OK Goode! OK Fics!
Olivia K. Goode's Fan Site for TV's Beauty and the Beast 1987
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Friday, February 14, 2020
Winterfest Pottery
Fresh from the kiln to warm Winterfest
I really do prefer wheel-throwing, but hand-building can be fun, too.
These were made last semester. I think my pottery prof is accepting the
inevitability that everything I want to make is related to "that show"
one way or another... If she hasn't yet, I'll wear her down eventually!
We all know Vincent is a dish, so I thought he ought to be on one!😃
I'm trying a variety of techniques lately
Works in Progress -
Not quite ready to for Winterfest, but why not share them anyway?
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
The Plot Bunny Project - Conzine 2019
During Winterfest
Online in 2018, the conversation turned to how people often propose some story
idea or another during our chats or email threads. Sometimes someone will ask
if there’s ever been a story written about this subject or that idea. Unfortunately
though, we seldom seem to follow up on those story possibilities. There always
seem to be hordes of these feral plot bunnies bouncing about our Tunnels,
multiplying like...well, like rabbits!
As a
result of those discussions, it was decided that there really ought to be some
kind of an idea bank–a place to corral all those stray plot bunnies where they
could wait for some fanfic writer to come along, become inspired, tackle them,
tame them, and give them good homes. And thus, the Warren for Stray Plot
Bunnies was born at:
One of the
many ideas submitted to the Warren for Stray Plot Bunnies by Pat Lurvey was:
If Vincent draws, surely there are
a number of pictures of Catherine he drew to look at when alone! It looks like
he drew the picture of the man who bought children from Ridley Hall in A
Children’s Story.
Inspired
by Pat’s idea, a few of us put our heads together and decided to adopt that
particular plot bunny. We thank Pat for the inspiration, along with everything
else that she did to enrich our lives and fandom.
“Today was
wonderful, Vincent. Beyond wonderful.” Catherine coiled her arm around his and
hugged it to her side as they strolled down the tunnel. “It was so nice of
everyone to welcome me here to spend the whole day Below. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything more.
But I have to admit that I feel a little self-conscious with everybody making
such a fuss over me.”
“Catherine,
you just saved our world from certain destruction. The very least we could do
was invite you to a dinner in your honor.”
“It does
make me feel good that even Father truly wanted me here today. I hope this will
be the beginning of a better relationship between him and me.”
“Father is
extremely grateful to you, just as we all are.” He walked along in silence for
a long minute, his lush bottom lip trapped between his teeth. “Had the Burch
Tower been allowed to go forward...and it would have, Catherine, if you had
not—”
Catherine
could so easily hear the words that choked in his throat: offered to sacrifice yourself for
us. She had noticed him trying to say something at least three other times
today, beginning this morning when they’d met at her threshold. Each time she
could see his jaw clench as he fought to say the words. She rescued him–again–by
picking up the thread of the conversation and taking it in a direction that she
thought would make him more comfortable.
“If he
wanted to, William could make a fortune selling that bread of his Above,” she
said. “It was perfect with that chicken corn chowder. And this card from
Samantha and the kids; it just might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She
unfolded the pink construction paper card with its hand-drawn bouquet of
flowers. Her gaze traced the dozens of children’s names scrawled in pencil,
crayon, marker, finger paint, and one that looked like it just might be
lipstick.
Vincent
placed his palm into the small of her back and guided her into the short tunnel
that led into his chamber. He gracefully removed his cloak and draped it over
the tall gothic armchair by the arched doorway.
“Catherine,”
he began as he led her to the table. When she sat down, he kneeled in front of
her and she watched his hand move towards hers where they sat in her lap, but
the last moment, it veered off to rest on the edge of the table. He closed his
eyes and inhaled slowly–oh, so slowly.
I hate that he’s so uncomfortable
and struggling this much,
she thought during that long breath, but
how beautiful he is. And what a gift it is that he lets me see him this
way.
“Catherine,”
he repeated as he finally exhaled and opened his eyes, “all day–no, all this
last week–I’ve been searching all the words I’ve ever learned...all the books
I’ve ever read...trying to find some way to tell you— to thank you— to say—”
“Vincent,
please,” she took his hand in hers as she shook her head. “You don’t need to
say a thing. You would have done the same to save me. You already have saved me, so many times and in so
many ways that I’ve lost track of the number. You don’t need to search any
books to find a way to say anything; I can read it all in your eyes each time
you look at me. Every moment we have together says all that I could ever hope
for.”
“Nonetheless,”
he insisted, “you deserve to hear the words. Your strength, your goodness, your
selflessness–you saved us all. You saved my home; the only home I can ever
have. Without you...Without you, Catherine, I would truly lose everything.”
She rose
and he stood with her. She stepped closer and snaked her arms around his waist,
pulling him to her, resting her face against his chest just above the pouch
where he kept the rose she’d given him. His cheek rubbed the crown of her head
and he sighed deeply.
“That will
never happen, Vincent. Never. You could never lose me.”
She could
feel his head slowly shake no, and she wondered, Does that mean he knows that nothing could take me from him? Or is he
thinking no, he could lose me?
When she
raised her face to look at his, she saw him smiling down on her.
“I have a
surprise for you,” he whispered.
I love it when he looks at me like
that!
“You do?”
“Mmmm
hmmm.” He nodded.
“Well?”
Her heart soared to see that the clouds seemed to have cleared from his somber
mood. “What is it? Tell me.”
“I can’t
tell you,” he answered with an enigmatic smile. “I’ll have to show you. You’ll
have to wait here while I go get it, though. It’s a secret, you see.”
“Good
things are worth waiting for, Vincent.” Does
he even know how many levels of meaning there are to that?
The tilt
of his head told her that he just might.
“I’ll be
back in a few minutes, Catherine. Make yourself at home.”
~~~
While she
waited for his return, Catherine moved around his chamber, picking up this
object and that, enjoying the eclectic mix of books and items he collected. On
the bureau opposite the doorway, right near where she’d found that broken
headlight more than a year ago, there was a large leather sketchbook laying
open to a drawing of some of the paintings that she’d seen just a few days ago
on the walls of the Painted Tunnels: Jackie Robinson in his Brooklyn Dodgers
uniform and a big blue car from the 1950’s.
Is that a supposed to be a Chevy?
Dad would know. He’d be able to tell me what year, make and model it’s supposed
to be, and probably what features came standard on it, too. How I wish I could
introduce him to Vincent! Maybe someday...
The next
pages of the book were empty, so she flipped to the previous page. There was
the portrait of a young Father–nary a gray hair to be seen–with a baby Vincent
in his arms. Actually, there was just a hint of the little Vincent that
Elizabeth had painted; this drawing was unfinished. There was only the most
basic outline of the toddler he was holding.
She turned
back another page to see the historical paintings of Truman, Eisenhower,
Kennedy, the city’s old skyline. Flipping back page after page, she found the
joggers behind Kipper’s smiling face, the people sitting on the stoop of some
building, Central Park in winter. These were all among the paintings Vincent
had just shown her.
Flipping back, there were more drawings. Some
were parts of the murals she’d seen in the Painted Tunnels. Others–clearly more
copies of Elizabeth’s work; the style was unmistakable–were scenes she hadn’t
seen yet. Vincent had mentioned that there many more stories recorded on those
walls by the tiny artist’s tireless and talented paintbrush, but they’d
abandoned their visit there when the tremors from the Burch Tower explosions
were felt.
Here was a
handsome little Black boy seated at a piano, his expression so solemn and
serious as he concentrated on the sheet music in front of him. There was Mary sitting
next to a cradle, her knitting needles flying.
The next
page showed a huge chamber somewhere Below with a curving stair, tapestries on
one wall, and long tables covered with candles and food. People were dancing at
some celebration and Catherine could almost hear the song the musicians were
playing.
Another
page turned, and there were half a dozen Tunnel children on the carousel. A boy
with a bandaged face who could only be Devin stood behind the rows of horses. I wonder why Elizabeth didn’t paint Vincent
at the carousel. He told me he rode the white horse. The horse in question
was present but riderless in this image. That’s
odd, since Vincent being able to ride the merry-go-round was the whole reason
for sneaking Above that night.
Page after
page revealed story after story, some of which Catherine understood and others
that were as mysterious as they were beautiful. A young Narcissa opening her
arms to welcome a lovely dark-eyed woman with a sad smile. Mouse and Jaime
laughing at a baby Arthur who was climbing on top Mouse’s head. A teenage girl
she didn’t recognize in ballet pointe shoes posed in relevé, her arms held
gracefully aloft. A group of boys playing marbles. A little girl dragging a
floppy-eared stuffed rabbit down a tunnel. She was following a boy who must be
Vincent, though she couldn’t see his face since his back was turned to the
viewer.
The
drawings of the murals ended when she turned to a page with a diagram of some
plans to run piping to a bathing chamber.
Where’s the one of Vincent as a
teenager? He was standing in front of the park threshold. I must have missed
it. She sat down
on Vincent’s bed and went back through all the drawings again. No, that one’s missing.
The baby
Vincent in Father’s arms was only hinted at, and in the one at the carousel, he
was absent there, too. Not one of these
actually shows Vincent.
Catherine
went now to the first sheets of the book, thinking that surely she’d find some
drawings of Vincent if she started at the beginning and went forward page by
page.
She
gasped. The sketchbook nearly fell from her hands and she scrambled to keep it
from hitting the floor. She held the book shut for several long seconds and
then opened it again to the first page.
It was
she. There she lay in Vincent’s bed, her bandaged face an image she’d imagined
but never seen. The glow from his window cast shadows on one side of her face.
On the
next page, even though her eyes were hidden from sight, the portrait was
rendered so exquisitely that she knew somehow that she’d been sleeping when he
drew her.
Another
page and she was sipping tea. The first
time he brought me that herbal blend. She was somehow sure it had to be
that moment because there was the merest hint of the smile she’d had when she
tasted it. The nuance was so detailed it was almost unnatural.
The next
page showed a spoonful of William’s “good soup” being brought to her lips, her
hand coming up to cup Vincent’s barely-sketched fingers holding the spoon.
Anther
page and now she was sitting forlorn on the settle, just before he returned her
clothes to her and led her back Above. And then on the next page, she was on
her balcony, Great Expectations in
her lap as she read the final chapter to him.
There were
a dozen more pages of her face from that first time he’d come to her balcony.
Every angle imaginable, the full array of expressions from happy to somber to
sad.
How did he—? I knew he could draw.
That portrait he drew of Noj while we were searching for Ellie was spot-on, but this—
She didn’t
know what she heard, but something–a footstep? the sound of his breath?–alerted
her to the fact that she was no longer alone. She looked up to see Vincent
standing in the doorway, a small bowl one hand, the other griping the tunnel
wall.
“Oh,
Vincent! I’m sorry! I never meant to spy. I saw your drawings of Elizabeth’s
paintings and I was admiring them so. Then I kept looking through the book,
and— Oh, please forgive me.”
He looked
at the drawing currently showing in the book–one of her as he walked her back
to the threshold beneath her building for the first time–and he seemed to
gather himself back together. He placed a shallow bowl of chocolate-covered
strawberries on the table next to his little jukebox and sat beside her on the
bed.
“No, Catherine, you have nothing to apologize for. I told you to make yourself at home, and I did leave the book open. I’d been recreating Elizabeth’s paintings, just in case something did happen the Painted Tunnels. I didn’t want all her work to be lost forever if the worst should occur.
“No, Catherine, you have nothing to apologize for. I told you to make yourself at home, and I did leave the book open. I’d been recreating Elizabeth’s paintings, just in case something did happen the Painted Tunnels. I didn’t want all her work to be lost forever if the worst should occur.
“As to the others, the earlier drawings of you,” he took the book from her with a sigh and turned to its first pages, “I thought I’d never see you again, Catherine. I was trying to hold on to anything of you that I could. I drew these so that I’d be able to have at least some small piece of you here with me once you returned to your world.”
Catherine
pointed to the drawing of him feeding her. “Good soup,” she quoted herself and
they shared a smile. She looked at it a long minute, noting how his hand in the
drawing lacked his claw-like fingernails and the thick hair on the back of his
hands; her smile faded as she thought. “But this one’s not finished. There’s
only an outline of your hand, and this doesn’t even look like your hand. I recognize the sweater, but
if I didn’t know that you were the one feeding me, this could be anybody’s
hand. Vincent, why isn’t this your
hand?”
He gave
her a look that said, You know why.
“The nice
thing about art, Catherine, is that we can create things the way we want them
to be. The way they ought to be. We needn’t be limited to the way things really
are.”
“You know,
artists see things more the way they
really are than most of us can. They see their true essence, things hidden from
our shallow senses. Van Gogh saw skies in a way that we couldn’t have before he
showed us how, but I wish everyone could see them the way he did. I wish—” She
laced her fingers with his, sighing at how deliciously warm his hand was.
“Tell me
what you wish,” he whispered, not looking at her.
“I wish
could draw you, Vincent, the way I really see you. If I could, you’d know how
beautiful you are.” She realized that his other hand was holding the next page
down, anxious. There was a slight pressure as he tried to pull the book away from
her. She closed the book and pressed it toward him.
“You don’t
have to show me any other drawings, Vincent. If there’s something in there that
you want to keep to yourself, you have every right to keep your private
thoughts private. I trust you completely.” Time
to change the subject and lighten the mood for him again. She gestured to
the little bowl. “Now, if I’m not
mistaken, you’ve brought us dessert? I love chocolate-covered strawberries.”
“I know
you do,” he said. “You told me that, remember?”
In truth, she didn’t remember; she
had no recollection of mentioning that to him, but it didn’t surprise her at
all that he’d never forgotten anything she’d ever told him. He made no move to
get the strawberries.
He doesn’t want to change the subject
after all. This is progress.
“It’s not
that I don’t trust you to see them, Catherine. It’s just that— I’ve seen you in
so many ways, the way I wish things were, too. Like van Gogh, I’ve dreamed my
drawings, and drawn what I’ve dreamed.” He paused for a space of two breaths
and opened the sketchbook, searching out the next drawing.
She was
wearing a gown she’d never owned, some pale color with a deep décolletage. Her
hair was styled elaborately, swept back from her face, baring her throat. A
hint of the city’s night sky–the view seen from her balcony–spanned the
background.
In the
next one, she was sitting at her vanity in a dressing gown brushing her hair,
which flowed down her back in lush waves.
It was much longer that it had been since she had known him.
Note to self, Catherine–no more
haircuts until further notice!
The
following page showed her laughing on a tire swing beneath a summer sky,
wearing short shorts and a tank top, a wood and lake in the distance.
In the
next drawing, she was holding an infant to her breast, gazing down at the child
whose tiny fist was grasping her finger. There was a feeling in this drawing of
a modern-day Madonna and Child. This baby was the point around which her whole
world revolved; it radiated off the page until she sighed with longing.
Another
page and she was in his arms, seen from his point of view, and they seemed to
be dancing in the same huge chamber with the stairway and tapestries that she’d
seen in the other drawing.
Catherine
turned another page to the sight of her own face with Vincent’s hands
completely buried in her hair, her lips parted to receive a kiss. Or maybe we’ve just finished kissing, and I’m
sighing with pleasure?
“I’m happy
to share those with you, Catherine. I’d—” He paused to clear his throat. “I’d
share everything with you, if I
could. If only I could...”
She sighed
and blinked back a tear.
“These are
exquisite, Vincent. You are truly gifted. But you’ve left out the most
important thing from all of them.”
“Everyone’s
a critic,” he mumbled with a droll grin.
“The first
time I heard your voice, Vincent, I felt something. I woke up and I hurt. I was
confused. Frightened. I didn’t know who hurt me or why, but I knew I was safe
the instant I heard you speak. It was as if I’d found something that had always
been missing, something I was hungering for but never tasted, and an empty
space was finally filled.”
She paged
back to the drawing of his feeding her soup, back where it all began, and she
touched the lines that just hinted at his hand.
“I’ve had
a lot of hands touch mine, Vincent. I couldn’t tell you what one of them looked
like.”
She turned
now to the picture of him embracing her as they danced beneath the tapestries.
“A lot of arms have held me. I don’t remember anything at all about what they
felt like.
“And
kisses?” She went to the drawing of his hands buried deep in her hair. “I’ve
had more than my fair share of frogs, but none of them awoke in me what just
the sound of your voice did. Their lips may have touched mine, but only you
have touched my heart. Only you’ve kissed my soul.
“I don’t
need anyone–I don’t want anyone–to
kiss me, not ever again. None but one.”
She picked
up both a pencil and a pen from the table. Wordlessly she turned back to the
drawing of her hand approaching his as he fed her soup their first day after he
rescued her. She turned his hand and placed the pen in it and adjusted his grip
until it matched the vague outline of the fingers holding the spoon in the
drawing.
When she
had arranged her reference to her satisfaction, she took the pencil and began
to shade the sides of his fingers, erasing the blunt edges of his nails and
replacing them with his pointed ones, adding the fine fringe of fur that peeked
out just beyond the edge of his cuff. She tried to add a hint of the strong
thick veins on the back of his hand, where she could see the blood pulsing
strong and steady, but she soon shook her head.
“Hmm. No.
That looks more like you’re being attacked by earthworms than anything else,”
she said with a rueful chuckle. She erased those lines, replacing them with
more hair. “That isn’t as good as you could have drawn it, but it’s no longer
just some anonymous hand anymore–now it looks like your hand. The only hand I ever want on me. The only one I would
allow. The one I long for and dream of. The one I welcome. The one I’ll wait
for, forever, if I have to. If you make me...”
“I do not
want to make you wait. I want to give you everything you desire, all you
deserve.”
“Only you
can fill in those missing lines, the highlights and the texture that are
missing, Vincent. Only you.”
She handed
him the pencil, pressing the book into his hands. He stared down at it in his
lap for a long while, until Catherine began to fear that she’d pushed too hard.
Suddenly
he looked up again, his eyes locking onto hers. He flicked the pencil away and
the sketchbook fell forgotten to the floor, a soft thump on the thick rug. He
raised one hand to the side of her face and the other followed a moment later.
She felt the heat of his palms framing her cheeks, his fingers delving into her
hair, just as it had been in his drawing. She watched him looking at his own
hands as she felt them brush her cheeks, his thumb tracing the swell of her
bottom lip.
For the first time ever, he’s
really seeing his own hands touching me. He’s not just trying to memorize what I look right now–he’s memorizing what we look like. He’s truly seeing himself
as part of this picture at last.
His mouth
crept towards her in slow-motion agony, his breath honeyed and warm, and then...His
lips brushed hers...And that was the
true work of art.
Secret
drawings found.
Yeah,
right. Dream on, Vincent. Like
my boobs
are that big.
Catherine
said, “Vincent, don’t dawdle.
The
genie’s got out of the bottle.
Those
pictures I saw
All prove
you can draw
And I
think you need a live model.”
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