#rip John Witherspoon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

afrotumble · 1 month

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John Weatherspoon (January 27, 1942 – October 29, 2019), better known as John Witherspoon, was an American actor and comedian who performed in various television shows and films.

Witherspoon was born in Detroit, Michigan. He later changed his last name from Weatherspoon to Witherspoon. Witherspoon was one of 11 siblings. His older brother, William, became a songwriter for Motown, with whom he penned the lyrics of the 1966 hit single "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted". Another sibling, Cato, was a director of the PBS-TV Network/CH56 in Detroit. His sister, the late Dr. Gertrude Stacks, was a pastor at Shalom Fellowship International, a church in Detroit.

Witherspoon worked occasionally as a model. During the 1960s and 1970s, he began to take a liking towards comedy. During that time, he began his stand-up comedy career. As a result, he had many friends in the business, including Tim Reid (while he was working on WKRP in Cincinnati and The Richard Pryor Show), Robin Williams (also on The Richard Pryor Show), Jay Leno, and David Letterman.

Witherspoon married Angela Robinson in 1988. They have two sons, John David ("J.D.") and Alexander. David Letterman was Witherspoon's best friend and is the godfather to his two sons.

He is best remembered for his role as Willie Jones for the Friday series; Witherspoon also starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Boomerang (1992), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and Vampire in Brooklyn (1995).

In 1977, he became a regular on the series The Richard Pryor Show, an NBC American comedy series. This then led to his appearance in WKRP In Cincinnati in 1982 in the fourth-season episode "Circumstantial Evidence" in which Witherspoon played Detective Davies.

He has also made appearances on television shows such as 227 (1987), Amen (1988), LA Law (1990), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1994), The Wayans Bros. (1995–99), The Tracy Morgan Show (2003), Barnaby Jones (1973), The Boondocks (2005–2014), and Black Jesus (2014–2019). Subsequent appearances were on Good Times, What's Happening!!, and The Incredible Hulk.

He wrote a film, From the Old School, in which he played an elderly working man who tries to prevent a neighborhood convenience store from being developed into a strip club.

In 2011, he starred in a Final Destination spoof with Shane Dawson on YouTube. In May 2013, he featured on "Saturday (skit)", from rapper Logic on his 2013 mixtape titled Young Sinatra: Welcome to Forever.

#john witherspoon #rip #actor #comedian #african american

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pookha · 8 months

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Dead Inside

Chapter 2: Live Again

Amity's visiting Camila in the Human Realm because she can't stand listening to Emira and Viney planning their wedding. Vee comes home upset after admitting her feelings to Masha. Amity and Vee take refuge in each others' arms.

You see my face and then you see nothin' Confused you turn and live on I turn my face You're staring back again Look at yourself and live again -Clint Edward Lowery / La Jon Jermaine Witherspoon / Morgan J. Rose / Vincent E. Hornsby / John M., Jr. Connolly

Three Years Later

Amity sits in the dark room while the television shouts something about used cars. She doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t need to. Human or witch, life goes on, commerce happens, people buy and sell and it’s all…futile. She closes her eyes and lets the noise fall over her until the show comes back on. A naked animated woman is killing people with ghostly telekinetic limbs, ripping them apart. She hasn’t been following the story, but the gore at least makes her feel something. She looks at the scar on her arm. Emira and Viney have offered to remove it, but Amity needs it to remind herself of what she almost did.

The door rattles and she knows it’s too early to be Camila coming back with the pizza. She grabs her bottle of abomination goo and readies herself to fight. Vee comes through the door in her Luz shape that she has to adopt full-time now that Luz has died. Amity stares at Vee as she removes her coat and hangs it on the peg. Vee stops suddenly and sniffs the air, then just as fast, she’s in basilisk shape with her fangs snapping.

“Come out! I know you’re here! If you’ve hurt Camila, I’ll drain your magic and leave your husk for the birds!” Vee actually sounds fierce. Amity knows she’ll fight if she needs to, but would rather not.

“It’s just me, Vee,” Amity says and Vee snaps back to her Luz shape. Amity can’t help but stare. Vee is Luz, but softer, more rounded and less…weary, maybe or hard, she doesn’t know exactly.

Vee flips on the hall light and it illuminates the living room dimly. She can see Amity now, sitting on the couch. She comes in and Amity pauses the anime on a scene that can only be fan service.

“Where’s Mom?” Vee asks, and Amity knows Vee's voice, and Luz’s voice, well enough to tell that Vee is upset about something.

“She went out for pizza since this house has been blacklisted for delivery.”

Vee laughs.

“That was me. I forgot and answered the door in basilisk shape from the waist down.”

“What’s wrong?” Amity asks, taking Vee’s hand.

“It’s…I…It’s Masha. I told them I wanted to date them, but they said they can’t stop thinking about the girl they met three summers ago that they took on the tour of Gravesfield and met for boba a few times, then disappeared. I couldn’t tell them that was me.”

She squeezes Amity’s hand

“I—I couldn’t handle it and I grabbed my shit and left. Masha called after me, but I didn’t know what to say, so I changed to a harpy and flew home. I know it was stupid, but I had to see Mom.”

She starts to cry; huge tears fall down her cheeks as she involuntarily changes to her basilisk shape.

“And—and now she’s not heeerrre…” Vee whines.

Amity wraps her arm around Vee and pulls her close. She lets Vee cry on her and Vee tells her all about the ‘let’s just be friends’ talk from Masha.

“I’m sorry,” Amity says at the right places, and, “that’s awful.”

Vee sniffles, grabs a tissue from the side table and wipes her face. She notices her hand has claws instead of fingers and switches back to her Luz shape. Suddenly it’s Luz in Amity’s arms and Amity stiffens. Vee doesn’t notice and puts her head back on Amity’s shoulder. Amity looks at the scar on her arm: the arm that’s around Luz . But it’s not Luz; it’s Vee. She closes her eyes to try to stop the tears, but they leak out anyway and drip on Vee’s hair.

Vee looks up.

“Amity, are you okay? I didn’t even ask why you were here? I’m sorry.” She pulls another tissue and hands it to Amity.

Amity wipes her eyes.

“Emira and Viney were discussing wedding plans and I suddenly just…couldn’t…anymore. I couldn’t be there with them. I told dad that I was going to bring you some magic and left. I wanted to see Camila.”

She turns to Vee, her eyes still leaking slightly.

“I used you as an excuse, but I really did bring you some Abomination goo. Edric made some flavorings he thought you’d like to try. It’s all on the table.”

“Thanks,” Vee says and kisses Amity’s cheek. Amity freezes again and this time Vee sees it.

“Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry.” Vee blushes deep red and Amity wonders if it rivals her when she blushes.

“It’s just that you look like...” Amity can’t finish the thought.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Vee realizes she’s still too close and starts to pull back, but Amity wraps her arms around Vee tightly again.

“It’s my problem, not yours.” Amity steels herself and kisses Vee’s cheek, then lets her go. Vee gets up and walks unsteadily to the kitchen table. Amity watches Vee put both hands on the table to hold herself up, then she sits at the table. She picks up a bottle of Abomination goo and then a bottle of the flavoring. Amity can’t tell which one it is, but when Vee opens it, she can smell the ghostberries. She suddenly remembers when she gave some of the white berries to Luz and then held her while she puked. There was so little food Luz could eat in the Demon Realm.

Vee puts a drop of the flavoring in the goo and drinks a bit of it, then adds two more drops of flavoring and drinks the entire vial. She stoppers both bottles and turns in her chair. Her lips are dyed white from the berry flavoring and Amity suddenly wants to taste the berries from her lips. Vee sees her staring.

“What? Do I have something on me?” Vee looks down at her ‘clothes,’ which Amity knows are just part of her shapechanged disguise.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to stare. It’s hard for me to see you like that. I…you’re my friend, Vee, but Luz was my girlfriend and I think we would have gotten married eventually, and it’s just hard.” Now the tears start to come again. Vee is suddenly there by Amity and envelops her in human arms. Amity can feel that she’s not in Luz shape now and it makes it easier to let Vee hold her. When the tears slow, she sees that Vee has taken the shape she used when they were all trapped in the Human Realm. She meets Vee’s eyes and starts to lean in. Vee’s eyes widen, but then they both hear Camila’s keys in the door and jerk back from each other, both unsure if they were about to kiss or not.

“I’m back!” Camila shouts from the hallway. They can both smell the pizza now, even over the fading scent of the ghostberries.

“Vee, are you home?” Camila asks. She must see Vee’s coat on the hook.

“I’m here,” Vee says. She shifts back to Luz shape and gets up to meet Camila by the door. Amity clicks the television from the violent anime she was watching back to Project Runway. She was watching it with Camila before she'd left.

Camila walks to the kitchen with Vee trailing behind. Camila puts the pizza down on the table and says something to Vee that Amity can’t hear. Vee hugs Camila and Camila hugs her back. Amity looks at her scar, then at Camila. Camila saw her looking at her scar and waves her into the kitchen from behind Vee’s back. She joins the hug. Odalia never hugged her like that…she never thinks of her as mom anymore…Camila is Mom now.

“I’m sorry, Vee,” Camila says as she releases the hug. Amity gets the plates and cans of soda while Vee gets napkins.

“It’s okay, mom,” Vee says. “Amity was here for me. She’s a good friend.”

Vee meets Amity’s eyes and there’s something there.

They eat pizza and watch Project Runway snuggled up on the couch together with Camila in the middle. Amity goes to bed early, climbing into the lower bunk where Luz used to sleep. She thinks she can still smell Luz on the pillow, but it’s either Vee’s scent or just her memory playing tricks on her. She reaches out to the lighted star string-lights just like Luz used to and tears come again. She falls asleep and when Vee comes in, she wakes out of a dark nightmare where Odalia is telling her ‘of course Luz cheated on you.’

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up,” Vee says. In the dim light from the hall nightlight, Amity sees Vee shift to basilisk shape. She slithers up the bunk bed in a way that shouldn’t be possible. The bed over Amity creaks.

“It’s okay, I was having a nightmare anyway.” She sighs. Vee leans her head over the rail and looks at Amity.

“Would snuggling help?” she asks after a very long pause.

“Yes,” Amity says in a tiny voice after an equally long pause. Vee slithers impossibly back down the bed and then into Amity’s bed.

“It’s pretty small, can you be your human shape, the one that’s not Luz?” Amity asks and she feels Vee shift behind to her. When she spoons Amity, she’s oh so very warm. Her arms envelop Amity. These arms don't feel like Luz's, but they hold her tightly and safely and that's all that matters.

Amity is just about to fall asleep again when Vee whispers in her ear.

“Were we going to kiss earlier?”

Amity stiffens again, then relaxes almost immediately. She turns in Vee’s arms and is looking at her in the dim light from under the door. She doesn’t respond in words, but closes her eyes and leans in instead, letting Vee decide if she wants this or not. She feels Vee pull back for a second and Amity opens her eyes just in time to see Vee lean in and then her lips are on Amity’s. It’s a brief kiss, but warm and soft. Vee pulls back. Amity pulls back. Their eyes meet for the millionth time that day. One of them seems about to speak, then the other, then their lips meet again. This time the kiss lasts longer. Amity pulls away first this time.

“Are you sure?” she asks Vee and she feels Vee shrug.

“No, but it feels good.” Vee leans in and kisses Amity again. Their lips part this time and they both feel passion build that they thought they’d share with someone else, but in this time, at this moment, it feels right, right now. Vee’s hands move from behind Amity’s back and move lower down her body and when Amity doesn’t object Vee runs them over her. Amity gasps in Vee’s mouth and the kiss breaks.

“Too much?” Vee whispers. Amity pauses, then instead of answering she slides her hand under Vee’s pajama ‘shirt’. Vee changes it so it feels just like sliding under a silk shirt but over skin.

“I…I don’t want to have sex,” Vee whispers.

“No, neither of us is ready for that,” Amity agrees. She feels Vee relax.

The moon’s light moves over them slowly as the night passes. They fall asleep in each other’s arms and when Amity wakes up, she’s still snuggling Vee’s human shape. She thinks she hears something and turns to see a shadow in the hallway retreating from under the door. She shakes Vee gently and Vee blinks, yawns, and then her eyes widen when she sees Amity still in her arms.

“I thought it was a dream: the best kind of dream,” Vee says and they kiss briefly and chastely.

“I think Camila saw us sleeping together,” Amity whispers to her and Vee goes rigid.

“We’ll just have to tell her the truth then,” Vee says.

“What is the truth?” Amity asks.

“That we’re figuring it out?” Vee suggests. After a while, Amity nods. They both get up and go to Camila’s room where a light shines from under the closed door.

“Come in, both of you,” she says from behind the door, obviously having heard them come down the hallway.

#the owl house fanfiction #Amity Blight/Vee Noceda #Major character death #suicide #self-harm #doomed relationship

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