I need an Ellen Fanshaw icon
Ellen Fanshaw is driving me INSANE, you guys!
(Which ... I guess is not exactly new for her, now that I think about it?)
But, arrrgh, last night, she was suddenly in my head. Which sounds good, except that now I am newly full of Stuff I Know About Ellen Fanshaw but with no story to go along with it! Seriously, what is more frustrating than that? There is no story, no structure, no explanation, just all these thoughts and sudden, sure facts about her that I keep turning over and over and polishing a little to see them a bit better, maybe. She tried out for the school play in secondary school more for the attention than anything else and found her gift. And how Oliver wasn't the first director she's slept with, not even close, but that was something that started in university and just continued from there, for no reason she can articulate better than they were her directors -- and Geoffrey knew that, too, but it had stopped when they got together, because she was monogamous then, right up until she wasn't. (Her director on her first Twelfth Night was Karen Delarue, which was Ellen's first and only lesbian experience; it was worth trying, of course, but just somehow not as satisfying as men. She was sure it did add layers to her Viola performance, though.) And how she started smoking because it was glamorous and kept smoking mostly because it was addictive but also because it was comforting, the familiar feeling of chainsmoking long into the night and nursing a bottle of wine. Ellen can't cook, and can't clean, and can't do laundry, and can't handle her finances; she doesn't know how to be adult in any way at all, really, more like a child playing at being a grown-up. She can't take care of herself, just relies on other people to do it for her -- but even if her self-centeredness, selfishness, is right at the center of her character, it's not a meanspirited or small type of selfishness: it's just like the blindness of a child who doesn't see beyond the edges of what they know. She doesn't know any better. She's played Desdemona, all purity and innocence and faithfulness, and Juliet, forever young and beautiful in death, and Cordelia, honest and steadfast and true. She found out she was pregnant two weeks after Geoffrey has his breakdown, and her decision to have an abortion wasn't a hard one to make, nor has she ever regretted it. And how she keeps getting older, every day, and she has no idea what to do about it: how do you age gracefully? how do you admit you're no longer going to be the person you've always thought of yourself as? Better denial, young men and going through the motions.
And then there's always Geoffrey, of course.
You know what fic I would kill to read? Something in the style of a magazine article interview with Geoffrey and Ellen after 3.06. It would be rather brilliant and charming -- and also obnoxious, since it's Geoffrey with the media, of course -- and the same mixture of sad and happy and just bittersweet as the end of the series. Somebody should write that for me! *looks hopeful*
(Which ... I guess is not exactly new for her, now that I think about it?)
But, arrrgh, last night, she was suddenly in my head. Which sounds good, except that now I am newly full of Stuff I Know About Ellen Fanshaw but with no story to go along with it! Seriously, what is more frustrating than that? There is no story, no structure, no explanation, just all these thoughts and sudden, sure facts about her that I keep turning over and over and polishing a little to see them a bit better, maybe. She tried out for the school play in secondary school more for the attention than anything else and found her gift. And how Oliver wasn't the first director she's slept with, not even close, but that was something that started in university and just continued from there, for no reason she can articulate better than they were her directors -- and Geoffrey knew that, too, but it had stopped when they got together, because she was monogamous then, right up until she wasn't. (Her director on her first Twelfth Night was Karen Delarue, which was Ellen's first and only lesbian experience; it was worth trying, of course, but just somehow not as satisfying as men. She was sure it did add layers to her Viola performance, though.) And how she started smoking because it was glamorous and kept smoking mostly because it was addictive but also because it was comforting, the familiar feeling of chainsmoking long into the night and nursing a bottle of wine. Ellen can't cook, and can't clean, and can't do laundry, and can't handle her finances; she doesn't know how to be adult in any way at all, really, more like a child playing at being a grown-up. She can't take care of herself, just relies on other people to do it for her -- but even if her self-centeredness, selfishness, is right at the center of her character, it's not a meanspirited or small type of selfishness: it's just like the blindness of a child who doesn't see beyond the edges of what they know. She doesn't know any better. She's played Desdemona, all purity and innocence and faithfulness, and Juliet, forever young and beautiful in death, and Cordelia, honest and steadfast and true. She found out she was pregnant two weeks after Geoffrey has his breakdown, and her decision to have an abortion wasn't a hard one to make, nor has she ever regretted it. And how she keeps getting older, every day, and she has no idea what to do about it: how do you age gracefully? how do you admit you're no longer going to be the person you've always thought of yourself as? Better denial, young men and going through the motions.
And then there's always Geoffrey, of course.
You know what fic I would kill to read? Something in the style of a magazine article interview with Geoffrey and Ellen after 3.06. It would be rather brilliant and charming -- and also obnoxious, since it's Geoffrey with the media, of course -- and the same mixture of sad and happy and just bittersweet as the end of the series. Somebody should write that for me! *looks hopeful*