all blessed to watch it. But when art becomes a give-take exchange of feelings, emotes, cathartic impulses, and unspoken communication, it becomes something new entirely. This was no ordinary night. Caissie and Patti gave all of themselves to us, and we knew, and we answered back. It felt alive in a way I didn't realize theatre could feel. The fourth wall ceased to exist, but only because both sides dissolved it. It wasn't direct. It wasn't obvious. No exchange of words indicated it. We just felt it and knew. They did too. It was an honor to take up space in the St James last night. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and I will never forget it.

#frozen the broadway musical #frozen #elsa #anna #caissie levy #patti murin

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deadanddeactivated · 4 years

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Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Put on Your Pants

Fandom: Sanders Sides Pairing: DLAMP Characters: Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Logan, Patton, Roman Notes: Day 12 of the fluffuary event being hosted by @tsshipmonth2020 - DLAMP. i am so far behind opps. Summary: Remus doesn't really mean to meet his brother's soulmates first. He just sort of does.

AO3

In a world of soulmates, Virgil sometimes wonders what end of the stick he got when words started appearing on his skin. They weren’t First Words or Love Words, static words that marked a special moment. Rather they were Written Words - the things that his soulmates had written on their skin. Or drawn. Or accidentally marked themselves with. Basically whatever ink spills onto his soulmates, leaks onto his.

Sometimes it’s nice, like the little ‘I love you’ that always appears in light blue pen at his wrist. Other times it’s annoying, like back when he was trying to figure out exactly how many soulmates he had.

The ink only remains on him as long as it remains on them. Which is why that ‘I love you’ is usually faded by the time he goes to bed but fresh in the morning. It’s also how he got a completely free and mostly painless tattoo of a yellow snake on his hip.

But there’s a thousand other connections Virgil could have developed, and sometimes that thought keeps him up at night.

A timer would have been interesting. An exact count of the seconds until he met his soulmate, or the moment he fell in love with them. It also would have been terrifying and a lot of pressure and Virgil’s really glad he didn’t get a timer.

First Words might have been nice. Solid words that didn’t change or fade. But then he ran the risk of having terrible first words, or gerentic ones. Sure, no one really greets strangers with a ‘hello’ for that exact reason but the risk is always there. And what if he misheard someone? Or if two people said his words? It all sounds like such a nightmare.

Virgil would just straight up hate having a first touch soulmark. He isn’t a touchy-feely type person, just brushing up against a stranger in the street leaves him wound tight all day. And what if that was how he and his soulmate touched? He’d never notice.

Of course there are also the invisible connections. Like Strings of Fate, or Guides. Then there were the colourblind soulmates. And the mental connections. Virgil’s pretty sure any type would make him nervous. It’d be too easy to ignore the strings and guide, to run away from who fate deems his match. Being colourblind doesn’t seem too bad, but Virgil would always be doubting if he had soulmates at all. Same if he had something like a soul song.

Besides, he’s seen Aunt Patty cornering his cousins with invisible connections before, grilling them for news way worse than everyone else. That is something he’d rather avoid, thank you very much.

So yeah, Virgil often wonders about the other connections. But usually he decides written words suit him just fine.

Usually.

“Oh come on.” Virgil complains when he steps out of the shower. Red’s got a moustache drawn across his face, which means Virgil has a moustache across his face. Virgil also has class today. Where people will see the moustache across his face. And stare.

“I so don’t need this today.” He grumbles. Unfortunately, there’s really no avoiding it. He can’t miss this class. Only hope his soulmate will rub the moustache off soon.

Another piece of ink catches his eye as he gets dressed. Light blue ink right beneath the usual ‘I love you’. ‘Sorry! It was a joke! -- thinks hes funny.’ One word, likely a name, is smudged and unreadable. Like names always are. Virgil isn’t sure if Light Blue doesn’t know those details wouldn’t show up or if they just never think about it.

What he does know is that Light Blue and Red have met, a few months ago at least. He figured it out when the usual ‘I love you’ appeared in red text on his other wrist, the handwriting matching Light Blue’s perfectly.

Virgil also knows that, despite Light Blue’s tendency to talk to him, none of his soulmates share his Written Words. Which is fine, it’s whatever. Most soulmates don’t share a connection.

He’s pretty sure Red can see strings, based on the rings they sometimes draw around the base of their fingers. Light Blue told him he has Love Words, one night long ago when he was wondering about a person he doesn’t know exists. Virgil has suspicions that Yellow is coloured, because sometimes they write the names of colours up their arms. To Virgil they’re all yellow, but he doubts that's accurate. Dark Blue is a mystery. If Virgil had to guess, he’d say Dark Blue has Timers because, very occasionally, Dark Blue writes numbers and dates that don’t quite match their usual science-math mumbo jumbo.

All of that is fine with Virgil.

Really.

“Put it out of your head Virgil.” He orders himself, huffing. Why is he so focused on his soulmates this morning? Does a stupid moustache prank really have him digging deep right now?

Or, a quiet and very honest voice says in the back of his head, maybe it’s because it’s your birthday. Which, Virgil knows, is much more likely. That doesn’t mean he wants to admit it.

So what if it’s his birthday? So what if he’s another year older and no closer to finding his soulmates?

So what if it’s another year he doesn’t even exist in their lives. Not really. Not the way they exist in his.

Because if he’s right about his soulmates, then they don’t have a changing connection like his. They have some flat, unchanging thing that doesn’t tell them anything.

But Virgil? Virgil already knows them. He knows that Red likes theatre, because they’re always writing down their lines or the dates of shows or the roles they want, sometimes later circling the ones they got. He also knows that Red always forgets the milk.

Then there’s Light Blue, who will write on his skin for hours because he doesn’t want Virgil to feel alone. Even though he doesn’t even know Virgil’s there, reading his every word. He also sounds like the sweetest person on Earth.

Yellow likes to draw. They also have a pet snake, and a pet rat. Virgil thinks they’re terrible with names too, because they like to write people's names only to give them little nicknames or descriptions.

Dark Blue probably writes the least, but when they write boy do they write. Virgil’s arms have been covered in various math formulas and half-finished thoughts. It’s like Dark Blue can’t find enough paper in the world to contain all the thoughts in their head.

That’s what his soulmates are to him. Full people that… well, that he’s sort of already fallen in love with.

It hurts to think they know nothing about him.

“Okay great, I guess we’re just having a bad day today.” Virgil huffs, fitting a scarf over his face in hopes it’ll cover the red moustache. It must have been drawn in some heavy duty stuff.

Great.

“Trying to look anime instead of emo today?” Virgil sighs as he falls into his seat, not even sure he wants to give Remus a response. No matter what he says, Remus is likely to make something of it and Virgil just isn’t sure he has the energy.

Of course, his friend is likely to make something of it even if he doesn’t say anything so…

“No.” He admits, pulling the scarf down to reveal the mark. “Apparently someone played a prank on Red this morning.” Remus gasps, then grins.

“Matchy!” He says.

“Sadly.” Virgil agrees, rolling his eyes and fixing his scarf back up. “Hopefully by tomorrow they’ll both be gone.” This time Remus’ gasp is more offended.

“Are you insulting my moustache good sir?” He demands.

“Always.” Virgil smirks.

“I’d throw my gauntlet at you but Roman refuses to give it back.” He claims.

“You’d duel me on my birthday?” Virgil asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh most certainly. It’s like birthday punches but with sharp pointy things!” Remus grins. “But, since it is your birthday…” Virgil’s amusement turns to caution at the look in Remus’ eye.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.” He warns.

“I won’t, I won’t!” Remus assures, brushing him off. “I’m just saying you should come to my dorm later to get your present.”

“Isn’t that my present there?” Virgil asks, gesturing towards the lump on the desk, horribly wrapped in a mix of purple spider-themed paper (the spiders look self-drawn) and green octopus paper.

“Nop!” Remus claims, very concerning grin on his face. “This is something else!”

“Seriously?” Virgil sighs.

“As a heart-attack!” Remus grins, and then grins all the more as Virgil mutters about how that doesn’t work.

‘It’s ready!’ Virgil sighs at the message for the thousandth time, trying to pretend he wasn’t nervous. And excited. Nercited. Oh god, he’s been spending way too much time with Remus lately.

And he’s about to be spending more time with him too, because he’s just reached the door to Remus’ dorm and the mysterious birthday present beyond. Raising his hand to knock, telling himself he just wanted to get this over with, Virgil pauses right before his hand connects with the door.

“Remus, this is ridiculous!” An unfamiliar voice snaps from the other side of the door. Does Remus have guests? Although it could be Remus’ roommate, that guys so exlusive Virgil’s not convinced he exists. Should he still go in?

“Just trust me Ro, you’ll love this!” That’s Remus. What is he talking about? Surely it’s not… no, Remus wouldn’t be trying to play a prank of him. He’s better than that. Right?

“I don’t trust you.” Mysterious Person, possibly roommate, probably ‘Ro’, huffs.

“Oh come on Roman,” a new mysterious voice speaks up, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“The last time you said that I ended up with a moustache drawn on my face!”

What?

“Shush!” Remus shushes the other. “Shhhhhhhh!”

What?

Did, did Virgil hear that right? Surely he didn’t. Surely he misheard, or it was a coincedience or-

A ding sounds from his pocket as Virgil’s phone goes off. The door opens a second later, revealing a wide-eyed Virgil with his arms still raised to a pouting Remus.

“You heard, didn’t you?” He whines. “Roman you stole my thunder!”

“What?” Virgil finally manages to say it as Remus steps back, revealing the owners of the mysterious voices. Two men are standing side by side in the middle of the dorm, chests wrapped together with a mix of purple wrapping paper and green paper covered in octopus’. One has browny-blond hair and big blue eyes framed with glasses. He smiles at Virgil, seeming entirely unbothered by Remus’ sheddigans.

The other man is clearly the twin brother that Remus has mentioned having. They’re practically spitting images of each other, although this one looks more… well, less like a chaotic mess. He has his arms crossed and a moment ago he sounded very put upon. But now? Now he’s staring at Virgil like a deer in headlights.

A lot like Virgil is staring at the two of them really.

Surely these aren’t…

That can’t be possible, right?

But right under the twins nose is a somewhat smudged, slightly faded moustache. It’s drawn in a black marker but it other wise matches the red mark on Virgil’s face perfectly.

“Hi!” The blond greets, waving. “I’m Patton! You’re a friend of Remus’, right?”

“Um, hi?” Virgil manages, swallowing around the lump in his throat. If Remus’ twin is Red, and Virgil is starting to really think hope he is, would that mean Patton is Light Blue?

Holy shit was Virgil really… really staring at half his soulmates right now?

“He’s a friend of mine, but his much more to you.” Remus says, grinning ear to ear and wrapping and arm around Virgil’s shoulder. Still stunned, Virgil doesn’t even push him off.

“Huh?” Patton asks, tilting his head tiltly. In response, Roman holds up his hand and wiggles a finger. Virgil can just barely make out the purple ring at the base of the finger. “Oh my gosh, really?” He asks, hands raised to cover his gasp and growing smile.

“I uh, I think so.” Virgil says.

“Well I know so!” Remus grins. “I recongized that moustache immediantly, I mean I did draw the original. Aren’t I the best best friend? I got you your soulmates for your birthday! They’re even wrapped!”

Virgil takes a moment to let that sink in.

And then…

“You got me stuck with a moustache on my face!” He accuses, turning to glare at Remus.

“It was for a good cause!” Remus claims.

“Good cause my ass.” Roman huffs.

“This is so exciting!” Patton grins, bouncing and accidentally breaking the wrapping Remus had done, much to the mams dismay. Without the paper in the way, Patton quickly bounded over to grab Virgil’s arms. “What’s your name? What’s your soulmate connection? Wait, you were talking about the moustache does that mean you have Written Words? Oh my gosh that’s so exciting! Does that mean you got my words?” Words tumble out of his mouth so fast that it takes Virgil a moment to catch up.

“Uh,” he starts, “I’m Virgil. And uh, yeah. Um…” he trails off again, not quite sure what he’s meant to say. So instead he gently pulls his arm out of Patton’s hold, turning it over so he can see the words there. Words that Patton wrote. Every morning. Holy shit.

“Oh my gosh!!” Patton squealled, pulling Virgil closer to look at the words.

“Babe you’re overwhelming him.” Roman warns, having recovered a lot more completely than Virgil has.

“Oh please.” Remus says, leaning more completely on Virgil’s side. “I’m the most overwhelming person he knows.” This time Virgil has the sense of self to bump Remus off, although he has to do it with his shoulders since Patton still has his arms.

“That’s not a good thing.” He huffs.

“Ignore my brother.” Roman says, he taps Patton’s shoulder and Patton, begrudingly, steps away. Virgil’s arms don’t stay free for long, Roman taking his hand and bowing over it. “I am Roman Prince, I have been searching all my life for you Virgil. You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed.” He says, ending his little speech with a kiss to the back of Virgil’s hands.

“Uh,” is all Virgil can manage, his face flushed red.

“That was really good Ro! You didn’t even stutter this time!” Patton praises, making Roman’s face turn red as he stands back up.

“Patton! You’re not meant to tell him that!” He hisses. His face goes all the redder when Virgil laughs.

He knows these people, he suddenly remembers, he’s known them all his life. Red is just as dramatic in person, Light Blue just as sweet. Virgil never should have expected anything different. The thought calms him. Why was he so overwhelmed in the first place?

“I’ve been waiting all my life for you to find me, Roman Prince.” He teases, laughing again when Roman stutters. It reminds him of the grand declarations Red would write, the hearts he would draw, only to quickly scribble them out in embarrassment. It’s cute.

“Using our dorm for a party I see.” A new voice speaks up. “And blocking the doorway.”

“Hey De!” Remus grins. “Guys this is my roommate, I told you he was real!” The three soulmates look over, meeting the mysterious mans yellow eyes. Roman makes a strangled noise but Virgil doesn’t get time to think about that. He’s a bit distracted as De’s eyes roll into the back of his head and he stumbles.

“Shit.” Virgil curses, quickly stepping forward to catch the stranger.

“I’m fine.” De claims, eyes already blinking open again. “It was just… lots of colour, rather quickly.”

“Oh my gosh!” Patton grins, looking from the now yellow band on Roman’s wrist to the new comer.

“I am the bestest best friend and the bestest rommate!” Remus announces, cheering.

“Huh.” Is all Virgil can manage for the moment, staring at his soulmate as gets back on his feet.

He’ll never actually tell Remus this but… yeah, best birthday present ever.

“I am determined to find our last soulmate first.” Roman announces, slamming his lunch onto the table the others have claimed for lunch.

“I’m still reeling from the fact there’s only one.” De, actually Dante, says. It didn’t take long for him, and Virgil, to get used to Roman’s particular brand of dramatics. Or Patton’s practicular brand of ‘constantly, unintentionally adorable’.

“I’m sorry!” Virgil says for the thousandth time, although there’s no heat in it. “I can’t help my eye colour!”

“Colours.” Dante corrects. He’d been only a little put out when he realized Virgil had mismatching eyes, apparently he’d spent his life assuming he’d have five soulmates not four. That has been added to Virgil’s ‘con’ list for being colourblind.

The little messages his soulmates send him have been added to the ‘pro’ list for Written Words, not that he’ll say aloud how much he loves them.

“Why first?” Patton asks, because he’s a kind heart who will actually play along and not just tease Roman.

“Because Remus keeps meeting my soulmates first! He’s convinced he’ll meet our last soulmate first, and I won’t let him!” Roman explains.

“Well he does have a fairly good track record.” Virgil says.

“You meet Patton first at least.” Dante offers.

“No, I meet Remus first.” Patton admits.

“Patton was his favoruite barasita.” Roman says, like it’s some great tradegy.

“You know, it shocks me how good he is at finding soulmates. He couldn’t even find out classroom today.” Virgil says.

“Seriously?” Dante asks, smirking.

“Yep. Apparently he ended up in some science class and decided to just stick around. He made a friend though.” Virgil elbroates, pulling out the text messages they’d been sending earlier that day.

“Oh, maybe his friend is our soulmate!” Patton suggests, deaf to Roman’s dramatic ‘noooooo’. “He does write a lot of science-y things, right Virgil?”

“Lots of people do science-y things Patton.” Virgil points out.

“Still, maybe there’s a clue in the things he writes to you.” Dante says.

“He doesn’t write anything to me, he just writes on his arm.” Virgil argues.

“There has to be some sort of clue.” Roman claims, suddenly in good spirits again. “This could help us track him down, so we can meet him before Remus.”

“I hate to break it to you but any ‘clues’ would probably be smudged.” Virgil shrugs. “All I know is that he’s probably got a timer.”

“A timer?” Patton asks. “How can you tell?”

“Well it writes weird dates sometimes.” Virgil explains, lifting his sleeve to show the date on his shoulder. There’s a date about three weeks from now, which has be crossed out. “But it changes almost every time.”

“I hear that’s common with timers.” Roman says. “Apparently the timer changes when your fate changes, like you were meant to meet today but you missed your train and now your won’t meet for another three months.”

“Seriously?” Virgil frowns. “Okay that’s terrifying.”

“I like it.” Dante says. “Soulmates seem way too ‘free choice is a myth, our lifes are completely pre-determined’, you know?”

“Okay! Let’s not have another one of those talks! I need to sleep tonight!” Patton quickly shuts that down.

“Yes, let’s go back to talking about how we’re going to meet our soulmate before my brother!” Roman says. “If he’s crossed it out, does that mean that’s not the date anymore? What’s the new date?”

“How am I meant to know?” Virgil sighs.

“Hey guys!” Remus calls out. “Look I made a friend! His names Logan.” He gestures to the man beside him who suddenly raises a hand to his head, wincing.

“Go away Remus, I’m trying to organize how to meet my soulmate without you.” Roman says, back to his brother.

“Might be too late for that.” Dante warns.

“Seriously?” Virgil asks, looking from Dante’s smirk to the new comer. Roman turns to look, eyes glued to the end of a red string that no one else can see.

“Oh come on!” He exclaims, frowning.

“Four for four!” Roman cheers.

“Why does Remus keep meeting my soulmates first?!” Roman demands, standing from the table to glare at his brother, hands on his hips. For his part, Remus is finding quite a bit of amusement in his brothers annoyance.

“Oh last soulmate!!” Patton grins, jumping from the table to wrap his arms around Logan. “We found you!”

“Or Remus found you, he has a habit of that.” Virgil says.

“It’s a horrible cruelty of fate.” Roman huffs.

“Way not to be overwhelming everyone.” Dante comments, resting his cheek on his hands as he looks between Patton, Roman, and Logan. Virgil just watches Logan, seeing all the stages of surprise and confusion that he went through meeting Pat and Roman.

“Ah,” Logan finally manages to speak, “I was wondering why they suddenly all matched.”

“What luck!” Patton grins.

“Remus luck.” Virgil says.

“Stop giving Remus all the credit for my soulmates!” Roman snaps.

“We’re not just your soulmates.” Virgil argues, just to rile Roman up a bit more. As they bicker, Patton lets go of Logan and instead leads him to their table. It was a little cramped with just the first of them but they managed the six.

“They’re always like this.” Dante warns from his spot across from Logan.

“Don’t lump me in with them.” Virgil says, only to immediately return to his overplayed argument with Roman.

“Believe it or not, this is actually them giving you space. De almost passed out when he met everyone.” Remus faux whispers to Logan.

“It was because of the colour!” De claims, face turning red.

“Oh my god!” Patton exclaims, suddenly standing and looking mortified. “We didn’t do introductions!”

“I think,” Logan tells De, looking over the chaos, “I might not mind.”

“Yeah, they get you like that.” Dante sighs.

“Don’t let him follow you, he’s just as bad.” Virgil says.

“Oh so’s Logan, you guys just didn’t see him in class.” Remus grins.

“Falsehood!” Logan claims. Virgil can’t help but laugh, grinning as he feels something settling. They go through proper introductions. Roman goes last, giving his customary prince-y bow. And then getting flustered as Patton, Dante, and Virgil clap because they’d made a secret pact and they all agree Roman looks adorable flustered.

When Virgil goes home, he’ll fret that they scared Logan off. He’ll worry they were too much.

But tomorrow, Logan will join them for lunch once more. And the day after, and the day after. Then, when the semester ends and they have the time, they’ll all look for a place to live together.

And when Roman comes home, grumbling about how Remus found his own soulmates and Roman wasn’t at all involved, Logan will be there to chuckle about it.

All of them will be.

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kkintle · 5 years

Text

Just Kids by Patti Smith; Quotes

I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return.

“Hot or not, it’s time you started wearing a shirt. You’re about to become a young lady.” I protested vehemently and announced that I was never going to become anything but myself, that I was of the clan of Peter Pan and we did not grow up.

No one expected me. Everything awaited me.

with one foot in the street and the other in the Milky Way.

He suddenly appeared, as vagabonds will sometimes find one another.

I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.

“At least they’ll never get it,” he said. “Who are they?” I asked. “Anyone who isn’t us,” he answered.

“Nothing is finished until you see it.”

The wine didn’t interest him; it was the funny feeling in his stomach that excited him, the thrill of doing something forbidden.

He was disappointed I didn’t like it. “What were you thinking?” I asked him. “I don’t think,” he insisted. “I feel.”

“I open doors, I close doors,” he wrote. He loved no one, he loved everyone. He loved sex, he hated sex. Life is a lie, truth is a lie. His thoughts ended with a healing wound.

Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.

Both of us had given ourselves to others. We vacillated and lost everyone, but we had found one another again. We wanted, it seemed, what we already had, a lover and a friend to create with, side by side. To be loyal, yet be free.

“Nobody sees as we do, Patti,” he said again. Whenever he said things like that, for a magical space of time, it was if we were the only two people in the world.

Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing

Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn’t live long enough to see the time they were ahead of. “Pioneers without a frontier,” as Andy Warhol would say.

Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?

he quoted Mallarmé to me: “Poets don’t finish poems, they abandon them,”

Someone at Max’s asked me if I was androgynous. I asked what that meant. “You know, like Mick Jagger.” I figured that must be cool. I thought the word meant both beautiful and ugly at the same time. Whatever it meant, with just a haircut, I miraculously turned androgynous overnight.

He could take her or leave her / And he took her and then he left her.

Afterward he asked me if I had any money. “No,” I said, and he pretended to be mad. But I knew Harry. He just wanted to diffuse the intimacy of the moment. Whenever you had a beautiful moment with Harry he just had to turn it upside down.

I wondered if I was doing the right work. Was it all frivolity? It was the nagging sense of guilt I experienced performing on the night the Kent State students were shot. I wanted to be an artist but I wanted my work to matter.

Death comes sweeping down the hallway in a lady’s dress Death comes riding up the highway in its Sunday best Death comes I can’t do nothing Death goes there must be something that remains A fire of unknown origin took my baby away

It seemed being an actor was like being a soldier: you had to sacrifice yourself to the greater good. You had to believe in the cause. I just couldn’t surrender enough of myself to be an actor.

I was working real hard To show the world what I could do Oh I guess I never dreamed I’d have to World spins some photographs How I love to laugh when the crowd laughs While love slips through A theatre that is full But oh baby When the crowd goes home And I turn in and I realize I’m alone I can’t believe I had to sacrifice you

I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it in.

Some of us are born rebellious. Reading the story of Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford, I identified with her mutinous spirit. I remember passing shopwindows with my mother and asking why people didn’t just kick them in. She explained that there were unspoken rules of social behavior, and that’s the way we coexist as people. I felt instantly confined by the notion that we are born into a world where everything was mapped out by those before us. I struggled to suppress destructive impulses and worked instead on creative ones. Still, the small rule-hating self within me did not die.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.” “Say anything,” he said. “You can’t make a mistake when you improvise.” “What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?” “You can’t,” he said. “It’s like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another.” In this simple exchange, Sam taught me the secret of improvisation, one that I have accessed my whole life.

I believed he would once again embrace the knowledge that there is no pure evil, nor pure good, only purity.

As Rimbaud said, “New scenery, new noise.”

I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth.

We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.

My shirt was a bit rumpled, but so was I.

and as I struck the note, I spoke the line: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” I had written the line some years before as a declaration of existence, as a vow to take responsibility for my own actions. Christ was a man worthy to rebel against, for he was rebellion itself.

And as I toured the world I had time to reflect that Robert and I had never traveled together. We never saw beyond New York save in books and never sat in an airplane holding each other’s hand to ascend into a new sky and descend onto a new earth. Yet Robert and I had explored the frontier of our work and created space for each other. When I walked on the stages of the world without him I would close my eyes and picture him taking off his leather jacket, entering with me the infinite land of a thousand dances.

I was due at the studio when Robert called in great distress to tell me that Andy Warhol was dead. “He wasn’t supposed to die,” he cried out, somewhat desperately, petulantly, like a spoiled child. But I could hear other thoughts racing between us. Neither are you. Neither am I. We didn’t say anything. We hung up reluctantly.

Suddenly he looked up and said, “Patti, did art get us?” I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. “I don’t know, Robert. I don’t know.” Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.

The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off, too. But before I did, it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.

So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.

#just kids #patti smith #art #quotes #books

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findmyrupertfriend · 5 years

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Strange Angel - “The Lovers” (This is a recap of the 3rd episode of Season 2 of Strange Angel. There are spoilers so proceed with caution!)

“Habanera” by Georges Bizet serenades the Magus and his followers as they stroll merrily down a city sidewalk, shops adorned with Christmas decorations. Everyone’s dressed smartly and brightly, as others watch them warily. The Magus and Susan look particularly chummy, their arms linked as they walk. They stop for some fruit, and the sidewalk produce vendor insinuates the apples are sullied by their fellow African American Thelemite who handled them. But Susan’s sunny disposition will not dim. She takes a bite out of the apple and tells the racist produce vendor that no, those apples are just fine.

And who do they see, but Mrs. Van Buren, who informs Susan about the Parsons’ invitation to the Preservation Society Christmas soiree tomorrow night. She also makes it known that she has noticed all of the Parsons’ gatherings with their “lively” guests that don’t include anyone from the neighborhood. Mrs. Van Buren delivers a thinly veiled threat, letting Susan know she and her husband are not getting off on the right foot with the pillars of the community.

Jack is busy in the lab testing out a new chemical, but all Richard can do is mope about his failed proposal. Jack is decidedly uninterested in Richard’s dilemma. He calls for Patty to deliver his missing notebook that has classified information, but Patty is absent. Jack frantically looks for the notebook. He finds what looks like a shiny, brass button on the floor. He finds Patty decorating a Christmas tree with a colleague and orders her to stop and find his notebook immediately. As walks back to his office, he passes Private Fischer, a soldier who stands guard outside Jack’s office. Private Fischer also happens to be missing a button off his uniform…Jack takes note and eyes Patty furiously.

Next, we see this beautiful, smiling face of a man lowering onto Ernest’s own face, gently kissing his lips. Ernest’s hair is longer, and he looks drowsy and content. Suddenly, the man hears a vehicle approaching from the window. He calls for Ernest, and Ernest cries out as Nazi soldiers burst into the room.

Ernest awakes from his dream, sweaty and in a white garment, opened from the chest to his navel. (I had flashbacks of the navy shirt of hotness and our poor septic baby in “Why is This Night Different?”) Joan, dressed in a nurse’s uniform, gently wipes his sweat and comforts him through his withdrawal from the narcotics, but Ernest shoos her away. He wants to “confront his pain head-on” as the Magus instructed him. Again, Joan tries to offer him medication to ease his withdrawal, and Ernest refuses. He buttons up a bit and splashes water on his face. Joan continues prodding Ernest about his intentions to see the angel and points out that Ernest has lost touch with love - a very important part of their faith.

Ernest regards himself in the mirror and flashes back to the Nazi soldiers, now torturing him. They think he is a spy. The flashback ends and returns to Ernest punching and breaking the mirror. It seems as if he doesn’t like what he sees. His distorted reflection mirrors his inner feelings about himself.

Meanwhile, Jack is snorting some powder while he listens to Patty’s recorded secrets. The screen flashes with images of Patty having sex with Private Fischer in Jack’s office. She talks about allowing him to do anything he wants with her, and you wonder…is she talking about Private Fischer, or perhaps Jack? Patty knows Jack knows about the recordings and is no doubt listening to them.

Patty shuts down the conversation, even as Alfred continues probing. We see Private Fischer grab Jack’s notebook and leave his office just as Jack hears Susan and the Magus approach in the hallway, returning from a night out at the opera. Jack fumbles with the tape, trying to put everything back in place. The Magus and Susan enter the room, while Jack hides out on the balcony. He listens to them discuss Mrs. Van Buren’s invitation, as if they are an old married couple themselves. Alfred invites Susan to stay, but Susan demurs saying that she should probably head to bed, as Jack’s car is in the driveway. Alfred pointedly does not care, and Jack takes note of his tone. It seems Alfred has stepped in to take his place while Jack is so busy helping the US defeat the Nazis. Susan just smiles and takes her leave.

When Jack turns around, he sees Ernest watching him from the grounds below. Jack silences Ernest with a finger to his lips. Ernest responds with a my-lips-are-sealed motion with his hand, timed beautifully with a puff of smoke billowing from his lips. Oh, the lighting is so sexy on Ernest’s brown, chiseled features!!

The next morning, Susan discusses the soiree with Jack over an early morning breakfast. He doesn’t want to go, but Susan begs him to go with her and keep up appearances. He alludes to troubling events at work, saying he is busy. However, he tries to have an intimate moment with Susan, to communicate his appreciation of her, but he’s interrupted by Alfred sauntering in with his kaftan-styled pajamas. Alfred delivers a dig to Jack, commenting on how it was a shame Jack had to work and couldn’t take Susan to the opera. Jack smiles cooly and puts Alfred in his place.

Jack: “You know, just because Susan and I have chosen to love in freedom doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences to our choices. And some choices will have bigger consequences than others.”

Jack DEFINITELY got Alfred’s attention with that curt statement. He leaves for work and later reports a possible security breach to Agent Wallace. He implicates Private Fischer in the disappearance of his notebook. Agent Wallace declines to file a formal report. Jack watches Patty and Private Fischer from his office window and calls the Huntington Hotel to leave a message for Aleister Crowley.

Jack meets Crowley in a movie theatre and informs him of his suspicions about his missing notebook. Crowley dismisses Jack’s concerns unless Jack has more evidence and counsels him on how to entrap Private Fischer. He also alludes to his “associates,” and Jack wonders just who Crowley is working with.

In the next scene, Ernest continues with the hot, sweaty, sexy vibe as he chops wood completely shirtless in some high-waisted, slightly baggy pants (shout out to Lizzy who LURVES Ernest in those pants). Ernest continues having flashbacks of the Nazi soldiers torturing and interrogating him about being a spy, but I am too distracted by Ernest looking like a goddamned giant, towering over all that splintered wood, with those pants hiked up so high on his waist!!!

On second thought, the interrogation scene does provide some more insight into Ernest’s internal turmoil. When they continue asking who he is, Ernest responds, “I’m no one.” Breaks my heart a little to see Ernest struggling with his identity and who he is. All he wants is to love freely, but either the world or he himself won’t let it be.

Jack approaches him, and holy shit this scene is packed with sexiness. Jack is wearing a magnificent, fitted leather jacket with a lovely, wide lapel and belt sitting snug and high on his waist. The color is a burgundy with deep brown tones. The jacket either has an extra set of pockets, high up on the chest, or that is just some excellent leather pleating. The costuming is magnificent on this show! But I digress…

Jack thanks Ernest for keeping his secret from the other night. Ernest is definitely salty.

Ernest: “We all think the Magus serves us, but he’ll take the thing that brings you peace in the blink of a damn eye.”

Jack informs Ernest about his suspicions that a spy has infiltrated his work. Without even batting an eye, Ernest offers himself up.

Ernest: “What do you need me to do?”

It’s like they’ve fallen into their previous roles. Jack needs something, and Ernest comes to the rescue. But is Jack going to continue using Ernest to further his own will? Looks like yes, but this time Ernest will get something out of it too - revenge and his arrest expunged.

Richard and Chen are back at the office working on Jack’s specifications while Jack confronts Patty flirting with Private Fischer. After Patty leaves them alone with one another, Jack gives Private Fischer his missing button and tells him he’s onto him and walks off. Private Fischer looks a little nervous.

While Chen is working, two MPs approach him, questioning his activities. They are clearly hostile, suspecting Chen of being a Japanese spy. They won’t even allow him to reach for his identification. Richard has to step in and use his white privilege to get these two goons disguised as soldiers to back off. Obviously, not much has changed in the world as it relates to xenophobia, nationalism, and racism.

Next comes a beautiful shot of cars driving on a bridge at night, with dark clouds sliding over a bright moon and fog rising from the water. A motorcycle pulls a u-turn and parks on the side of the bridge. Jack and Ernest pull over, waiting to see who will arrive to meet with Private Fischer.

Of course, this means Jack is not making it to the soiree. Susan sits on a couch in her slip, partially dressed with her hair coiffed beautifully. It really is a gorgeous look. She selects a black, conservative outfit (none of the flamboyant red color) and asks Alfred to help zip her up. She hints that she wouldn’t mind if he accompanied her, but Alfred doesn’t quite take the bait. She asks for his counsel in going it alone.

Alfred: “Thou shalt be learned in the things of love, and mighty in the things of war.”

Susan smiles like a giggly school girl and leaves the room, while Alfred looks after her with absolute longing and tenderness. It’s more than desire. I think he might actually be falling in love with Susan.

Susan arrives amid whispers and stares. Mrs. Van Buren introduces Susan to two ladies whose innuendo make it clear that Jack’s activities have raised eyebrows. Susan continues her polite graciousness in the face of their pointed comments, and GODDAMN IT! I knew that snake Virgil would somehow be present. Susan catches a glimpse of him in another room, before a door closes and obscures her view. Her face falls and takes on a far away look. I can feel that breath catch in her throat! However, Alfred has come to her rescue!

He waltzes into the party, proclaiming he is a guest of Susan Parsons and immediately requests a martini. He’s dressed in his usual loose garments, which confound Mrs. Van Buren. She asks “if this is meant to be a Christmas costume” before instructing them to follow her to the library. Even Susan mentions Alfred’s wardrobe, but Alfred gently pushes back.

Alfred: “We don’t have to hide ourselves from these people. Let them bask in our splendor.”

I gotta admit. I’m kinda liking Alfred way more than Jack right now.

As they enter the library, it seems everyone has been waiting for them. One old lady scans Alfred’s bare feet and attire before asking in a most disdainful voice, “Do I detect an accent?” It’s clear this is an interrogation and confrontation of sorts. Mrs. Van Buren channels Tom Waits (what are they building in there???) by asking just what they are doing coming and going at all hours from the Parsons’ house.

Susan tries to deflect by saying it’s a social club of intellectuals, artists, and freethinkers. She is interrupted by none other than that fucker Virgil. He slithers into the room, calling her a liar. Susan asks what he is doing there, and Mrs. Van Buren explains what an ardent supporter Virgil is of the Preservation Society.

Alfred attempts to protect Susan by directing her to the door, but two old bitches actually block their path. I’d pull a Ludacris MOVE BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY on these old hoes. Susan looks more and more terrified as Virgil admonishes her for running away. That pig starts dishing out information on who is living in the Parsons’ home. Mrs. Van Buren pulls her best Karen (aka white woman who always asks to see the manager) on Susan, pointing out various legal infractions she believes the Parsons have committed, particularly covenants regarding “Negro occupants.” Mrs. Van Buren demands the Parsons get rid of them, or else…and Alfred has had enough. He loudly interrupts Mrs. Van Buren before Virgil again pokes his slimy nose into things. Alfred squares up against Virgil, taking the asshole to school, and I AM HERE FOR IT!

Alfred: “You are here celebrating a holiday based on the greatest lie ever told. Babies are not the result of immaculate conception. They are the result of love. And love is the only law we obey.”

Karen insists Alfred must also abide by their Pasadena laws, but Alfred basically says don’t come for me unless I send for you, bitch!

Alfred: “Well, then when you come for us, you’d better bring more than the police and your local covenants, because, truth is, we’re not running a boarding house. We are…a church.” GASP “And as such, we are afforded full protection against this type of…religious persecution.”

Alfred deliberately encroaches into uptight Karen’s space, and I am loving her discomfort. An emboldened Susan marches up to Virgil and informs him both she and Patty practice Thelema, “in order to rid ourselves of your sin.” Now it’s Susan’s turn to show her power and threaten Virgil.

Susan: “If you keep up this crusade, we will find a way to make you suffer for it.”

Well, well, well! Susan took exactly Alfred’s advice and made a mighty showing in her war with Virgil. This time, the group parts as Alfred and Susan walk out of that den of vipers. Virgil looks exquisitely uncomfortable as Mrs. Van Buren fixes him with a deathly stare.

The scene shifts back to Jack and Ernest waiting in the car. Ernest keeps envisioning his lover’s face from the earlier scenes. His face looks so unhappy in the side mirror of the car. There’s a continuing theme here of Ernest contemplating his true self while looking into mirrors and thinking back on events.

Jack is clearly antsy, but Ernest is all about taking decisive action at this point. He exits the vehicle and pulls out an ax while a horrified Jack grabs the ax from him. Ernest is not deterred and confronts Private Fischer, pushing him against the bridge and demanding to know just who the fuck he is. As he pushes Private Fischer further and further over the side of the bridge and interrogates him, Ernest again flashes back to his interrogation. The beautiful man, presumably Ernest’s lover, is dragged in front of him, and Ernest is told to choose between the truth or his lover’s death.

Jack screeches the truck up closer to Ernest, and Ernest jumps in, exclaiming, “I saw into his soul, Jack! He’s a goddamn Nazi!”

Back at the mansion, Ernest studies drawings of his angel hung on his walls. Jack approaches Susan about the party, but she ignores him. Instead, Alfred informs him it wasn’t a party, but an inquisition. Susan basically tells Jack, oh no worries, cause Alfred had her back. Jack learns Virgil was there and he had information on the congregants living in their home.

Jack gets the message loud and clear. Susan’s own husband was not there to protect her from that vile excuse of a man. Instead, Alfred was, as he is now, standing right next to Susan, across from Jack. Their physical positions highlight their emotional divisions. Jack apologizes for not being there, and Susan questions where he was. As usual, Jack pulls the “I’m fighting a war” line, but now Susan retorts back,” So are we.” Jack is excused from the room while Susan and Alfred research on how to protect themselves by declaring Thelema a religion.

The following day, Agent Wallace and General Braxton confront Jack about accosting Private Fischer. Chen and Richard are present, listening to Jack’s latest escapades. Tempers flare amongst everyone at the table, and General Braxton declares that Private Fischer will no longer be an issue. He makes it crystal clear that the missing intel must be reported, and Jack needs to not take matters into his own hands again.

Next, we see poor Virgil crying in the confessional booth to his priest. The occupants switch to Virgil and Ernest. This time, Virgil urges more deliberate action from Ernest to “cut the head off the snake” aka Jack. Ernest rotates his cigarette lighter between his fingers, with a pensive look on his face. Is his desire for revenge against Jack waining? Are his feelings for Jack clouding his mission with Virgil?

Back at the office, Jack packs up his sensitive materials. Richard cautions Jack against taking the items home considering his house guests. As Jack prepares to leave, he offers Patty a ride home. However, she has other plans with her girlfriends. Jack retorts back that she is just steamed he got rid of her boyfriend. Patty follows Jack into his office, shuts the door and closes the blinds. She makes it clear she made her recordings for Jack’s benefit.

Patty comes on to Jack like a speeding freight train. She admits she has been in love with Jack since she was a little girl. Jack rebuffs her advances and scurries out the door. Before he leaves, another woman in the office tells him a letter was left for him. It reads:

You were right about infiltration.

I have Proof

LA River, mile 33 bridge, midnight

Come Alone

Back at the mansion, the congregants enjoy a luscious candlelit dinner for the solstice. They toast one another with “Love is the law.” Susan leaves the table, a sad look on her face. Alfred follows her onto the balcony to discuss her concerns with the tax laws.

Next, we see Private Fischer meeting up with Agent Wallace, while Jack is on the bridge alone. Private Fischer hands over Jack’s notebook. Jack continues walking in the dark and turns around when he hears Ernest. Jack sounds surprised and asks Ernest if he took his notebook.

Ernest: “It’s not about your fucking notebook. Powerful forces keep pushing us together. The universe must want us to collide.”

Jack: “What are you talking about?”

Ernest: “Time to make an offering, Jack, so I can be free to see my angel. See, I’ve been where you are before, except they didn’t give me a choice.”

Jack: “What do I have to choose Ernest?”

Ernest: “Who lives and who dies.”

Ernest takes out a nasty looking, long knife. He says the angel demands blood. Ernest continues having flashbacks to his lover’s life threatened by Nazi soldiers. He cries out “No spies! Amor! Love!” so the Nazi soldiers will know that they are not spies. Ernest looks at his lover tenderly and with truth as he says “love,” and his lover looks back at him in relief.

Instead, they are ridiculed with “Arschficker,” which loosely translates to “arse fucker,” before the Nazi shoots Ernest’s lover in the head. Ernest cries out again, and we realize how much pain he has carried with him. It’s heartbreaking.

Ernest explains to Jack that a great sacrifice is what happened before the angel appeared, and it’s what he thinks must happen now for the angel to reappear. Ernest says either he or Jack must die, and Jack must choose. Jack refuses to kill Ernest and pleads with him to not kill him, either. Jack reminds Ernest that he took him in and forgave him, but Ernest is intent on seeing his angel. He swings the knife at Jack but misses him as Jack runs away.

As Ernest and Jack are doing their dance of death, Susan and the Magus are ensconced in their own dance with one another. The Magus ties up a naked Susan with red ropes and knots encapsulating her body. She tells him, “Tighter,” and Magus asks what she wants: “To vanquish my enemies.”

Jack runs to the truck and implores Ernest with “I’m your elemental!” Ernest refutes him. His elemental was his lover, and his lover was taken by Fascists. Jack reaches for some of his equipment from the office. He opens the door and hits Ernest with it so he falls onto the pavement. Ernest flashes back to being in the desert, readying to cut himself with his knife.

Jack runs under the bridge and Ernest follows.

The Magus repeats his question to Susan, and she repeats her answer, gasping in pleasure as Magus rests his hand between her legs and locks eyes with her. She hangs from the ceiling, tied with the red ropes.

Ernest finds Jack with his shirt opened, carving a symbol onto his bloody chest, just as Ernest cut himself in the desert.

Jack: “Thee I invoke, the Bornless one. Thee that didst create the Earth and the Heavens. I am he. The Bornless Spirit! I am he! The Truth!”

Ernest’s eyes burst out of their sockets, and an expression of pure joy spreads across his face as flames sprout like wings from Jack’s body. Ernest flashes back to the desert when he saw his angel, and he falls onto his face into the dirt, in worship of his angel.

We see the apparatus producing the flames behind Jack’s body and know that once again, Jack has manipulated Ernest into utter and complete devotion. Ernest is all in now.

#strange angel #season 2 #strange angel recap #by: laura #the lovers #damn this episode got me #i wanna see ernest chop more wood #i don't normally go for high waisted pants but damn #i can't wait for more sydney gifs #this episode is exquisite

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