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miguelmarias · 5 years

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REFLEXIONES SOBRE EL CINE DE PIRATAS, CONTRABANDISTAS Y AVENTUREROS

En un mundo como el nuestro, de instintos encadenados, los "Hermanos de la Costa" adquieren un aspecto "surrealista", y si sus proezas resultan, a veces, indignantes, nunca dejan de ser portentosas.

El último párrafo de la "Advertencia" con que J. y F. Gall dan principio a su excelente estudio sobre El filibusterismo (1) nos sugiere una de las razones que pueden justificar la atracción indudable que, en estos tiempos —a cualquier altura de la vida, sea cual fuere el rumbo de nuestra existencia—, ejercen los piratas, bucaneros, filibusteros, tahúres, contrabandistas, impostores, vagabundos, conspiradores y demás aventureros más o menos anarquistas y tradicionalmente catalogados como villanos. Es muy probable que esta fascinación —que, partiendo de los justicieros proscritos como Robin Hood, El Zorro, Judex o Dick Turpin, descendía luego a lo largo de todo un escalafón de outlaws más o menos prestigiosos y legendarios, a menudo enmascarados, con frecuencia perseguidos o vilipendiados por aquellos mismos que ilegalmente defendían, hasta recaer incluso sobre algunos negreros, asesinos a sueldo, ratas de hotel, gángsters, "quinquis" o simples y oscuros rateros— tenga sus raíces en nuestras primeras lecturas infantiles y también en el hechizo que irradia todo lo misterioso, insólito, exótico, improbable o maravilloso por inalcanzable o irrepetible. No es raro encontrar niños con auténtica y profunda vocación de pirata, explorador, ballenero, buscador de tesoros o bandolero, y no resulta, pues, anormal que alguna huella de estas ensoñaciones quede indeleblemente grabada en su subconsciente, sobre todo cuando la vida cotidiana se hace rutinaria, ingrata, previsible, laboriosa e irremediablemente urbana.

Los Trópicos, los Mares del Sur, el Caribe, la península del Yucatán, la isla de la Tortuga, Maracaibo, Port-Royal, Porto Príncipe, el Cabo Hatteras, el de Hornos, el de Buena Esperanza, Casablanca, Orán, Basora, Bagdad, La Meca, Timbuktú, Madagascar, el Golfo de Bengala, Singapur, Java, Macao, Shanghai, Tahití, Alaska, San Juan de Capistrano, Veracruz, las Islas Encantadas, Hong Kong, el desierto de Gobi, el de Kalahari, el Sahara, Montenegro, Samoa, Haití, el Río Grande, el Amazonas, el Matto Grosso, el Volga, el Ganges, el Himalaya, etc., etc., constituyen el mapa imaginario de un universo mítico en el que reina la Aventura, un viejo y descolorido atlas que pudimos surcar a bordo de cien libros y películas, empujados —como el Buque Fantasma, como el Holandés Errante— por los vientos caprichosos que eternamente soplan en los Siete Mares de la Ficción. Buques zozobrados hace tiempo, que ahora flotan anclados al recuerdo, pero siempre dispuestos a desplegar de nuevo sus velas desgarradas y a enarbolar la negra enseña de los corsarios: el "Jolly Roger", las tibias cruzadas y la calavera. Patas de palo, garfios de abordaje, parches negros en el ojo tuerto, buitres y gaviotas, oscuras ensenadas, sangre y fuego...

Todos leímos de pequeños La isla del tesoro, 20.000 leguas de viaje submarino, Robinsón Crusoe, Los viajes de Gulliver, El lobo de mar, Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, Moby Dick, El Corsario Negro, Peter Pan, Las mil y una noches, Beau Geste, Rob Roy, La máquina del tiempo, Aventuras de A. Gordon Pym, El mundo perdido, El último de los mohicanos, Tarzán de los monos, Kim de la India, Huckleberry Finn, Los tres mosqueteros, El capitán Fracasa, Las aventuras de Arsenio Lupin, Rocambole, La Pimpinela Escarlata, Scaramouche, Cyrano de Bergerac, Dos años al pie del mástil, El Dr. Jekyll y Mr. Hyde, La flecha negra, El señor de Ballantry, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, El hombre invisible, La guerra de los mundos, Cinco semanas en globo, La vuelta al mundo en 80 días, Viaje al centro de la tierra, Los robinsones de los Mares del Sur, El libro de la jungla, La perla del Río Rojo, Los tigres de la Malasia, Yolanda, la hija del corsario, Honorata van Guld, Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer, Un yanqui en la corte del rey Arturo, y tantas otras novelas que nos hicieron conocer a Sherlock Holmes, el Dr. Watson y Moriarty, al padre Brown y Flambeau, a Lagardere y su hijo, a Ulises, a Elena de Troya, a Alí Babá y los cuarenta ladrones, al capitán Hornblower, a Guillermo Brown, a Gengis Khan y Marco Polo, personajes más o menos míticos a los que pronto se unirían —procedentes del cine, de los "tebeos", de la radio, de nuevos libros— Drake y Barbanegra, Drácula, Billy el Niño, Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Búfalo Bill, el Dr. Frankenstein, el capitán Ahab, Sitting Bull, Gerónimo, Cochise, Caballo Loco, el general Custer, Svengali, Houdini, Don Quijote y Sancho, el comisario Maigret, Hércules Poirot, Juan Sin Tierra y Ricardo Corazón de León, Saladino, Atila, Jack el destripador, La Celestina, Don Juan Tenorio, el Lazarillo, el Buscón, el capitán Chimista, Pizarro, Nerón, Shanti Andía, Superman, Calígula, Cleopatra, Marco Antonio, Julio César, la pequeña Lulú, Diego Valor, Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby, Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín, Batman, Hamlet, Otelo, Romeo y Julieta, el capitán Trueno, Dillinger, Lord Jim, Fausto, Al Capone, Maquiavelo, Tirano Banderas, Jay Gatsby, Johnny Guitar, Shane, Espartaco, Fantomas, Lucky Luciano, Temple Drake, Sartoris, Monroe Starr, Sam Spade, Fu Manchú, Charlie Chan, Jonathan Wild, Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Abraham Lincoln, Catherine Barkley, Waldo Lydecker, Laura Manion, Norman Bates, Michel Poiccard, Pierrot le fou, Pike Bishop, el mayor Dundee, Nosferatu, King-Kong, Ethan Edwards, Gertrud, Lola-Lola, Antoine Doinel, Charles Foster Kane, el Barón de Arizona, Colorado Jim, la emperatriz Yang Kwai Fei o el Dr. Mabuse. Durante el largo trecho que separa la niñez de la adolescencia nos fue posible así el suplantar las "vidas imaginarias" o sublimadas de los más variopintos y exóticos personajes, y habitamos con ellos las más remotas épocas, parajes y latitudes. Llegamos, incluso, a conocer como la palma de la mano, guiados por la brújula de la fantasía, regiones oníricas o fabulosas como Yoknapatawpha County, Tombstone, Dodge City, Eldorado, Marienbad, Macondo, el Chicago de los años 30, el París de los americanos o el Mar de los Sargazos.

Ahora bien, remontándonos de nuevo a las fuentes que a la vez suscitaron y colmaron nuestra sed de ficciones y aventuras, resulta curioso observar que muy pocas personas sienten el deseo, una vez concluida esta etapa vital, de volver a leer aquellas novelas de viajes por el tiempo y el espacio, de héroes y rufianes, de traición y venganza, que tanto nos hicieron disfrutar. Se comete así una grave ingratitud y un tremendo error, pues no sólo se tiende a menospreciar aquello que tanto valoramos un día, sino que se priva uno del placer que estas novelas pueden proporcionar a cualquier edad. Es más, con frecuencia no sólo hemos olvidado aquellas románticas historias de "misterio, emoción e intriga" —consigna admirable y digna de André Bretón—, sino que, en realidad, nuestra falta de conocimientos y experiencia —cuando no traicioneras adaptaciones para niños— nos impidió muchas veces apreciar y comprender debidamente las peripecias y destinos que escritores curiosos —Maurice Leblanc, Salgari, Sabatini, Wren, Dana, E.R. Burroughs, Ponson du Terrail—, notables —Walter Scott, Swift, Barrie, Fenimore Cooper, Gautier—, excelentes —Verne, Defoe, Wells, Chesterton, Conan Doyle, Kipling, London— o geniales —Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Poe, Lewis Carroll— nos propusieron, tal vez con demasiado ingenio, sin duda con excesiva modestia. Novelas que en los últimos años han dejado de existir, como género, como forma de narrar, como espíritu; por eso, las raras excepciones —las de Gonzalo Suárez y Javier Marías, La ira de los justos de Raoul Walsh, La burla negra de José María Castroviejo, alguna de las de Ignacio Aldecoa— no han despertado otro eco que el de la desaprobación o el silencio, lo que sitúa a estos autores en la honrosa compañía de Víctor Hugo, Dumas, Ross Macdonald, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Bret Harte, Joseph Conrad, Dashiell Hammett, J. Sheridan Le Fanu y tantos otros escritores de talento. Hace años que aconsejo a todo el mundo —y en especial a los cinéfilos— que relean, a ser posible en su versión original, La isla del tesoro, sin duda una de las más grandes creaciones de la lengua inglesa y una influencia capital en otros novelistas —Marcel Schwob, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Hughes, John Meade Falkner— y en numerosas películas —como Moonfleet de Lang, The Night of the Hunter de Laughton, Viento en las velas de Mackendrick, Valor de ley y Círculo de fuego de Hathaway, por no abrumar con una nueva lista—; o Adventures of A. Gordon Pym, que influyó a Verne, a William Hope Hodgson (The Boats of the Glen Carrig), a Stevenson y a casi todos los escritores de ciencia-ficción, desde Wells hasta Bioy Casares, Bradbury o Cortázar.

Con las películas que tienen su origen —o alguna afinidad de espíritu y de estilo— en estas novelas, la injusticia es mayor, y más difícil de reparar, ya que los libros se conservan o se suelen poder encontrar y releer, y en cambio es muy difícil volver a ver Todos los hermanos eran valientes, El hidalgo de los mares, El pirata Barbanegra, Robinsón Crusoe (el de Buñuel, por supuesto), El secreto del pirata, Los piratas de Capri, El capitán Panamá, Garras de codicia, Rumbo a Java, La casa grande de Jamaica, El hijo de la furia, El temible burlón, El cisne negro, El prisionero de Zenda, La máscara de hierro, Piratas del mar Caribe, Los bucaneros, La casa de los siete halcones, Fuego verde, Tambores lejanos, Fuego escondido, El ladrón de Bagdad, El halcón y la flecha, La mansión de Sangaree, La odisea del capitán Steve, La mujer pirata, Cita en Honduras, Las cuatro plumas, Huida hacia el sol, Ave del Paraíso, El tesoro del Cóndor de Oro, El capitán Blood, Tanganica, Mara Maru, Safari, Zarak, El bandido de Zhobe, La nave de los condenados, El zorro de los océanos, Los vikingos, Los piratas del Mississippi, El signo del renegado, Harry Black y el tigre, Cuando ruge la marabunta, John Silver el Largo, Los tres mosqueteros, Scaramouche, Arenas de muerte, El capitán King, Viaje al centro de la Tierra, El malvado Zaroff, El mundo en sus manos, Los gavilanes del Estrecho, Tres lanceros bengalíes, La jungla en armas, Calcuta, La carga de la brigada ligera, El crepúsculo de los dioses, Rebelión a bordo, El signo del Zorro, Jívaro, La venganza del bergantín, Norte salvaje, Las minas del rey Salomón, Mogambo, El caballero del Mississippi, Astucias de mujer, Revuelta en Haití, San Francisco Story, La legión del desierto, El espadachín, La isla de los corsarios, La reina de Cobra, Orgullo de raza, La sirena de las aguas verdes, La fuga de Tarzán, Martín el gaucho, Gentleman Jim, Maracaibo, El amo del mundo, a merced de la iniciativa —improbable, ya que no tendrían demasiado éxito ni serían consideradas de suficiente "mérito artístico"— de reponerlas de un distribuidor o del azar de los lotes y las programaciones de televisión. De hecho, los únicos films recientes que tienen algo que ver con el género aventurero —todas aquellas películas de aventuras que no constituyen un género en sí, como el western: jungla, piratas, bandoleros exóticos, candidatos posibles a la Historia Universal de la Infamia de Borges, o a las Vidas imaginarias de Schwob— han sido notables fracasos comerciales y críticos: Viento en las velas, El aventurero, Aoom, Al Diablo, con amor, La loba y la paloma, El último safari, Arma de dos filos, Judex. Circunstancia que no tiene nada de nuevo —la obra maestra del género y de su autor, el Moonfleet de Fritz Lang, sigue sin estrenar en España y va a cumplir los veinte años—, pero sí de grave, en unos tiempos como los que corren, en los que lo que más falta le haría al grueso del cine son precisamente dos de las virtudes descollantes del cine aventurero: la pasión y la fantasía. Es decir, la audacia rigurosa que requiere narrar con claridad y brío las más descabelladas, sorprendentes y portentosas tabulaciones que cabe imaginar (ya que este género, o agregado de subgéneros heteróclitos más bien, es mucho menos "realista" y tiene mucho menos "fundamento histórico" que, por ejemplo, el western o el cine negro).

Pero ya es tiempo, una vez evocado el mundo que sugieren y recrean en vivos y llamativos colores y en tenebrosos y retorcidos relatos este tipo de cine y sus antecedentes literarios, de aclarar que el propósito que guía estas páginas no es el de reavivar nostálgicos recuerdos infantiles o adolescentes, sino intentar reivindicar un espíritu de creación artesanal cinematográfica que encarna muy explícitamente —descaradamente, incluso— una serie de valores y actitudes que, personalmente, echo en falta en la gran mayoría de las películas actuales, sobre todo en las procedentes del país que en más alto grado llegó a poseerlas y dominarlas —Estados Unidos, claro está—, y que pienso que no convendría olvidar ni perder ni, mucho menos, rechazar y despreciar. Creo que los admiradores de Nicholas Musuraca, Robert Planck y Edward Cronjager; los que hayan visto Amazonas negras de Don Weis; los que sientan cierta debilidad por Jane Greer, Jean Peters, Debra Paget, Gene Tierney, Linda Darnell, Rhonda Fleming o Eleanor Parker; los que sólo por el título lamenten no haber visto nunca South of Pago Pago de Alfred E. Green; los que quisieran conocer mejor la obra de directores como Edward Ludwig, William A. Witney, Edgar G. Ulmer, Jacques Tourneur, Allan Dwan, Henry King, John English, Lewis R. Foster e incluso Joseph Inman Kane; los que consideren más apasionante una novela como Los tres impostores de Arthur Machen que cualquier debate estructuralista sobre la diegesis fílmica, comprenderán ya, sin duda, a qué me refiero y qué elementos son los que considero especialmente admirables en el cine de piratas, contrabandistas, prófugos de la justicia y genios del mal más o menos megalómanos.

SOBRE EL ARTE DE NARRAR

Los relatos de los marinos tienen una inmediata simplicidad; todo su significado cabría dentro de la cáscara de una nuez. Pero Marlow no era típico (si se exceptúa su propensión a tejer narraciones), y para él el sentido de un episodio no estaba en el interior, como una almendra, sino fuera, envolviendo el relato que lo hacía resaltar sólo como un arrebol destaca la neblina, a semejanza de uno de esos halos vaporosos que la iluminación espectral del rayo de luna hace visibles.

Joseph Conrad: El corazón de las tinieblas.

La primera razón que puede explicar la escasa consideración que, a lo sumo, reciben estas películas, típicamente "menores", radica precisamente en su argumento, que suele considerarse pueril, ingenuo e inverosímil, desvinculado de la "realidad contemporánea" o de los "problemas trascendentales". En efecto, uno de los rasgos característicos de estas películas es, precisamente, su modestia, su falta de pretensiones, su rechazo de la pedantería. No se proponen testificar sobre el estado del mundo moderno, ni sobre las condiciones de vida de los limpiabotas italianos; su objetivo es mucho más modesto: procuran distraer, entretener, divertir, emocionar, intrigar y sorprender al espectador; en el fondo, disparar y liberar su fantasía, proyectarla a través del tiempo y del espacio, e incluso de las apariencias y la lógica; proponer nuevos mitos y revitalizar los ya existentes —tarea tan importante como la de desmitificar ciertas cosas, que no todas ni por principio—; y da lo mismo que estos artífices estén impulsados por el mero afán de hacer bien su trabajo o que se dejen llevar por el puro placer de narrar, o de dar forma a un relato, o de insuflar vida a unos personajes pintorescos, arquetípicos o excepcionales. El caso es que resulta mucho más difícil tejer una trama cuya coherencia no puede contrastarse con la realidad inmediata ni con los hechos históricos —es decir, una trama como la de Moonfleet de Lang, la de El hijo de la furia de John Cromwell, o la de El cisne negro de Henry King— que la de Umberto D, Ladrón de bicicletas o El caso Mattei. Que es mucho más compleja la dramaturgia de Scaramouche que la de Hiroshima mon amour, que la estructura rítmica de Los gavilanes del Estrecho es mucho más musical que la de Senso, que El temible burlón es mucho más inventiva que Las margaritas, y que el grado de elaboración plástica y sonora de cualquier película de Jacques Tourneur supera con mucho el de Fellini o Antonioni.

Además, como observó precisamente Joseph Conrad, el sentido de las mejores películas de este género no se encuentra en la peripecia dramática que relatan, sino que se puede percibir en filigrana, en la periferia de la acción, y así resulta que entre las películas que mejor han analizado el complejo mundo de la infancia —sin detenerse, además, en concepciones idealistas de la "inocencia" o la "pureza" de los niños— se cuentan varias adscribibles a este género, concretamente Moonfleet, The Night of the Hunter y las obras maestras de Alexander Mackendrick, Viento en las velas y Sammy, huida hacia el Sur, que no son películas "sobre la infancia" ni sobre "la visión del niño", pero que —a veces adoptando su punto de vista, como en el film de Lang— consiguen comunicarnos muy penetrantemente dicha visión del mundo, casi siempre a través de las aventuras o los viajes en que el niño se ve embarcado, o a través de sus relaciones con un hombre maduro que —como el John Silver de La isla del tesoro— representa al mismo tiempo el "ogro" y al padre ausente o fallecido, logrando así una ambivalencia que impide cualquier acercamiento convencional y sensiblero, como suele ocurrir con los verdaderos padres (el de Ladrón de bicicletas, por ejemplo) o con personajes menos ambiguos moralmente, más "inmaculados" o "angelicales" (como el Alan Ladd de Raíces profundas). Por eso, los personajes interpretados, respectivamente, por Stewart Granger, Robert Mitchum, Anthony Quinn y Edward G. Robinson —contrabandistas, falsos predicadores asesinos, piratas— confieren a las películas mencionadas una riqueza moral y una amplitud de perspectiva que en otros géneros, más codificados desde un punto de vista ético —a pesar de los recientes logros en este sentido que suponen Valor de ley y Círculo de fuego, de Hathaway , dentro del "western"—, serían inconcebibles o resultarían muy artificiales. Porque hay que destacar que este género ha sido el único —junto a las diversas variantes del policiaco— en que la figura dominante y más atractiva ha sido casi siempre un antihéroe.

Por otra parte, la misma "irrealidad" del género ha hecho posible que la narrativa de estas películas pueda prescindir de las inútiles escenas "explicativas" que entorpecen la marcha de casi todas las películas "realistas"; ha permitido llevar hasta sus últimas consecuencias las arbitrarias o inverosímiles premisas iniciales; ha consentido el empleo de todo tipo de metáforas sin que ello suponga una solución de continuidad; ha facilitado la violación de las convenciones morales —el castigo que debe recibir el criminal, por ejemplo—, comerciales —el obligatorio "happy end", negado enérgicamente por Moonfleet, Viento en las velas, The Night of the Hunter— y dramáticas que han oprimido al cine de serie durante los años 30, 40 y 50.

INVESTIGACIÓN FORMAL

Aunque sólo ocasionalmente hayan contribuido a este género directores de verdadera magnitud —Fritz Lang, Jacques Tourneur, Douglas Sirk, Raoul Walsh, Rouben Mamoulian, Ernest B. Schoedsack— y hayan sido, por lo general, películas de bajo presupuesto realizadas a toda velocidad por eficientes artesanos de la R.K.O., la Warner, la Fox, la Universal o la Republic —Curtiz, Ludwig, Witney, Maté, Pevney, Marton, etc.—, es frecuente que encontremos dentro de este tipo de cine obras formalmente muy cuidadas, con un uso matizado y pictórico del color, con iluminación de raíz expresionista, que prestan gran atención al decorado y al vestuario, que saben servirse expresivamente tanto de los escenarios naturales —el mar, la vegetación exuberante de los trópicos, los promontorios rocosos— como de las maquetas y las transparencias. Es un cine que tiende a las dimensiones "bigger than life" (2), que aspira a lograr un aliento épico, que permite improvisar a merced de los elementos meteorológicos (3), y no es por ello extraño que, los grandes estilistas —incluso Minnelli ha incidido en el género, a partir del musical, con El pirata, 1947—se hayan sentido atraídos por este tipo de películas, ni que los pequeños artífices cultos de la serie B hayan recogido estas aportaciones de los maestros y las hayan convertido en ingredientes fijos del género. Incluso algunos directores que, en ocasiones, pecan de solemnidad y de vulgaridad plástica —como Henry King o John Cromwell— se han sentido especialmente inspirados por películas que, como El hijo de la furia o El cisne negro, no les obligaban a respetar las biografías ejemplares ni las meticulosas reconstrucciones de época que acostumbraban a dirigir en las producciones "de prestigio", y que les permitían, en cambio, cuidar al máximo los aspectos formales y narrativos que otras veces se veían forzados a sacrificar. Estos guiones "intrascendentes" se convertían en un pretexto para experimentar con la iluminación y el color, en simples "temas" a partir de los cuales podían improvisar una serie de variaciones plásticas. Su rechazo del naturalismo y de la verosimilitud psicológica les permitía una mayor soltura en la dirección de actores, una narración más fluida y directa, unas transiciones y un montaje que permitían acelerar el ritmo de la acción, etc. Incluso un hecho aparentemente insignificante como el que estas películas estuviesen destinadas a un público principalmente infantil tuvo su influencia en el acusado formalismo del género "bucanero", ya que potenció —por razones de censura, o de "buen gusto"— el recurso a la elipsis sugerente y contribuyó a la deslumbrante plasticidad de sus imágenes, al inventivo empleo de los objetos, los decorados y el color, y a la pérdida de importancia del diálogo como vehículo del sentido del film. Son, por ello, películas enormemente sensoriales, con una dependencia expresiva de las imágenes casi total, lo que explica que reenlazasen con las complejas estructuras rítmicas y visuales de los últimos años del cine mudo.

Sin embargo, este énfasis en los aspectos "puramente" estéticos del cine de aventuras no debe hacer pensar que se trataba de meras fantasías abstractas y huecas. Por el contrario, como suele ocurrir en el interior de los géneros tradicionales y de las producciones de presupuesto limitado, estas películas se caracterizan por su absoluta funcionalidad, es decir, por la perfecta adecuación entre los recursos escasos disponibles y los objetivos fijados. Y no olvidemos que estos fines pueden resumirse en los siguientes principios básicos: llamar la atención —visualmente, sobre todo— y despertar la curiosidad —dramática y narrativamente— desde el comienzo de la película, explicitando inmediatamente las "reglas del juego" (es decir, las del género) para que nadie se pueda llamar a engaño ni adopte una actitud hipercrítica, incrédula o escéptica frente al espectáculo que va a presenciar, y, finalmente, narrar con la máxima claridad y de la forma más atractiva e interesante una historia llena de acción, de misterio, de sorpresas, de inesperados giros dramáticos, de pasión, de exotismo y de color, interpretada por actores más o menos populares y, a ser posible, que den por su sólo aspecto físico las características más relevantes del personaje — Alan Ladd, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck, Douglas Fairbanks, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Stewart Granger, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, James Mason, Basil Rathbone, Jack Elam, Lee Marvin, John Carradine, Walter Brennan, Louis Jourdan, Anthony Quinn, Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, Charles Laughton, Gene Tierney, Arlene Dahl, Yvonne de Carlo, Virginia Mayo, John Wayne, Joel McCrea, Rhonda Fleming, Janet Leigh, Debra Paget, Royal Dano, Eleanor Parker, John Payne, Ray Milland, Deborah Kerr, Jane Greer, Jean Peters, Cornell Wilde, Jane Russell, Eva Bartok, Rita Gam, Katy Jurado, Ava Gardner, Dana Andrews, Glenn Ford, Terry Moore, Robert Ryan, William Holden, Robert Taylor, Rock Hudson, Cyd Charisse, Tony Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, Ann Blyth, Alan Hale, etc.—. Por lo que el esplendor polícromo de Amazonas negras, Scaramouche, El pirata Barbanegra, Moonfleet, El Cisne Negro o Rumbo a Java —o el contraste de luces y sombras de sus predecesores en blanco y negro— no es sino el estilo plástico más adecuado a los relatos románticos o postrománticos que sirven de base a la mayor parte de estas películas.

EL SECRETO DE LAS IMÁGENES

El cine es el más poderoso vehículo de la poesía, el medio más real de dar forma a lo irreal.

Jean Epstein

Durante los años 20, un grupo de directores y teóricos franceses, conocidos como "la primera vanguardia" —Louis Delluc, Jean Epstein, Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier—, localizaron el tan famoso y buscado —pero nunca encontrado— "específico cinematográfico" en el concepto de fotogenia, concepto que nunca quedó muy claro y que, años después, pasó a designar un atributo que debían poseer los rostros de las actrices. Finalmente, la palabra cayó en desuso. Sin embargo, creo que debería ser readmitida en el vocabulario crítico para designar una virtud que puede tener la imagen cinematográfica y que está a punto de olvidarse, lo que significaría para el cine la pérdida de uno de sus recursos expresivos más complejos y poderosos, de un recurso que, además, no pertenece a ningún otro arte narrativo y que ni siquiera las artes plásticas pueden alcanzar en tan alto grado.

Desde que —con Méliés, Porter, Feuillade y Griffith— el cine dejó de limitarse a reproducir fotográficamente el movimiento para empezar a narrar historias, el objetivo de la cámara perdió su neutralidad y su inocencia. El rodaje en estudios, el maquillaje de los actores, la introducción de los diferentes tipos de planos y de su montaje, etc., dieron lugar al empleo de lentes y filtros diversos, a la colocación de focos, a la selección cuidadosa de los encuadres y a todo tipo de trucajes ópticos. Desde el momento en que la luz dejó de considerarse como un dato inmutable y autónomo, y empezó a ser utilizada como un recurso más a disposición de los directores, nació el arte de la fotografía cinematográfica. Más aún que los precursores mencionados, los cineastas alemanes que suelen calificarse como "expresionistas" y los franceses conocidos como "impresionistas" reivindicaron el cine como un arte y consideraron no sólo lícita, sino imprescindible, la intervención —a veces deformadora— del director en la "realidad" que se iba a filmar y el proceso de estilización de dicha "realidad" necesario para hacer una película. Se aprendió intuitivamente, por experiencia práctica, el efecto psicológico de los diferentes grados de luminosidad de las imágenes, el poder de sugestión de las sombras, las intenciones o el misterio que la luz y su distribución atribuyen a los rostros, etc. Durante los últimos años del cine mudo y la primera década del sonoro, al influjo germánico presente en directores como Stroheim o Sternberg se sumó el impacto de las sucesivas llegadas a Hollywood de una serie de importantes realizadores europeos: Sjöström, Stiller, Lubitsch, Murnau, Curtiz, Ulmer, Dieterle, Lang, etc., seguidos más tarde por Preminger, Sirk , Wilder, Tourneur, Ophüls, Renoir, Siodmak, Hitchcock, Brahm, De Toth, Laughton, etc., y numerosos directores de fotografía — Freund, Maté, Vorkapich, Perinal, Planck, Planer, Ruttenberg, Kaufman, Shuftan, etc.—, que contribuyeron a crear un estilo visual que unía la expresividad visual del cine mudo alemán con la objetividad técnica característica del cine clásico americano. Este estilo se desarrolló, especialmente, en cuatro géneros: el terrorífico y el "negro" (sobre todo en blanco y negro), por un lado, y el melodrama y el de aventuras (sobre todo en color), por otro. El tipo de organización visual de cada plano que fue madurando durante los años 30 y 40 empezó a hacerse esporádico con la llegada del cinemascope y la generalización del color y, a partir de los años 60, el empleo abusivo del "zoom" y del teleobjetivo, la influencia de Lelouch —virados, flous— y del montaje a lo Lester, la producción de película virgen ultrasensible y la práctica desaparición del cine en blanco y negro son hechos que, unidos a los crecientes costes de producción y a la sustitución de los viejos directores y fotógrafos por técnicos formados en la televisión, han provocado la paulatina y casi total decadencia de la cinematography o fotografía de cine como el arte de servirse de la luz. Actualmente, el 99 por ciento de las películas están correcta y uniformemente fotografiadas en color, y los directores de fotografía no son más que técnicos eficientes que, generalmente sin que el director se entere de lo que hace ni le dé instrucciones concretas al respecto, calculan la apertura de diafragma y el objetivo preciso para conseguir un mínimo de calidad, claridad y fidelidad cromática, sin que la iluminación y el color sirvan para expresar sutilmente parte del sentido de cada escena.

Pues bien, estos géneros "menores" —el melodrama y el "aventurero"— han sido el último reducto de la experimentación visual dentro del cine americano, hasta que, finalmente, han acabado por desaparecer como géneros, dentro del proceso de desintegración industrial y artística que viene padeciendo el cine desde 1960. Hoy las muestras de auténtica visualización y estilización, las películas con fotogenia, constituyen auténticas excepciones, más frecuentes en Europa —las primeras películas de Godard, Franju, Resnais, El espíritu de la colmena de Erice— que en América. Gracias a esta dinámica interna —no sólo plástica, puesto que también contribuían a ella la dirección de actores, el uso del decorado y, sobre todo, la planificación—, los cineastas americanos del auténtico talento fueron capaces de convertir en obras personales y relevantes las historias más absurdas y más opuestas o ajenas a su visión del mundo. Por eso un "encargo" como Moonfleet puede ser considerado la obra maestra de un director tan genial y de tan larga carrera como Fritz Lang; por eso La mujer pirata y El halcón y la flecha no son divertidas e infantiles peripecias sin sentido, sino exponentes admirables del estilo y de las preocupaciones de Jacques Tourneur; por eso El signo del Zorro supera a otras obras, más ambiciosas y explícitas, de Rouben Mamoulian; por eso cualquier serie B de la Republic, dirigida por artesanos tan poco distinguidos como L.R. Foster o Witney supera en elaboración y expresividad visual a las grandes producciones de lujo de la Metro; por eso no debe extrañarnos encontrar entre el equipo técnico de Amazonas negras de Weis a Gene Aleen, uno de los colaboradores básicos de George Cukor, ni que numerosas películas de este género hayan recibido el Oscar a la mejor fotografía o hayan estado a punto de conseguirlo. No cabe duda de que una ensenada al anochecer, una tormenta en alta mar, una isla deshabitada en medio del Pacífico, un oasis o un desierto o la intrincada vegetación tropical de una jungla "de estudio", o una guarida de contrabandistas, un burdel, un bar portuario o un velero constituyen "motivos" visuales llenos de sugerencias y de atractivo, pero hay que tener en cuenta que no basta con mostrar semejantes escenarios para lograr una película de piratas o de legionarios del desierto digna de tal nombre, sino que es preciso organizar esas imágenes, esos "iconos", y estructurarlos dramáticamente en una narración; tarea que, como demuestran las torpes tentativas de algunos funcionarios del cine italiano perpetradas en los años 60 y 70, no está al alcance de cualquiera.

NECESIDADES DEL MITO

La desmitificación a ultranza trae un riesgo: el vacío, lo inerte. Era aquel hombre que decía que una mujer era pelo, brazos, cara, aparato respiratorio, circulatorio y digestivo, órgano sexual y piernas. Evidentemente había desmitificado. Su definición era analíticamente correcta. ¿Es suficiente lo correcto? La disección exige la muerte. ¿Debe ser el cine (y por consecuencia la crítica de cine) un taller de taxidermia? ¿Se debe suprimir el verbo para que haya calificativo? Es indudablemente posible una crítica de la vida sin disecarla, sin prescindir de los elementos motores.

Manolo Marinero (4).

Los mitos no preexisten al hombre, no se encuentran en la naturaleza. Un mito es una creación —o una creencia— de los hombres y es, por tanto, una aportación al mundo, a la vida y a la historia. Pero no cualquier idea, personaje, relato o hipótesis sobre lo desconocido es un mito. No basta con que se le ocurra a alguien, ni con que alcance un cierto grado de difusión. Es preciso que llegue a ser conocido y aceptado por la mayoría, que corresponda a un estado de opinión o a una época, que forme parte —de algún modo— del inconsciente colectivo de una sociedad o de una civilización. Si se tiene consciencia de que un mito es un mito, y no una realidad, una verdad científica o un hecho histórico, el mito supone un enriquecimiento del mundo. En ese sentido, un mito no tiene nada de despreciable, y puede compararse a las grandes creaciones artísticas —que suelen convertirse en mitos: ¿no lo son Romeo y Julieta, Otelo, Hamlet, Don Quijote, Don Juan Tenorio, Edipo, Fausto, Jekyll y Hyde o Moby Dick, hasta tal punto que se dan por sabidos incluso cuando se desconocen las obras que les dieron forma? —. Por eso, no parece necesario, ni oportuno, ni conveniente intentar —vanamente— destruirlos. Hay también mitos menores, narraciones amenas y distraídas, llenas de sabor y de sabiduría. Entre ellos pueden contarse muchas películas, cuyas imágenes tienen un mayor poder de persistencia que las palabras, y que tampoco vale la pena tratar de desmitificar.

Miguel Marías

(1) L'Essai Anarchiste des "Fréres de la Cote". Fondo de Cultura Económica.

(2) Declaraciones de Richard Fleischer sobre Los vikingos, en Film Ideal n. 139.

(3) Comentarios de Raoul Walsh a Los gavilanes del Estrecho, en Cahiers du Cinéma n. 154.

(4) Las joyas del opar, en Film Ideal n. 193.

Dirigido por… nº19, enero 1975

#miguel marías #dirigido por

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creativinn · 4 years

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WAMA goes virtual with their first online art exhibition | The Ararat Advertiser | Ararat, VIC

community, art, exhibition, virtual, wildlife, WAMA

WAMA has launched their first online exhibition, Nature Nurturing Art, which features local artists who are inspired by the natural world. Exhibition curator Merle Hathaway said she was intrigued by artists who dedicate years to exploring the natural environment. "Nature both inspires and nurtures these artists. A painter may focus on the shimmer of light on water. A photographer uncomfortably waits for hours to capture 'that shot' of a bird in flight ... " she said. READ MORE: "This exhibition peeps into the worlds of artists interpreting our unique Australian environment. "I am delighted to organise the very first online exhibition for WAMA, to bring awareness to this important genre of nature-inspired art and to the wonderful WAMA Project." The exhibition features 30 artists from across Australia and has strong representation from Grampians and Wimmera regions including Steve Morvell, Chris Nicholls, John Tiddy and Peter Voice to name a few. From Stawell, Peter Voice showcases multimedia paintings and John Tiddy exhibits masterful bird photography. Trevor Smith, former curator of Horsham Art Gallery, contributes a whimsical crocheted 'Superb Fairy Wren'. The exhibition also includes major Australian artists such as John Wolseley, Janet Laurence, Jennifer Marshall, Dianne Emery, Heather Shimmen, Noel Hart and Carmel Wallace. The artwork ranges from botanical art to abstraction, painting, sculpture and jewellery. Some artists are deeply influenced by remote Australian and indigenous cultures, while others take inspiration from their local environment. WAMA's Nature Nurturing Art online art exhibition is available for viewing from September 1 to October 16 at www.wama.net.au/art-exhibition. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch - [email protected]. While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox from The Ararat Advertiser. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Ararat shire, sign up here. If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Ararat Advertiser, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ararat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great town.

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September 1 2020 - 11:00AM

WAMA goes virtual with their first online art exhibition

WAMA has launched their first online exhibition, Nature Nurturing Art, which features local artists who are inspired by the natural world.

Exhibition curator Merle Hathaway said she was intrigued by artists who dedicate years to exploring the natural environment.

"Nature both inspires and nurtures these artists. A painter may focus on the shimmer of light on water. A photographer uncomfortably waits for hours to capture 'that shot' of a bird in flight ... " she said.

"This exhibition peeps into the worlds of artists interpreting our unique Australian environment.

"I am delighted to organise the very first online exhibition for WAMA, to bring awareness to this important genre of nature-inspired art and to the wonderful WAMA Project."

WILDLIFE ART: John Tiddy's photograph 'Night Hunter'. Picture: JOHN TIDDY

The exhibition features 30 artists from across Australia and has strong representation from Grampians and Wimmera regions including Steve Morvell, Chris Nicholls, John Tiddy and Peter Voice to name a few.

From Stawell, Peter Voice showcases multimedia paintings and John Tiddy exhibits masterful bird photography. Trevor Smith, former curator of Horsham Art Gallery, contributes a whimsical crocheted 'Superb Fairy Wren'.

The exhibition also includes major Australian artists such as John Wolseley, Janet Laurence, Jennifer Marshall, Dianne Emery, Heather Shimmen, Noel Hart and Carmel Wallace.

The artwork ranges from botanical art to abstraction, painting, sculpture and jewellery. Some artists are deeply influenced by remote Australian and indigenous cultures, while others take inspiration from their local environment.

WAMA's Nature Nurturing Art online art exhibition is available for viewing from September 1 to October 16 at www.wama.net.au/art-exhibition.

Do you have a story to share? Get in touch - [email protected].

While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox from The Ararat Advertiser. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Ararat shire, sign up here.

If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Ararat Advertiser, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ararat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great town.

This content was originally published here.

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cappricekitchen · 4 years

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I’m so excited to see this sweet wren and to know I’ll soon be hearing little chirps. Although, she probably could not have chosen a worse spot to build a nest as it’s in a flower pot by my front door. It’s pretty cool to watch her from my office window as I work from home. Stay tuned ... 🐣 - - - - #carolinawren #expecting #anydaynow #chirpchirp #houseguest #spring #goodfridayvibes #cappriceismyrealtor (at Capprice Kitchen, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chaplin Williams Realty) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-z4ZnFHpWS/?igshid=oqhrkyamnqgz

#carolinawren #expecting #anydaynow #chirpchirp #houseguest #spring #goodfridayvibes #cappriceismyrealtor

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thegreatestofheck · 6 years

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Of All Places

Fandom: Harry Potter ; Marauders Era

Pairings: Remus x OC (Vera Socartes)

Word Count: 7544

Warnings: There’s kissing, I guess. And some angst maybe? And death. Very many death.

Vera Socrates sat as far away from the front of the class as she could. Even though the only person in the room was the teacher, Professor Shacklebolt, Vera felt her face redden. Saturday tutoring was new for Vera. Before 16th year DADA, Vera had been top of her classes (aside from Severus Snape in Potions, Lily Evans in Transfiguration, and Remus Lupin in Defense Against the Dark Arts). And now, here she was, bottom of the bottom, having to spend her Saturday nights away from her friends in this dusty classroom studying because she had a T. A T. If her parents knew…

As a few others started filing into the room, she sunk deeper into her chair. Three Gryffindors sauntered in as if being here was the best thing that could have happened to them. A pair of Hufflepuffs scurried in, books in hand. One or two Ravenclaws walked in, smiles on their faces. Vera assumed they were just here because they were bored of the library. Minutes passed. Not a single Slytherin walked through that door. None but her. Vera groaned and buried her face in her hands. Professor Shacklebolt turned around and smiled at the 8 kids in his class.

“I’m glad you’re all here,” he said. “I know it can be embarrassing to accept that you need help-” (Vera could have sworn he looked straight at her when he said this) “but just being here means you want to get better. There’s room in the front, Miss Socartess, can you please come forward?”

Vera scooped up her supplies and scurried down to the front row of seats, still as far from the other students as she could muster. One of the Gryffindor girls turned to the others and whispered, flipping her hair over her shoulder and smirked at Vera. She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help the squeeze of pain in her chest. She always thought the disputes between Gryffindors and Slytherin were petty, but she sometimes found it very hard to like Gryffindors, especially the ones that made every snide remark they could to degrad Vera and her friends. Slytherins weren’t perfect by any means (and many of them were kind of awful), but not all of them were the same.

Professor Shacklebolt nodded at her and she flashed a smile back, just to get him to look away from her. She pushed her hair behind her ear and kept her eyes on her paper.

“Most of you coming here probably thought that I would be the one teaching you, but as that doesn’t seem to be working in regular classes, I thought it would be best to bring in students to help.”

Everything that happened within the walls of Hogwarts castle had to be dramatic, so as soon as Professor Shacklebolt said this, a line of students filled out of his classroom. Vera felt her face redden again and slid further into her seat. There were two students from each house standing in line, last years’ Prefects. From her house were Evangeline Ambrosia and Barron Magnus. She was never friends with them, but she knew them. From Ravenclaw was her friend Tessa Wren and her brother, John. The Hufflepuff kids Vera only knew through Tessa, who were Leilani Zahara and Hadley Sawyer. And, of course, the Gryffindor Prefects were Lily Evans and Remus Lupin. She knew Evans from Slugclub, but Lupin she knew only because of his infamous band of best friends: the Marauders. Seeing them all standing up there, perfect as Prefects, made Vera grumble in her seat.

“I have paired each of you up with one of these 8 students. They will be helping you as much as they can. I will be here for questions. Being here is giving all of you extra credit, so I would suggest staying the full time. The pairings go thus….” Vera kept her head down as she listened to the Professor rattle off names. After Tessa, John, and Leilani were paired with three other students, all hope left Vera’s heart. She would have felt much better with one of them as her tutor. She looked up to see who was left, only to see the two remaining Gryffindor girls making eyes at Remus Lupin, who was grinning at them. Vera rolled her eyes. Everyone thought of Sirius Black as the player of Gryffindor house, but Vera had heard many a girl crying because of Remus Lupin. He wasn’t as perfect as everyone seemed to think he was.

Imagine her dismay when Professor Shacklebolt called her name and his in a pair.

If Vera slid any further down her chair, she would no longer be sitting.

Remus Lupin walked over to her with a kindly smile, nothing like the grin he had been giving the other girls. He slid into the seat next to her and offered his hand.

“I’m Remus Lupin.”

She looked at him from the side of her eyes.

“Socrates.”

“Do you have a first name, Socrates?”

“Are you here to be my friend or teach me Defense Against the Dark Arts?” Her response came out snappier than she meant it too, but she was tired and embarrassed and Remus Lupin was a lot cuter up close than she imagined. As he opened his book with a smile and a shrug, Vera vowed to hate him for as long as he was teaching her. That didn’t last the night.

He was kind to her, and patient. He wouldn’t spoon feed her like she wanted him too, but Vera guessed that was a good thing. He didn’t make her feel dumb or slow for not knowing the answer to questions. Instead, he helped her, told her what pages to look through and where to find certain things. He told her to calm down when she mumbled angrily at herself, and reassured her when she called herself stupid.

“Hey, Socrates, I know you’re smart. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in Slugclub with me. Maybe DADA isn’t your subject, but I’ve heard all about your skills in Charms and History of Magic. You’re not stupid. Just focus.”

Vera twirled a piece of her hair around her finger, hoping to cover her once again red face.

When the two hours of tutoring had ended and Remus began to put his stuff away, Vera lifted her head for the first time since he sat next to her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. He looked back at her.

“I’ll see you next Saturday, Socrates.”

“So, how was it?” Nakotah Catesby asked Vera as the Slytherin girl fell face first into her bed. Vera groaned in response. “That good?”

Vera pushed herself up and onto her back.

“He gave us tutors. Our own personal tutors,” Vera told her best friend. “And I was the only Slytherin there, like I thought I would be. I mean besides from Ambrosia and Magnus, but they were there as tutors.”

“So, who was your tutor?” Nakotah asked, putting her book down on her nightstand. Vera groaned and put her hands over her face. “Who was it?”

“Lupin,” Vera said finally. Nakotah sat upright.

“Lupin? As in Remus Lupin? As in 6th year, Gryffindor, Marauder, Remus Lupin?”

“Yes! That one! That Remus Lupin.” Vera grabbed a pillow and pushed it against her face.

“Did you learn much?” Nakotah asked, hoping to get Vera to think about something else.

“Yes. He’s actually a very good teacher. And he’s very kind. He wasn’t mean about a Slytherin being as stupid as me at all.”

“Vee, you’re not stupid.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Before any further conversation could take place, the other three girls Nakotah and Vera shared a dorm with walked in, giggling about something or another. Twins Sylvia and Oliver Hathaway and their long time best friend Victoria Merriweather. Vera liked them well enough. They weren’t mean, but they were often tipsy from something or another which meant that their filters were rather tarnished.

“Heard you were detention, Socrates,” Sylvia said, sitting on the end of Vera’s bed.

“It wasn’t detention, Syl,” Victoria refuted, sitting beside her best friend. “It was tutoring.”

“That isn’t much better,” Olivia added. “Being a Slytherin in tutoring is pretty taboo around here.”

Vera looked at Nakotah with the kind of face that said “I told you so”.

“Oh stop it, Livy,” Victoria snapped, standing from the bed and storming across the room. “Not everyone is perfect.”

Victoria hadn’t always been the brightest girl on the block. She was slow, but you couldn’t have met a more sympathetic person. Vera felt bad suddenly for complaining about tutoring in one class when Victoria had been to tutoring in at least four in the last year. In her 5th year, she was bullied pretty badly so the girls in the dorm decided to help her out instead.

“I’m sorry, Tori,” Olivia mewled, running across the room and hugging her best friend. Sylvia ran after them until the three girls were hugging and crying and soon snoring. Nakotah glanced over to Vera.

“What just happened?” She asked quietly. Vera shrugged.

“I know there was a party going on downstairs when I got back. They probably drank too much.”

Nakotah shrugged.

“Well, anyway. Night, Vee. See you tomorrow.”

“Night, Nako.”

Nakotah clapped her hands and the candles in the room went out, leaving Vera in complete darkness. She undressed quietly and slid under her warm covers, but she couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Too many thoughts were running through her head, too many thoughts to even think. Eventually, she managed to close her eyes and drift away, only to dream about duels and spells and one, scarred Gryffindor boy.

It was a strange thing how Remus Lupin and Vera Socrates became friends. Saturday after Saturday, the unlikely pair spent two hours together, learning and teaching, teaching and learning, until Remus could no longer simply teach her stuff from the book. On the fourth month of teaching, Remus looked at her, stopping in the middle of his sentence.

“What? What’s wrong?” She asked him. A smile broke out on his face. Not one of his polite ‘I’m teaching you Defense Against the Dark Arts so I have to be kind to you’ smile, but a real smile. Surprisingly, his smile made her smile.

“What is it?” She asked again.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” He asked her. The question took her aback and her smile vanished.

“Pardon?”

“I mean, there’s not much more book work I can do with you. We need to start actual spells. We need to do some dueling and some wand movement. So, why don’t we sneak out of here, find ourselves an empty classroom, and I can teach you something you can actually use.”

Vera scowled.

“I’m not going to pretend that wasn’t slightly sexual, but I’m still going to agree.”

His grin widened.

“Good.”

Almost silently, the two put their stuff away. As soon as Shacklebolt looked away, Vera and Remus stood up and shuffled out of their classroom. Vera caught the eye of one of the Gryffindor girls who she noticed was constantly flirting with Remus. The girl gave her a mean look, but Vera simply grinned and winked.

Remus and Vera ran down the halls until they came upon an empty classroom. As they entered, butterflies began to erupt in Vera’s stomach. She had never been alone with Remus before. It was a new feeling, a strange feeling that she didn’t understand.

“You think this room’s big enough?” Remus asked, oblivious to Vera’s sudden change in mood.

“Yeah, probably,” she replied. He turned to her with the smile she had seen on him before pulling one of his famous pranks.

“Let’s get started then.”

The night carried on with Remus standing all too close for Vera to feel comfortable. He put his hand over hers to make sure she was gripping her wand correctly and moved her hips to correct her stance and the fact that she couldn’t properly cast a nonverbal spell was completely frustrating. All this lead to a mere 30 minutes of teaching before Vera dropped her arm.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said. “I need to go to bed.”

Before Remus could protest or ask her if she needed anything, she grabbed her bags and rushed out of the room. Remus stood there, his own wand still in his hand, wondering what on Earth he had done wrong.

Vera just wanted to cry and she wasn’t sure why. She was angry with herself for letting her emotions get so out of hand. She had the sinking feeling for weeks now that she was beginning to like the boy more than she should have, which she thought was dumb since they weren’t even friends. Were they friends? The only times they spoke outside of tutoring was during double period Charms and sometimes in the hallways, but both those times were simple “Hi! How are you?”. How could she like a boy she didn’t even know?

When she got back to the dungeons, she rushed through the Common Room, past Nakotah and her friends, and ran straight for her dorm room. Luckily, the twins and Victoria weren’t around so Vera could just throw her stuff onto the ground and pace. Unluckily for her, Nakotah followed her up to her room.

“Vee, what’s wrong? You’re back so early. Did something happen?”

Nakotah knew Vera well enough to know that she only paced when she was upset.

“How did you know you liked Silas?”

Silas was Nakotah’s long time boyfriend (and by long time, I mean to say, since the beginning of 5th year). Taken aback by this question, Nakotah scowled.

“Well, I guess I just knew. I got excited when he was around. I felt more self conscious, but that wasn’t his fault, really. I wanted to show him I was better than he thought I was, smarter, funnier, prettier. That I was enough for him. My stomach would tighten and I couldn’t always breathe right. I would pray we’d get paired up for assignments but at the same time I would curse every time he got near me. I don’t really know when or how I knew I liked him, I just did. Now, will you please tell me what’s wrong?” As Nakotah spoke, Vera began to pace faster, chewing on her nails, another old habit that had reappeared. As if a she had run into a brick wall, Nakotah finally understood. “Merlin’s Beard, you’re crushing on Lupin, aren’t you?”

Vera froze and stared at Nakotah like a house gnome caught in a corner.

“Merlin’s Beard,” she breathed. “I’m crushing on Remus Lupin.”

She fell onto her bed and put her head in her hands.

“How do I make it go away?”

Nakotah, smiling wider than any best friend could, sat beside her friend and put an arm around her.

“You don’t, love. You ride it out. Whatever happens happens. Who knows, maybe he’s crushing on you too.”

Even though the thought made the terrified girl smile, it may not have been the best thing to say.

The next day, a Sunday, where there were no classes and all kids were free to do as they pleased, Vera thought she might go looking for Remus to apologize for last night’s behavior. She knew he would be in the library. She knew he had a study group on Sunday’s that she had never gotten around to going to. She found the group of students (none of them Slytherin, per usual). She got glares from almost everyone besides Lily Evans who used to be best friends with a Slytherin herself, until they had a falling out the previous year. Lily smiled.

“Would you like to join us?” She asked kindly.

“I was actually looking for Lupin. Do you know where he could be?”

“He just went to look for a book with Tessa Wren. They went that way,” Lily told her. Vera managed a smile under the hard gaze of the other students.

“Thank you,” she said and walked off in the direction Lily pointed. Vera looked through the rows and rows of bookshelves for her two friends until she finally found them and then she wished she’d stayed in bed.

It would have been one thing to find her crush kissing some random girl in between two bookshelves, but it was a completely different thing entirely to see that very same crush kissing one of your friends. Out of pure shock, Vera dropped her books on the floor, mouth agape and eyes wide. The thundering sound of books caused the couple to turn towards her quickly and other students in the library to glare. Vera dropped to her knees to pick the books up.

“Sorry….just turned the corner too sharp...hit the table...dropped my books,” she mumbled as the shoveled the books into her arms, only to drop them again.

“Let me help you.” Remus knelt in front of her to help her pick the books off the floor. She tried to keep her head down and look away from him, but it was impossible when he handed her the books. She tried to say thank you, but he was standing so close and she could see a smear of Tessa’s lipstick still on his upper lip. Instead, she just smiled. It was a fake smile, naturally, to cover up the fact that she wanted to cry.

“Are you going to join us for revision?” he asked her, with a shining smile. She shook her head.

“No, I was, uh, looking for a book… for Tori. I’m helping her with Charms today.” Of course, Remus wouldn’t know who Tori was so he wouldn’t know that Tori, Syliva, and Olivia were sneaking out to Hogsmeade. He nodded.

“Do you need any help finding it? The library can be a bit confusing sometimes.”

Vera shook her head faster than she should have. She looked over to the bookshelf she was standing next to and grabbed the first book that had anything to do with Charms. She showed it to him and smiled.

“Here it is.” She laughed uneasily. “Anyway. I’ll...I’ll go and leave you two to…” She didn’t finished her sentence. She turned around and hustled away. As soon as she was out of their line of sight, she put the book down and began to run. She ran past the study group.

“Vera?” Lily called after her as she ran, but didn’t make a move to stand.

She ran out of the library.

“No running,” Madam Pince said in a monotone voice, not looking up from her book.

She ran past the Dining Hall, where Nakotah probably was.

She ran past the dungeons.

She ran all the way out to the edge of the Forbidden Forest before she finally stopped and finally realized that she was crying.

‘Bloody hell,’ she thought ‘What’s wrong with you, Vera?’

She turned away from the dark forest ahead of her and began to walk towards the Black Lake. It was unfortunate that that’s where she ran into the other 3/4ths of the Marauders. They hadn’t paid her much attention in the past 5 and a half years, but today they seemed especially antsy to pick on a Slytherin.

“Aren’t you that Slytherin in tutoring?” James Potter asked, jogging up to walk beside her.

“I think she is, Prongs,” the black haired Sirius Black replied for her, walked up her other side. Peter Pettigrew laughed from behind.

Vera rolled her eyes, did not engage, and walked on.

“Why are your eyes so red, Slytherin?” Potter asked.

“It’s probably because of drugs,” Black told him, answering for her once again. “All Slytherins do drugs.”

Hasty Generalization, she thought to herself. If any one of these boys took a simply english class they’d know that

“No, I don’t think it’s that,” Potter sneered and leaned in close to her face. “I think she was crying.”

Anger reared up inside her chest at the comment. Vera shoved Potter away from her with every ounce of her strength. Black’s wand was up and pointed at her in a second, Pettigrew running to Potter’s side. Vera glared down Black’s wand.

“You’ll regret that,” he snapped at her. She said nothing and just stared. She was going to lose this fight, no matter what she did. She didn’t want to look like a fool taking out her wand and not being able to perform any of the proper spells, but she didn’t want to look like the idiot who got hexed so she didn’t ruin her pride. So, with shaking hands, she made her decision. She reached for her wand and slowly lifted it to match Black’s. By that point, Potter and Pettigrew and risen and were also pointing their wands at her. This wasn’t a fair fight, but she wasn’t about to complain about it. She also wouldn’t be the first to fire. That would land her in detention for months on end. As long as she was defending herself…

Potter fired first with a nonverbal spell that sent her flying backwards. She landed on the ground and the air was sucked from her lungs. Gripping her wand tightly, she stood and attempted the Expelliarmus spell, but she couldn’t do it without her voice, and that wasn’t going to happen with her breath gone from the land. But she wasn’t about to give up. There was one spell and one spell only that Vera was able to accomplish nonverbally, and that was the only spell she needed.

Black sent a spell her way and with a flick of her wand, she blocked it with a brief, blue shield of energy that sent it straight back at him. The spell dropped him to his butt. This continued on for a few more moments before Vera was quick enough and she was sent flying backwards once again. This time, as she started to stand, a voice shouted over the almost silent chaos.

“That’s enough!”

None other than Remus Lupin came strutting down the hill towards the fighting, his face pinched with anger like Vera had never seen before.

“Moony!” Potter called out. “You’re finally here.”

Vera stood, rubbing her arm as she raised her wand at them again.

“Four against one, I can take it,” she growled. She believed that Remus would stop and stand with his friends, however, he walked straight past them, glaring at them as he passed.

“Moony!” Black called. “What are you doing?”

Remus ignored them and continued walking towards Vera. She narrowed her eyes at him as he approached.

“What happened here?” He asked her in a low voice. Her grief had turned to anger, and she was ready to take it out on anyone in her vacinity, even him.

“None of your business,” she snapped.

“Hey,” he replied with equal firmness, “I’m just trying to help.”

“Well I don’t bloody well need it.” She pushed past him, holding her arm, and walked straight through the line of boys and back towards the castle.

She saw nothing of Remus Lupin the rest of the week and wanted nothing more than to never go to tutoring again. She avoided the library and all his classes. She ignored him while he tried to talk to her during double Charms. She walked straight ahead when he said hi to her in the corridors.

When Saturday came, Vera recruited Nakotah to go with her to the very same empty classroom she was at the week before to help her practice spells.

“You’re doing great, Vee, but you’re not concentrating hard enough,” Nakotah told her at the fifth failed attempt to disarm her.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Vera growled.

“Don’t get irritated with me, Vera. I’m here to help you. You’ve been acting strange all week. What’s wrong?”

Vera scowled and shook her head.

“Nothing. Let’s continue.”

She tried the spell again, but her concentration was broken by the sound of the classroom door opening. At first, both girls thought it was a teacher, but it was just a boy. The very last boy Vera wanted to see. When Remus saw her, he smiled.

“Of all places, I didn’t really think I’d find you back in here,” he told her. Nakotah pursed her lips and looked towards Vera. From the glare on her face and the curl of her hands, Nakotah could suddenly tell why Vera had been acting so strangely.

“I just remembered that I have...a thing,” Nakotah said, grabbing her sweater off a desk. “And I should get back to doing that thing.” She started for the door.

“If you take another step, I will hex you,” Vera said, not taking her narrowed eyes off of Lupin. Nakotah smiled.

“We both know that won’t happen without his help. Bye, have fun.” Nakotah slipped behind Remus and out the door, shutting it behind her. Remus stood in front of Vera like an awkward date to the ball.

“So-” he took half a step towards her before she lifted her wand.

“Don’t.” Her voice alone was a warning.

“Look, I’m sorry for what my friends did to you. It wasn’t right and I told them off. James got an ear full from Lily. I don’t think they’ll do anything of the sort ever again. I’ve tried to get them to apologize, but-” He took another step and Vera’s glare deepened. “We were friends, right? Just last week. What happened?”

Vera lowered her wand. She didn’t really know what happened. She was overreacting. Definitely overreacting. She felt like an idiot all of the sudden, standing alone with him in a room with nowhere to hide and no way to avoid him, she left like a bloody idiot. So she started to laugh. She sat herself in a chair and let herself laugh for a few seconds before answering him.

“I’m an idiot, Remus Lupin, that’s what happened. I’m a hormonal teenager with too many feelings.” She sighed. “Let’s start over.” She stood and walked towards him slowly. “I’m failing Defense Against the Dark Arts and I need a tutor. Will you help me?”

And somehow, for all her crazy, Remus Lupin smiled and nodded.

“Sure, but only if you tell me your name.”

“It’s Vera. But you already knew that.”

His grin widened.

To say that their friendship was healed would be a little bit of an understatement. They spent the rest of that night together. Vera saw Tessa with her brother’s best friend the following Monday. Peter Pettigrew actually apologized for his part in the showdown that gave Vera the biggest bruise of her life. Saturday night’s became an all day thing, and then an all weekend thing, and then an everyday thing, until Remus and Vera were spending more time with each other than their own best friends. There were days, every month, that Remus would be absent from everything including class and their tutor sessions. However, Remus’ so called ‘furry little problem’ isn’t the center of the story I am here to tell. The story I am here to tell, however, does not have a happy ending like most others you will read. But let’s not get into that yet.

April was Vera’s favorite month. It rained the most in April and Vera loved the rain. Yet, even the month and the rain could not break the bad mood Vera was in. Months and months of daily practicing and Vera still was unable to produce most nonverbal spells, which were vital to that years’ exams. Remus sensed her frustration from the scowl on her face and the grip on her wand. When she started to chew on her nails, he knew she was really agitated.

“Let’s take a break,” he said.

“No, we need to keep practicing,” she responded, keeping her wand pointed at him.

“We’ve been at it for hours. You need rest.”

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Remus put his wand down and crossed his arms.

“Why do you need this so badly?” He asked her. “Why is this so important to you?”

Maybe because it means I get to spend every day with you. Because if I succeed, I can show you that I am smarter and better than you think I am. That I’m good enough for you.

“My parents would kill me if I got a T on my DADA exam.”

“You won’t get a T on your DADA exam at this rate. At worst, it’ll be an A, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Vera lowered her wand.

“I get that in Gryffindor house, they don’t cherish smarts as much as they do Quidditch, but if you’re in Slytherin and you’re not perfect at everything, you’re not good enough to do anything. Do you know how many times I’ve been laughed at for being in tutoring? And not just by Slytherins? People in this school think that just because I wear green and silver that I think I’m better than them so they can sneer at me whatever chance they get when I fail. So yeah, after all these months of practice I should be better than I am. I’m not getting any better. And that’s on me. And that’s what I have to be ashamed of,” she said to him. She was surprised at how little her eyes stung. She would have thought she would have cried if she told anyone, but she didn’t, which saved her quite the bit of embarrassment.

“Vera, c’mon,” Remus said, closing the distance between them and standing in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t have to live up to anyone’s standards. I like you just the way you are and if people think that getting an A on a DADA exam that’s meant to really test us all is bad, then you really don’t need to listen to their opinions of you because they’re wrong.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my friend.”

“Why do you think I wanted to be your friend? Why do you think I picked you to be my partner for tutoring?”

“You had no choice in that,” she grumbled, looking at the ground.

“Didn’t I?”

She looked up at him with furrowed brows. She didn’t believe him, and he could tell.

“Vera, you’re the girl people write books about! You don’t need all O’s to be that girl. Just be you. That’s enough for me.”

Vera didn’t know what came over her, but she felt a sudden urge that needed to be appeased. She reached forward and put her hands on either side of his face, pulling him down to her level so she could kiss him. Vera had never been kissed before and she had never kissed someone else before, so she didn’t know what she was doing, or really why she was doing it.

But it felt like nothing she had ever done before. It felt like fire and ice through her whole body. It felt like the pieces of an unfinished puzzle falling into place. It felt like a thousand tiny needles stabbing her lips and her hands and her hips where he touched her to pull her in closer. It felt like her heart beating a million times a second. It felt nothing like fireworks as all the novels say. It felt like roaring waves crashing against an empty beach; solitary, beautiful, dangerous.

She only kissed him for a few seconds before she realized what she was doing. She let him go and stepped away, eyes wide. She put her fingers to her tingling lips. Remus just stood there, shock written all over his face. Shame burned on her cheeks, dark enough to show.

“Vera, I-”

Before he could say anything, she pushed past him, trying to flee, but before she got far enough away, he grabbed her wrist and forced her to stop. She looked back at him, fear in her eyes. He was going to scream at her. He was going to hit her. He was going to call her a whore. He was going to tell her he only saw her as a friend.

“I’ve let you walk away from me one too many times,” was all he said. She didn’t know what to do next, but he had already planned his next move. He pulled her back towards him and pressed his lips to hers. It was fire and ice. It was a heart pounding. It was ragged breaths. It was a storm and waves on a beach. His hands were on the small of her back, keeping her close to him. Her hands were in his hair, keeping him level with her. Their hearts pounded in sync.

By the time the door to the classroom slammed open, both were out of breath. They pulled away from one another, his hand still around her waist, and turned towards the intruder.

“I would say I’m surprised, but that would be a lie,” the dark skinned Professor said with a smile and crossed arms.

“Professor Shacklebolt.” Vera’s cheeks were already red with excitement but she felt the feeling change to embarrassment.

“I won’t punish you this time, but if I catch any of this late night snogging again I’ll have to give you separate detention,” he told them.

Without saying a word, the two grabbed their things and left the room, ducking their heads as they passed him. He laughed to himself and shut the door after them.

Hands intertwined, Vera and Remus raced down the corridors back to the Gryffindor Common Room, which was the closest to where they were. They stopped in front of the sleeping Fat Lady. Vera looked up towards Remus with the largest smile. She was going to say something, but he stopped her by cupping her face in his hands and kissing her again. Fire and ice. Waves. Storms. Pounding hearts.

He backed her into the wall and smiled as he kisses her.

“Stay,” he breathed as he pulled away from her.

“You know I can’t.” She was afraid to speak over a whisper, in fear of shattering whatever it was that was happening between them. “I’ll have nowhere to sleep. And it’s against the rules.”

“Damn the rules. We’ll sleep on a couch. We’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t care. Just stay.”

She chewed on the inside her her lip and smiled.

“Okay. I’ll stay.” She stood on her toes and kissed the tip of his nose.

She stayed against the wall as he stood in front of the Fat Lady. She slowly opened her sleepy eyes.

“You’re out late again, Lupin,” she hummed.

“Revision, as usual. I’ve got exams soon,” he lied easily.

“Password.”

“Pig farts.”

The portrait swung open. Remus ushered Vera inside. She stood in awe of the Gryffindor Common Room. It was nothing like the Slytherin dungeons which lay beneath the Black Lake. Of course, there was nothing wrong with the dungeons, but this Common Room just felt so...cozy. Like home.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. He looked down at her.

“Yeah,” he mused with the smallest smile. She turned to him with her own lips upturned.

“So, what do you want to do now?” She asked, though it was completely obvious. He took her hands in his, and leaned down to kiss her yet again. Nothing had felt more right to her, nor to him. He’d kisses dozens of girls and nothing felt quite so perfect. It was obvious to him that Vera wasn’t quite used to kissing, but he didn’t care, he could change that. And to her, there was no other place she would have rather been than here, with him, in the dead of night. He brought his hands to her hair, keeping her as close to him as he could.

And for one moment in our universe’s eternity, there was bliss and there was blithe and there was no coming war. The only storm that raged was inside them and there was only this.

But all moments pass. How I wish I could tell you that these two children could stay innocent forever, but you’ve read the books, you know how it all ends. You know of Voldemort and the first Wizarding War. You know of Lily and James Potter and of their son, Harry. You know of his years at Hogwarts and you know how his life ends and starts again. You know that children don’t stay children forever and that forever can be completely and utterly severed by a single word and a flash of green light.

I would love to tell you that both Remus and Vera survived Voldemort and his reign of terror, but I will not lie to you. There are many things that are not fair in this world and the loss of such power love between them is one.

If you desire to know, read on. If you want to keep your innocence, go back.

Voldemort was on the rise and a band of defiant witches and wizards were pushing back to stop him; the Order of the Phoenix. Vera wasn’t informed of the Order, due to her parents’ involvement with Voldemort before their deaths, but after Nakotah died at the hand of the very same man who put her parents in the grave, Vera was determined to stop him. After a long discussion with Albus Dumbledore, the head of this Order, Remus decided that Vera was no longer to be kept in the dark. She wasn’t angry that he hadn’t told her about the Order because she understood the need for precautions.

It happened on her first job. As you well know, Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn’t Vera’s strongest subject. She passed all her remaining DADA exams with A’s and she was proud, but these were times when that class was the margin between life and death. Remus didn’t go with her, much to his protest, but it was too close to the full moon. She was to go with Lily Evans, Dorcas Meadowes, and Sirius Black. The three were still mourning the loss of their good friend, Marlene McKinnon, so emotions ran high.

They were meant to capture some Death Eaters that were causing all too many disturbances, but the information that was fed to them was false. It was an ambush, meant to kill as many Order members as possible.

When the fighting began and it was clear they were outnumbered, the four stood their ground and didn’t run. They fought tooth and nail, with every ounce of courage and hatred that they had. Anger drove them. Vera didn’t notice how many spells she cast without speaking, how the anger over Nakotah’s death kept her concentration clean. They were winning. They were going to win.

And then he came. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. You-Know-Who. Lord Voldemort. He came in a flurry of robes and a grin. Vera couldn’t believe how young he looked. They fought him to the best of their abilities, but Voldemort was too strong, too powerful. Dorcas went first. She was the first to confront him head on, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“For Marlene!” She screamed as she raised her wand to kill him, but he was faster. The green light hit her square in the chest. She gasped one last breath and fell to the floor, her blank eyes staring straight at Vera.

“No!” Lily and Sirius screamed, but Vera couldn’t make a sound.

“Lily! Vera! Go!” Sirius yelled. The two Disapparated, but shock held Vera where she was. She pulled her gaze away from Dorcas’ still body and towards the man who killed her.

“You’re a monster,” she said, tears falling slowly from her eyes, voice shaking. He sneered. His eyes were a hideous red, stained, she believed, from the blood of the innocent he had spilled.

“You think that I am not willing to kill a fellow Pureblood Slytherin? Is that why you stay?” He asked, circling her like prey. She raised her wand.

“You killed my parents. And you killed my friend. And you’ve killed thousands of innocent people. I stay because I am not afraid of you.” But she was afraid. She was terrified. She didn’t want to die. Just the sight of him made her knees weak. And he knew.

“Then you will die.”

Their duel lasted mere seconds. She shot first and then him. She dodged his killing curse twice. She circled around him, just to get to Dorcas’ body. She broke away from the duel and leaped towards Dorcas’ Apparating just as Voldemort yelled his spell once more.

Back at Headquarters, Lily and Sirius appeared in Dumbledore’s office out of nowhere. The old man did not jump at the popping sounds their arrivals made. However, his fear came when only two returned. Lily was sobbing and Sirius had his arms around her.

“What happened?” Worry and anger crossed the usually level headed man’s face.

“Ambush,” was all Sirius could say, his voice breaking. Remus and James came running into the room seconds later.

“Lily!” James ran to his wife and held her to him, cooing and whispering in her ear.

“Where’s Vera?” Remus asked Sirius. The man looked around, expecting her to be right there beside them.

“She was right behind us,” he said. “She was right there. I swear.”

Remus ran a hand through his long hair.

“You left her there?” He yelled.

“She was right behind us!” Sirius yelled back. A popping sound interrupted further argument. Remus turned to find his girlfriend curled protectively around the body of Dorcas Meadowes. A sigh of relief spread through Remus and he ran to her.

“Vera, it’s okay. You’re back.” He pulled her away from the Dorcas’ body to find her wide eyes staring back at him, but not seeing him. “Vera? Oh, God. Vera!”

“Merlin,” Sirius breathed. Dumbledore ran his hands over his face. Lily sobbed harder.

“Vera, baby, c’mon. Vera! Wake up, just wake up. I’ve got you.” Remus rocked Vera back and forth, shaking her shoulders, unable to stop the onslaught of tears that ran down his cheeks. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe now. Wake up.”

“Mate,” Sirius said, his voice barely above a whisper, “She’s not-”

“Shut up!” Remus screamed. He started to shake her harder. “Vera! Wake up!”

Sirius put a hand on Remus’ shoulder. He knew what this was like. He knew how it felt.

“Remus,” Sirius crouched down next to him, putting his arms around him. “Come here.”

Sobbing now, Remus let go of his now dead girlfriend and held gripped Sirius’ arm as tight as he could. He let out a cry of anguish, alerting the whole of Headquarters that someone was dead. It wasn’t uncommon to hear such sounds. A few heads peeked into the door to see if it was anyone they knew. Alice Longbottom walked in to comfort Lily. Out from the crowd came one Victoria Merriweather, the only other Slytherin in the Order. She looked and saw Dorcas’ body laying beside the one of her old friend. She pushed her way into the room and knelt beside the two.

“Go with peace and love,” she whispered before closing Dorcas’ eyes shut with the tips of her fingers. Remus sobbed to her left and his friend who was holding him and tears of his own running down his face. Looked to her old dorm mate and remembered all the times Vera had been there for her.

“Go with peace and love,” she said again, her voice shaking and her hands trembling. She slowly closed Vera’s eyelids over her dark eyes. Remus looked away, burying his face in his friend’s arm.

“Now she’s at rest,” Tori said to him, but it didn’t stop the crying, or the shaking, or the pain. She stood and left the room, looking back once more at her friend, leaving the others to mourn in solitude.

Skip ahead many, many years later, to 1998. Hogwarts is in shambles. The Dark Lord has risen to power. Harry Potter and his friends are fighting for everything they believe in and so much more. Remus Lupin is fighting alongside his wife. He’s fighting with everything he is to get back home to his son. His son. But no amount of well wishing could keep him from his destiny.

He died alongside the woman he loved, fighting for a boy who was more his son than his friend’s son. He died with his eyes open, staring blankly at the sky, just as Vera did. Out from the crowd of fighting faces came a teacher who was once a student beside him. It was the same woman who had made Vera’s death final, who closed her unseeing eyes when he couldn’t. Professor Merriweather, a teacher for magical students with learning disabilities like herself, saw him laying beside his wife, the last of his friends to die. She knelt by his side and lay his wife’s hand over his.

“Go with peace and love.”

She closed his eyes and that was the end.

That was the end of their story.

That was the end.

#remus lupin #fanfic #harry potter #marauders era #remus x oc #remus fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #slytherin #character death #i don't know what other tags to use #submissions are accepted

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diaryofabookgirl · 7 years

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Women In Young Adult Literature

This Wednesday we're celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women on International Women's Day. I’d like to use that as an opportunity to talk about a few of my favorite female characters in Young Adult books. Careful if you haven’t read these books because of possible spoilers.

Cather Avery (Fangirl)

Cather Avery and her twin sister Wren are starting college and Wren has announced she wants to discover college on her own, leaving an introvert Cath hiding out in her dorm, writing fan fiction. I really liked that Fangirl was about Cath as a character at first and everything else second. Cath is shy and introvert but she’s also sure of who she is and isn’t ashamed of that.

Madeline Whittier (Everything Everything)

Madeline has a rare illness which prevents her from leaving her house, but Maddy is a happy teenage girl. She reads a lot, takes classes online, has a friend in the form of her nurse. Despite the fact that she was missing out on so much in her life, she keeps being optimistic. It is impossible not to like her. Of course, she was also moody and curious. This curiosity eventually leads her to uncover a secret that will change everything for her.

Glory O’Brien (Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future)

One evening Glory and her best friend mix up beer with the remains of a bat (that is as weird as it sounds). Next thing they know they can see people’s pasts and futures. Glory becomes obsessed with the second civil war and decided to write down every piece of information she gathers from seeing people’s futures. I loved how Glory handled seeing the future. She questioned everything in her past and present; her future, the strange hippie community across the street and especially her mother’s suicide and what I means for her.

Rose Hathaway (Vampire Academy-series)

Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir and thus fated to guard a Moroi. She's determined to protect her best friend Lissa, a royal Moroi. Rose is sarcastic and insubordinate but she is fiercely loyal to Lissa. Over the course of the series Rose loves and loses Dimitri. The loss of him puts her friendship with Lissa and even her life at stake.

Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer trilogy and upcoming Shaw Confessions)

She has to power to kill people with a thought, but is she a villain? Throughout this trilogy, Mara tries to figure out what is happening with her. She means no harm, but around her people start dying under strange circumstances. She tries to understand her powers and is put in dangerous situations because of it. To get herself out of these situations she must use her power and questions who she is when she does.

Gwendolyn Shepard (Ruby Red)

Kerstin Gier gives us curious and funny heroines. These characteristics often put them in complicated situations. Take Gwendolyn, (Gwyneth in the US/UK editions) for example. She can travel through time but it isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. She always taught her cousin would inherit the time travel gene, she isn’t ready to fulfill tasks that would take her across time. Yet, Gwendolyn uncovers the truth and stands her ground while taking on an ancient organization.

Shahrzad Al-Khayzuran (The Wrath and the Dawn)

She marries the Caliph, not to love him and be his bride, but to kill him. Khalid has had countless wives and has killed every one of them, including her best friend. But when Shahrzad finds out her husband is cursed she takes it upon herself to save him and their people. Shahrzad can come across as spoiled, but she also doesn’t take shit from anyone and doesn’t like to be told what to do.

Inej Ghafa & Nina Zenik (Six Of Crows)

Inej can climb the most impossible buildings. She grew up with loving parents but was separated from them and sold to a brothel. Her time there still causes her anxiety. Nina was a member of the second army in the Ravkan war. She's a heartrender. Nina loves her power, she loves food and she loves Matthias, who is supposed to be her enemy, and she knows he loves her too. Nina is determined to show him Grisha aren't evil like he has been told, to not only accept her but her kind as well. Inej and Nina are just as much a part of The Dregs as the boys and just as important for their mission.

Kestrel Trajan (The Winner’s trilogy)

As the general's daughter Kestrel knows politics very well. She has always had a privileged life. When Valorians and Herrani's go to war, Kestrel is put in a difficult position. Her people are in the wrong, but they are her people. Arin isn't one of them. He's her slave, the boy she's in love with. She has to help his people. Kestrel is often put before terrible options but they are her only options and what do you choose when the outcome is bound to be horrible either way?

Verity (Code name Verity)

“Kiss me, Hardy. Kiss me, quick!” Well, if this book didn’t destroy me. Verity is captured by Nazi’s and tortured until she agrees to write down everything she knows - everything. The first half of the book is her confession, the second half is told from her best friend’s POV. Maddie and Verity are major friendship goals. Their story was so inspiring and completely heartbreaking at the same time.

Bianca (The DUFF)

The Designated Ugly Fat Friend is what Robbie calls Bianca, explaining that it isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a fact. Bianca tries to not let this bother her, but it does. She is the DUFF. Despite the fact that he hates Robbie the two of them start a friends-with-benefits relation, except for the “friends” part because they hate each other. The book discusses many others topics, such as friendship, neglect, alcoholism and divorce. Bianca uses the words ‘slut’ and 'whore’ a lot throughout the book. In the end, she comes to a nice conclusion about these labels and ultimately it’s a good message. I would also recommend Kody’s other YA novels.

Linh Cinder (Cinder)

So far I’ve only read the first book in the Lunar Chronicles series, but it was enough to see that Cinder is bad-ass. She’s funny and sassy and the best mechanic in New Beijing. Instead of going to the Prince' ball she'd rather use that opportunity to elope from her evil guardian. Things don't go as planned when it's discovered that Cinder is a Lunar, that she has powers, and that if the Lunar queen finds out, she will take Cinder to Luna and most likely kill her.

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lenniharrisonsims · 1 year

Text

Ivanov Seniors Graduate!

Ivanov Seniors experienced a bittersweet day today, even more so than any usual High School Graduation, as over the celebrations and festivities hung a black cloud of doom.

After the conference officially announcing that the Empire was at war with Windenburg, all foreign students were immediately sent back to their respective countries and families- except for the graduating seniors, who were allowed to stay a few more weeks in order to complete their courses and celebrate this momentous milestone.

Ivanov Graduating Class

Lady Josephine Arrington celebrated her big day with her parents, Princess Natasha and Jamie Arrington, Duke and Duchess Eastmeadow, and her younger brothers, Theodore, Marquess Branmar, and Christopher, Earl Maymour. Lady Josephine will be continuing her education at Britechester University where she plans to major in Ballet Performance, and one day transfer to the Royal Ballet Academy and follow in her parents' footsteps.

Miss Wren Hathaway was joined by her mother, Megan Ivanov, Duchess Arnsey, her step-father, Prince Nickolai Ivanov, her step-sister, Princess Victoria Yang, and her husband, Lord Louis Yang. Miss Hathaway will be joining her friend and cousin, Lady Josephine, at Britechester University, where she will be studying pre-med, in the hopes of also following in her mother's footsteps and one day becoming a pediatrician.

Prince Grant Ivanov proved his naysayers wrong when he walked across the stage with a perfect 4.0 GPA, and celebrated his accomplishment with his father and step-mother, Prince Yuri and Kacie Ivanov, Earl and Countess Thornleigh, and his little sister, Princess Alexandria Ivanov. Prince Grant has chosen to defer his enrollment to Britechester University in favor of volunteering for active military service. When he does return to college, he will be majoring in Criminal Justice Advocacy.

Only a few short months after she had transfered to IRA from a school in Komorebi, Miss Reyna Medieros, the ambassadress' daughter, graduated with top marks despite the chaos of changing schools mid-year. She was joined by her parents, Mr. Ignas and Ambassador Samantha Medieros, as well as her younger brother, Ricardo Medieros. Miss Medieros will be attending Foxbury Institute for her first year of college, and hopes one day to transfer to Mount Komorebi University to continue her studies in Komorebian Culture and Diplomacy.

Crown Princess Claude Pelletier shocked no one when she made Valedictorian- and celebrated this huge accomplishment with her mother, Queen Regent Genevieve, and little brother, King Adam Pelletier. The Queen Regent was heard telling the Dauphine that her father was "there in spirit, and so, so proud." Crown Princess Claude will be joining Lady Josephine and Miss Hathaway at Britechester University, where she plans to double major in Foreign Languages and World History.

His Lordship, Viscount Beckham Landgraab, walked across the stage in front of his parents, Princess Carolin and Soren Landgraab, Duke and Duchess Clovervale, and his older sister, Lady Brianne. The Viscount is choosing to defer his collegiate experience until after the war and instead has volunteered for the Oasis Springs Military Service. After the war, he plans to attend "whatever school Malie ends up at" but wherever he goes, he'd like to study Music Performance.

Princess Malie celebrated her culture by wearing a Sulani Lei as she walked across the stage, in honor of her mother, grandmother, and younger sister who could not be at her graduation. Sulani is one of the island nations in the Southern Sea currently being occupied by Windenburgian Naval Forces. But Malie did not celebrate alone. She was able to be joined by her paternal Aunt and Uncle, Queen Misha and King Cesare Colona, and grandfather, Prince Widower Alfonso Colona, all three of whom currently reside in Glimmerbrooke. Princess Malie will be continuing her education at Britechester University for the duration of the war, then plans to transfer to the Chieftain's International University in Sulani when she's able to. She hopes to double major in Sulani History and Mythology, and Sports Medicine.

Bonus: Friends and S.O.'s

Josie, Wren, Claude, and Grant, Besties from day one!

Wren & Whitt

Josie and Avery

Claude & Grant

#tw: war #can you tell i took these pictures before the anniversary pictures? 😂#Alexandria is still a little bebe here lol #ivanov legacy #ts4 #ts4 simblr #ts4 legacy #lady josephine #prince grant #wren hathaway #crown princess claude #reyna medieros #princess malie #lord beckham #avery gibson #jefferson whittaker

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col22promo · 7 years

Photo

THE COLONY; a literate original roleplay

THE SURVIVORS

Adeline Cadogan | Uninfected; Chloe Grace Moretz FC Alois Van Asch | Increased Hearing; Baptiste Radufe FC Annie Perrault | Deluded; Crystal Reed FC Ashley “Ash” Bisbee | Deluded; Dave Franco FC Austin Kelsey | Uninfected; Adam Brody FC Axel Bohr | Praeteria; Jai Courtney FC Bennett Adrien Jackson | Telekinesis; Jay Baruchel FC Caelan “Kip” Whitmer | Empatheia; Tarjei Sandvik Moe FC Clayton Boyd | Empatheia; Grant Gustin FC Cody Campbell | Uninfected; Tyler Posey FC Cosima Nasmath | Telekinesis; Kat Graham FC Cressida Jago | Telekinesis; Chloe Bennet FC Draco Pavlović | Telekinesis; Alex Pettyfer FC Ethan Kerr | Uninfected; Max Thieriot FC Fleet Michaels | Increased Vision and Hearing; Hong Jong-Hyun FC Issoria Feinberg | Telepathy; Josefine Frida Pettersen FC Jelka Dreher | Praeteria; Scarlett Johansson FC Johnathan Jackson Shaw | Uninfected; Chris Evans FC Jouko Kyung | Telepathy; John Cho FC Kai Fletcher | Uninfected; Colton Haynes FC Kevin Tsai | Uninfected; Godfrey Gao FC Killian Weaver | Telepathy; Jack Falahee FC Kit “Trig” Balker | Increased Senses; Colin Ford FC Koda Payne | Telepathy; Jamie Campell-Bower FC Kostya Vladislav | Telepathy; Yuri Pleskun FC Lissy McCall | Uninfected; AnnaSophia Robb FC Maddox Xiao | Telepathy; Harry Shum Jr FC Madison Vega | Deluded; Lindsey Morgan FC Maisie Pace | Telekinesis; Jessica Parker Kennedy FC Maja Wallace | Praeteria; Maisie Williams FC Marcel “Hamlet” Gusterson | Deluded; Aaron Tveit FC Michael “Bones” Sikes | Telepathy; Rick Genest FC Petra Starr | Uninfected; Kiersey Clemons FC Reagan “Emery” Gladstone | Empatheia; Cillian Murphy FC Rhea Zaveri | Uninfected; Emeraude Toubia FC Stacey Ricks | Uninfected; Zayn Malik FC Tate Rothchild | Uninfected; Janelle Monae FC

THE ELITE

NEW WAVE REFORMISTS

Dante Orion Carrington | Uninfected; Tom Hiddleston FC Narcissa Shor | Telepathy; Tatiana Maslany FC Quinn Dervilia | Uninfected; Luke Evans FC Suki Yamaguchi | Uninfected; Hayley Kiyoko FC

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.

#literate roleplay #para rp #lsrp #baptiste radufe #baptiste radufe fc

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brookstonalmanac · 1 year

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Events 11.28

587 – Treaty of Andelot: King Guntram of Burgundy recognizes Childebert II as his heir. 936 – Shi Jingtang is enthroned as the first emperor of the Later Jin by Emperor Taizong of Liao, following a revolt against Emperor Fei of Later Tang. 1443 – Skanderbeg and his forces liberate Kruja in central Albania and raise the Albanian flag. 1470 – Champa–Đại Việt War: Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Đại Việt formally launches his attack against Champa. 1520 – An expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan passes through the Strait of Magellan. 1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 (equivalent to £12,261 in 2021) bond for their marriage licence. 1627 – The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Navy has its greatest and last naval victory in the Battle of Oliwa. 1660 – At Gresham College, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray decide to found what is later known as the Royal Society. 1666 – At least 3,000 men of the Royal Scots Army led by Tam Dalyell of the Binns defeat about 900 Covenanter insurgents led by James Wallace of Auchens in the Battle of Rullion Green. 1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, by which the United States acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now East Tennessee. 1798 – Trade between the United States and modern-day Uruguay begins when John Leamy's frigate John arrives in Montevideo. 1811 – Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. 1814 – The Times of London becomes the first newspaper to be produced on a steam-powered printing press, built by the German team of Koenig & Bauer. 1821 – Panama Independence Day: Panama separates from Spain and joins Gran Colombia. 1843 – Ka Lā Hui (Hawaiian Independence Day): The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation. 1861 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America accept a rival state government's pronouncement that declares Missouri to be the 12th state of the Confederacy. 1862 – American Civil War: In the Battle of Cane Hill, Union troops under General James G. Blunt defeat General John Marmaduke's Confederates. 1885 – Bulgarian victory in the Serbo-Bulgarian War preserves the Unification of Bulgaria. 1893 – Women's suffrage in New Zealand concludes with the 1893 New Zealand general election. 1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours. 1899 – The Second Boer War: A British column is engaged by Boer forces at the Battle of Modder River; although the Boers withdraw, the British suffer heavy casualties. 1905 – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland. 1908 – A mine explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania, kills 154 men, leaving only one survivor. 1912 – Albania declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire. 1914 – World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading. 1917 – The Estonian Provincial Assembly declares itself the sovereign power of Estonia. 1918 – The Soviet Forces moved against Estonia when the 6th Red Rifle Division struck the border town of Narva, which marked the beginning of the Estonian War of Independence. 1919 – Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. (Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.) 1920 – FIDAC (The Interallied Federation of War Veterans Organisations), the first international organization of war veterans is established in Paris, France. 1920 – Irish War of Independence: Kilmichael Ambush: The Irish Republican Army ambush a convoy of British Auxiliaries and kill seventeen. 1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the WSM Barn Dance. 1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people. 1943 – World War II: Tehran Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy. 1958 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community. 1958 – First successful flight of SM-65 Atlas; the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. 1960 – Mauritania becomes independent of France. 1964 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars. 1964 – Vietnam War: National Security Council members agree to recommend that U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam. 1965 – Vietnam War: In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for "more flags" in Vietnam, Philippine President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam. 1966 – Michel Micombero overthrows the monarchy of Burundi and makes himself the first president. 1967 – The first pulsar (PSR B1919+21, in the constellation of Vulpecula) is discovered by two astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish. 1971 – Fred Quilt, a leader of the Tsilhqot'in First Nation suffers severe abdominal injuries allegedly caused by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers; he dies two days later. 1971 – Wasfi al-Tal, Prime Minister of Jordan, is assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization. 1972 – Last executions in Paris: Claude Buffet and Roger Bontems are guillotined at La Santé Prison. 1975 – East Timor declares its independence from Portugal. 1979 – Air New Zealand Flight 901, a DC-10 sightseeing flight over Antarctica, crashes into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board. 1980 – Iran–Iraq War: Operation Morvarid: The bulk of the Iraqi Navy is destroyed by the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf. (Commemorated in Iran as Navy Day.) 1987 – South African Airways Flight 295 crashes into the Indian Ocean, killing all 159 people on board. 1989 – Cold War: Velvet Revolution: In the face of protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces it will give up its monopoly on political power. 1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns as leader of the Conservative Party and, therefore, as Prime Minister. She is succeeded in both positions by John Major. 1990 – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew resigns as Prime Minister. He is succeeded positions by Goh Chok Tong. 1991 – South Ossetia declares independence from Georgia. 2002 – Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya; their colleagues fail in their attempt to bring down Arkia Israel Airlines Flight 582 with surface-to-air missiles. 2010 – Sun Way Flight 4112 crashes after takeoff from Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12 people. 2014 – Gunmen set off three bombs at the central mosque in the northern Nigerian city of Kano killing at least 120 people. 2016 – A chartered Avro RJ85 plane carrying at least 77 people, including the Chapecoense football team, crashes near Medellín, Colombia. 2020 – Over seven hundred civilians are massacred by the Ethiopian National Defense Force and Eritrean Army in Aksum, Ethiopia.

#Events

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injectionmoldchina · 7 years

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New Post has been published on http://www.injectionmouldchina.com/image-from-page-128-of-transactions-of-the-bristol-and-gloucestershire-archaeological-society-1912/

Image from page 128 of "Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society" (1912)

Some cool pipe mould maker images:

Image from page 128 of “Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society” (1912)

Image by Internet Archive Book Images Identifier: transactionsofbr35bris Title: Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Year: 1912 (1910s) Authors: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. cn Subjects: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Publisher: Bristol, Eng. : The Society Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book

Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image: bird in raised ornamentation,the sides of the neck of the vessel being decorated with shortraised loops, and the body covered with a conventionaldesign in low relief. In size the perfect pitcher must havestood at least 14 to 16 in. in height (see illustrations). The Norman potters were certainly very original in theirwork, and the fragments, which are pieced together as far aspossible, show much quaintness in design. I do not remembera vessel in any of the London or provincial museums at allsimilar. Many other fragments were found of early mediaevalpottery, including a darkgreen glazed head forming the mask lip of yet anotherpitcher. It is a curiously boldpiece of moulding and veryecclesiastical in character, forthe head is depicted wearinga tonsure (see illustration). We naturally wonder if theartist – potter modelled thesevessels to order, or if theywere the working of his ownfertile brain ; and also inwhat houses in this Norman town they were in use beforegetting so badly smashed.

Text Appearing After Image: too < Transactions for the Year 1912. A fragment of a fourteenth or a fifteenth-century inlaidpavement tile, doubtless thrown out from one of the old city•churches, and the following various items, all came to handfrom another rubbish pit:— A seventeenth-century iron stirrup. An iron bullet, ^-in. diameter. Two clay tobacco pipes bearing the initials N.M.on the heels, which is a makers mark not previouslyrecorded. A Gloucester Traders Token, bearing on the obverse : LVKE . NOVRSE . MAIOR . 1657 1 = C. G. (City of Gloucester). A small R the initial of Thomas -Rawlins the engraver, beneath the letters. On the reverse : for . necessary . CHANGE=Armsof the City of Gloucester ; three chevrons betweenten torteaux. The issuer of this token was Mayor of the City in 1644,the same year in which Toby Jordan (one of the messengerswho carried the answer of the citizens to King Charles Iin Tredworth Field, when he summoned the city tosurrender) was Sheriff. Luke Nourse was elected Mayoragain

Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability – coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.

Bristol trade directory 1871 – Dress makers & Milliners

Image by brizzle born and bred Millinery and dressmaking constituted the higher end of female employment with the needle; they were "respectable" occupations for young women from middle-class or lower middle-class families. The number of women involved in dressmaking alone in the early 1840s was estimated to be 15,000.

Bristol Dress Makers

Allen Mrs. 55 St. Michael’s hill Baker M. 54 Bellevue crescent Ball Miss, Regent street Beard L. E. 25 Thrissell street Beer Harriet, 53 Mead street Bethell Mrs. Redcliff hill Bruton H. 39 Triangle Butcher C. 1 Redcross street Butcher H. and A. 16 Orchard street Canning Miss M. 35 College street Cantle Mrs. 2 Lansdown terrace Carpenter A. 13 College street Cawless Miss, 28 Trinity street Chedzoy and Allen, 7 Picton street Cole Ann, 3 Upper Wells street Cole Mrs. 10 Alfred place Coombs Mrs. 39 Park street Cottle Miss C. 5 Eldon place Davey M. K. 5 Low. St. Michael’s hill Davis Mrs. Wells street, Culver street Davis Mrs. 6 Ellenborough place Downs Miss C. 45 Woolcott buildings Ellis Miss. 10 Regent street, Clifton Ellison Mrs. 6 St. James’s square Fairbrother Mrs. Tankard’s close Farrow Miss H. 1 Cotham side Felton Ann, Lower Castle street Ferguson M. 4 Alfred place, Kingsdown Ford Miss, Portland Place Gallo M. 9 Grove p ace, Redland Gast 21 South place, New river Gillard E. 18 Denbigh street Gitson Mrs. 5 Castle green Griffin Mrs. 15 Dove street Gummer Mrs L. 7 Cheltenham bldgs Hanson Mrs. Kinburn cottage, Belgrave rd Harper E. Queen’s road Harrison H. M. 33 Upper Arcade Harvey Miss, 4 Lower Westﬁeld place Hay E. Terrell street Healls Miss, 12 Horﬁeld road Hillier Elizabeth, Lodge street Holesgrove Misses, 38 College green House Mrs. Portwall lane Howell Miss, Regent street Hurd Miss C. 1 Waterloo street Hyatt Mrs R. P. Upper Victoria place Jolly and Son, 43 College green Keel Miss, Gloster street, Clifton Kellaway Mrs G. 12 Oakﬁeld place, Clifton Kernick Mrs. 27 Triangle King Mrs J. 30 Clarence place Lambert Mrs. Elton place Lang Miss L. H. Portland place Lawless Miss Harriet, Hampton place Lewis Miss, 9 Dover place Lewis Miss, 24 Clifton wood crescent Michell Sarah, 3 St Andrew’s bldgs Moody Mrs. 5 York buildings Moore Miss, 49 Thrissell street Morgan Miss, 47 Park street Morgan Miss, St Michael’s hill Moulding Miss, 12 Stokes croft Mountsteven A. 22 The Triangle Newman J. 24 Ninetree hill Newman Miss, 9 Stanley terrace Owen and Hathaway, 4 College green Pain Miss, 24 Paul street, Kingsdown Parsons J. 50 Bellevue crescent Penny Miss ll Wellington terrace, Clifton Phillips Mary Ann, 40 Milk street Pile Mrs. 19 Osborne terrace, Totterdown Roberts Miss, 12 Highland place Rogers Miss, Egerton road Sellick Miss, 3 Old park hill Smith the Misses, 7 North street Sollis E. and A. Lower College green Sully F. J. Somerset street, Cathay Spark and Tait, 32 College green Thomas E. 21 Lower Arcade Thomas Mary, Whitson street Thresher Miss, 16 College green Treadwell Mrs. 50 St. Michael’s hill Waite Mary Ann, 5 Devonshire terrace Ward S. and C. 3 Ruysdael place White Paulina, 5 Somerset crescent Whitmarsh Mrs. W. 13 Kingsdown parade Williams Louisa, East Redcliff crescent Windsor Mrs. 8 Sunderland terrace Wren Misses, Totterdown

Dressmakers’ Pattern Maker

Williams David, 8 Brunswick place, Hotwells

Milliners

A milliner is a hat maker. This was a very important trade in Victorian times. If you look at Victorian photographs you will find that you rarely see anyone outside without a hat.

In Victorian times ordinary working people got all their clothes locally (or made their own). The dressmakers listed here would have been kept busy.

Adams Louisa, 26 Park street Adams Mrs. 6 Cumberland street Allen Misses, 1 Bedford view Avins Mrs. Oxford street, Totterdown Bailey Mrs. 3 Ninetree hill Baker Mrs. 34 The Triangle Barnes Miss, 20 Thomas street Bartlett R. C. 58 Redcliff street Bartley Mrs. 33 Paul street Bendall Mrs E. George st. Bedminster Bolwell T. 21 Redcliff street Bolwell Thomas, 4 Peter street Bond Mrs. 9 Hampton terrace, Totterdown Bond Mrs. Lower Clifton hill Bound E. 1 Union street Carter Elizabeth, 11 East Redcliff crescent Choffin Mrs. 35 Upper Arcade Clarke Alfred, 4 Old King street Coombs & Morgan, 17 Harford street Coombs Mrs, 39 Park street Cooper Elizabeth, 29 Lower Arcade Davis Mrs, 28 St Michael’s hill Dimond M. 15 Bedminster causeway Dowell J. H. 67 West street Drinkwater and Son, 6 High street Duck Mrs, 124 Thomas street Dunn Mrs. Pipe lane, St Augustine’s Edmonds Mrs. 12 Alfred place Floyd Mrs. 1 Lower Arcade Gibbs Mrs. 5 Elton place Gibson Hannah, 11 Rosemont terrace Gravell E. 2 Clarence road Gray and Co. 28 Wine street Harris Mrs Charles, Denmark house, Wells road Harvey Miss, 4 Lower Westﬁeld place Harvey Mrs. 25 Elton place Hatherley E. & M. 23 Cumberland st Heall G. 1 John street, Easton Heard William, 3 Upper Arcade Hill Miss, 6 Upper Maudlin street Holesgrove the Misses, 38 College green Hooper M. A../19 Broadmead Hooper Miss, Wellillgton place Houston and Burgess, 28 The Triangle Howell Mrs R. 9 Spring st. Bedminster Humphries Miss M. King square avenue Hutton Mrs. 8 Dover place Iles Mrs. Egerton road Jennings Miss, 6 Stoke’s croft Jolly and Son, 43 College green Jones A. and M. 3 Claremont buildings Jones Misses, 25 The Triangle Kernick Miss, 24 The Triangle Kittyle Misses, 5 St Michael’s park Lapworth Miss, Shortgrove, Durdham down Lasbury S. 3 Orchard st. St. Philip’s Lee Mrs. Paul street Lee Mrs. Abbotsham place Levy Miss, 3 Bridge street Lilly S. & M. 3 Osborne terrace, Totterdown Light L. 18 Upper Arcade Linklater T. 129 Whiteladies road Lodge J. and Co. .49 Wine street Loosemoore Misses, 7 Unity street Lucas Miss, Mansion house avenue Maggs Mrs. F. 39 Castle street Maishman A. T. 11 and 12 Wine street Marshall Mrs. 10 Norfolk street Martin Miss, Royal Prom. Queen’s rd. May Miss R. Shortgrove, Durdham down Meek Mrs. The Triangle, West Mitchener Mrs. 8 Gloster street Morgan Miss, 1 St. Michael’s hill Naish Jane, 1 St. James’s parade Newman Miss Julia Ann, Ninetree hill Oxley Mrs. 4 Granby place Pope Mrs. St Augustine’s place Prestidge Miss, 30 Montague hill Richards Mrs. 12 Mall place Roberts Mrs. 12 Highland place Rogers Mary, 5 Raglan place Saunders John Edwin, 17 Castle street Simpson Miss, 55 Park street Skewes Mary Ann, 9 Devonshire terrace Slade Eliza and Ann, Surrey street Slade Misses, 59 Park st Smith Mesdames, 7 North street Smith Misses, 33 Park street Sowden Miss, 7 Wellington place Stone Miss E. L. 9 Prince st, St Paul’s Sullivan Mrs. Anjer’s rd, Totterdown Sully Miss, 3 Hanmer’s buildings Summers Mrs M. 83 Redcliff street Sydenham Mrs J. 112 Wellesley place Symes Miss, 3 Manor buildings Tarver Miss, Garibaldi bldgs, Knowle Taylor J. F. 34 College green Tennell A. A. Portland street Tovey M. and F. Stapleton road Tripp Miss Sarah, 45 Whiteladies road Turner H. 22 Lower Arcade Voisey and Healls, 3 Dover place Wainwright Miss, 10 Orchard street Wall M. A. 9 St. James’s churchyard Watson Mrs. 19 Meridian place Wayland Miss, 19 Lower Arcade Webb and Thomas, 10 Redcliff hill Wellington E. 77 Stoke’s croft Weston Stephen, 34 Wine street Westbury Mrs. 16 Southampton par. Willey and Davis, 2 Clifton place, Clifton Williams Mrs M. 18 Camden terrace Windsor Mrs. 8 Sunderland terrace Wyatt Mrs. 16 Paul street, Portland sq York Mrs. Ann, 12 St. Michael’s hill

#1912 #Archaeological #Bristol.#from #Gloucestershire #Image #page #Society #Transactions #Injection Mould

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