I Once Wrote A Series Of Short Stories That Was Basically Just Sensory Descriptions Of What It Would

So I’ve been reading/playing Stay? by E. Jade Lomax of @ink-splotch and I wanted to try and capture the enchanting valley of Elaia (and its surrounding areas) as I’ve been picturing them in a moodboard. 

Featuring our beloved guardian lion statue, pre-vandalization, the Phoenix Gem, the Fiore Dam, Myka’s house (hers was the one with the olive tree, right? She was my first wife and I can’t even remember which house was hers for sure. I’m sorry Myka!), and the alleyway I picture the graduation parade going down. 

Image sources:  x  x  x ;  x  x  x ;  x ,  x + x ,  x

DOCTOR WHO The Time Monster

Olaf, Bertrand, Poison Darts

Before Olaf ever officially met Bertrand, he had heard stories about him.  Bertrand’s chaperone thought he was an amazing, model apprentice. But that chaperone also ranked last out of all 52 VFD chaperones. Who coincidentally was also Olaf’s nemesis Snicket’s chaperone, and that was where things got interesting.

Someone who Lemony Snicket was unfavorably compared to? Olaf hadn’t even met this guy, but he decided that he’s going to like him.

When they finally met for the first time, Olaf discovered that Bertrand was quite unlike the usual VFD theater teens he encountered. Bertrand wasn’t much a literature guy, nor was he invested in poetry or theater. He didn’t quote classics in everyday life (not even wrongly or sarcastically or anything) like the rest of them.  (Perhaps that was how he got assigned to lowest ranking chaperone, Olaf thought.)

Despite his differences with the theater teens of VFD, they all turned out to like Bertrand a lot.  He was pleasant and easygoing and because of his interests were different from them, they didn’t feel the need to compete with him.  But the best thing was, he was great at building sets and props – everything the theater people needed on stage – and every fancy, overly dramatic equipment they probably didn’t need off-stage but he was nice enough to make for them anyway.  (One day, the working wings of a dragonfly costume might turn out surprisingly useful for an actress, but that was another story.)

And Olaf liked him too, just like all of them. Bertrand was the only person who wouldn’t tear his Al Funcoot plays apart, and as much as it was fun bickering with Beatrice or R about the literary references in his plays, it was great to have someone who he could spend time with that didn’t care about all those and would be glad to help make the props for the play.  (Although he did have to fight the other theater majors for his time – as if Beatrice’s bat-styled hot air balloon or Esme’s martini glass dress was more important than his demands.)

And perhaps that was why Bertrand’s part in his parents’ murder came as the most surprising of them all.  After being friends – if he could call them that – with Beatrice for so many years since their childhood, he’d known, grudgingly that she was capable of a lot of things. Mostly in the name of drama, but sometimes for things more sinister too. He’d seen her darker sides that sometimes he wondered if Snicket realized. And Kit – she followed VFD’s orders in a way nobody else could, she planned coldblooded schemes in the name of necessary evil better than anyone else. (It probably said something about their relationship that he wasn’t that surprised when his girlfriend played a part in his parents’ murder.)  But Olaf never expected it from Bertrand.

Bertrand, who got along with everyone, who was always helpful, who didn’t argue much but not in a Jerome kind of way.

He’d long known ago he shouldn’t trust actors, but perhaps the biggest lesson was to not trust the polite and practical engineers either.

In retrospect, maybe he should have known. After all, Bertrand was the one with the craftiest hands out of them all. And if he could make theater props for them, who knew what else he was able to make?

A handy little device for aiming poison darts, as it turned out.

My main ship for this show, or for Ed at least, is probably Kelly and Ed, but I must admit, I love that cross-warring-species dynamic of Ed and his Krill girlfriend Teleya :) Actually, I was really hoping their relationship would come into play in tonight's episode in their temporary alliance with the Krill, but it was a well-handled plot point nonetheless, and perhaps this tenuous alliance will lead them to meet once again. 

I love reading all the stories here; I’ve been up and down the notes and I have several versions saved to my drafts, one of which I’ve begun writing out my own Fae story on. However, this post has actually had an influence on how I interpret the play I’m currently in, so it seems only appropriate to reblog a version of it on the eve of our play opening as well. 

The play is called Almost, Maine, and it’s a subtly surrealist series of small town romances. The blurb on the back of the script describes it as “a midwinter night’s dream”. Basically, weird, seemingly mystical things are happening in the lives of people in this town as they fall in and out of love, and at the end of the night, everyone sees the northern lights. You could read it just abstractly as ‘the northern lights make weird (or should I say wyrd) things happen’, or you could even rationalize most of the things away, but I’ve decided that it makes sense that Almost (that’s the name of the town) just has a very heavy Fae presence and the Fae--likely excited by the northern lights--are meddling in everyone’s affairs--much like in Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

I even decided that one of the characters I play, Ginette, actually is a Fae who left the Fae realm because she’s in love with a human, Pete. That explains, for me, how she *SPOILERS* walks all the way around the Earth in about 10 minutes for him--it’s done with the Fae magic she has, but in my interpretation, she has literally travelled all that distance for him. Then, when the northern lights appear at the end, it’s even deeper for me, because I’ve decided that for Ginette that’s a sign that the Fae have finally approved of her romance with Pete. 

Pete would be incredibly overwhelmed by all this. He freaks out when she says “I love you” for the first time. It’s best he doesn’t know all this. 

Anyways, I know this is a digression from the main subject matter of this post, but I just wanted to share how considering the Fae has been useful to me in deepening my acting and my character backstories. Thanks for all the great stories!

Irish people; The faeries aren’t real

Irish people; No fucking way will I go in that faerie ring

Putting on "The End" and wiping off my makeup in the sharp white light of the hotel room mirror as Gerard sings for me to do so. Thinking about them towelling the bloody bullet hole off of their forehead somewhere, either in a nicer hotel room than this or perhaps on the bus. Picturing all the makeup coming off all the faces of all the fans, rinsing down a thousand drains as adrenaline fades to weariness and the concert high fades to a vague, aching yearning for more. There is a mournfulness at the end of the celebration, but there is yet a celebration in the mourning, a togetherness even still. And after all, is that not what this band is about? The twinned emotions of mourning and rejoicing and the times when the two are inextricable?

Putting on eyeliner this morning for the My Chemical Romance concert and thinking about how many other fans might also be doing this at the same time; thinking about how many fans have done their eyeliner for a show over the years in the past. Thinking about Gerard doing his own eyeliner. Achieving spiritual union with the MCR fandom through slightly messy eyeliner.

They may be villains, but they’re polite. Polite in a ‘general threatening gesture with a firearm’ sort of way, haha. Oswald is a good evil boi. 

This scene was so funny, though :)

even in gotham you don’t point guns at babies

Aaaah the feeeeeels, the beautiful, complicated feels. 

Looking forward to these two living happily ever after and occasionally making empty murder threats against one another whilst being clearly in love... 

You paid Hugo Strange to save me? Why? What was I supposed to do? Let you die?

You know, I didn't get an email from my new friend Jonathan Harker today! He's been emailing me every day of his trip so far. Do you think I should be worried? I wonder if something strange is going on in that castle...

Nah, I'm being silly, he's probably just busy with legal documents and so forth. I'm sure everything is fine.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa

Desert Song

My Chemical Romance

It happened <3