He said he loved me, and it was like a dream

Click for better detail. ID under cut. Reblogs are better than likes

ID:

A digital drawing of Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev, both in profile. Nureyev has his hand on Juno's face, bringing it up. Their faces are near each other but not quite touching. Peter is seen from the shoulders up and Juno from the neck up. Juno is a black person who wears a dark eyepatch. Peter is an asian man and is wearing a sheer red shirt. He has on dark red lipstick. His mouth is open slightly, making his sharp canine teeth visible

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(More LanLan rural vet AU) -- It had been a great idea.

"Look at it this way, at least you'll know we've gotten most of them," Luo Qingyang, their tiny clinic's only full-time nurse, told him. She was visibly trying to keep a straight face. Song Lan glared at her. He couldn't reply with words, because his hands were full of squirming, six-week old puppies. Also his arms, and his shoulders, and from the German Shepherd tugging at his scrub pants, soon his lap as well. 

Song Lan had known, moving from the city to the rural countryside, that there would be some measure of culture shock. When one of the farmers had casually dropped that he didn't vaccinate his puppies, because there were, according to him, "Too many of 'em too fast to bother driving 'em out all that way, before you showed up," he had nearly broken his strict policy of sobriety during work hours.

"They're all going to die of distemper," he had told Wen Qing after the man had left, vaguely aware he was making his Strict Veterinarian Face (it was Lan Xichen who had given it a name, which made Song Lan warm all over, on top of the flush from anger) from the way his temples had started aching. "They're not even on heartworm medication. I'm surprised so many of them survive to get killed by the combine harvester." "Just 'combine,' you sound like you're city folk," Wen Qing had said, ignoring Song Lan's mouthed protestation that he was, which was why he was used to people who kept Lucky and Xiao mi's shots up to date. "Look, these people-- they don't have time, and they don't have money. They're going to focus on the livestock animals they need to keep themselves afloat. It's not cruelly meant. They're doing the best they can." "I know that," Song Lan said, somewhat abashed. He peeled his gloves into the bin by the sink and set about washing his hands as he thought. As always, he had to hunch over the sink, built for a much shorter DVM. Wen Qing's girlfriend had sent her some kind of fancy floral soap, and Wen Qing had delighted in placing it in both exam rooms and the surgery. It was a bit stronger to the nose that Song Lan would've preferred, but he wasn't going to argue with Wen Qing when it came to her girlfriend. The antiseptic covered it up, anyway. "What about a vaccination fair? Or just a day," he said when he had finished drying off. "We used to do them at my old clinic. Bring in your pets, get them up to date. Pass out flyers about common infections. Gets the kids involved, too." "Hm," Wen Qing had said. She'd begun gathering up the used sterile packaging and dumping it in the trash, neatly detouring the needles to the sharps container. "That's certainly an idea." She'd argued him down from all pets to just dogs, and had him separate out areas based on the weeks since puppy birth, to for the older dogs the year or the five-year mark. Song Lan had thought it overly complicated-- he could just ask the humans involved as they came up-- but had acquiesced so as not to cause trouble. He was still learning how to fit in, here. Country folk were a lot more standoffish than city folk, for all they were initially nicer. 

He was very glad now that he'd listened.

"You look busy," said a cheerful voice from behind him. Song Lan finished administering the Bordetella shot to the Border Collie mix Luo Qingyang was holding, giving the pup a scratch behind the ears and juggling the bag of chicken jerky underneath his armpit to keep the mutt-who-definitely-had-Bulldog-in-there-somewhere who was crawling across his shoulders from snatching an unearned reward. He turned, stumbling as the German Shepherd shoved her nose enthusiastically into his muddy shoe laces, and tried to keep his scowl affixed for Lan Xichen's teasing. It was a pointless endeavor; as soon as he caught sight of Lan Xichen's face, glowing in the midday heat, he could feel his mouth pulling up at the corner. He occupied himself boosting the puppy under his left arm higher, propping his waggling tail on his hipbone, to keep his own dopey smile to a minimum. "Shh," he told the puppy, when he yipped and started trying to eat Song Lan's scrubs. The puppy looked up, top canine caught in the loop the brand name tag had once hung from, before Song Lan had cut it off. He was not helping the dopiness meter. "Mister Lan!" Luo Qingyang said, handing the Collie mix back to a child with worried arms outstretched (the dog, unperturbed, began licking every freckle on the child's face). "I'm glad you were able to make it! You brought us-- oh, you didn't have to, put that down. Here, you take this one." She plucked the heavy, stainless-steel carafe from his hand and replaced it with a black-and-tan puppy she summoned from nowhere. Automatically Lan Xichen brought his other hand up to support the puppy's hind legs. The puppy sniffed the pens in the crisply ironed breast pocket and did not find them suitable. Song Lan realized he'd been staring and shuffled his furry passengers away from the jerky again.

"I didn't think to make it cold. It's a warm day, I hope it won't be too hot for you," Lan Xichen was saying, apologetic. The edge of the shadow from the extremely garishly striped outdoor tent Song Lan and Wen Ning had set up cut him right across his handsome face, one eye in the shade, the other squinting into the sunlight. As a teenager, Song Lan had had a movie poster where the actor was highlighted in similar fashion. He had hung the poster on the ceiling above his bed. This is not the time for this was becoming a common repetition in Song Lan's inner monologue when it came to Lan Xichen. "If it has caffeine in it, we'll love you whatever temperature it is," Luo Qingyang assured him, passing Lan Xichen another puppy; nearly identical to the first, but with one black ear instead of two. "This is his sister, they're getting their ten week vaccinations. A bit late, but don't tell their mother that. Do you know how to hold them?" "I'm not entirely useless," Lan Xichen said dryly. He smiled at Song Lan. Song Lan nearly tripped over the German Shepherd again. "Ten weeks, that's...Influenza, Bordetella, Lyme…." "DHAPP," Luo Qingyang confirmed, ponytail bouncing as she nodded. "I'm going over to help Wen Qing with the older dogs, you stay and hold puppies for Doctor Song, yeah?" She patted the male puppy on the head, blew a kiss to the female, and leapt over the barricade of folding chairs to rush to the other side of the tent. A queue was already forming there as Wen Qing argued with a woman in overalls, gesturing angrily. Luo Qingyang slid neatly between them and took the three-legged hound from the woman's arms the same way she had taken charge of Lan Xichen's tea carafe. "You've got a criminal," Lan Xichen said pleasantly, pointing with his chin. Song Lan blinked, and then mentally swore, kneeling so he could free one hand to extricate the Pitbull mix from the open ziplock seal on OL' GRANDAD'S AUTHENTIC CHICKIN STRIPS (Reduced Fat). He pressed the hinge of the puppy's jaw to tug the pilfered treat free, tapping his nose when he tried to whine sadly. Song Lan hadn't gotten his certification yesterday. "Can you hold them while I give the injections?" he asked, waiting for Lan Xichen's acquiescence before struggling to his feet again. Half-way up he felt a pull at his knee. He looked down and saw the German Shepherd, tired of being ignored, had a mouthful of his pants. "No," Song Lan signed; but the dog hadn't been trained in sign language, so she growled playfully up at him, ears pricked. Song Lan reached to do the same trick he'd done on the Pitbull mutt, but he'd not accounted that the other set-down dogs would be investigating the other side of his newly-sniffable legs. With a grassy skid, and a very undignified shout, Song Lan went down. The dirt seemed a lot more solid when he was testing it with his nose and chin. Three of the puppies leapt on his face and began a series of scientific experiments as to whether he was dead or just playing. One slobbery tongue went into his ear. "Are you all right?" Lan Xichen's voice was above him: Song Lan was never, ever going to live this down. He groaned and rolled onto his back, throwing an arm across his eyes and letting the puppies pounce on his hair and ankles. The German Shepherd, looking delighted with herself, sat her ass down on Song Lan's stomach and examined his face, tongue lolling. Despite himself, Song Lan smiled and reached up to rub at her belly. She flopped onto her side (oof) and threw her front paws up so he could gain better access. Her tail beat wildly at the ground beside Song Lan's leg.

"Just…dangle them over my chest," Song Lan signed up at Lan Xichen's looming figure. He was tall. Was this what he looked like to everyone else at the clinic? "I'll do them like this."

"Of course, Doctor Song," Lan Xichen said, carefully solemn.

They looked at each other.

The girl puppy swatted her brother in the nose. Immediately he started crying.

"Shall I get you a cup of tea too, then?" Lan Xichen asked, and Song Lan couldn't help it; he laughed out loud.

"I suppose 'buried in dogs' isn't a terrible way to go," he signed, as Lan Xichen, finally abandoning his masterful attempt, let his grin take over his face. It was blinding. "Yes, if you've got a funnel to pour it through?"

Ok a quick little (or not) summary (only for the second part, though)

As they continue from talking about Anthony Hopkins being a team player and wanting smaller actors to succeed, Colin goes on to talk about how there are actors who want themselves to be the star. He contrasts that to Hopkins' personality, which is why he still is supportive of smaller actors, also due to his theater background, theater is a place where everyone needs to be at the same level to work. He says how Hopkins wanted to impart his knowledge on him, and Colin feels very lucky and blessed that he had the chance for that. He says Hopkins is the biggest influence he's ever had, and probably will ever have.

Jarlath then talks about how in such a presence, you can't feel cozy, like you've figured it out, but instead you feel that you have something to live up to. Colin says he was terrified in the start, because he was in most of the scenes in The Rite, with only a few scenes with Hopkins that Colin wasn't in. He says it's terrifying to step into the set of a film with such a big budget, and other big actors like Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones, people he admired so much and he wanted to do well in the film.

On his first scene with Hopkins, Hopkins told Colin, "Listen, it's just acting. Enjoy it." And that helped him ease into the job.

Then he talks about how he prepared himself as a mortician/exorcist for the film. He read a lot of literature about exorcists, he went to a morgue and dressed an actual dead body, all of it stuff he never thought he'd do.

Jarlath picks up on that and asks him for more about it. And boy, did Colin talk about it. He says how even having the film The Exorcist in your house, when they were young, felt like it was an invitation for bad things to happen (he says it was banned in Ireland too). He says he asked the real-life priest that Michael Kovak was inspired from, if he thinks that he (Colin) is inviting in something bad by doing this, playing in this film. The priest said "Yeah, maybe. But if you believe in it, then you believe that God is there to protect you" and Colin was like "I shouldn't have asked". He says that of all exorcists he spoke to, none of them tried to make him believe, they just shared their experience without trying to convince him.

He then talks about an exorcism he attended, where a young woman who was going for the ritual, she didn't want him in the same room but they did meet outside of it, and she looked at him in such a cold way, that he thought if someone was skinning him alive in front of her she would just stand and watch. He says he hadn't seen anyone look at him like that before, hasn't since, and doesn't want to. Then she went inside the room, and after she was done she came out, smiled at him and then left. He stood to listen from outside the room as the exorcism happened, and he talked to the exorcist about it later, and overall it felt very real and scary to him.

Jarlath asks Colin about the auditions he did before Once Upon a Time. Colin says he got very close to some “very big things”. He says how even though The Rite was very widely known and at the top during its premiere, it got mixed reviews and that affected him, because he put a lot of pressure for it to be amazing, but that a film's success doesn't depend on the actors alone.

Colin mentions the pilot he did for Identity, with Angela Bassett, whom he praised, and that between the film and this pilot he got close to something big... Jarlath simply says what he heard involved wearing a cape. Colin says "That's one of them... or it might not be, I don't know, I can't tell."  

Jarlath asks him if he has the thinking of "I don't want to be in a film where they don't want me," for when he doesn't get a role. Colin says that before The Rite, where he wasn't getting many jobs, he was feeling that he was right for the thing that he didn't get, that it was the one shot he had. But he just said he had to believe in himself and keep going at it. He says that like a vampire craves blood, he craves the work, he loves pretending to be someone else.

He talks about how Helen supported him, and how lucky he's been to have her by her side, as well as his brother and parents. He says that there were times he was ready to give up, but with having someone to say he believes in him, it meant so much to him.

Jarlath asks him about what was his big realization moment for Once Upon a Time, Colin replies with the scene he had on the Lady Washington, dressed in leather, and working with Robert Carlyle, that he really went "What the hell am I doing". He says that more than anything it was Carlyle's presence, it was like working with Hopkins. Carlyle was one of Colin's favourite actors, he would watch any film he was in, so it was a huge thing for Colin to work with him.

Then he's asked about how working in Once Upon a Time was for him, and if he felt any pressure on it at all. He says he felt a little stressed because the introduction of the character was a big and important thing for the show. He says that in every season, they didn't know if the show was gonna be picked up for a new season until at the very last minute. He says he feels very lucky that he had his wife and kids in Vancouver, so he could still be with them while working. He loved living in Vancouver, he could go there at any time if it was closer to his home. It was important for him to have his kids grow up near family, so even though he loved Vancouver and made some really great friends there, he wanted to go back to Ireland.

Then Jarlath mentions the fandom of OUAT, about how there are people in it that wanted certain things to happen, and that they directed things towards him. Colin says that he's very protective of his family, and that he doesn't want people taking pictures of his children, and that he can't allow people to be disrespectful of his wife. He's been with Helen for 22 years, she's the love of his life, and he doesn't tolerate anyone telling him anything about his own family. They talk about how some people have a feeling of ownership with the characters they watch, and they can't make the distinction between character and actor, how those lives are different.

Jarlath asks him about how it felt when OUAT ended, if there was a feeling of liberation and expanding his horizons after so many years of being dedicated to it. Colin says he adored working in OUAT, and felt very lucky to get to portray a character for such a long period of time. He was, in part, upset when they were finishing and he had to leave a place that he had made such good friends at, but he was excited for what would come next. He wants to play as many different characters as he can.

They then talk about Dolly Parton. Colin says that when he first met Dolly, she was talking about the world and all and as he was listening to her he was thinking "I can now understand how people join cults." He says she has amazing charisma and energy. When the offer came for him to play in a Western, and working with Dolly, he knew he just couldn't say no. She's got so many stories, and when working with Colin she told him about the stories behind some of her songs, like Jolene. He says she's exactly as you see her, she doesn't put on a performance or a persona in interviews and such.

"JJ Sneed. It's a bit of fun," Colin says.

Then Jarlath jumps to how the relationship was behind the scenes of The Right Stuff. Colin says they were living close to each other for five months, so they had a lot of fun together, despite how serious the show was. They became very close, and he says that the real astronauts as well that they portray came to be very close with each other. He mentions the time he and the rest of the cast went to Disneyworld and basically became ten-year-olds. He says that when filming such a serious show, having some craic is needed to balance it out.

He says choosing to film something now is complicated, as he has a family and he doesn’t want to quarantine for two weeks, go and film for a few days, then come back and quarantine for another two weeks before he's with family again. He feels glad that in this difficult time he had the chance to be with his family. He mentions that his dad was having health issues, but he's good now, and again he felt lucky he didn't have to be away during all that.

~

And that’s what I got! I probably missed a few things, but hearing Colin talk about all that stuff, especially his experiences with the exorcisms and stuff, is so interesting! If you want to listen to it yourself, you can become a patreon for Jarlath right here.

Alright here’s a post about 505 and his sibling who in my “canon” died but in Happy Family AU with @petitprincess1 they live and grow up long post just me talking about bear cubs.

So here’s a quick color code and gender for kids. It’s sloppy and whatever I wanna commission someone better to draw it... better. Also, number doesn’t depict age. For the sake of my sanity, the list will be in age order, not numerical order.

509 - Male - Eldest - “The good kid”, 509′s red fur is shorter than his siblings, and easier to care for. He was actually broken out of his flowering pot far before he was technically ready by Demencia, in “canon” he died upon impact. He loves nothing more than helping and being good, though as a baby his helpfulness stopped the moment they were in the lab. 509 is the average for his family, half the height of 508 and double that of 503. He was the first to walk on two legs, and the first to talk. He’s indifferent to everyone but Flug, whom he loves.

503 - Female - Nicknamed “Bubblegum”, 503′s pink fur is naturally curly like that of a sheep’s, and extremely thick, making it hard to care for. In “canon” a day after emerging on her own she was lost due to her small size, before being accidentally stepped on by Doctor Flug. Despite being the size of a guinea pig, 503 is easily the toughest of her siblings. She never shys from a fight, be it play or real, and even attempted to attack Black Hat by herself. She uses the ventilation system to get around the house and acts as a small security camera for small time snooping. She’s particularly protective of her baby brother 505.

504 - Female - Part 1 of “The twins”, 504′s orange fur is surprisingly soft, almost like minky, yet annoyingly thick, taking hours to brush and dry. In “Canon” 504 was so anxious about her new surrounding after emerging she refused any sort of food, even the simplest drop of water scared her, eventually leading to starvation. She’s the second smallest or the cubs, almost a full foot under 509. She’s shy to an extreme amount, and even the smallest things can make her cry. 506 loves picking on her, leading to many fights between 506 and 507. 504 has come to rely on 507, and normally stands slightly behind him. She speaks very rarely.

507 - Male - Part 2 of “The Twins”, 507′s green fur is like hay, course and rough, making him more like a porcupine when petting, requires little care. In “canon” 507 refused to eat along side his sister, 504, and eventually starved to death along side her. He is just slightly taller than 509, but some how weighs less. 507 came naturally out of his pot mere seconds before his younger sister, 504. Because of this the twins bonded instantly, and tend to spend all their time together. 507 sticks up for 504, and blames Flug any time she cries. They do everything together.

508 - Female - Nicknamed “Panda”, 508′s dark grey, almost black, fur is short and slightly curled, making her wonderfully plushy and soft. In “Canon” she actually broke out of her flower pot, easily being the biggest at birth, and the healthiest for the longest time, until Black Hat chose her as an evening snack. 508 is the largest of her siblings, almost double height and weight of 509. She walks more on all fours than on her hind legs, and speaks only the most basic words. She could always eat, and will eat anything, causing troubles by lazily eating Flug’s blueprints. She loves naps and, despite her weight, adores being cradled and held. She also likes to give gifts, even if the item she’s giving isn’t hers to give away. She’s very friendly and loves everyone by default.

506 - Male - “the favorite”, 506′s purple fur is identical to 505′s in texture and even style, making him easy to care for. In “Canon” 506 showed remarkable evil intent right away, going out of his way to do dastardly deeds, even rebelling against Flug, thus being sold at a young age as the first in the line of Black Hat’s evil monsters! He was the only sale made to date. 506 is an all around trouble maker, nothing brings him more joy then making someone else’s day worse, especially his siblings. In a house of villians, simple pick-pocketing and tripping people down stairs turned him into the favorite, though Flug tries to avoid showing favorites. 506 is the star of villiany, and possibly Flug’s replacement in the evil scientist business, if the cub could ever focus on studies. 506 is also the only cub to currently show sighs of claws, though they’re weak at the moment, his shows great potential. 506 is very protective of Flug, his dad being his only weak point.

505 - Male - “The baby”, In “canon” 505 is the only cub to survive to current date, being the last to arrive with nothing too terribly traumatic happen during his early months, 505 grows up into the healthy, perfect cub we know to day in the show!

                                                Lyes were often misunderstood.

     Though they looked like animals on the outside, they were undoubtedly sentient.  Their intelligence was far higher than that of the average animal, and their ability to communicate their desires was second only to beings that were capable of speech.  Though most understood that these creatures were dangerous--  walking contradictions: fluff and venom all in one--  they often underestimated just how clever they were.

     That was why, when he encountered Edgar yowling in the middle of the road, Murr knew that something was terribly wrong.

     “Hey…  hey!  Quit that damn racket!”   He crouched, tired legs creaking like an old attic ladder.  In such a disgruntled state, the huro knew better than to try and pet him.   “What’s wrong with you?”

     What the lye couldn’t say, he made up for with action.  He rounded Murr swiftly, forcefully nudging his rear as if imploring him to stand up again.  He obeyed, hissing at the crack of his knees.  There was no time to focus on it as the lye suddenly darted down the street.  The entity reminded Murr of a perfectly shot arrow, straight and swift, and though his feet ached and his arms stung from his labour that day, he took off running after him, a brief “Hey!” being the only audible thing to leave him before momentum swallowed his sounds whole.

     He followed Edgar as if he was the animal, drunk on loyalty, rucksack with his half-full lunchbox in it clattering dully against his back with every timed footfall.  He needs something but he can’t tell me what it is.  I wish he could tell me.  It’d make things so much quicker.  His thoughts parted like clouds when he witnessed the lye completely clear his orchard’s fence, dark form little more than a streak of shadow as he landed effortlessly on the other side, continuing his furious pace into the trees.  Dear Raku, Murr thought, vaulting over the obstacle similarly, it must be an emergency.

     His pursuit came to a stop as he shadowed his companion up the hill to his house.  Pausing to catch his breath, he watched as Edgar dashed towards the nearby shed, pawing at it a few times before turning his head and staring expectantly.  His macabre gaze locked onto the huro in a way that made him shudder.  Had he not befriended Edgar, he likely would’ve felt afraid.

     “Alright…  no need’a be so pushy,”   Murr muttered, closing the distance between himself and the door.  Hands patted lazily at himself as he tried to locate the set of keys he kept on him, eventually finding the appropriate one and sliding it into the thick padlock.  It opened with a cinematic clang, door pushed open so that the lye could slink through the thin gap and disappear into the darkness.  Murr allowed the door to swing all the way open, the dying light of the day spilling inside and illuminating the surroundings a little.  He watched with some amount of curiosity as Edgar clambered over the wagon he used to transport fruit, leaping from pail to pail as if he weighed nothing, eventually settling in the far corner of the room.  Even before Murr entered the shed, he knew what the other was after, expression quickly changing from intrigued to sour.   “Did y’seriously make me RUN from work just so you could have some goddamn fruit?”

     “Mrrrooow.”

     Murr felt his frustration build, a haughty huff heaved through his nose before he turned his back and began the loathsome hobble to his front door.  Growing up on the Murphy Orchard, he was more than used to hard work.  That being said, shifts at the factory--  shifts that he couldn’t get out of due to being the person who funded the creation of the place, therefore making him legally responsible for it--  killed something inside of him.  It was more than just exhaustion;  it was a deep-seated discomfort that was gained only from doing something that one despised.  Though he’d been raised to accept that work was part of the equation  (“With excess wealth comes great responsibility, Li’l Murph.  That’s just how it is.  You’ve been blessed, so you need to pay your dues in any way you can.”), that job was nothing short of hellish to someone like him.  He didn’t want to spend his days sandwiched between identical work benches, he wanted to stand on stage, hone his craft, make art--  but there were some things that just had to be done.

     “Myyyuuueeerrr…”

     Though he doubted it, the utterance sounded awfully like his nickname, causing him to turn around and look at Edgar.  He was swatting at the fruit he’d left in one of the pails, eyes glowing white in an attempt to get the huro’s attention.

     Murr let out a deep sigh, then trailed inside.   “Whaaat…?  C’mon, Eddie, I’m fuckin’ beat…”

     As soon as he crouched low, the lye stood on his hind legs and tugged at the bag tucked neatly over Murr’s shoulder.  It dropped to the ground, zip tugged at with his teeth until he managed to pull it open.  The lunchbox was swiped out with his jagged tail, flung carelessly to the other side of the shed, before he dragged the empty bag towards the fruit, looking up at Murr once more.  It didn’t take long for the huro to piece together what he wanted.

     Feeling curiously compelled to follow through, Murr began to scoop fruit into the bag until it was full.  When it was, he pulled the zip taut, watching as Edgar’s head bobbed briefly with approval before he got back up and began to walk from the shed.

     Murr sighed, climbing back onto his feet, adjusting the bag properly over his shoulders.  Resignation had already begun to settle like dust:  his day was not over, despite how tired he was.

     “Alright…  where’re we goin’, then?”

     Edgar was a solid guide.  As soon as he began to barrel down the hill, guiding Murr through his acres of land with all the aptitude of the fabled North Star, Murr knew that they were headed for the No-Mans Land.  The deep forest that nobody but him had ever dared to call home…  it held some mystic charm that he couldn’t quite put into words.  Perhaps it was the questions that surrounded it--  where do its paths lead?  And why does everybody steer clear of them?--  or perhaps it was the fact that, once upon a time, he’d made the foreboding shadows his home.  It hadn’t been easy to leave the cushy life behind, mainly because of his family-oriented values.  He had realised pretty quickly that he’d lived sheltered and privileged despite how hard his parents had worked to teach him good, honest values, but it hadn’t been that difficult for him to adjust.  He had been raised not to take his wealth for granted;  therefore, when he abandoned his bank account in favour of living amongst nature, praying to Raku that it would create a blank slate for him, it hadn’t been that hard to accept that he was completely at the mercy of it  - and that, if he had any hope of surviving, it would be through learning a new way of life.  In some ways, that isolation had saved his life as much as it had destroyed it.

     They tore through the woods together like a pair of seasoned bandits, Murr finding his pace as he went, and the descent into the shadowy undergrowth became a walk in the park.  He felt like a veteran when it came to traversing uncharted territory.  He had the best chance out of perhaps anybody in Huron of navigating this tumultuous space.  There was so much of Huron that most citizens didn’t know about, so much that lurked in the shadows, so many species and paths that existed independently of rhyme or reason or knowledge, and he could rest easy knowing that he was one of the few people who knew how to handle it.  At this point, there was not a single nook nor cranny in this place that he didn’t understand.

     Edgar, deeply dissatisfied around water, barely thought about it before making the impressive eight foot leap across the landmark that Murr had dubbed Pebble Cove.  It was a shallow stream, knee-height at most, but the pebbles that littered the clear water made it appear much deeper, almost endless.  His way across was courtesy of two large, slippery stones some ways apart from one another.  There had been countless times where he’d lost his footing and gotten himself drenched from head to toe, but now he was used to it, knew exactly where to land in order to push himself onto the next one, then the bank, without skidding over and ruining his clothes.  Even with the bag full of fruit weighing him down, he crossed with the light-footed quality of an antelope, bouncing across as if completely unhindered.

     Their surroundings changed from sunset golds to emerald greens, the foliage becoming denser and shading everything a mesmerising tint of jade.  A cumbersome fog befell them as they snaked their way through thick thorns and hurdled over fallen logs, charging further into the faux-unknown like untethered warriors.  As he passed, Murr swore he saw pieces of himself lodged into landmarks.  The time he taught himself to fish in the Foggy Fissure;  the time he was swarmed by a gaggle of gluttonous glowflies after dark;  the time he’d slayed a derma plant and spared Edgar’s life in the process…   all things that had shaped him and his existence out there. Where are we going now?  Why are you leading me through all of these places?

     He was relieved when Edgar began to slow down, mad dash reduced to a brisk stalk, long whiskers twisting and turning like antennae as he scanned his surroundings keenly.  He stopped completely at the base of a large tree, sitting down and waiting for Murr to approach.

     “So,”   he started, slinging his bag from over his shoulders.  Now that he’d stopped moving, he felt the strain of his muscles, an uncomfortable fire burning in his joints.  He was pushing his luck.   “What business have y’got here, huh?”

     The cat-like creature yawned, scratching at the bark listlessly before returning to its stationary pose.  Murr squinted, shuffling closer until he could crouch low.  As he ran his finger along the wobbly surface, he took note of a curious crease--  almost as if the bark was missing a zipper that could be pulled back.  It didn’t take long for him to realise that the markings were that of his friend’s, his powerful claws and dagger-like tail carving out an entrance.  Holy shit…  I knew Edgar was strong, but strong enough to hollow out a tree?  That’s new to me.

     Stubbornly, Murr wriggled his fingers into the indentation until he was able to dig his nails in, pulling hard, feeling the bark eventually give way like a drawbridge.  He was immediately met with two poised tails, venom dripping onto the floor, and he barely had time to yelp before Edgar suddenly leapt in with all the grace of a kamikaze pilot.  With a bigger lye in the picture, both were quick to withdraw, stumbling backwards while hissing quietly.

     “Who are these guys…?”   Murr asked.  It was more a question for himself than for Edgar.  He wasn’t so stupid to think that, just because he had one lye’s trust, he could suddenly blend with the rest of the specie.  But then why was he even here?

     “Myyyuuueeerrr.”   Though Edgar sat motionless, tail curled calmly around his feet, Murr felt as if he was being beckoned inside.  It was only with a shred of reluctance that he did so, body curling in on itself so that he could fit through the makeshift door.  Once inside the hollow trunk, he was shocked to find that there was a lot more space than he first thought. Though he could by no means stand up, he could sit comfortably without dipping his head or bending his spine.  The back of his head met the wall, eyes cast to what he supposed was the ‘ceiling’.  A couple of feet above his head, an opaque cylinder of wood travelled upwards undisturbed.  They must only have dug out what was necessary for them to live comfortably, he mused, distracted only by Edgar fervently nudging his hand.   “Myyyuuueeerrr!”

     For a few seconds, he was clueless,staring back at the lye with an empty head…  until he remembered the fruit he’d brought with him.

     “Oh!”   he exclaimed, leaning forwards enough to shrug the bag from his back and open it.  As soon as starfruit entered the picture, both of the distrustful lyes fell silent, black eyes wide like dinner plates, before a pair of forked tongues stuck out in an attempt to taste it.   “Oh… here.  Lemme take it outta the bag real quick.”   He ignored the collaborative flinch, wholly prepared for them to act offensively, settling two pieces of fruit a short distance from their feet.  They glared sharply at him for several seconds, shark-like teeth bared like an armada of tiny knives, before they both let go of their aggression long enough to slink forward and snatch the fruit, retreating into the shadows at the back of the hole.  Slowly, he turned his head to look at Edgar instead.   “I get it now…   these little guys needed food.  But what was stoppin’ you from huntin’ yourself?”   There was a long pause, one filled with his friend examining his claws with evident disinterest.  Murr’s face fell deadpan.   “Oh.  Nothin’.  You just used me because it was easier.  You fucker.”   However, when Edgar’s pointed smile curved across his face, he couldn’t help but smile too.  There was something admirable about the lye’s intelligence, even when he felt the brunt of playing the fool.

     He sat there for what felt like years, huddled in this small alcove deep in the woods, feeling safe despite being caged with three highly venomous creatures.  The more the two youngsters ate, the more docile they became.  His presence was met with the same indifference that Edgar treated him with;  a quiet respect, a vague version of mutual trust manifesting from the dark in very much the same manner that doubt did.  It was a tangible feeling despite its elusive, unspoken nature.  Whether or not they considered him a ‘friend, he knew that he was at the very least welcome for the meantime.

     When moonlight cast its dim cyan light, Murr felt it was time to leave.  However, when he went to stand up, he felt one of his legs refuse to move.  A glance down showed precisely why.  One of the lyes had dug its tail into the loose fabric of his pant leg, all but stapling it to the ground.  Though he had no doubt that he could free himself if he pulled hard, it would most likely result in the startled creature attacking him.

     “Uh…  Eddie?”   he whispered, watching three pairs of ears twitch in his direction despite the fact that two of them were asleep.   “I can’t-- move-- oh…”   He fell quiet as Edgar clambered into his lap, curling into a ball, long bat-like ears wrapped around his head as he prepared to sleep.  He’s not going to let me leave, is he?

      “Hah...”   Murr sighed deeply, allowing his legs to poke out of the entrance in an attempt to get more comfortable.  The moon’s luminescence made it look like he had a whole-body halo.  If only he could be that holy.   “... I guess it’s a sleepover then.”

sample application.

Below you will find my sample application for Seamus Finnegan (FC: Thomas Doherty)! Thank you for your patience as I got this all together. I do want to make the strong point that the freeform section is absolutely up to you. I mean it when I say you can do whatever you want! I have elected to write a bunch of headcanons because that works for my personal character building process; if you want to do something different, please do! Good luck to everyone who is applying, and if there is anything I can do to help, please do not hesitate to let me know.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/alias: Honey

Age (18+): Twenty three

Preferred pronouns: She/her

Timezone: GMT+11

Life responsibilities: 8/10. In addition to being the admin, I am also a newly minted PhD student (yikes!). Between all the chaos that entails, I am actually quite good at time management, so I am here for the long run! If ever I need to duck away for a few days, I will make a post on the main and the OOC blog just to keep everyone updated.

OUT OF CHARACTER - Q&A

Answer the questions in the application here! No, I won’t give away the answers.

IN CHARACTER - BASICS

Full name: Seamus James Finnegan

Age and date of birth: Twenty years old (December 10th, 1980)

Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

Gryffindors born under this sign are exuberant and full of good humour. They are intelligent, but often do not make the best of students, because they would rather be outside enjoying the fresh air or off studying on their own. They aren’t good at diplomatic silence; if a teacher makes a mistake, the Gryffindor Sag will draw attention to it right away, usually loudly and in front of the entire class. At length. These students can get into trouble - their hot tempers make for easy dueling matches, and their impish senses of humour inspire a great many practical jokes. Still, they rarely mean anything malicious. They’re too jovial to harbour malice. These Gryffindors are likeable extraverts, on good terms with practically everybody, and they generally do all right in the end. Many excellent Quidditch players come from this sign. (Source)

Ex-Hogwarts house: Gryffindor

Gender identity: Cisgender male

Sexual orientation: Homosexual panromantic

Faceclaim: Thomas Doherty (if I were an applicant, I would put three FCs here in order of preference!)

IN CHARACTER - IN DEPTH

PERSONALITY TRAITS

POSITIVE: Generous, curious, idealistic, humorous, energetic, adventuresome, enthusiastic, brave, optimistic, confident, flirtatious.

NEGATIVE: Inconsistent, impatient, upfront, brash, undiplomatic, tactless, disorganized, careless, superficial, gullible.

HEADCANONS

Although he would loudly object otherwise, Seamus is a bit of a country bumpkin. His father was a muggle farmer when he met his mother, who was a field officer for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The way they met was hardly romantic: she was there to investigate an outbreak of grindylows; he was about to call the council about the strange creatures infesting the water supply for his flock of sheep. But in a twist that is now legendary, Mary didn’t tell James about her magic until after they were married. This was hilarious to a young Seamus, who never tired of teasing his parents about their mutual deception. “Didn’t she give anything away?” Seamus would demand, laughing, and his father would grin, “Aye, I did wonder why a woman so beautiful would look my way.” Theirs was a happy home, one full of good humor and light-hearted conversation. Both of Seamus’ parents were Irish: national pride was not so much an aspect of Seamus’ upbringing as a permanent feature. Endlessly curious, Seamus would pour over old family photographs, nose nearly pressed to the unmoving faces of his father’s side, fingers tracing the crinkling smiles of his mother’s ancestors. In many ways Mary and James had parallel families, despite being magical and muggle respectively. They had seen famine and hardship, cruelty and poverty. The Finnegans were working stock, all calloused hands and sun-browned skin. Seamus burst with pride when he thought of his family’s blood and sweat that had seeped into the green fields of An Neidín.

Even in the middle of a war, Seamus knows he will return to Kenmare. His childhood was spent helping out on the farm, flying brooms with his cousin Fergus, and playing tricks on the local muggles. None of this was ever in ill-humor, for Seamus has an especially warm approach to all people. At school it wasn’t uncommon for him to apologize profusely if one of his jokes went a little too far (once he’d stopped laughing fit to burst, of course). One of the most important things in life, he reckons, is laughter. Laughter and good conversation. Indeed, Seamus could talk the hind leg off a donkey. When he was a child, Seamus would often ride his bike into the local muggle village on an errand of some kind – the newspaper for his Da, a bottle of ale for supper – and be found some hours later, engrossed in discussion with the shopkeeper over any manner of topics: animals, weather, farming. Seamus has an open, approachable manner that attracts him to farm-hands, milkmen, beleaguered Ministry workers, bartenders. With a vast and rambling mind, he manages to pick up snippets of information that, although often untrue or exaggerated, do mean he can contribute to essentially any topic in some respect. The degree to which his contribution is useful or even heeded, however, is up for debate.

Seamus has no clue what he wants to do after the war. Survival is his priority, as is anyone’s, in his opinion. For some years, however, he and his cousin Fergus have discussed opening up a whiskey distillery. This idea often surfaces after they have had a few too many whiskeys themselves, although Seamus would be remiss to say he isn’t seriously interested in the idea. He likes to imagine himself as the salesmen, the face of the company, while Fergus can do all the hard work. Fergus, needless to say, refutes this distribution of labor, and usually remarks that of the two of them, anyone would be more willing to look at Fergus’ pretty face than deal with Seamus and all his freckles. These conversations then regress into a tussle, which Seamus rarely wins. Fergus is a slippery little fucker.

The Finnegans are a small clan, and so Fergus is Seamus’ closest and only cousin. His senior by five years, it was Fergus who introduced Seamus to the first of most things. They attended the Quidditch World Cup together (where Seamus got catastrophically drunk – at fourteen, no less – under Fergus’ careful “supervision”); they often met in Diagon Alley for a pint and a game of chess together (Fergus always loses, mainly because he is easily distracted by the barmaid); and they flew brooms together. The last is among Seamus’ most treasured memories. Fergus would say he wanted to be a famous Quidditch player when he grew up. “I’m destined for greatness,” he insisted seriously, “haven’t ye seen me skills? Lad, you’ll be beggin’ for me autograph one o’ these days, just you wait.” Fergus did in fact make the reserve team of the Kenmare Kestrels a couple of years ago. Professional Quidditch, it turns out, is more about training and hoping you stick out enough to be picked for a game than it is about fame and glory. Now that the war has struck, Fergus has returned to Kenmare to stay with Seamus’ mother and father. The Regime has little need for sports at the moment, particularly when they’re too busy murdering muggles. If Seamus writes to anyone, it’s to Fergus, and damn Hermione’s rules about owling out too often. Fergus is his one link to home: without him, how would Seamus know about the new calf, or his mother’s redundancy from the Ministry, or his father staying up late, night after night, smoking his pipe and gazing into the fire? War means more than battles; it means leaving your family behind and hoping beyond hope that they’re missing you less than you miss them. For Seamus, who is so connected to his blood, the Resistance can be a form of torture.

Seamus dresses in muggle clothes more often than not. His parents had a relaxed attitude towards presentation, with his mother foregoing wizarding robes in favor of floral dresses or comfortable slacks, and his father usually slogging through the back door in enormous green wellies, a tweed flat cap crammed over his greying hair. Seamus is all muggle black Levi jeans, tight t-shirts of bands he’s never heard of, flannel overshirts, and a denim jacket littered with magical badges. He’s often found lounging on a sofa, trainer laces trailing, t-shirt rucked up his freckled stomach, a Quidditch magazine glued to his nose. Seamus has perfected the art of claiming a sofa to oneself (this also extends to beds, brick walls, and queues outside clubs). The trick, he reckons, is in looking utterly bored and somewhat post-coital, with half-mast eyes and a ready smirk, should anyone catch his eye. Seamus does have an air of sensuality about him -- and he can be an incorrigible flirt. “I can’t help being a sex god, can I?” he’s asked rhetorically on more than one occasion. In reality, Seamus is less sex god and more sex menace. At school he was often complaining about the regularity of his shags, the quality thereof, and the attractiveness of his partners. Being a part of the Resistance has had the effect of dampening his sex drive, but only slightly. Instead, Seamus channels his frustration into dueling. Blue balls is a very effective battle tactic.

Seamus is actually remarkably ordinary when it comes to magic. He is fair at transfiguration, good at charms, and reasonable at hexes. But it’s his patronus charm that is remarkable without exception. Seamus’ corporeal patronus – and it is always corporeal, make no doubt about that – is a fox. At first he demurred when it was suggested he teach others in the Resistance how to cast a patronus charm. “I’m not that good,” he said uncomfortably, “can’t ye get someone else t’do it?” Seamus isn’t a very good teacher when it comes down to it. He is easily distracted and often goes off on tangents, preferring instead to fall into conversation than to actually direct his student’s magic. This is a shame, because Seamus does have a gift, and it’s certainly lucky that this falls into one of the most difficult areas of magic there is.

His place in the Resistance is unquestioned. Seamus couldn’t bear to be at home, twiddling his thumbs, hoping that someone else was going to save them all from His reign of terror. Part of the reason why he joined the Order for a hot minute was simply all that energy. Seamus, for all his humor and chatterbox nature, is a doer. He needs to be in the fray, to feel useful. The Finnegans never got anywhere without getting their hands dirty, after all, and hard work is something Seamus is used to. His father certainly didn’t allow his only son to lollygag about the farm when there were cows to milk or agricultural fairs to attend. Much of Seamus’ early memories take place in the passenger seat of his father’s truck, bumping along endless green fields, heading towards some distant destination, their border collie panting and bouncing over Seamus’ shoulder. The problem with the Order was that he felt peripheral. Seamus will never kid himself: he knows he’s not a leader. He doesn’t have the charisma, for one, or the attention span. Although he’s definitely gifted at boosting morale and connecting with people, he far prefers a secondary role than being right at the front (this doesn’t stop him soundly criticizing anyone he believes is slacking off, of course). In the Resistance at least there is the feeling that they are working towards something. The Order was all cloaks and daggers: now Seamus is engaged in the gritty everyday of the Resistance’s existence. Someone has to scout out new camping spots, to figure out when they should attack that Death Eater hot zone, to teach people how to cast a patronus. Seamus is happy right in the middle of the action. He needs to feel valued.

For Seamus, the war sounds like late-night laughter, hushed in the blue dark, from people sitting around a bonfire. It’s the smell of a forest at dawn, of the rain-washed clean of another nameless British moor, the cold rush of ocean air whipping over dunes. Unmade beds, dish-washing duty, the organized cacophony of group breakfast. It feels like trudging along another country track, his boots sticking in the mud, Dean bumping into his side as their readjust the straps of their backpacks. The war sounds like the music that thumped out of a muggle club that one time in London; the way it pounded into the close summer air and tangled in Hermione’s sweat-damp hair. It’s that time he and Ron found themselves stuck in an abandoned warehouse for hours, watching a Death Eater do Merlin knew what across the way, until finally she apparated at four in the morning and left them sore, tired, and stupid, snapping at everyone when they arrived back at headquarters before collapsing asleep in bed for twelve hours. It’s the red bruise forming between his fingers from where he holds his wand. The war mainly feels like one anticlimax after another, but it mainly feels like holding a cup of tea on a frosty morning in Devon, sitting outside the flap of the tent and watching the light turn from dust to silver to gold. It feels the way that Dean makes him feel: short of breath, nervous, thrilled with their proximity.

For all his positive qualities, Seamus is a flawed individual. He finds it easy to identity the alleged weak spots of other people and does not hesitate in pointing them out, often loudly at at length, with little regard for other people’s feelings. He can also be quite brusque and even dismissive, believing that he has already considered the consequences and someone else’s opinion is merely a beat too late. In addition to this, his brash nature can cause him to be sloppy, clumsy, and heedless of consequence. Taking responsibility for his actions is something he struggles with constantly. There is a reason Seamus is not put on the trickier missions, when a careful hand and a steady eye are the only ways they can succeed. He is far better in the thick of it, with his spirit burning bright, his spells shooting through the dark like jets of flame. He lacks the finesse that a true spy requires; he does, however, have the mettle of a freedom fighter, and that is his redeeming feature.

One of Seamus’ biggest problems is his ability to jump to conclusions. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for Seamus to forego any logical explanation and simply choose whichever answer is the most salacious, extraordinary, or unbelievable. And somewhere, in the crowded, bright places in his mind, these tales take on a life of their own. At school it meant he was especially susceptible to gossip. More recently, his doubt in Harry Potter exemplifies this. Seamus would never discriminate based on blood status, and that is not the reason he feels uncertain around the prophecy of Potter being the Chosen One. No, he has a problem with the fact that Harry essentially knows nothing about how to fulfill this supposed prophecy. Although a halfblood himself, Seamus did essentially have a magical childhood. His mother imbued their home with magic in all of its ordinary glory: floating teapots, evergreen flowers on the sill, self-refreshing laundry. Seamus is used to the lovely everyday of magic and the wonder it can inspire in even the most mundane of chores. Even his father, in his sentimental moments (which are frequent; the Finnegans are an emotional lot and prone to heated monologues) expresses how strange and empty his old life feels without the touch of his wife’s wand. So how can someone who has never known the poisoned touch of You-Know-Who, who never grew up with stories about his reign of terror -- how can someone like that be expected to save someone like him? Even Seamus’ mother had a rough time during the first war; Seamus has seen her scars. You-Know-Who might have taken everything from Harry -- and that angers Seamus on Harry’s behalf -- but he also doesn’t know about the grim reality of Dark magic. What a word without Light is really like. And that, to Seamus, is difficult to reconcile.

EXTRAS

Seamus’ blog can be found here!

Here is a Pinterest board for him.

This is also where I would link to two writing samples if I were an applicant! They do not have to be IC.

Bright Wall/Dark Room April 2019: Religious Cinema for Non-Believers: Scorsese's Silence

We are pleased to offer an excerpt from the April issue of the online magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room. Their latest issue is about long movies (150 minutes or more). In addition to Joel Mayward's essay below on Martin Scorsese's "Silence," the issue also includes new essays on "Magnolia," "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," "Funny People," "Inherent Vice," "Star!", "The Last Emperor," "Laurence Anyways," "Sátántangó," "The Emigrants," and more. 

You can read our previous excerpts from the magazine by clicking here. To subscribe to Bright Wall/Dark Room, or look at their most recent essays, click here.

In the beginning, there is only darkness. Crickets chirp and cicadas buzz. There is some small comfort in the auditory, a living hum in the blackness and blindness. Through the void, the sounds of nature build and crescendo, peaking to an almost unbearable cacophony until…

Silence.

Everything is in a fog. Steam and smoke swirl in the blue-grey as our eyes adjust and hints of a human silhouette come into view. A powerful warrior stands before us; our eyes adjust further, and we realize he is adjacent to a type of wooden altar, upon which lie two ambiguous spheres. As we get our visual bearings, we recognize in horror what we are seeing: severed human heads.

The clouds of steam continue to billow through a wide shot of the craggy cliffs, obscuring our view of the various human figures dotting the foreign landscape of patchy grass and bubbling pools. A line of guards marches slowly into view; there follows a patient dissolve, nearly imperceptible in the mist. Then, a man’s back is before us, a prisoner priest helplessly witnessing a cadre of Japanese warriors torture five Portuguese Jesuit missionaries. They pour boiling water from the steaming hot springs onto the Christians’ exposed skin. We hear a voice, a narrated letter sent from the captured priest to any listening followers of Christ beyond Japan. The hopeful epistolary narration—“We only grow stronger in His love”—is a stark contrast to the image of the quivering Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) in the mud, on his knees out of surrender and despair.

So begins Martin Scorsese’s Silence, an adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel of the same title and Scorsese’s long-awaited (and underappreciated) passion project. The third of Scorsese’s unofficial trilogy about crises of faith following The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun, Silence is certainly religious cinema, but it is not a “faith-based film,” nor in the transcendental style of his Last Temptation collaborator, Paul Schrader. It is about entering into the cloud of unknowing, the dark night of the soul, listening to the silence of God and waiting eternally for a response. It is a long movie and a movie of longing. It is both prayerful and profane. In the words of philosopher Richard Kearney, Silence is anatheistic—it is about the lingering question of God after you no longer believe in God, a faith beyond faith. The ana- prefix indicates an afterward, a return, not a synthesis of theism and atheism but a radical openness beyond the binary, what Jacques Derrida calls “religion without religion.” In other words, Silence is religious cinema for our secular age.

In our post-postmodern era, there is a notable rise of the religious “nones” even as there is also a “religious turn” in Western academia and the public sphere—as a society, we are becoming both more and less religious all at once. The 2016 presidential election is indicative of this divided phenomenon as 81% of white American evangelicals voted for Trump, while seven in 10 religious “nones” voted for Clinton. It was not only a crisis of politics, it was also a crisis of faith, particularly as many non-rightwing evangelicals (now “exvangelicals”) found themselves without a clear religious identity, exiles wandering in a secularized religious landscape.

Merely weeks after the election, Scorsese’s Silence quietly slipped into North American theaters with very little notice. Despite near-universal critical acclaim, audiences just didn’t turn out for it; with its $46 million budget, Silence grossed a meager $7.1 million domestically. Where Last Temptation provoked angry protests and boycotts from church groups, Silence elicited mostly muted indifference. Religious audiences may have been uneasy about the film’s doctrinal ambiguities and disturbing violence, while non-believing audiences perhaps couldn’t believe in the religious traditions and tribulations (especially why stepping on the fumi-e would be a such big deal to a priest). Silence appeared too pious for non-believers and too sacrilegious for believers. 

But this is precisely how Scorsese has been operating for his entire career as a filmmaker. The opening shot of his first feature film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, is a close-up of a statue of the Madonna and Child sitting in a New York apartment kitchen, and Scorsese once confessed, “My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.” Even as his cinematic style and personal theology have developed and matured over the decades, Scorsese has always been breaking down the transcendent-immanent divide in his underlying theological queries and quest for redemption, uniting the sacred and profane, the religious and secular. He says it himself in Mean Streets: “You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets.” Or in the brothels, the casinos, the boxing rings, the prisons—even in 17th-century Japan.

*

Ferreira’s letter reaches the ears of two young priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver), who wish to go to Japan to find their mentor and continue the good work of spreading the gospel of Christianity. They debate the merits and plausibility of this quest with Father Valignano (Ciarán Hinds), who remains reluctant. There are rumors that Ferreira has apostatized and forsaken the faith, that the seed of Christianity cannot take root in this “swamp” of a country, as Ferreira later describes it. This is enough to make Valignano doubt the validity of any more missions. But the idealist young priests cannot give up on their spiritual father. They are so sure, so certain of God’s providence in the matter. With romantic missionary zeal, Rodrigues and Garupe convince Father Valignano to send them to Japan.

There follows an impressive overhead fisheye shot of the three priests descending a flight of white marble stairs as they discuss their mission. In theologically-laden cinematic terminology, this is a “God’s eye view,” a removed above-it-all vantage point looking directly downward, as if an invisible divine presence were watching the characters and actions below. Scorsese absolutely loves this shot—it’s present in every film he’s ever made, perhaps as a silent tribute to his own Roman Catholic upbringing and earlier seminarian longings. Yet I think it’s more than mere auteurist technique—Scorsese is subtly drawing our attention to the transcendent via his cinematography, the Spirit hovering over the waters of our chaotic world. Whether it is Travis Bickle or Henry Hill or Billy Costigan or Jordan Belfort, Scorsese has always been asking through his movies: Is there a God silently watching us? Is there any moral judge or divine comfort beyond this mortal coil? It’s as if cinema is Scorsese’s mode of theological inquiry—he is doing theology via his movies, not just depicting it. In an interview with Deadline about Silence, Scorsese says the following about this theological drive:

“Questions, answers, loss of the answer again and more questions, and this is what really interests me. Yes, the Cinema and the people in my life and my family are most important, but ultimately as you get older, there’s got to be more. Much, much more. The very nature of secularism right now is really fascinating to me, but at the same time do you wipe away what could be more enriching in your life, which is an appreciation or some sort of search for that which is spiritual and transcends?”

There is a both-and approach to the religious and secular with Scorsese, this blurring of categories as he searches for God while acknowledging that the faith of his childhood is gone. He continues: “There are no answers. We all know that. You try to live in the grace that you can. But there are no answers, but the point is, you keep looking.”

You keep looking. This is precisely what Scorsese’s camera does in Silence. It continues to look into the lives (and deaths) of 17th-century Jesuit priests and Japanese Kirishitans, peering directly into the in-between space of belief and doubt. In the sacred-secular divide, Scorsese makes his home within the hyphen.

*

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

 –James 1:5-6

Many significant moments in Silence occur on beaches, the meeting of sand and sea, the liminal space between the security of dry ground and the relentless undulation of the waves. The biblical book of James describes the latter as akin to doubt, that tumultuous spiritual anxiety which keeps us up at night, wondering. Scorsese the hyphen-dweller places significant narrative crises in Silence on these shorelines, where the solidity of belief is repeatedly washed over by liquid uncertainty.

When Rodrigues and Garupe arrive on the shores of Japan, they initially take shelter in a cave as they wait for Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), an apostate and the priests’ cowardly Japanese host. This same seaside cave frames the Japanese soldiers and the inquisitor Inoue (Issei Ogata) as they bear witness to the deaths of three Kirishitans hung on crosses in the pounding surf. The cinematic image of the ocean crucifixion is paradoxically horrific and beautiful, the painterly framing honoring these martyrs even as we wonder whether anything is worth this cost. The villagers and priests silently bear witness as the believers’ lives slip away due to exposure to the wind and waves; the Japanese burn the bodies on a pyre, the smoke rising like that from a religious altar. We learn that Kichijiro’s family came to a similar fate on the edge of the sea, burned alive as he publicly recanted.

Rodrigues and Garupe choose to separate in order to hide from the Japanese authorities and possibly spare the villagers from further persecution. Traveling by boat, Rodrigues arrives at Kichijiro’s home village, Gotō, to find it derelict and deserted. Climbing from the boat into the waves, the sounds of nature—the same sounds as the opening title sequence—suddenly break through and fill the soundscape as Rodrigues makes his way to shore. In a striking image, Rodrigues is centered in the frame as he (and we) take in the view of the silent town, overrun with stray cats. As Rodrigues enters a home to lap up water, the camera slowly wanders out an open window in a shot echoing Taxi Driver’s phone call scene with the empty hallway, signifying the abject loneliness of the priest. There is no one listening. Despondent, the priest wonders what we, too, wonder: What am I doing here?

*

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 

–1 Kings 19:11-12

Wandering in the misty mountains of Japan, Rodrigues is akin to the prophet Elijah in the wilderness, a believer experiencing the pangs of unbelief. Curled up under a rocky overhang like Elijah was curled under a desert broom tree, the priest’s faith in his mission and his God is no longer so solid. A series of quick dissolves indicate his fractured psyche as he silently pleads with God: “I pray but I am lost. Or am I just praying to nothing? Nothing, because you are not there?”

But God appears. Or, at least the image of Christ manifests in the muddy river waters (another shoreline) just before Rodrigues is betrayed by Kichijiro to the Japanese inquisitors. In a (quite literally) narcissistic move, the exhausted priest sees a vision of the face of Christ in his own reflection, prompting a maniacal laugh before he is captured. The face of Christ in Silence is an adaptation of a 16th-century painting by El Greco, St. Veronica with the Holy Shroud. Traditionally, Saint Veronica offered the struggling Christ her cloth to wipe his brow as he carried the cross to Calvary; when she received the cloth back, the exact image of his face was miraculously impressed into it. I find the shroud’s parallels to celluloid and cinema striking, how an image is imprinted onto the film, creating new meanings. I love how Scorsese deliberately chose this painting of a cloth—an image of an image—to portray his mediated Christ. Like cinema, it generates remarkable empathy and emotion even as there is always a mediated distance—we are always seeing through someone else’s perspective, a vision of the viewed, an alluring aloofness. The mediated Christ of Silence will not speak in the traditional ways of Biblical epics or like Willem Dafoe’s crazed Jesus in Last Temptation, with drama and fervor, gusto and glory, earthquakes and fire. No, if this Christ speaks—and he will—it will be in the sound of sheer silence.

*

Rodrigues is captured near the exact midway mark of Silence. The film’s second half plays out like an extended courtroom drama as the priest is tried and tested before the inquisitor Inoue and his unnamed translator (Tadanobu Asano). The Japanese make the priest’s life relatively comfortable; though imprisoned, he is allowed to pray the rosary and gather with the Japanese Kirishitans for worship. The wooden cage becomes a confessional, the parallel bars framing the characters’ bodies. In a scene where the Japanese Kirishitans are put forward to step on the fumi-e, the camera remains inside the cage with Rodrigues—we, too, are prisoners watching through the slats, our vision slightly obscured by the vertical divisions which cannot be overcome.

Inoue’s strategy is to compel Rodrigues to recant his faith by torturing the Japanese converts until he does. It is a patient technique, and Scorsese’s pacing and editing incarnate this approach, taking time with the images and ideas presented so that we can truly wrestle with their moral and mortal implications. In yet another shoreline scene, Rodrigues is taken to a beach to witness Garupe from a distance as guards take three prisoner converts and drown them off-shore. Unable to communicate with his fellow priest, Rodrigues (and we) watch helplessly as the emaciated Garupe refuses to apostatize and flings himself into the surf in a desperate attempt to save the victims, drowning in the process. “Terrible business!” the interpreter screams at Rodrigues. “Think about the suffering you have inflicted on these people, just because of your selfish dream of a Christian Japan. Your Deus punishes Japan through you!”

How are we to respond to this? Who is in the wrong: the Japanese inquisitors who torture and kill the Kirishitans and priests, or the European Christians who arrive uninvited and ignore the Japanese cultural heritage in the name of conversion? Why are human beings capable of such cruelty to one another in the name of religion? Why do people suffer and God remains silent? Silence does not offer us simple, black-and-white answers. It demands that we wade into the suffering and sit with it. Yet Rodrigues initially cannot do this—he always has an argument, an answer, a position, a system, a Truth he will clutch tightly in his hands and heart until he is finally able to let go.

*

My ears had heard of you     but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself     and repent in dust and ashes.

–Job 42:5-6

  “Come ahead now. It’s all right. Step on me. I understand your pain. I was born into this world to share men’s pain. I carried this cross for your pain. Your life is with me now. Step.” 

In the silence, we hear the calming voice of Christ speak these words to Rodrigues through the fumi-e. Though uncredited, the voice we hear must be Ciarán Hinds, who earlier portrayed Father Valignano. Scorsese’s choice to have Hinds’ voice speak to Rodrigues (and to us) in this climactic scene creates a remarkable ambiguity and tension. Are we to believe this is the actual voice of God, a figment of Rodrigues’ imagination, or some combination therein? For those who believe the former, isn’t it possible that an emotionally-distraught person is merely hearing voices conjured from his broken psyche? For those who believe the latter, isn’t it possible for a divine person (if such a person could exist) to speak in whatever manner desired, especially if the voice were familiar and brought comfort to the hearer? Are you open to the impossible becoming possible, whether toward belief or unbelief? Silence invites us into this liminal uncertainty, asking us not to disbelieve or believe, but to simply be in this unresolved tension and not speak. Step.

He steps. There is absolute silence as Rodrigues places his foot on the fumi-e and his body collapses in slow motion to the dust. He has seen the face of God fade from view, and he will never be the same again.

As the sound returns and the five Japanese victims are raised from the torture pit, we hear the faint but distinct sound of a rooster crowing, an allusion to the Apostle Peter’s threefold denial of Christ. Years later, after Rodrigues has renounced the Christian faith numerous times over, Silence shows us a conversation between the fallen priest and Kichijiro. The Japanese man whispers, “Padre…Please hear my confession.” Rodrigues initially refuses, but as Kichijiro bows before him in penitence, the sound drops out and we hear the fallen priest’s narrated prayer in a whisper: “Lord, I fought against your silence.”

Suddenly, the voice of Christ breaks through: “I suffered beside you. I was never silent.” There is no face, no fumi-e, no vision. Only a voice.

“I know,” confesses Rodrigues. “But even if God had been silent my whole life”—Rodrigues is now speaking this aloud to Kichijiro, to himself, to God?—“to this very day, everything I do, everything I've done...Speaks of him.” A pause. “It was in the silence that I heard your voice.” Then Rodrigues kneels, his forehead pressed to Kichijiro’s, the two men nearly symmetrical in the frame as the camera lingers on their weeping bodies.

In the final shot of the film, the body of the deceased and apostate Rodrigues burns on a Buddhist pyre, the rising white smoke echoing the misty fog of the opening scene. Beginning in a wide shot of the flames, Scorsese’s camera patiently zooms forward through the fire until it rests on a small crucifix clutched in Rodrigues’ hands, placed there by his Japanese widow. This is one of the only moments in Silence not found in Endo’s novel, which concludes on a much more ambiguous note. Scorsese has included a symbol of belief in his adaptation, perhaps to indicate the priest’s futile existence as a Christian, or possibly as a material witness to the glimmer of faith which is possible for anyone and everyone.

*

On my first viewing of Silence, I identified with Rodrigues. I admired his spiritual and pastoral fervor, his apparent willingness to go to the ends of the earth for his beliefs. Rodrigues sees his story as parallel to Christ’s own Passion. Yet in this I also saw his pride; as Ferreira tells him, “You see Jesus in Gethsemane and believe your trial is the same as his” but the Japanese Kirishitans “would never compare themselves to Jesus.” Rodrigues arrives in Japan with all the right answers, telling the villagers what to do—go find more Christians in other villages!—without listening or learning of their culture and lifestyle. He sees himself as above them; he is a literal white savior on a mission with what he believes is the Truth, capital T. “The truth is universal. That’s why it’s called the truth,” he tells Inoue. I, too, used to be this adamant about having the corner market on the Truth. But what I first saw as conviction I now see as arrogance. To embrace dogmatic belief systems and ideologies—whether religious or secular—and ignore all other possibilities as inherently false is to live a blinkered existence.

On my second viewing of Silence, I identified with Kichijiro, the misfit Japanese Kirishitan who lives in a constant cycle of apostasy and faithfulness. He steps on the fumi-e repeatedly, and with little hesitation; it becomes pathetic, even comical. He follows Rodrigues like the Apostle Peter followed Christ the night he was arrested, lurking and cowering, unwilling to put his life on the line yet unable to pull himself wholly away from the faith. Kichijiro would never draw a parallel between himself and Christ like Rodrigues does; he knows he is too great of a sinner for that. He is humus, Latin for “dirt” or “earth,” our root word for both “humility” and “humiliation.” Yet he returns again, ana, wagering that there is yet grace to be found in this world. I am Kichijiro; I am daily failing forward in my own faith, only certain of my uncertainty as I yearn for possible glimpses of the transcendent.

On my third viewing of Silence, I identified with Scorsese. I was aware of his silent presence throughout the film, his cinematic vision and voice imbuing every scene with a sense of the sacred, the sacramental, the holy. Silence is neither praising nor condemning either the Roman Catholic Church or the Japanese culture, but it is also not neutral or uncaring. It provokes a judgment in its audience; we are not permitted to just sit back, silently watch, and do nothing. Silence invites us into a fictional world and asks us to consider the deepest questions of human existence while recognizing (as Scorsese admits) there are no absolute answers—we simply try to live in the grace that we can. 

In Jesuit spirituality, there is an exercise called imaginative prayer, using one’s imagination to place oneself in a biblical scene in order to more fully enter into communion with the story. Perhaps Silence can be considered an act of cinematic Ignatian contemplation, a sensory imagistic experience of meditative and mediated prayer. Scorsese imbues his film with personal, pastoral care; one might even call it love. Whether you are a staunch believer or a die-hard atheist, Silence will lovingly challenge you to imagine the possibility of Another Way. I believe the post-secular pilgrims of our world—the religious nones, the anatheists, the spiritual misfits—may find a home in the Church of Cinema, with Scorsese as our priest.

from All Content http://bit.ly/2GsW07P

Can thrillers really be feminist?

For The Pool

There is a dead woman. She is bloodied and battered. She’s probably naked, she’s almost definitely beautiful. A ruggedly handsome detective with a dark past stands over her and shakes his head at the sadness of it all. A steely look enters his eyes as he resolves to avenge this horrible waste of female flesh.

The above may read as sarcasm, but it’s an all too familiar opening for the crime genre. All stats seem to show that thrillers are overwhelmingly read by women and yet we still have to regularly negotiate the uncomfortable or downright problematic treatment of women and women’s bodies. But, increasingly, people are saying enough is enough. The team adapting Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling’s Cormoran Strike books for TV have recently publicly criticised the “voyeuristic level of violence against women” in TV dramas. And, when it comes to books, there is an increasingly noisy collection of female characters wielding axes, cocktails and secrets, and an ever-deepening pool of writers questioning whether there’s another way to explore our darkest fears without having to sacrifice any feminist principles.

There’s still a strangely intense fascination with women who write crime and thrillers; still regular thinkpieces, even documentaries, where women writing about violence are treated a little like dogs walking on their hind legs. It smacks uncomfortably close to the rather Victorian belief that women couldn’t be surgeons because of their constitutions, as if dealing with blood coming out your vagina once a month would make you more, rather than less, squeamish. And, despite this, more and more male writers are writing under genderless or even outright female names. Author Martyn Waites describes the books he writes as himself as “more complex, more metaphorical, the kind of things things I like in writing” whereas (although it’s unclear if these are Waites or the journalist's words) when he writes as Tania Carver, the books are “simpler” and “more mainstream”.

Last year, Terrence Rafferty wrote a piece for The Atlantic called “Women Are Writing The Best Crime Novels”. The title of the article is deceptively positive and, among his praise for specific books, the piece is full of frustrating, patronising assumptions about female writers and readers. Even though it’s male writers choosing to write under female pseudonyms, apparently it’s “a bunch of very crafty girls” sneaking in, redefining the genre. On the subject of recent megahits like The Girl On The Train, Rafferty goes on to explain that “writers of the current school tend to favour a volatile mixture of higher-pitched first-person tones: hectoring, accusatory, self-justifying, a little desperate. Reading these tricky 21st-century thrillers can be like scrolling through an especially heated comments thread on a web site of wandering unaware into a Twitter feud”. Leaving aside that the horrors of comment threads or Twitter trolls are distinctly male-dominated, the language used here shows that, even very loosely masquerading as praise, there’s a deep discomfort with the way women have changed the crime and thriller market.

But, as with many things, peel away the layer of men making things weird (#notallmen) and you have a lot of women (and some men) getting on with actually interrogating what writing a feminist thriller really means. Erin Kelly’s latest book, He Said/She Said, revolves around a Ched Evans-esque rape trial, after a couple see what appears to be a sexual assault during an eclipse at a festival. The book grew from the idea of a crime taking place during an eclipse, not the desire to write a feminist thriller, but as Kelly says, “It must be feminist, because I’m getting emails from Men’s Rights Activists telling me that I’m a rabid man-hater.”

Kelly’s book explores sexual assault head-on; it’s at times a difficult book to read, but it shows that thrillers can tackle these things without slipping into gratuitous descriptions of violence against women. “The best thrillers don’t deny the female condition, but hit the sweet spot between exploiting real-life victims for cheap thrills and turning a novel into a morality play. I agonised over using an allegation of rape as a plot device,” Kelly says. “More so than I ever have when writing a murder. But for every sensitive, thoughtful examination of rape in fiction there are literally thousands of raped and murdered and mutilated women whose victimhood is little more than a plot device. I knew I was treading on eggshells, but I walked with incredible care. I researched this book more thoroughly than anything else I’ve ever written.”

Ruth Kenley-Letts, the executive producer for Strike, said “great efforts had been taken to treat the crimes against female victims with sensitivity on screen” and it’s something book editors are increasingly sensitive too as well. “It’s a tough one,” Sam Eades, a commissioning editor at Orion, says. “It’s important for fiction to reflect the society we live in – and violence against women happens to those we love and care abou – but that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to read a thriller that explored the world how it could be, not just as it is now.” Alison Hennessey, a commissioning editor for crime at Bloomsbury, has issued a blanket ban on books that start with the rape or murder or a woman being investigated by a male detective: “There are enough of these books out there already, and enough violence in the world, frankly, that I’m not interested in contributing more to that unless the book was doing something to explore why this happens.”

I can’t help but think of the people who defend the level of sexual violence in Game Of Thrones by saying it’s historically realistic, or that’s just what would have happened in a society like that, even though it’s a society where there is also magic and dragons. Art in whatever form is important because it lets us explore how we feel and react to the real world, and yet it is fiction – it does not have to do or be anything. But if fiction is where we explore life, thrillers are where we explore fear. They arguably don’t work if they’re not tense, uncomfortable reads. I had to stop reading He Said/She Said at several points to calm down, and I worked myself up into a righteous fury reading Little Deaths by Emma Flint – but at what was going on in the story, not because of the way the writer was handling it. “I don’t know a single woman who has never been made to feel threatened or afraid,” Flint says. “Our real-life experience gives an extra frisson of terror to reading about a woman being followed home, a woman who has a stranger sit next to her in an otherwise empty train carriage. We are used to being afraid that we will become victims.”

So, it’s not that these subjects shouldn’t be tackled in thrillers (as Kelly says, “I read this shit on my phone every day – not to explore it is just another kind of silencing”) – it’s how to skirt a very delicate line without tipping into gratuitous and exploitative presentations. How do you write a book about people doing awful misogynistic things without writing an awful misogynistic book? There’s no easy checklist of how to make a thriller feminist, and everyone has their own definition of what that means. But, as Kelly says: “I think any novel that makes the reader think seriously about the fact that women still cannot move through the world with the same ease as men can be read as feminist. Sometimes the authorial intent to write a feminist novel is clear, but with crime fiction it’s more of a Trojan horse. Big Little Lies arguably got more women examining their prejudices about domestic abuse than a Guardian editorial.”

Here are a few of our favourite feminist thrillers to try:

THE POWER BY NAOMI ALDERMAN It would be impossible to not mention the book that won this year’s Baileys Prize. A tense, blistering, darkly humorous look at what might happen if women suddenly became the physically stronger sex. It’s impossible to read it without interrogating your own perspective on gender.

LITTLE DEATHS BY EMMA FLINT A startlingly insightful, intelligent read about the way society closes its walls against women who are not what they are asked to be and the way the patriarchy is terrified by the women it cannot control, and how far it will go to reassert that control.

HE SAID/SHE SAID BY ERIN KELLY A pageturner that tackles sexual assault head-on. When a couple witness what seems to be a rape during an eclipse, they get embroiled in a court case and the lives of the two people affected. It always puts plot and character first, but isn’t afraid to interrogate how we decide who we believe and who to trust.

PULL ME UNDER BY KELLY LUCE Coming out next month, this scratches at the edge of the genre, as there is no trail of bodies or plot twists. Instead, it’s a tight, intense portrait of one woman’s psychological state as she tries to leave behind the legacy of a horrifying act she committed as a 12-year-old. A sharp literary read about guilt and anger.

OUT BY NATSUO KIRINO From one extreme to the other, this shocking, violent crime novel follows four female friends working together in a factory who band together to try and cover up the murder by one of them of their abusive husband, and things escalate from there. One for readers who like their biting feminist commentary with some dismemberment.

THE WOMAN WHO RAN BY SAM BAKER While it’s a little awkward to mention a book by the co-founder of the site, a list of feminist thriller recommendations would be incompletely without this modern take of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall. Not quite a retelling, but playing with Brontë’s themes of gossip, broken relationships and carving out your own identity.