Wanna Join A Club?

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Wanna join a club?

How about you join ABVA (Austin Butler Voice Addicts)?

United in the joy of hearing his voice in interviews, podcasts, audiobooks.... anything really.

Raise your hand if your an ABVA too.

I'm torn between the cottagecore aesthetic and dark academia aesthetic. Like, do I want to gather daisies in a wildflower field or wander around a gothic building? Decorate my room with flowers and patchwork or old books and candles? Wear floaty dresses or turtlenecks? Do some embroidery or commit and mysterious and inexplicable murder??

Okay after the other nights Oscar results, I just wanna say that I am so proud of Austin, Baz, Catherine and everyone else that put so much hard work into Elvis. You all totally deserved to win and it is so unfair that they robbed you of that.

This won’t change how much me and the rest of the Elvis fandom love you all 😘😘

This picture does something to me 🥵🥵🫠🫠

Confession & Connection Time

I know many of us are shaken to the core about the sudden death of Lisa Marie.

I read the tribute from her friend who was also a grief counselor and in it, he wrote about Lisa dedicating herself to supporting other grieving parents, including their plans to do a podcast. It inspired me to go out of my comfort zone in her honor and in honor of that commitment.

I am tremendously upset by Lisa’s death and cannot stop thinking of Priscilla and bursting into tears. Because I know what it is to lose a daughter. My only child was killed in a wreck two decades ago and I have never been the same. I almost didn’t survive it and was fully incapacitated for many, many years. In the past few years I have been coming into a promising new phase of grief and life, one that is difficult to navigate but one for which I am grateful. But any time I hear of a parent losing a child — whether it’s someone I know personally or not — it affects me tremendously. School shootings and celebrity deaths can be just as upsetting for me as for someone I know, albeit shorter lived since someone I do not know is not connected to me daily. But the universality is still there. Only other parents whose children have died know the suffering when their child is gone before them, regardless of circumstances and regardless of age.

Sadly, ironically, this is why I blurred out the letter I wrote for Elvis’s birthday when I posted it. After thanking him for his life and talent, I asked Elvis to hug my little girl for me. I think we all know he of course would do that. It’s making me cry again to write this now, imagining him scooping up my precious sweetheart (she was only 8) in his fatherly arms. I also asked him to find my mom and to tell them both I feel them with me always. As sensitive and kind as everyone is in our fandom, it felt too personal and vulnerable to share these details among a cyber community.

But here we are now. Lisa is dead. Priscilla’s heart is shattered. The family is devastated. The Elvis film family is floored. And the world is in shock. And I imagine that Austin is grieving in a strange and unique way, having come to love her as a “daughter” through his character work but also by feeling a maternal bond from her as well after they met. I acknowledge my thoughts about Austin are speculation on my part and I do not want to suggest I actually know what he is feeling. I don’t want to disrespect him with a formal assumption. Only to share that these thoughts and feelings have bubbled up for me by way of concern for his tender soul, whether or not they are accurate, and I’m sad for him, too.

Personally I must and do believe Lisa is in her father’s loving and long-awaited embrace and that she is also reunited with her beloved son. I know that I long for the day I will be with my daughter again on the same energetic plane — even though I connect to her constantly across the ethers. It was, in fact, that intense pull to be with her that made my life so precarious for so long after her death. And something I deeply understood about Lisa when she referred to how hard it was for her without Benjamin, including her intense feelings of guilt.

I decided to post this in case there are any others in the fandom who have survived a child and who need the extra support & understanding that a fellow bereaved parent shares. Also, after seeing Mel make a post about caring for ourselves and each other, and the many other anguished tributes that are showing up in my blog. Amongst the many posts I have spotted a few comments, tags, and reblogs that have the resonance of someone who knows a parent’s grief. So just in case someone else here is facing that, too, and in honor of Lisa, I decided to bare my soul.

Please feel free to comment, reblog, DM, or send me an ask. In between my own self care (which includes pacing myself on social media), I am also in ongoing recovery from a recent hospitalization, which is a factor in the amount of time I’m on tumblr right now. Otherwise I am available and at your service in compassion and solidarity.

I want to acknowledge a few of my fandom anchors @karamelcoveredolicity @ash-omalley @troubleinapinksuit @burninlovebutler @succsessions and everyone else who is posting, caring, sharing, and hurting. To any other bereaved parents, we know there are no words that adequately convey our experience. We only have the recognition and companionship of one another as fellow travelers on a journey we never, ever imagined we would be forced to take.

Love,

MJ

I am 100% calling out the Academy right now.

Are you gonna sit there and tell me that this man

THIS MAN

Didn’t deserve a fucking Oscar for his role? You’re going to look me in the face and tell me that a man who put his life ON HOLD for THREE GOD DAMN YEARS to throw himself into this larger than life piece of art deserves to lose? No. I’m calling bull shit.

Don’t misunderstand me, I respect the hell out of Brendan. He’s an amazing actor and an amazing man who had been through hell in his personal life and his career. I don’t deny that he did amazing in The Whale. But here’s the thing. Brendan came to set everyday and played a part. He read his lines, did his part, then went home. Austin didn’t do that. Austin never turned it off. Austin BECAME Elvis. He didn’t play a role, he became an icon. So much so that Elvis’s own family said that they wouldn’t be able to tell a difference at some points. I can somewhat overlook the disrespect the movie was shown in the other categories, but Austin deserved this. For him, for Baz, for Lisa, and for Elvis himself. I’m so unreasonably mad. I know people will disagree and that’s fine. Everyone has their right to an opinion. This just happens to be mine.

Aus, honey, you did amazing. So many people are so proud of how well you portrayed such a monumental role. No one could have done what you did. I’m proud, your fans are proud, and I know your mom, Lisa, and Elvis are all looking down so incredibly proud of everything that you’ve accomplished. You deserved better, but don’t let this discourage you. In our hearts you won that award tonight. We love you. Take the break you deserve.