#Movie Theaters Cinema Halls

[dell213]

MOVIE: Expend4bles

>> Watch The Full Movie: https://bit.ly/3EQV3Dt

[neon-kazoo]

Villains I dont see very often; mute. Mute villains are the best, nothing can convince me otherwise.

One idea thats been on my mind is a mute villain confessing to the hero, either through sign language, or a perfectly executed scheme. You’re choice :))

Not sure if this counts, but I ran with it. Might try this again after I gather some ASL knowledge. Hope you enjoy :)

A Silent Movie

It wasn’t exactly easy to get Hero sat in front of the cinema screen. In fact, the planning for this trap had taken over sixth months. Not to mention the money it took to buy this building off foreclosure, and the multitude of investments into Hero-proofing the location.

It was even harder to get said hero to stop yelling long enough to pay attention to the image being projected from the back of the room. Not that their sense of hearing was needed for this experience, but Villain imagined Hero would appreciate the lack of noise-based distractions, including sounds they themselves were making.

The theater was notably large, probably the most expensive showing room of its day. That is to say, the upholstery was a little outdated. The popcorn had been swept off the floor, the swirling carpet surprisingly clean. The velvet of the seats did not appear stained, and the cupholders were absent of any discarded snacks or tickets.

The glow of the emergency exit lights were the only thing illuminating the room, and they revealed a dim image of the hero situated in the center of the third row, which was optimal seating in the villain’s opinion.

Clearly, Hero did not agree, considering how hard they were pulling at the restraints to try and exit their carefully selected theater chair.

It was futile, of course, and the hero finally stopped straining when the villain appeared a row below them, quiet as a mouse, standing with a finger pressed to their lips.

Villain retreated when the hero quieted, letting their attention shift to the screen and this special showing. Images flicked past, and Hero became engrossed in the story unfolding on the screen.

Shown was a news reel Hero recognized as the time Villain had crashed their Election Day speech. A zoomed out map of the city, marking City Hall with a red square. Grainy footage of two figures dancing around next to a dumpster. Once again the map appeared, now with two squares pasted on top. The pattern continued, and Hero was amazed.

It was an agglomeration of every moment they had spent together, every public battle, every nighttime-shady-alley encounter.

There was only one reason to collect these momentos, these reminders. It had all meant something to the villain.

The complete lack of kernels on the carpet certainly pointed to a level of dedication and commitment to this scheme.

Maybe, they were hoping it meant something to the hero, too.

Another scene zoomed out a final time, revealing all the markers spread across the city. Only, now, Hero noticed, a rather distinct pattern had formed.

Villain moved like a phantom, appearing again, this time at the hero’s side. The ropes at their wrists fell away like magic while Hero gazed at the awkwardly hovering villain. They presented the hero with a glittering object hung from a chain held loose around their fingers. It was a large ruby gem, expertly cut into the shape of a 3-D heart.

Stolen, no doubt, Hero suspected possibly from the large jewelry exhibition that had just entered town.

The screen flashed bright, and lit up the hero’s face as it contorted in surprise. They processed the scene as fast as they could.

A heart of red markers, a heart of ruby, a heart fluttering in their chest, a heart laid open in front of them.

“Oh,” Hero breathed, “Oh.”

Villain sucked in a breath.

This was it, this was the moment they got rejected because they couldn’t-

“I had no idea.”

Of course they didn’t know, it’s not like Villain had ever spoken about it.

Preparing automatically for the rejection, Villain started to withdraw their hand, cold-as-steel demeanor returning to them with all the familiarity of a security blanket.

It was so stupid of them to think that they deserved any kind of reciprocation, so stupid to think that the hero could possibly-

The hero snatched the charm from their fingers before they fully withdrew.

“I didn’t say no,” they spoke softly, and the villain’s heart skipped a beat.

They reached out their other hand, wrapping their fingers over the still-outstretched hand of the villain. Instead of elaborating, Hero pulled the frozen criminal closer, connecting their lips in a gentle proclamation.

Actions spoke louder than words anyway.

[imaginespazzi]

Can you write a Drabble where the team is at the theater but the new freshmen who is obsessed with azzi doesn’t realize that Paige and azzi are together so they sit next to azzi and talk her ear off and Paige gets more and more annoyed and kk and ice think it’s hilarious

You asked for this a week ago and I fully forgot it was sitting in my drafts, but here's the unedited, unseriousness you asked for:

KK thinks Allie Ziebell might have a death wish. It's a shame really because she hasn't known the freshman for that long, but she seems like a sweet enough girl and really, KK doesn't feel like hiding her body. But if Paige murders her, and it's looking quite likely, by that glint in her eyes, that she might, well KK can't not help her father.

It had started basically the day they'd come back to Storrs. While Morgan and Sarah had immersed themselves in the chaos immediately, Allie had been a little quieter, gravitating to Azzi's calmness. Since then, Allie seemed to have latched herself onto the redshirt junior, slowly getting more and more comfortable.

Now Paige hadn't had any problem with that, always happy to see the freshman starting to fit in but then Allie had started to break the rules. Granted, no one had even told Allie these rules, or why they existed, but still, rules were there for a reason (except CD's Paige and Azzi can't room together because really, Paige thinks, that's a dumb as hell rule and it's not like it's stopped them anyway) and needed to be enforced.

It had started with Allie sitting next to Azzi at breakfast. Paige had been making a silly tiktok with KK, and then turned around to find her spot taken by Allie. She'd brushed it off, knowing the newcomers didn't know about her and Azzi yet. no she hadn't narrowed her eyes in irritation and this totally was not the moment KK and Ice started making a bet for how long it would take Paige to blow up.

Then there had been the car incident. Allie was trying to be nice, trying to be helpful by offering to drive, seeing that Paige's car didn't have space for all of them that were going to the movies. But then she'd made a grave mistake.

"Azzi, you can come with me."

It had taken a lot of self-restraint for KK to not burst into laughter, not at Allie's innocent enough remark, but at the way Paige's hands had immediately balled into fists at the idea of her passenger princess not being in her car.

"Azzi always rides with me," Paige had bitten out.

"Oh," Allie looked a little bit like a lost puppy and KK had to sympathize. They'd all gone through what she and Ice liked to call their "Pazzi initiation", catching onto the rules quite quickly.

And of course, Azzi, never one to let anyone feel awkward or pass up the opportunity to piss Paige off had been quick to say that, "no it's okay, I'll go with Allie today."

Allie's face had lit up at that and Paige's had immediately soured, eyebrows cocked in annoyance as her girlfriend slid into the other car, sending Paige a cheeky smile through the windshield. KK had to bite her fist to prevent herself from laughing, knowing it would only turn Paige's wrath onto her. Ice, always terrible at hiding her reactions, had let out a snicker which had resulted in her being banished to the backseat. And that, KK thinks, is why she's definitely the smarter child.

It had only gotten worse the last hour. Allie was everywhere. Excitedly chatting to Azzi about everything and nothing, as they waited in line for tickets and then popcorn. Paige had sulked as she walked behind them, arms crossed against her chest as she seethed in silence at not having Azzi's complete attention on her.

But the last straw had happened mere seconds ago, when they'd finally gotten into the cinema hall and Allie had had the audacity to slide into the seat next to Azzi. Paige had glowered at the younger girl before reluctantly taking her seat in between KK and Ice who seem to be finding this situation far more hilarious than it is.

"Do you think it'd be wrong to have a stepfather who's younger than us?" KK muses, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"Shut the fuck up," Paige grunts, hand gripping the seat handle tightly as she cranes her neck to continue glaring daggers at an oblivious Allie.

"I think Allie'd make a great stepfather," Ice surmises, "ooooh do you think she'd let me go on live- ow what the fuck?"

"Damn well at least we know Allie would never hit us. That's child abuse you know?" KK sends Ice a symapthetic look, as the red-shirt sophomore rubs at the spot on her arm that Paige had just hit.

Ignoring the two snickering idiots on either side of her, the UConn point guards, stands up abruptly, bumping harshly against KK's knees as she budges her way to Allie and Azzi. While the freshman looks up at Paige quizically, Azzi merely raises a knowing eyebrow, a barely concealed smirk playing on her lips.

"Allie," Paige says, voice dripping with fake honey, "that's my seat."

"Oh I didn't realize we had assigned seats?" Allie asks confusedly.

"We don't," Azzi reassures

"There are rules. For example," Paige points at Azzi, "my girlfriend," ignoring Azzi shaking her head, she points to Allie's seat, "my seat. Simple stuff like that you know?"

It's almost comical the way Allie's eyes go wide, mouth opening and closing as her eyes dart back and forth between Paige and Azzi, "oh. So um- you two?"

"Yes," Paige nods solemnly, "us two. So if you don't mind..."

"Oh yeah, yeah of course," a light blush tinges Allie's face, as she scampers away to find another seat.

Ignoring KK and Ice's howling laughter, she plops down next to Azzi with a satisfied grin, intertwining their hands together. And even though Azzi rolls her eyes, she doesn't pull away.

"Was that really necessary?"

Paige gives Azzi an offended look, "of course it was! We never sit apart at the movies."

"But-"

"It's literally rule #43 on the list."

"There's no list."

"Of course there's a list."

"Paige...."

"Azzi!"

The girl in question shakes her head, a small grin betraying how amused she actually is, "were you really jealous of our teammate? Our freshman teammate? Our freshman teammate who clearly has a boyfriend?"

"No," Paige draws out the syllable, "I just like to make sure everyone's following the rules."

"Because you're really big on rules and sticking to them right?"

"Right."

"Well that's too bad," Azzi runs a seductive finger up Paige's arm making her shiver, "guess you won't be breaking CD's rules and sleeping in my bed tonight then?"

"Fuck the rules actually!"

[mixtape-racha]

greenlight | lee minho

☆ part 2/8 of the 5 seconds of stray kids series ☆

words: 1.56k // warnings: soft dom!minho, dumbification (kinda)

“tell me you want me. tell me you want this as much as i do. we could have all night if you just say the word.”

and when minho looked at you with those bright eyes you’d grown to love, how could you deny him? in fact, you were sure you wanted this more than anything in the world.

your arms swung with minho’s hand in yours as you left the movie theater and headed back to the bus stop. it was your second official date after he asked you to be his girlfriend, and a movie after dinner seemed perfect - neither of you particularly enjoyed loud or flashy things anyway; your first date ever was literally just visiting the animal shelter and admiring the cute cats there.

although you had had your fair share of relationships during your early adulthood, you were sure that minho was your first real love. being with him, everything was perfect, and it made you feel like you were floating above cloud nine. you were lucky to live so close to him, too - being only across the hall in your respective university apartments - which meant you could spend as much time as you wanted with him to develop your budding relationship.

in fact, you only had one line left to cross. minho was in no rush to have sex with you - well, thats what he told himself, anyway. of course, he wanted to. everything you did was like a drug to him, and many of your date nights ended in him sloppily fucking into his palm before the scent of your perfume left his hoodie. but he was never going to rush you into it, and you had shown him no sign of needing him as bad as he needed you.

but god, he couldn’t have been more wrong. your trusty vibrator had finally given up and died from so much use after you and minho began your relationship. all he had to do was wink at you, and you were soaking. let alone if he put his hand on your thigh while driving, or leant down to whisper in your ear during a party. even during the movie - all he did was rub your arm comfortingly where he had an arm over your shoulders, and you had to clench your thighs to stop you from pouncing on him then and there. but you didn’t want to rush or push him into sleeping with you, and he seemed to have himself together a lot better than you did.

god, both of you were so oblivious.

you had decided very early into your meal - minho had insisted on taking you for sushi and stopping at a milkshake place on your way to the cinema - that you were going to stay at his dorm that night. now, with your skimpy underwear and innate craving to feel him all over you, you weren’t sure it was your best idea. i mean, after all, what was stopping you from pouncing on him like a wild animal in desperate need for a meal?

the bus ride was quiet - it was pretty busy, and neither of you particularly enjoyed that, so you situated yourselves at the back of the bus, sharing minho’s headphones as arctic monkey played. his flatmates (jisung and hyunjin) had gone out for a gig tonight, taking his car, and so you knew they would end up drunk in the backseat, parked in a random mcdonalds parking lot, leaving the entire dorm for the two of you until the early afternoon, most likely.

that thought had you craving your boyfriend even more, knowing you could be as loud as you wanted, and maybe - if he wanted to explore - not be confined to just his bedroom.

it wasn’t that either of you were inexperienced, but the idea of taking such a big step in your relationship was so important to you both that neither of you wanted it to be a rushed or impulsive decision. but god, you wanted him more and more as the bus approached your stop. you knew he wouldn’t care that you weren’t in pretty lingerie, or that you hadn’t shaved your legs. you knew he would think you were the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen, and you knew he’d voice that too. he would do anything to make you feel special and loved, and that night what you needed was him to pull orgasm after orgasm out of you.

the bus finally reached your stop, and you were so out of it that you allowed minho to manhandle you to your feet, pulling you along after thanking the driver. he chuckled at your vacant expression, rubbing your cheek softly.

“what’s going on in that pretty head of yours, baby, hmm?” he questioned as you entered the elevator, only moments away from his apartment where you could finally have him all to yourself. your words seemed to betray you, mouth working faster than your brain as his words made you tremble.

“need you, min. just– need you.” your words came out as a whine as you nuzzled your head into his shoulder, which slightly inhibited his ability to lead you out of the elevator and to his front door, but he didn’t mind at all.

“yeah? want me to take you all night, huh?” you had previously discussed all your likes and dislikes in bed just to cover all bases before anything actually happened, and unsurprisingly a lot of your kinks lined up with minho’s perfectly. “just say the word, angel, and you know i’ll give you anything you want.”

he knew that when you were tired and needy, you almost lost the capacity to think for yourself, and that you were more than willing to submit yourself fully to him and let him do all the thinking for you. he was more than happy to indulge you like that, but he needed to be sure you were in the correct headspace to consent - especially as it would be your first time together doing more than heatedly making out or going down on one another.

he lead you gently into the apartment, kneeling down to help you rid yourself of your shoes and your jacket before pulling you into a warm hug. you both swayed gently in the entryway, your brain firing at almost 100 miles a second, hands grasping onto your boyfriend’s skin wherever they could reach.

“please, min. just wanna be good for you, want you to make me feel good.”

your words were all he needed to pull you into a searing kiss, guiding your hands to rest on his hips while his wandered upwards to cup your cheeks. without breaking the kiss - he had the layout of the apartment mapped in his head - he carefully guided you to his bedroom, kicking the door closed once you were both inside.

his tongue pressed on your lower lip, demanding dominance before you parted your lips, allowing his tongue to massage yours in the nicest way possible. all the while, his hands were nimbly working on your shirt buttons, popping them open with ease before he slipped the sleeves down your arms and discarded the item behind him.

left clad in just your cycling shorts and bra, all of your senses seemed heightened, and you whined pathetically as the material of minho’s shirt rubbed against your bare skin.

“what’s wrong, hmm?” he asked, lips barely leaving yours to mumble out the words. you whimpered and tugged at the hem of his shirt, which made him chuckle. “use your words, baby, or i can;t give you what you want.”

“shirt, min,” you whimpered, eyebrows furrowed as you pulled away from the kiss and looked up at him with doe eyes. “off.”

yet another chuckle left his lips, and he pushed you back gently until you fell on the bed, reaching up to rid himself of his shirt.

“why don’t you take those shorts off for me, love. wanna see if those pretty panties you’re hiding look as good as that bra, yeah?”

he was so condescending in the best way, and it lit a spark in your core. your body seemed to be working on its own as you peeled your shorts off and laid out on the bed to show yourself off to him. this seemed to please him as he grinned and removed his jeans, crawling onto the bed and resting above you using his arms for support.

“you’re so gorgeous, you know that?” when you whined again, he caressed your cheek with the back of his hand and a glint in his eye. “stop stressing your pretty head, baby. i’m gonna take care of you - just wanna look at you first.”

it was something he enjoyed, just looking at you. admiring you, if you will. knowing you were all for him, so pliant and willing to do anything asked before he could ever finish a sentence. it was a power trip, for sure, knowing you trusted him enough to have complete control over you like this, and he loved every second.

seeing how you squirmed under him, under his stare, had his throbbing in his boxers and he couldn’t wait to ravish you. the flush on your cheeks, spreading down your chest and across your ears. he’d never seen anything more beautiful, and he couldn’t wait a second longer to show you that.

he shushed your whines with a gentle kiss to your lips, reaching down to hook your leg over his hip.

“hush now, pretty girl. i’ll take care of you. let that pretty brain go blank, and let me do all the thinking and work for you, yeah?”

taglist: join taglists here @pretty-racha @skz-streamer @hyunjiins @backintomykpopphaseagain @demetrisscarf

[losingherface]

Cinema

Ellie x fem reader

Info: While on patrol, Reader and Ellie come across a movie theater, something they’ve only heard about in the comics, they’re not going to miss the opportunity to explore it.

Warnings: Smut, 18+ only

•

“Mmm, Mmm, Yea’.. You hummed the words of a song you’ve been listening to on repeat while kneeing down every once in awhile to rip flowers from the ground, trying to gather enough for your curious girlfriend, Ellie.

The both of you were in the hot summer sun on patrol. Ellie was 100% faithful to her belief that Summer was the worst time to be out and about killing infected. You preferred spring, the rain & and warmth gave you some sort of comfort despite the situation.

Ellie and you were walking a giant field of tall grass & hidden flowers, Ellie with a map in her hand and you with a ready-to-shoot shotgun in yours.

“You know what i’ve never told you?” You say to Ellie, smiling and looking at her thigh.

“What is it.?” She says with a smile back, getting closer and closer to your face.

“I love that holster there.” you whispered.

Ellie rolls her eyes and laughs, kissing your forehead like she always did.

“Come on, only a few places left to clear out and we can talk more about it back at home.”

Ellie never liked being distracted, sometimes you just couldn’t help but get a little distracted while on patrol. You had Ellie wrapped around your finger though, and she would literally have to stop herself from getting distracted as well.

“Ugh fine. Where to next?” You asked as she fumbled with the map.

“Mmmm….I think we’re going to the movies.”

You gasp. “The movies, like the theater? Remember that one comic?……”

“Yes. Yes, I remember. But we’re only going to go in there and kill infected, okay?”

“God Ellie you never used to be so …good. Why can’t we have a little fun just like in the comic?” You walked up behind her, hugging her waist and nibbling at her ear.

She blushed and giggled at the feeling of you there.

“Okay. Okay. Just like in the comic.”

Time had passed and the two of you finally arrived at the old and practically falling apart movie theater. Ellie searched her backpack for her gun. The two of you begin making your way in slowly and quietly.

Inside, there were old stations for purchasing tickets, grabbing candy and popcorn. You wondered what could’ve gone down here and why you felt such a huge wave of nostalgia.

The old movie posters on the wall, and the long hall to your theater seemed so fun to you. But now there were dead bodies and infected scattered over the building. Not too crazy since there were no spores but you could still feel them. So could Ellie.

You had your shotgun ready for anything as You followed behind Ellie. The two of stood quietly peaking your head in the hallway of theater rooms looking for any infected. It wasn’t until you heard loud breathing, running and sounds of a runner behind you.

“Babe watch out!” Ellie yelled as you turned around and immediately shot the runner.

Breathless you say, “I don’t know why we still get shocked when we’re on patrol.”

“Yea well, better get that gun ready, I can hear them from inside the theaters.”

You took a deep breath as you and Ellie stood beside each other watching the small horde of runners running to you two.

Only the sound of gunshots filled the theater. At some point, your shotgun ran out and you had to quickly detach your bat from yourself. You began beating them one by one, blood splattering on you and Ellie and the floor of the theater.

And Voilà! They were gone for now.

“I think we deserved this break.” Ellie nodded in agreement, the two of you still armed, walked down the long hall and picked a theater.

It was incredibly dark but luckily the embarrassingly huge flashlights Joel gifted the both of you came in handy.

“Up there!” You say. The stairs led the both of you to the small room where the film would be playing through.

“None of this stuff works.” Ellie says looking around for a way to play any movie. “I mean it’s been years since it’s all been used, you know?”

“Aha!”

“What?” Ellie looks over to you.

“I found a cute little radio.”

“Does it work?”

“…Nope.”

Ellie grabbed your hands.

“Is it crazy that sometimes I wish we were together before the outbreak? I probably would’ve gave you everything.”

It was rare for Ellie to be completely open about her feelings and you knew every time she was, it was the truth. You sat on the little desk in the room, pulling her close and wrapping your legs around her, resting your head in her neck. She made you feel so safe.

“No..it’s not crazy. I think everyone wishes this outbreak never happened- even if we weren’t even alive yet.” Your voice was muffled. Her hands caressed your waist as she pulled away and rested her nose onto yours. You press a soft kiss onto her lips but didn’t get the chance to pull away longer than a second. Ellie’s hands cupped your face as she basically devoured your lips. She was breathless and it seemed like she was starving for you. Something Ellie never liked doing— getting it on while on patrol.

Doesn’t mean it never happens but she would rather be with you at home, cuddled up in bed and in privacy. Not while trying to kill infected.

Ellie backed away for a moment to pull down her faded black jeans, revealing her beautiful thighs in her short-shorts. God, you loved the view.

You get up, walking slowly over to her and begin caressing her all over. She helps you undress and you do the same. Her boobs do a soft little bounce as you tug off her sports bra. Your mouth immediately attaches to her nipple, licking and sucking all over leaving her boobs slightly coated in your spit.

You begin kissing slowly downwards as you reach to her shorts, looking up at her for permission, she places her hand on your head basically saying yes. Slowly, you begin sliding down her shorts, revealing the beauty and warmth she possessed.

You kiss her inner thighs, never wanting to stop and you end up right where you want to be. Licking and nibbling at her skin before reaching her clit, it was your favorite. Her moans filling the room and seeing her try to find anything to grab onto for support.

She would barely let you go down on her but you could tell by how quickly it’s all going that she was the one that desperately needed you today.

You loved licking her clean and seeing yourself glow and have some of her covering your chin and lips. She helped you get up off your knees. She wasn’t done and you knew she wouldn’t let you go without getting something in return.

Ellie started to slide her jeans back on and you attempted to do the same.

“No.” She said stopping you from putting on your jeans. “I want it all off. I’ll lay down.”

You watched her as she laid her flannel out on the floor, lied down and gestured her hand for you to come near.

“Sit on my face.”

You blushed and felt the ache down there. You did as you were told and hovered over Ellie’s face, without warning she had her hands wrapped around you, holding you as close as possible to her tongue.

She ate you out as fast as she wanted and was not stopping. At some point, you could feel tears in your eyes with the way her tongue was moving inside of you. Your toes curling and body dripping loads of sweat. This was you in your favorite form of yourself.

Soon enough, her grip became weaker which allowed you to jump off of her face without dripping too much on her. You fell over to the side and laid there for a minute. Ellie sat up and looked at you laughing.

“Think you’re good to walk back?” She asked you, grabbing and caressing your hand.

“I would be in a minute.”

“So was it like the comic?”

“Kind of, too bad we couldn’t slow dance to anything.”

Ellie fixed herself and became your big spoon while the two of you relaxed before heading back home.

Patrol always ended in two ways. Either you two actually got stuff done and get home to have a large feast in bed or the two of you stay on patrol longer than usual, recovering from amazing sex.

•

a/n: another smut. will write something smut-less next time! :) sorry for any mistakes!

[enchantedchocolatebars]

Cosmic Frontier: Space Wolves Vs. Earth Ponies

Fanfic for Camila Mama Week 2024 (@camilamamaweek).

Day 6: Cosmic Frontier/Wolves

To commemorate this wonderful week, I opted to write short stories that feature Camila and her second daughter, Alma, who is one of my OCs.

This is part 2 of "Shopping For Snacks".

Summary: The family arrives at the theater together, but they encounter an irritating ticket taker.

Enjoy!

("Build-A-Bud" is a parody of "Build-A-Bear").

"Come on, come on, Mom and Alma," Luz whispered worriedly, gazing at the time on her purple Azura themed wristwatch while standing near the movie theater entrance with her stepfather.

"Please hurry." She didn't want the four of them to miss a single second of the movie.

Luz began to tap her foot, her nerves at an all-time high.

Beardo Philip brought a comforting hand on Luz's shoulder, gently patting it.

"They'll be here," he reassured, looking down at her, which made Luz take a deep breath and sigh, nodding her head.

After bringing his gaze back up, Philip's smile got brighter, his blue eyes lighting up.

"And here they come now."

Hearing this, Luz looks up to see her mother and sister hurriedly rushing over to her and Philip, with Alma waving happily at her sister, who giggled and waved back.

"Sorry we're late," Camila apologized with a sigh, adjusting her purse.

"We brought snacks!" Alma beamed, pulling out a candy bar from her skirt pocket to show it before placing it back.

"Honestly," Philip began, viewing the time on Luz's watch. "I think you arrived right on time, calabaza."

He smiled at Camila.

Camila let out a fond giggle at his adorable pet name.

She simply loved it when he called her that.

Camila then goes over to Philip and places a sweet smooch on his left cheek. "Gracias, mi amor."

...

Upon entering the cinema lobby together, the family walks to the ticket taking podium on the right side of the theater.

Luz, recognizing who their ticket taker is, cringes.

'Ugh, not him,' she groaned in her mind.

He was known to be the most annoying person in town.

Luz was curious as to how he ended up landing a job at the movies, but she doubts he'll have it for long.

He's bound to mess it up and get fired, somehow.

Jacob caught sight of the candy bar sticking out of Alma's pocket as the family arrived at the podium.

The theater didn't sell that brand.

He frowned at this and pointed an accusatory finger at the small girl.

Philip already didn't like this man.

"You!" Jacob cried. "No outside food or drink allowed in the thea--"

Before Philip could maul this ill-mannered man with his bare hands, Camila was first to make a move, narrowing her eyes at Jacob.

"Is there going to be a problem here...,"

Camila spoke in a low, threatening voice as she reached into her purse and pulled out her chancla slightly, enough for Jacob to see it and gulp.

"Mister?"

Flashbacks of the past begin to play in his mind as Jacob feels an unexpected sting on his right cheek, holding it.

The strike of her slipper was still present in that place.

He shutters.

"N-Not at all, ma'am," he answered with a frightened stammer.

"Good," said Camila, dropping her chancla in her purse and pulling out the tickets to hand to Jacob, who politely took and ripped them.

He handed her a ticket stub.

"Your theater number is 5. It's located in the center of the hall on the left side," he said before showing Camila a nervous smile. "Enjoy the show!"

"Yay!" Alma cheered as she and her family walked down the hall.

A sigh of relief escaped Jacob as he wiped his brow.

However, he felt a pair of eyes on him and turned around to see Camila squinting at him.

The mother's expression indicated that she had her eyes on him as she turned back around.

...

"Uh...," a man holding a ticket said as he approached the ticket taker podium and saw the male ticket taker silently weeping to himself while rocking back and forth in the fetal position.

...

"Wow, that movie was great!" An astonished Luz exclaimed as she and her family exited the movie auditorium and entered the hallway with the other movie goers.

"Yeah!" Alma agreed with her sister, smiling brightly. "My favorite part was when the wolves became friends with the ponies."

She turned to look at her mother, who was holding her hand.

"Mamá, can we go to the Build-A-Bud Workshop at the mall tomorrow and build a space wolf friend and an Earth pony friend?" she asked.

She remembers a commercial about it playing before the movie started.

Camila gives her daughter a smile and nods. "Of course, mija."

...

As the family walked down the theater lobby, Alma spotted the ticket taker who had pointed at her at the podium.

He was sitting on a stool at the bar by himself.

She proceeds to point at him. "Mamá, look! It's that man!"

Camila turns her attention to the bar, where she witnessed Jacob filling his shot glass with butter from a popcorn butter bottle that he had and taking a shot of it.

The bartender, who was wiping a shot glass, seemed quite disturbed by his peculiar coping mechanism.

Camila, repulsed by the sight, slowly looks back at Alma with a genuine smile. "Pay him no mind, baby. He's just a strange man."

"Oh!" Alma smiled back at her mother. "Yes, Mamá."

[frodo-with-glasses]

25 Questions with Phil Dragash: YES, SERIOUSLY!

So y'all know how I was reviewing Phil Dragash's audiobook of LotR last year, but kinda fell off somewhere in the middle of Rohan?? Well, guess what! A couple weeks ago, I received a tumblr message from the man himself, saying he'd read through all my reviews, had really enjoyed the little blast from the past, and was open to answering questions if I had any!

So of course, I had LOTS of questions.

The first one being: "Are you actually the real Phil Dragash??"

But I'm delighted to say that after exchanging emails with the work email listed on his website, I can confidently say that it is the real dude, and I've had a blast chatting with him! So for those of you who urged I listen to this audiobook—especially @laurelindorenan for her glowing recommendation—and for everyone else who likes the audiobook and/or enjoyed my reviews: I am delighted to present, ladies and gentlehobbits, this peek behind the curtain!

But of course I'm putting it all below the cut, because this man rambles like I do 🤣

Obligatory disclaimer: All opinions presented by Mr. Dragash are his own, I am not necessarily condoning any of them; please do not come after me for his opinions regarding pineapple on pizza.

25 QUESTIONS, LET'S GO!

1. Tell me how you got into Lord of the Rings!

I was ten years old when my dad took me to the library, and found a VHS copy of Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated Lord of the Rings film. I was already a fan of the “Chronicles of Narnia” and my dad just handed the tape to me and said “Look, C.S. Lewis’s friend made this”. I watched it, and had no idea what was going on. It was so hard to understand.

Fast forward to the year 2002 when “Fellowship” was out on DVD, and we had a movie night at my older cousin’s place, and watched the film for the first time. My 13 year old self was enraptured by it. Dad bought the DVD first thing the next day, and I’ve been a fan ever since! I, my brother, and our dad watched “Return of the King” in theaters four times, which was saying something, considering we only ever saw a movie once in cinemas. Between “The Return of the King” opening in December ‘03, I picked up the books and read (as well as I could) through them. A lot of friends kept joking “tell us how the damn story ends!”, good times.

2. When and how did you decide to make this audiobook? What’s the story behind the entire project? 

I was a very ambitious lad, and my first and biggest interest was filmmaking. I used to direct short films with my friends ever since my 11th birthday, and was the youngest in class at the filmschool I attended a few years later. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I had massive ambitions to direct “the Hobbit”, which is silly in retrospect considering I was 16 years old at the time. I even sent my portfolio and DVDs of my films to Peter Jackson’s manager (who actually got back to me with a wonderful response, despite not being able to accept my ‘completely reasonable’ offer) When I was heartbroken and torn to pieces knowing I wouldn’t be directing the movie, a few more years went by, and I decided to reread some chapters of the “Lord of the Rings” books. I remember really well that this was late at night, laying in bed, and going through “King of the Golden Hall” and seeing how close to the movies it was, but also far more expanded. I thought “my extensive home-made short movies experience with sound design and sound mixing could work here, and I could just read a few chapters and try to make the soundscape as realistic as possible. Why not try it?” 

So, the next day I tried. The first two chapters I tried were “King of the Golden Hall” and “A Journey in the Dark” (which partly answers your other question about that chapter). I was so absolutely surprised by how well it was going, that I decided to upload them onto YouTube in March 2010 I think. I got a fairly good response, and I was planning on doing a few more random chapters. I never intended to do the whole thing. But this one comment on YouTube I’ll always remember, it said: “I think you should go from start to finish, because you’ll probably get used to the characters and sounds and people can also follow along in the story gradually”.

Taking that suggestion to heart, in August 2010 I went from Chapter 1 onward. 

3. Were you inspired by any other audiobook versions of LotR (such as the BBC radio drama)?

I was not, I actually haven’t listened to the BBC Radio drama until far ahead into the project I was doing. I did some research on what other audio productions anyone did with LOTR, from The Mind’s Eye edition, to the ‘60s Hobbit Radio Play; so I felt pretty confident. I just fell in love with the way the films brought Middle-Earth to life and seeing their incredible dedication for authenticity (from the props department, to the music), you really couldn’t do any better than that visually or audibly - at least in my opinion. I just wanted to hear Tolkien’s text but with the realisation of the films. 

However, if you listen to Chapter 1 of TTT, and hear how Legolas laments their absence from not being there to help Boromir at Amon Hen, you can clearly hear the inflection from the BBC Radio play’s version. I just lifted that because I thought it was a fantastic way to deliver the line.

4. Did you have any rituals for “getting into character” before recording?

If I were to show you the raw unedited recording sessions, you’d probably be surprised at how underdeveloped it is! I had no real rituals or warmups, I just went for it. Usually went in cold, and tried reading the entire chapter and doing all the voices at once. Then I’d be exhausted, and afterwards start cutting all the mistakes, and separating each character into different tracks – and then re-recording 50%-70% of it, as I was laying in the sounds. 

I think any character just needs a few words for me to say in their voice, and that helps for the rest of their dialogue. For Aragorn it was usually: “You cannot wield it! None of us can.” for Pippin it was: “Sometimes”, just random things that make things ‘click’ in my head. If I got lost or didn’t feel like the performances were working, I’d simply just watch scenes from the films to hear the real actors again!

5. Who was your favorite character to voice? Who was your least favorite? And why?

People who know me, know I love doing the villains. Sauron, the orcs, the Nazgûl, etc. I just love the idea of personifying things that scare you. Something completely the opposite of who you are. Always a fun time! Any character I can nail extremely accurately always makes me happy, but I’m always very critical of my own work, so it’s a rare thing.

My least favorite characters to voice are: Imrahil, Denethor, Arwen, Celeborn, Galadriel, Erestor, Lindir, Haldir, Goldberry, Gildor… I think the pattern is pretty obvious if you realize that I am incapable of providing a satisfactory voice that feels unique enough. They just sound to me like “I wish I had a broader range. They weren’t done justice.” I have feelings for most of the characters in this situation, but I’m a mere mortal. I can’t do all of them as well as I wish I could. I wish Aragorn was more like Viggo Mortensen’s voice (I tried with the nasally yells you mentioned!), I wish Gandalf had a richer tone, I wish Saruman sounded more majestic, and I wish Frodo was - in retrospect- more older sounding, too. There’s so much I wish I could do better, but to hell with it, I tried.

Fun fact: my least-favorite to voice are also Orcs because they destroy my throat after a while. Which is ironic, because of my first statement.

6. I noticed that you gave the men of Rohan and Gondor slightly different dialects! Are you pulling from any real-world accents to make that happen?

I did try to listen to Anglo-Saxon, and ancient norse but I just tried to make Rohan and Gondor slightly distinct in any way I could. I never really tried to make things too obvious, but admittedly, I think I just used my intuition (smoothing the R’s for the Rohirrim, making the Gondorians more ‘proper’, etc.). I do want to emphasize that this was a one-person project and keeping things together or consistent is definitely an extraneous exercise when you’re just trying to get something finished by yourself! 

7. Some characters (like Beregond and Quickbeam, to name a couple of my favorites) aren’t in the movies, so they don’t have an actor for you to imitate. How did you decide what they would sound like?

Well, in the case of Beregond, I realized he was just “your ordinary guy”, and seeing Minas Tirith through his eyes (and Pippin’s)  is such an amazing and interesting opportunity. It made the city feel so real, and I wanted to take advantage of that. I think I started with a ‘generic’ voice, but when I re-recorded him knowing more and more of the context and what he was saying to Pippin, and as a result who he is, made me adjust what I felt were more his personality. But still that ‘ordinary guy’ idea was the bedrock, and it’s been years since I heard that chapter, but I hope it holds up! (I just remembered Bergil is in that too, another voice I wish I could have done better) 

Another fun fact: when Pippin scares the kids in Minas Tirith, the audio was from something I videotaped when I was 10 years old with my friends, it had the perfect “kids-going-aaah!” sound.

If I had it my way, I’d have a cast of dozens in this Audiobook, so a lot of times I never felt like my voice was enough to truly capture the “We’re in Middle-Earth, we just have microphones to record it” idea. So I have to make compromises since I was the only one doing the voices. That being said, Quickbeam was a fun surprise because he felt like, as you said “young treebeard”, and these things just worked out through experimentation! I think Quickbeam turned out pretty nice. I like Quickbeam.

8. HOW—I ask with great enthusiasm—DID YOU DO TREEBEARD’S VOICE? How did you get that resonance and woody sound? Did you send your voice through a wooden box and re-record it on the other side like they did in the movies?

It’s really great that you know all the behind the scenes stories from the films! Especially what Ethan Van der Ryn, David Farmer, and the late Michael Hopkins have done with their incredible creativity. I had no such resources to produce Treebeard’s sound. What I did was a digital facsimile: a special ‘room’ reverb, with some other equalizing effects to boost the bass and (maybe, I can’t remember) another higher pitched track of the same voice faintly in there. 

You won’t believe this, but I was not going to do The Two Towers audiobook unless I could do a good Treebeard voice. In 2011 after finishing “Fellowship”, I was on the fence about continuing, and only committed once I knew I could do Treebeard right. Treebeard was the key to all this. This should come to no surprise to the ones who played the game, but I used a lot of sound effects from ‘Battle for Middle-Earth’ which contained a lot of clean sounds for ents, trolls, the balrog, the ringwraiths, and other monsters from the films. I used the ent’s footsteps from the games, and recorded my own foley for some of the trees snapping and leaves rustling as well. The “fart” sounds were the low creaking of tree branches, and - as they stated in the making-of for the films - very pitched down cow moos. 

9. Tell me about the foley work! Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been that nerd who watched the Behind The Scenes featurettes for fun, so I’m very interested to hear how you made the sound effects for footsteps and whistling arrows and jangling horse harnesses and such. 

I’m glad you are! I’ve collected sound libraries (ripped from video games, and finding and buying sound packs) for a literal decade, because I always needed sounds for the short films I made when I was younger. I just kept learning about how to mix sounds together, and it’s very creative and very enjoyable! That being said, the foley work itself is mostly recorded by me. If I can’t find a sound in the library I have, I will record it. Clothing rustles, and touch are all recorded while I listen to the audiobook playback and ‘perform’ each character. It’s a really arduous process, but I think it adds so much life into the sound. 

I went out into the woods (or backyard) with my mic to record footsteps, sometimes I would listen to the audiobook with headphones while performing the footsteps. When I would have traveled somewhere with different terrain I would be sure to record more foley (rocks being moved, or pebbles being stepped on) knowing I’ll use it for certain chapters. I do not want to reveal a huge secret about the predominant foley for the character's clothes, but an old backpack I used were 90% of the characters’ ‘movements’. Some wingflaps of the fell beasts were just my jeans. It’s a really creative process trying to find things that ‘sound’ right for an environment or action. The magic is putting them all together and hearing the result. Also, yes Sam’s pan is my grandma’s frying pan, and I know it’s sometimes annoying, but - look - Sam has a lot of stuff to carry.

I start with the background sounds (wind, tree rustles, water if there is any, etc.) lots of layers of them just to make them sound unique and not the same. Then I move to selective and nearer environmental background sounds. Then, the ‘hero’ sounds, the effects that are integral to the story (if it’s sword clashes, or an explosion, or who knows what), and finally the foley (footsteps, clothing rustles, breaths, etc.) - I had a friend record her own horses breathing and moving for a lot of closeups of the horses in the audiobooks. I think even if you can’t really hear some of their low breaths, their presence is still ‘there’. I personally think I got a lot better by the end of LOTR than when I started! 

I wanted to add, the sounds for little Elanor in the very last scene of “The Return of the King” (the baby sounds), I was not happy with the stock baby sounds I had, and asked my older cousin (an audio person too!) to send me recordings he made of his then-1-year-old daughter in a studio. So, my first-cousin-once-removed is Elanor! She’s 22 now. I feel old.

10. Do you have a favorite sound effect from this project? Mine is the “pat-pat” against cloth that’s used to denote a hug.

Absolutely, do you remember the two “watchers” before the tower of Cirith Ungol? The vulture-like statues that block the hobbit’s path out? The alarm sound is a wholly original sound design I did, and I’m really happy with it. It’s just ugly sounding, and that’s the point. I always wished I had more Nazgul, and I think the worst moments I had with mixing were the battle scenes. There’s just too much to handle and make it sound good. But I really tried.

I’m very glad you heard the ‘pat-pat’s. I try my best to perform every character when recording foley, and want even some of the sounds to convey something in the telling of the story.

11. What's the thought process behind your use of the various musical motifs from Howard Shore's score? (Read: Why do you use the Shire theme so often, and why does it get me in the heart every single time?)

I want everyone to know that this is a really important and valuable question, and one I never really get to talk about: To me, Howard Shore’s music is one of the very best things to come out of the films. He truly made an opera out of the story, and all his leitmotifs and orchestrations are a stroke of genius. They work on their own, and when reading the books as well, and as a nerd for films and all that stuff, I wanted to put a lot of care into how I’m placing the score, and for what scene, emotionally and leitmotivically, if that’s a word.

The Audiobook I did is obviously a ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ situation, so I can’t credit myself for the majority of the Audiobook I did, but I wanted to use all my filmmaking intuition to properly use the music to enhance the telling of the story. So, just like the filmmakers had to change and mix lines from the book, or make changes to make it work as a film, I felt like a lot of instances happened with the music for the audiobook. Obviously, I used the score when applicable to the intended scenes, but there are very often cases where they won’t work. I read as much as I could in the past about what the motifs were and where Shore used them in the movies, so I followed that trajectory for the most part. Gondor is Gondor, Rohan is Rohan, Mordor is Mordor, etc. 

Changes happen when I feel the emotions for a scene in the books do not match up to the ones in the films, and then there are brand new scenes and characters not in the movies at all, that I have to figure out! Take the pause from music between Gandalf falling into the chasm with the Balrog, and the fellowship successfully escaping. It’s perfect in the film, but I knew I couldn’t put the lamenting heartbreaking music in there yet, since the descriptions all drive the idea that escape is paramount. So I treated it as a ‘shock’ moment. No music until they’re completely out of the mountain, then the grief comes in. Things like that, a lot of fun creative thinking to get those emotions working!

I recall you mentioning the ‘Gimli / Legolas drinking game’ statement and how I used the hell out of it throughout the Audiobook, which is a good example. I pitched it up and down, for different moments, and it just has that hobbit mundane and jolly quality to it. So, in it goes to fill moments from the books. 

I also edited and modified existing motifs for completely different scenes and ideas. One of my favorites is when Treebeard talks about the Entwives. I needed this melancholy yearning sound that was really essential, and found it by reversing Eowyn’s theme, and pitching it down so the violin sounds like a cello/bass. To me it just felt extremely appropriate for the sound of a long-lost relationship while portraying a larger-than-life creature. 

Let’s also say Bombadil. I made up the idea that the last statement in the credits for “Return of the King”, was Bombadil’s theme. It’s actually just a reference to Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner, a very verbose beautiful crescendo, but I thought “I’ll pretend like it’s Bombadil, he’s last in the score even though he’s the first in Arda”. So I used that musical progression in his songs, that’s his leitmotif now (to me, anyway) He sings in that wavy up-and-down melody. Which is why you hear a lot of that in those chapters.

I also try to use recordings not from the original score: I looked far and wide for alternative recordings, predominantly the album by the Royal Prague Philharmonic, and the “LOTR Symphony”, just to make the Audiobooks feel different. I pitched down and moved and reassembled a lot of different cues for different scenes as well.

There are not a lot of instances of music from other movies, however, they do exist! I used music from “Battle for Middle-Earth”, the game “War in the North”, and for the last few chapters, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” since it just came out at the time. I used a lot of music from Howard Shore’s “Seven” and “The Game” during Shelob (I think), and for the Barrow-Downs. I used a tiny bit of underscore from the brilliant Don Davis’s “The Matrix Reloaded”, it had a really eerie choir which made me feel like it would be perfect for the fatigue and dizzying unreality of Mordor when Sam and Frodo were on their last leg, trying to get to Mt. Doom. Lastly, I used a little bit of music from Howard Shore’s “Twilight: Eclipse” for some dialogue scenes during Return of the King! And music from the independent film “Mongol” by Tuomas Kantelinen for the Woses when Theoden has to get help from Ghan-Buri-Ghan. Also the ending of ROTK has a few cues from “The Lord of the Rings musical”, lovely stuff.

It may surprise you that there is a small amount of score I actually ‘wrote’ with help from my brother (he’s a musician). It’s in the coronation of Elessar. It’s not very good but I needed something. There is also a cello version of “to the edge of night”, which I kindly asked permission to use by YouTube celloist, but I sadly don't think that video is up anymore.

Lastly, I use the Shire music so much because - just like Howard Shore said - it becomes a ‘hymn’ or an ‘anthem’ for the hobbits as they leave their comforts behind and are in a wide and unfamiliar world. Every little bit that reminds them of home, or relates to each of them, usually deserves a little ‘shire’ statement here and there. I feel if it’s in the characters’ hearts and minds, it has to be expressed in the music!

12. Out of all the chapters I’ve listened to so far on the Internet Archive, “A Journey in the Dark” is the one most plagued with editing issues; Sam’s temper tantrum over leaving Bill the Pony is cut out entirely. Which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to hearing your take on that. (Is it strange to say that I wanted to hear you break down into blubbering tears? Probably. Let’s ignore that and move on.) Is there any chance that you have a cleaner edit of that chapter somewhere?

I think you’ll be very unsurprised to know that “A Journey in the Dark” is the first chapter I ever recorded. I think you’ll also need to know that I did FOTR when I was 21 years old, and my grasp on doing better sound mixing or even getting the characters right was still a work in progress. I learned so much going chapter-by-chapter and felt that each succeeding one improves from the former. As a demo-run, I did “King of the Golden Hall '' and “Journey in the Dark” in early 2010 (in fact, I did only the first half of “JITD” back then. Stopping right after they are barred inside the mines, as the Watcher destroys the gate. I did the second half once I caught up with the story going chapter-by-chapter.)

There are so many issues with it, and I haven’t listened to it since. If you have headphones you’ll also notice that none of the voices really pan from left to right, or feel like they’re ever anywhere else except the dead-center. I was lazy back then. 

When I read the chapters, at the time, I was sharing an ‘office room’ with my younger brother, and as a teenaged younger brother does - continues strumming his guitar no matter what the other brother is doing. It was really fun, and funny and I was extremely sloppy with editing things out, and taking it too seriously. So, for sure you can hear ‘someone’ in the background during the early parts of FOTR, and I was too lazy to re-record or edit out the noises that weren’t supposed to be there.

Forgive me if this part is a lot longer, but now that you mention it, I want to get on my soap-box and rant about how many things I agree with about the Audiobook’s shortcomings and how many things have changed since the wee days of 2010: 

I didn’t really get a grasp on the characters, and I had no idea I was going to do the entire book. I did not take enough care with sound mixing (it’s a highly technical and rigorous practice, I’ve discovered. Even now, ten plus years later - it’s too technical for me to fully understand yet), and I did not thoroughly re-listen to the chapter when I was done with an edit or a sound-effects pass. Therefore there’s always been mistakes still in there, and just unpleasantly careless placement of sounds and music. I have often thought about re-recording it to get it up to scratch, but it’s been over a decade and I haven��t properly preserved all the sound stems without having to re-sound-mix the whole chapter again, and there is that little thing called ‘burnout’ which is hard to ignore. So, I apologize to everyone who has to suffer through that huge drop in quality with “A Journey in the Dark”. It quite literally was my first attempt, and it definitely shows. 

The good news is that a fan asked me the same thing about the missing piece in that chapter (the one you mentioned! With Sam and Bill!), and I’ve heard the same comments about it throughout the years. Why is it missing? I don’t know why! I recorded it, but in my loose run-and-gun past when I was a wee lad, I was careless, and just had the mp3 with that part missing. A rendering error, perhaps! Stupid 21 year old Phil just hodgepoging everything.

A Few months ago, I did get another email about that missing piece. I thought “okay, once and for all, I’m going to find that missing part.” - and I searched my old harddrives for some kind of archival copy with that part in it. Amazingly, it was a lot harder to find than I thought. Every rendered version of JITD either stopped right before that scene, or had it omitted. I actually found one half of it as a ‘demo’ piece I rendered years ago for a ‘sound trailer’, and then I finally found the original YouTube video I made - which had it intact! Now the hardest part was stitching it together with the rest. Took longer than I thought, but I finally amended this horrible incompetence. And yes, I will share the link to you! And be prepared to be disappointed at the 2010-era quality!

I don’t know if anyone knows this, but with the mp3s circling around, I have taken the liberty of re-recording and re-working some chapters from their original versions. I try my best to preserve the originals, but I also wish people to listen to the re-records. I have actually re-recorded and re-mastered “A Long-Expected Party” three times. 2011, 2013, and 2014. I re-recorded “King of the Golden Hall” in 2013, and “Shadow of the Past” in 2014. I usually try labelling the dates on the mp3 files themselves. The one I’m most proud of re-recording bits of, is “The Pyre of Denethor” as the first time I had Denethor say his last words he was mildly raising his voice, but I listened to it again one day and went “this man should be at the edge of sanity.” - so he absolutely yells now, and it’s such a night-and-day comparison.

Another addendum: I completely understand the complaints about ‘the sound/music drowning out the dialogue’. It’s been the #1 complaint over the decade. I completely understand. I never had professional sound mixing gear, nor did I have proper mixing headphones or speakers or a proper studio (most of the audiobook was recorded at my grandmother’s house!). The balance of the audio making it sound immersive, (like you are there!) and having clear dialogue to hear is - like I said - an extremely technical and complex process that I’ve never had the ability or tech to master. Let alone for a book that’s 48 hours long, and has so much sound and music to it. Nothing would bring me more joy than to work with an experienced sound mixer, and find all my audio stems, and for us to work together to clear up any and all issues. But as this project was a simple fan-made work, and I haven’t distributed it myself for a decade, who knows?

This is also why I never went on to do “The Hobbit”. Burnout is real, and I’ve never recovered from LOTR. The burnout… “it’s never really healed, Sam.”

13. What was your favorite scene to record and mix?

Mount Doom. Can’t get better than trying to make the climax as horrible and eucatastrophic as that. It all led up to this, and it was such a rush to work on. I remember how I was at the edge of my seat watching ROTK in cinemas for the first time, and how amazingly they pulled it off, and I wanted to definitely imitate that, but using Tolkien’s own writing. Just so cool.

I have two favorite chapters: The first one is “The Scouring of the Shire”. I remember well, when I was working on it, I realized this has never been ‘dramatized’ before. At least not in full. I felt so special being the first one (probably) to do it. I could imagine the entire chapter in my head like a film, and I could bring it to life with very little outside influence. Such a poignant and shocking chapter. 

I don’t think I would have done it as well without the experience I gained doing the rest of the Audiobook. Showing the strength of the four hobbits, portraying the dignity and resolve of their kind, giving that pathetic yet dangerous authenticity to Sharkey, and the ruffians, illustrating the battle of bywater with sound… this was done in 2013, so we all were able to listen to new music by Howard Shore (for The Hobbit), and I would be able to transpose motifs from that, into “Scouring”, and honestly I wouldn’t know how it would have worked out if the Hobbit films didn’t come out just at the right time. I think the score fits so well with the events of “Scouring”, there is a ‘mordor’ theme but it feels ‘unfinished’, like the remnant of an old defeated foe; there’s that wily progression for Radagast in the films, that I used for the hobbit’s rebellion and the conflict, and there’s a new ‘hobbit/shire’ motif that worked so perfectly for a ‘wounded, but recovering’ Shire. I feel so silly talking about decisions I made for this, but I always wanted to share some thoughts I had! 

Fun fact: I had a wonderful person ask if she would be able to play Rosie Cotton back in 2013, and I asked her to perform her lines. She was great, but I realized a very strange thing: when I put her in the audio mix, it would actually break the immersion, because you can hear a voice that wasn’t mine, and as a result - I couldn’t help but keep thinking - my voice for Rosie’s mother sounded like a Monty Python skit in comparison! And thus her lines had to be unused. It kind of just opened the fourth wall, breaking the illusion. Which is a shame, because I always dream of having a fully-cast LOTR Audiobook, maybe someday officially.

The other favorite is “The Tower of Cirith Ungol” just because I listened to it one day in 2014, and heard no errors. I was so proud. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to change substantially. No one dislikes all the errors more than I do!

14. What’s your best memory from this entire project?

My late dad drove me and my brother out into a clearing at midnight in the forest. The sky was so clear and starry. And we were here simply to just yell at the top of our lungs to record material for “Helm’s Deep”. All the clear yells: “Elendil!!!” “Gúthwinë! Gúthwinë For the Mark!”etc. Etc. - I lost my voice, it was a fun time. He held the microphone for me as I splashed around a stream (for Gollum), once again at midnight since there were fewer background sounds.

I also tell this story a lot: A friend of mine who was listening to the chapters as I finished them - she hated the sound of knuckles cracking. And hated spiders. So, obviously, Shelob would have to have knuckle-cracking sounds for her limbs. So I recorded my own knuckles cracking and tried using it as much as I could for Shelob’s legs moving about. My friend was soooo ecstatic to know this fact.

15. If you could do it all again today, what would you change?

I would consider doing a ground-up re-recording of everything. With a budget, with a cast, with a lot more understanding of the story and intentions behind them. With VR sound options. With extra original music. That’s the dream. 

If we’re back to reality, I guess I’d just re-record a bunch of chapters since they could always be better, and tighten all the technical errors. But that would require a lot of assembling of the raw archived files, and re-building of sounds, and re-recording of lines. Also, as I stated before, I do not want to distribute my unofficial fan work just because I know that it’s a copyright nightmare. And burnout… “it’s never really healed, Sam.”

I like taking other people’s opinions to heart, such as the issues with Frodo’s youth or inflections and intonations for certain scenes that I didn’t quite fully grasp the first time. I would love to adjust things and make it closer to the book now.

- - - - -

And now! The Silly Questions Lightning Round!

(With thoughts from Lady Glasses in parentheses and italics!)

1. In Fellowship, long stretches of dialogue would often have someone randomly cough in the background. Tell me about the Cough. Why is the Cough there?

No one hates the coughs more than me. That’s either my brother minding his own business in the other end of our ‘office room’. I think you now know I was 21, I didn’t care, so these things are just left in because I was careless. However, sometimes there are intentional coughs to make it feel more realistic. It’s been years since I listened to it, so unless I somehow do a massive commentary stream someday (thinking about it), your guess will be as good as mine! The coughs heavily subsided once I did Two Towers, since I was by myself.

2. During the dinner scene with Farmer Cotton, someone burps. Who was that?

Mine. I have no regrets with that one. Or Pippin. I guess it could be Pippin.

(Darn! And here I thought it was Farmer Cotton, LOL)

3. How did you manage to make Bill Ferny’s voice so perfectly obnoxious?

I imagined Bill as an obnoxious guy. The image in my head gives me a good idea of what he’d sound like, and I’m so glad he’s so obnoxious that you had to mention it.

(He sounds perfectly punchable. Thanks, I hate it.)

4. Did you crack yourself up at any point in the recording?

Oh yes, in fact I have a whole outtake reel just for you!

(Warning to anyone who clicks the link: the April Fool's audio had me ON THE FLOOR)

5. Voice acting aside, who is your favorite character in LotR and why?

If you asked me in 2002 it would be the Balrog, if you asked me now it would be difficult because so many of them mean so much to me, and each of their aspects have something to aspire to. Gandalf, Aragorn, Sam, Frodo, Galadriel, the list goes on and on.

(That's beautiful, and so true. The story really grows with us, doesn't it?)

6. What’s your favorite color?

Blue. Always has been.

(Blue is a good color! 💙)

7. Political question: Pineapples on pizza, yes or no?

Yes, I still don’t get what the fuss is about

(Oooh, controversial)

8. Is a hotdog a sandwich?

No, it’s a hotdog!

(Counterpoint: A hotdog is a taco.)

9. What’s your opinion on geese?

They’re racist

(Racist against the entire human race, apparently)

10. How much would I have to pay you to say “I love boats!” in Merry’s voice? (It’s an inside joke with my friends.)

Nothing, it’s on the house!

(HOLY CRAP I LOVE YOU)

- - - - -

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! What are you working on nowadays?

I’ve actually had a few people ask me if I’ll ever do more audiobooks like this, and I seem to have tapped something. Yes, in fact! I’m working with a few creative collaborators on a small company to do the exact same sonic experience with other books! Since we’re very small, we are starting with stories in the Public Domain, and have successfully kickstarted (and finished) “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling. Which will be out (hopefully, officially) by early September! I’m really excited and hope this will lead to more projects, and - hopefully- back to Tolkien someday, in an official manner. Please follow my Instagram or Facebook for more info about it. (I also have a Twitter and Tumblr and more, but they’re all completely unrelated to LOTR and are just me drawing doodles and being a nerd, very unlike the Audiobooks I did, which is a bit confusing, I admit.)

- - - - -

And that concludes our interview! As I told Phil, it was so much fun to discuss a fellow fan's passion project like this. The more I read about it, the more I realized just how similar it was to my own experiences as a fan creator. We all start out as just a noob with a few unpolished skills, making something because we love it, and we learn and grow and hone our talents along the way. It's legitimately inspiring.

Needless to say, I am stoked to finish listening to the rest of this audiobook! Is it a bit weird knowing the creator of the thing might drop in and read my reviews?? Yes. Yes it is. But I'm gonna do it anyway. No holds barred! If I hear another cough, you're gonna know about it, Phil!

Also I may or may not do something with that audio of Merry because I'M STILL DYING OF LAUGHTER HELP

Anyway! If you made it to the end of this, you deserve a cookie! Everybody say thank you to Mr. Dragash, and go check out the other stuff he's doing nowadays! Namárië!

[ghastlyvampire]

Large 1 am thought dump about the ghovie under the cut (contains spoilers) (it really is large and pretty disorganized and a bit random)

(I rewrote this at 8 am ☝️)

The theater was PACKED!! The session I went to was almost fully sold out. There were cosplayers where I went too, it was great. No merch available unfortunately, but hey I didn't even expect it to show in my country so I'm very pleased.

(downside: no popcorn because if we tried to get popcorn we would have been late. The popcorn line basically took over the cinema's entry hall. The ghovie coincided with a bunch of parents taking their kids to see inside out which made for a funny mix at the waiting line).

I basically didn't know anything about what to expect but it was so cool. I'M JUST SAD I COULDN'T GET THE LAST QR CODE IN TIME SIGH BUT IT'S OKAY!!

I went with my dad and he loved it. This is the first movie we watched in a theater that he somehow didn't fall asleep in the middle of LOL.

The downside: as usual, sexual innuendos were a bit awkward to witness when your father is sitting right next to you. That didn't stop me from enjoying anything though dkkskfkdk

I kind of wish the people in my session had been more... Idk I mean it was basically a concert right!! I was expecting more singing and stuff. I normally hate loudness but in these contexts I really like it, but judging by the wait line we were all nerds so it makes sense why no one was extroverted enough for that.

(We did all laugh sometimes and also everyone groaned at the cliffhanger which was funny) (twice, once when the screen turned black and then when the lights of the theater turned back on) (everyone waited)

I did unfortunately also conclude that there's like a 90% chance that I could not ever actually go to a Ghost concert (or most big concerts) because of the lights* 🥹 (autism). I just looked away whenever it got too much but I was also kind of transfixed but regardless I had fun.

*well, really thinking about it I would probably already be overwhelmed just by being in that big of a crowd. Then having to listen to it scream the whole time would have probably kill me so there's that

I got so scared that Copia was going to die at the end. My heart was beating so fast nearing the end and when the balloon thing start I was like It's Over. Then it wasn't!

(In my heart I kind of knew Tobias wasn't going to do that because we are all very attached to him at this point and I would imagine he is too)

THE SKELETONS WERE SO SILLY I LOVED THEM

The Mary On a Cross animation made me very happy

The costume changes were so cool to witness and I really liked Papa's (or Fr��ter's now, I guess hehe) little boxer outfit.

Someone brought their baby AND THE BABY DIDN'T CRY OR SCREAM ONCE! Idk how their mom did it since I'm sure they couldn't have been sleeping but maybe they were raised with Ghost so they were just as hooked into the movie as the rest of us.

Oughhh ouch now I'm craving cinema popcorn so bad I wish I could have seen the movie while eating popcorn.

It was nice to get the confirmation that Copia really is Nihil and Sister's son (even though we all knew).

When they were in that box thing I thought that Nihil was going to possess him. I was expecting for him to possess him when he did the pose too for some reason.

I was like wow I will be completely normal about this I'm not even autistic about Ghost anymore. Then I sat down on the chair and immediately was fighting back tears. Apparently I can never be Normal About Things (specifically Things That I Like a Lot).

IF YOU HAVE GHOSTS!!

The new song is great

I was sad that Sister died but she's a ghost so really it's okay.

Immediate edit: THE TWIN THING ALSO YEAH THAT WAS UNEXPECTED

I might edit this later with more thoughts but I'm too sleepy to think right now. If you somehow read everything then hiiii thank you for reading my messy thoughts

Edit #2: The ghovie had no ads before it. Like at all. I was pleasantly surprised but also feel bad for the people that went into it a bit late thinking they wouldn't miss anything because the ads usually take minutes.

Edit #3: Another reason that makes me think that I'd die at a real Ghost concert is that the music is probably very loud as well, and while my brain dislikes loud music that I like less than the other loud things, it's still not immune to it. Thinking about it, it's crazy that somehow I didn't feel overwhelmed by the sounds in the ghovie once, considering that usually that happens at least once in every movie I see on the theater. Idk if it's just me or they just made it like that, but I'm VERY pleased about that too.

If you want more specific spoilers then dm me I love rambling about things I like

[mymelodymia]

Autumn days 🍂 Dad!Tony stark x daughter!reader

summary: your feeling a bit down, so your father does something special for you.

Warnings: none <3

+•°+*°•++•°+*°•++•°+*°•+

You had always loved the fall. The cool wind, the mesmerizing outdoors, the rain. You loved everything about it. Your favorite being the cozy vibe it gave off. Never failing to cheer you up while in a bad mood.

tony took note of how down and upset you were feeling all of a sudden. He woke you up very early. Like 5 am kind of early that day.

"Hmmmmm" you groaned, not wanting to wake up.

"Sweetheart come on i have something planned for you" you only sighed and stretched your legs out, pulling your blanket down. Tony poked your now slightly exposed stomach, in order to wake you up more.

You hopped out of bed, going to your bathroom. You heard tony rummaging through your wardrobe. When you came out of the bathroom, you saw a very comfy outfit sitting on your bed waiting for you.

Which included a soft white tee, a comfy sweater, a hat, sweatpants, and boots. You smiled at the decent looking outfit, giggling you took it and walked back into the bathroom, you also brushed your teeth and hair, walking out you saw tony in the same spot. But he had clearly gotten up to do something.

You saw him sitting comfortably on your white sheets, with an outfit identical to yours.

You sat down next to him, Smiling to yourself.

"Come on, lets go eat" he said taking your hand and standing. Walking toward the door and into the hall, where you asked him a question.

"What are we gonna do today" you asked curiosity as you walked past the living room and into the kitchen, where there was fresh pancakes. You giggled to yourself.

After you finished your meal, tony lead you out the door, and made sure to turn on the heater on the car.

You arrived at a parking lot of a coffee shop. That was connected to the most beautiful town you had ever seen. Looking like it was straight out of pinterest.

You both walked into the small coffee shop. You sat down and simply talked to your father, about what had been bothering you. But you also accidentally just drifted off into talking about a Disney movie.

Once you finished this short activity, you both walked down a beautiful path, decorated with leafs, given that it was quite early, no one was driving. No whooshing cars even near you.

You saw a small bookstore and decided to go inside, where you were greeted with a very sweet old man running the place. And even gave you free tea/coffee.

You both bought a few books that looked interesting, you also got a few bookmarks, the price was quite average. You were glad there was finally a bookstore with affordable products.

Tony took the bag from the elderly man, and held the door for you. Walking down the same path you saw a movie theater, and tony was already prepared.

"Look! They're playing that movie we wanted to see" you said pointing toward the colorful lights coming from this cinema.

And tony waved two tickets in front of your face. You laughed at him.

After your movie was over you and tony were worn out. And walked down the beautiful path you had grew quite fond of one last time. You saw a bench and decided to sit for a few moments. You sat down patting the space next to you for tony.

You rested your head on tonys shoulder, and he put an arm around you.

"I had a really great time today dad. Thank you, i love you" you said looking off into the distance. "I love you too baby"

You both stopped at a pumpkin patch before you left. Tony promised to carve them with you this weekend. So you now had someone to look forward too.

You most definitely fell asleep on the ride home. Holding the two pumpkins in your arms in order too "protect them" in your words.

When you arrived home, tony told you to go and get a shower and you did just that. There was a pear of pajamas on your bed, that tony was definitely wearing as well. About 15 minutes later you came down to see your favorite fall movie ready to play on the large flat-screen. And a few candles lit on the fireplace in order to make a warm environment.

You sat at the couch, only to fall asleep again. With your father holding you.

+•°+*°•+

Tags

@animealways // @white-wolf-buckaroo // @tonystark-au // @yummyangy // @zebralover //

[claratompson]

Breakfast 3

Moving closer to the table, Zoller began to introduce Emmanuel to everyone present. "Emmanuel, this is the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels and his translator Francesca Mondino." The young cinema owner thought to herself that the man looked like a statue of Michelangelo, if he was sadistic and armless, and Francesca was like a black panther, for which red lipstick is enough as food. With a small smile of familiarity, they all sat down at the table. Hellstrom poured the champagne first for Emmanuelle and then for himself, then sat down next to her and took her hand, which made the girl smile sheepishly and look at him gratefully. Goebbels willingly and without hidden arrogance asked Emmanuel about the movie theater as if it belonged to him. With each new question, her throat went dry and she wanted to end this meeting as quickly as possible. The only thing that made things better was Hellstrom's presence at her side. Emmanuelle admitted to herself that he had become a friend in that short time. Out of everyone present, he was the only one who treated her with respect. The young owner of the cinema believed that nothing could be worse than this meeting. But how wrong she was when she felt the aura of the man who had killed her entire family behind her, and Minister Goebbels 'joyful greeting only confirmed her fears:" Ah! Landa, there you are!" The voice of Zoller, who represented Emmanuel to the Lieutenant Colonel, was drowned out by the hum in the girl's ears, who froze like a statue when Hans lowered his gaze to her and, leaning over her and kissing her hand, said, "Charmed mademoiselle." He pressed down on her shoulder, forcing her to sit up. It was funny, on the one hand, how unhappy Frederick was, hoping to stay with Emmanuelle, but Landa had her own plans. The girl looked pityingly at Major Hellstrom, knowing that he would leave her now, but fortunately for her, Dieter turned to the Lieutenant Colonel: "Standartenfuhrer, if you will excuse me, before you start talking to Mademoiselle Mimier, I would like to say something to her in private."

Hans looked at the Major in his curious way as he laid a hand on Emmanuelle's shoulder. The Lieutenant Colonel smiled, finding the whole thing amusing: "Ah, that's it. I understand everything. As soon as Landa left, the girl exhaled deeply and looked at the Major gratefully, asking him, "What did you want to talk to me about?" Dieter put his arm around the girl's waist, pulling her aside: "First of all, I don't want to leave you alone in Landa's arms. He's a dangerous man. I saw your mixed reaction to him and it became clear to me that you have something to hide, Mademoiselle Mimiex. " The girl looked at him with fear and directly asked:" And now you are going to kill me? " The Major patted her on the shoulders, assuring her: "No, no, no. That's not what I meant. I mean, I can only protect you if you trust me. Emmanuel: "But why would you want to protect me, Hellstrom? I am… There's no point in helping me. Besides, if I tell you the whole truth, you'll definitely have a reason to kill me." - she said sadly. The Major cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him: "I told you you could trust me and I wouldn't let anyone hurt you, didn't I?" Emmanuel: "You did, but …" Dieter: "But I always keep my word and I don't like the idea of anyone hurting you You, Emmanuel." Emmanuel: "I really appreciate your concern for my safety, but I still don't understand it, Major. " "You'll soon understand for yourself, Emmanuel, but for now Landa will think that you are now under my protection." The girl looked questioningly at the Major: "And how exactly he will understand this?" As soon as Hellstrom caught sight of the Lieutenant Colonel's figure walking back into the hall out of the corner of his eye, he said briefly," And here it is." Before Emmanuelle could say anything, the Sturmbannfuhrer took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. It took her about 5 seconds to figure out what was going on and 3 seconds to relax and return the kiss with her arms around the man's neck. Emmanuelle didn't quite know what she was doing, but she trusted Hellstrom.

When he slowly finished the kiss, he looked into her eyes, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, and she looked back at him. They were distracted by Landa's voice coming in: "So… so… so. Dieter put his arm around the girl's shoulder and pulled her towards him, walking towards Hans: "Yes, that's right. Hans turned to Emmanuelle: "Well, you, Mademoiselle Mimier, I was just amazed. You've managed to get the most enviable major in all of Germany. I didn't think it would happen so quickly, but I can tell that you are in the most reliable hands." The girl instinctively snuggled closer to the major when Hans spoke to her. Dieter: "It seems that you, Standartenfuhrer, wanted to talk to Emmanuel. Hans: "Yes, but don't worry, just a few questions about the movie theater. A simple nightmare." Dieter: Good. I'll be waiting for you in the car, my love." he said to the girl, kissing her hand. At this point, Emmanuelle was covered in goosebumps from such an address to her. ("Won't Landa know it's all fake?") As soon as Hellstrom left, Hans and Emmanuel sat down at the table. Hans said to her, "Do you mind if I call you Emmanuel?" and she shrugged and said, "Yes." Then the Standartenfuhrer ordered them two strudels, coffee for himself, and milk for her. I asked her about how she became the owner of the movie theater and other things about security at the premiere. And just as it was about to end, Hans looked at her carefully as he lit a cigarette: "You know, I wanted to ask you something else." At that moment, Emmanuelle realized that he had made her out. She was afraid, though she didn't show it. She knew it was going to end now, but to her surprise: "But I can't remember what!" The Colonel stubbed out his cigarette on a piece of strudel, got up from the table, and kissed her hand.: "See you tonight," and left. The girl had never felt so tense and terrible, as if she had been run over by a car.

She slowly got up from the table, heading for the exit. It took Emmanuelle a moment to notice the Major standing by the car. As soon as Dieter saw the girl, he immediately approached her, patting her on the shoulder: "Emmanuel, how did it go?" The girl did not answer immediately, because she was still a little confused. She looked at the man wearily and replied, " I am.. I don't even know. He asked me about the movie theater and how I got it, and then he seemed to want to ask me something else, but…He looked at me in a way that made me uneasy, and then pretended that he had forgotten what he wanted to ask." Hellstrom: "I see." The girl patted his cheek and said: "Anyway, thank you for everything, Sturmbannfuhrer. The Major didn't want to let her go just like that, so he ran up to her, blocking her path, " Emmanuel, wait! I need to know that you will be safe." Emmanuel: "Stop it! It doesn't matter. My security had ceased to exist the moment I met Lieutenant Colonel Landa. He's already got us figured out. That kiss pack was just a confirmation to him that you and I are even more vulnerable. " Hellstrom: "'Vulnerable'? Why? He knows that you are under my protection, he will not touch you." Emmanuel: "But now you will also be in danger. Don't you see, Major? If we didn't care about each other, then he wouldn't care. We're both in danger. You because you are attached to a Jewish woman, and I because I trust you and will not forgive myself if something happens to you. With that, she left, leaving the Sturmbannfuhrer alone with his thoughts and her words that kept replaying over and over in his mind. That evening, he drove to a tavern, where he took a dark spot in the corner and got a beer. All my thoughts were on her. Emmanuelle was right about everything. During their acquaintance, the Sturmbannfuhrer had always wanted to be there to protect and protect her from anything that might pose a danger to her. He even admitted to himself that he had fallen in love with the girl, despite the hostility of their status, but the Major couldn't help it. For the first time in his life, he felt warm and deep feelings for a woman, so simply and easily that it took all his effort to do so. Pulling himself together, the Major gulped down a glass of beer, left the tavern, and headed for Emmanuel's house. He got there pretty quickly. He had cherished the hope that the girl was still awake, and his hopes were disappointed when the Major saw a light burning from the window where she lived. The major quickly entered the entrance, went up to the desired floor, straightened his jacket and knocked on the door.

After a few seconds, she opened the door, surprised by the late arrival: "Major? What are you doing here?" You shouldn't come here." Dieter stepped closer to her, " I need to talk to you. I need to say.." Emmanuelle opened the door for him, letting him in with the words: As soon as she closed the door, he walked over to her, holding her hands, and said: "I will not restrain myself and say as it is. I love you, Emmanuel." The girl was taken aback by his admission, of course, she understood that he respected and was ready to protect her, but said:" Hellstrom, you don't need to give up everything, just because of the fact what you feel for me. You risk exposing yourself to dangers and multiple interrogations. Don't you see?!" He abruptly wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her towards him: "I just understand everything, but losing the woman I love for me is a thousand times more painful than my own death. I need you." One part of her wanted to talk some sense into him and push him away, but the other part, and the bigger part, wanted to hug him and never let him go. So all Emmanuelle did was say his name, "Oh Dieter!" and hug him tightly. The Major in turn, stroking her back, hugged her tightly in response: "My dear." The girl pulled back slightly, but only to look into his eyes and kiss him. The man with all undisguised passion and tenderness responded to the kiss, holding the girl even closer to him. His heart was pounding with joy and delight at being able to share everything he felt with her. When their lungs began to burn from lack of air, they slowly and not only finished the kiss, but still continued to hold each other in a tight embrace. The Major was sitting on the sofa, holding Emmanuelle close. They stared at each other for a long time, not closing their eyes for most of the night. They didn't want to stop this moment, but their tiredness finally got the better of them and they fell asleep in each other's arms on the couch.

[simtleman]

Come get dazzled by the silver screen at the ORPHEUM THEATER!

So after updating all my freaking mods for the new Horse Ranch update (which I couldn't care less about, tbh... the only good thing that came with it for me was— you guessed it!— painted ceilings), here I am once again with a brand new building for the Vintage Save File I'm working on: let me take you on a tour through the stunning Orpheum Theater!

I OBVIOUSLY couldn't do a Vintage Save File set in Del Sol Valley without including a proper theater where your 1920s, '30s & '40s sims could go watch Golden Age films, get mesmerized by their favorite movie stars' glamour and perhaps even take their dates and get lucky while sitting in the back seats?

I have to say just building the front— mainly the marquee, which I did manually— took me about a solid 3 hours, so apologies if the rooms I decorated last seem a bit uncluttered... I was simply ready to move on to the next build by then lol

Below you can see the tickets window (somehow I always seem to find a way to implement @surely-sims's CC into my builds, I just can't help myself... it works too good around my aesthetic!)

And the main hall, in which you'll find @ravasheencc's Film Reaper Movie Theater posters that will allow your sims to watch actual movies through a rabbit hole. I don't know if you noticed, but I also finally found the courage to download and play around a little with @twistedmexi's TOOL mod (the lights frames are rotated) after getting inspired by some of the content by @come-hell-or-high-water. The way he/she (?) pays attention to the tiniest details in his/her screenshots made me want to take mine a step further, so thank you @come-hell-or-high-water!

There's only one movie room, but it has two stories and a beautiful balcony on the second floor you can access to if you go upstairs, through the main hall:

Upstairs is also where the toilets are located (look at those gorgeous red velvet carpeted ceilings... 9 freaking years I've waited to be able to do that, EA!):

And, of course, it wouldn't be a cinema without a projection room, would it?:

Next to the theater you'll find a kinda shabby parking lot, in which Dito Dalton (see my previous post) takes care of some of his businesses every now and then, if you know what I mean:

And last but not least, if you go through the back you'll find a very small yet cozy home that belongs to the household who owns the Orpheum Theater:

Who are the members of this household, you may ask? Ah, you little inquisitive mind! I'm afraid you'll have to wait for my next post to find out... but let me tell ya, they have a great background story and will be a great townie addition to this save file :)

Anyway, that's it for today! Hope you guys like this new building and we shall see where this crazy project that's taking most of my spare time lately takes me next lol

[misty-moth]

I wanted to write a very fluffy Sasuke fic for Valentine’s, so ~behold~ (ﾉ•ヮ•)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

Divider

Sasuke x reader, ~650 words, fluffy date

You couldn’t say that starting your morning with a feisty Kenshin at your door was your preferred way to wake up… nor could you say it was unusual. You peeked an eye up to meet the grumpy warlord.

“Good morning, Kenshin.”

“Where is my ninja?”

Your brow furrowed, and you reached back to pat the space behind you. Sasuke seemed to have already left for the morning, leaving only a pillow with a spectacled face scribbled on it.

“Hmm, dunno,” you yawned, bringing your fluffy substitute boyfriend up for him to see.

“Hmph. Well tell him each minute he keeps me waiting will be another minute added onto his training.”

You sleepily nodded, not too troubled by Kenshin’s violent affection toward Sasuke. Thankfully Kenshin didn’t seem keen on lingering, and soon you were alone again with your pillow ninja.

It really was strange that Sasuke was m.i.a. this early in the morning. Neither of you had mentioned having plans today, though you had made some treats for the two of you to share if you could manage to get him alone. Maybe he would somehow know to avoid the halls—

The ceiling panel shifted nearly silently, but you reflexively jumped up.

“Sasuke?”

You saw a familiar hand poke down through the ceiling, poised in hand-puppet fashion. The hand spoke thus: “Join me.”

Grabbing on to your beloved dork’s hand, you were hoisted up to join the room’s framework. “Good morning, MC. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

“I’m honored to be here my competent and, might I say, rather handsome ninja.”

“Arigato. I’ll need you to follow me on a little trek, if you would.” You watched as he replaced the panel and turned back.

It had been a while since you’d been up here, but you found it was always rather tidy and fairly roomy. You hadn’t crawled for too long before a larger opening presented itself. Around you was a little cozy haven, reds and pinks featured prominently. From the ceiling’s ceiling hung garlands with origami stars trickling down. There were several small paper lanterns placed strategically, illuminating an array of pillows, blankets, sake bottles, and—

“Are those the snacks I made yesterday?” You blinked in confusion, but he nodded stoically.

“I had a feeling Kenshin and I would have differing interpretations of my free time, so I figured I’d need to make set plans. Would you like to go on a date?”

You crawled over into the cozy nest he’d made as an answer and made grabby hands toward him. He crawled over to you before unceremoniously plopping himself onto your chest.

“Oof! Sasuke!” You giggled at the straight face looking up at you, his eyes glittering. You stroked his hair as he snuggled in. Living together had given you both plenty of opportunities for seeing each other, but it was silly moments like this that felt the most blissful.

“Nice digs you’ve got here. Do you have any movies? Popcorn?”

Sasuke tilted his head in contemplation. “May I interest you in some rice crackers? They would normally cost over 400 yen in a theater near you, but I smuggled some in for us. And as for our cinema entertainment…” he cleared his throat. “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too—“

“Nooo!” You groaned dramatically.

“Not a fan of the classics?” He blinked— wait, no, that was a wink kinda!

You laughed but shook your head. “I’ll need to browse your collection.”

He returned your smile, and dutifully began rattling off as many famous lines as he could. You were keeping pace, and you were honestly proud that you knew at least 80% of the references.

The two of you spent the afternoon together just like that, curled up and gazing up at the ceiling full of stars.

Writing Masterlist

[alecmagnuslwb]

Friday Night Big Scream

Read on AO3

The too long laces of her converse shoes bounce against the concrete as they walk down the street Zatanna’s arm linked with John’s. The ground’s a little wet the rain ending just in time for Trick or Treating to begin as a thin layer of fog crawls along the ground giving just the right amount of spooky to the crowded streets.

They weave their way through hundreds of other costumed folks, dodging a line of little Power Rangers high on sugar who rush past them.

John and Zatanna come to a stop in front of the Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema, a small local theater she’s always been partial to, the marquee glowing proudly with tonight’s fare.

“Are you sure a movie marathon will satisfy your Halloween needs?” John says dropping her arm to twine their fingers together.

Zatanna smiles up at the marquee then at him. “Absolutely, Dinah and Ollie are out of the country so there’s no party worth our time and I already dragged you to three haunted hayrides this year,” she pauses with a smirk. He just scowls playfully in return; those hayrides were not as family friendly as he was told they would be. He had nightmares dammit, less terrifying than the one’s he usually has, but nightmares all the same. “Our costumes are top notch and their showing three of the finest slasher classics ever to exist. It’s gonna be a nice, easy Halloween.”

John nods his head satisfied with her answer. They step forward about to enter the theater bumping into another couple.

“Sorry, mate,” John says as one of the men looks at them.

“You two look fantastic,” he says as the pair saunters off not even missing a beat.

“Hell yes we do,” Zatanna says with a smile pulling John forward into the theater. She has once again gone all out on their costumes. This year opting to be Grace and Daniel from one of her favorite recent movies Ready or Not, it gave Zatanna an excuse to look damn pretty in white while John looks hot in a brown suit and teal shirt and has an excuse to carry around a whiskey glass all night that she can magically refill.

They give their tickets to the girl dressed as Batgirl in the booth and make their way into the massive theater. They skip the concession line for now, though Zatanna will be needing some popcorn soon enough, and head into screen room four. They’ve gone all out for the night, the lights are all lit up red, the walls covered in fake cobwebs and spiders and everything in between. A few animatronic slashers are set up here and there in the halls and at the edges of the seats.

John and Zatanna pass by screen room three where Freddy Kreuger stands and is having his own marathon, two young girls who look barely old enough to have bought their tickets tonight screaming in delight when he swipes out at them.

Their trilogy of choice isn’t quite as famous as that man of nightmares but it’s Zatanna’s hands down favorite.

The Killer Blade franchise is a blatant mish mash rip-off of Texas Chainsaw and Friday the 13th. The killer, quite obviously, carries a chainsaw in one hand, a machete in the other and sports a scarecrow like mask as he terrorizes young campers in the dead of the southern summer.

They’re corny and ridiculous and only get more so as the films progress, by the third film the killer has blatant healing powers that are never explained and the machete has become molded to his arm in a practical effect that’s essentially just duct tape. The final girl from the first film is portrayed by four different women across the movies, yes that’s right four. They couldn’t even keep one actress around to finish an entire film in the second installment.

They’re not great, but Zatanna has such fond memories of the schlocky 80’s slashers. They were the first horror movies she stayed up way too late to watch and couldn’t take her eyes off of. She remembers dressing up as Star Bradford, the series final girl, the first Halloween she was able to pick out her own costume and a few years later showing Zachary the first film and giving him nightmares for a month.

When she heard they were doing a big screen showing for one night only, she couldn’t think of any other way to spend the night.

Their screening is in the smallest screen room unsurprising considering Killer Blade isn’t exactly as popular as many of the big franchises.

They settle into their seats, unfortunately at the front of the theater. Zatanna hadn’t heard about the showing till it was almost too late snagging two of the last four tickets. She discreetly moves her hand a silent little spell under her breath that moves all the seats back subtly making it so their necks don’t have to crane uncomfortably up at the screen.

They settle in lifting up the armrest between them, John wrapping his arm around Zatanna’s shoulders his fingers softly running over her lace covered collar bone.

The first film breezes by a 90-minute gore fest that Zatanna delights in every second of. It’s been a while since she’s seen the movies, really sat down and watched them full through and she loves it just as much now as she did at 12 years old.

“Well,” Zatanna says slipping out from under John’s hold turning to him excitedly. He’s never seen the movies in their entirety only bits and pieces when he’s popped up and interrupted her viewings. “Incredible right?”

“That’s one word you could use,” John says with a snort.

“Oh, come on,” she says standing up and stretching out grabbing John’s hand and pulling him along with her into the lobby for the fifteen-minute break between the movies. “I heard you laughing at the jokes, even felt you jump a couple times.” She teases pushing open the door to the ladies’ room, John doesn’t even bat an eye as she drags him in along with her.

She steps over to the mirror adjusting her bandolier and fixing up her hair where the braid has loosened a bit from resting against John’s shoulder all movie long. John leans against the wall beside her and shrugs.

“I guess it was pretty fun,” he concedes pushing off the wall and wrapping his arms around her waist. Eyes meeting in the mirror with a small playful smile. Zatanna smiles back continuing to fiddle with her hair.

“I hate to say it, since we’ll never be getting married,” Zatanna says leaning back into John looking at the image they make in the bathroom mirror. “But damn do we look good like a bridal pair.”

John smiles at her pressing his face into her neck. A few other people move behind them clearly unbothered by the couple hogging the bathroom mirror. If the sounds from the second stall are any indication they’re definitely not the only couple in this bathroom anyways.

“A bit of a bloody wedding,” he comments brushing his hand over the blood splatter across her waist, his fingers fiddling with the bandelier of empty shotgun shells across her chest.

“Well if we were to get married, it’s safe to assume there’d be some bloodshed at the ceremony,” she muses.

John hums in agreement trailing his lips along her shoulder his hands moving in directions not appropriate for public viewing.

“And where do you think these are going?” she says lacing her fingers with his stopping his movement in its tracks.

“We can’t let those two have all the fun,” he says gesturing his head back for a beat towards the second stall just as a very loud moan comes from behind the door.

Zatanna chuckles pulling his hands around her tight before pulling them away and twisting to face him.

“I am not fucking you in a movie theater bathroom stall,” she says kissing him once quick on the lips before pulling away and heading for the door. John trails along behind her.

“We’ve done it in worse places,” he grumbles under his breath.

“We have not,” she laughs as they make their way back into the lobby pulling John by his undone bow tie into the concession line. She absolutely needs popcorn for the second movie.

“The basement of that haunted sanitarium in DC was way worse,” John argues.

Zatanna looks up contemplating. “Okay, maybe, but,” she defends. “We thought we were gonna die, dire circumstances makes one forget about germs.” She pauses once they get to the front of the line ordering a large bucket and paying, tossing an extra hundred into the tip jar with a wink to the girl behind the counter. “Also, the second movie starts in about five minutes and we will not be missing it.”

John dips his hand into the popcorn bucket taking a large handful and shoving it into his mouth. “Fine,” he says muffled through the buttery snack.

“Later,” she says with a flirtatious smirk backing into the doors and going back inside the theater. She reaches out running a finger along John’s lower lip licking the remnants of salt and butter off her finger holding his eyes the entire time.

John swallows the last of the mouthful of popcorn hard. “How long are these two left?”

“Three is the longest, just a little over two hours,” she says with glee settling back into her seat tapping John’s whiskey glass to fill it automatically. “Two is another cool 90 minutes. Think you can hold out?”

“I am a man of strong will and great endurance,” he says taking another handful of popcorn, setting his glass aside.

“I mean I don’t know if I’d call the endurance great,” she teases hooking an ankle around his.

“Rude,” John says shoving at her playfully. The lights go down, the movie starting to roll on the screen. “I’ve never heard you complaining.”

“Well now that you mention it,” she chuckles clearly just messing with him.

“I cannot believe you,” he says with a laugh throwing a little bit of popcorn at her. She tosses it back at him just as the production company insignia crawls across the screen.

She shushes him as she settles back in comfortably underneath his arm.

The first twenty minutes are pure trash attempts at being cinema all shot in black and white telling the loose origin of Killer Blade that makes not one ounce of sense and isn’t referenced ever again. Things get really good in Zatanna’s opinion when things go back to color the camp counselors of the second film, including final girl Star, now played by a different actress, who for some reason decides it’s a good idea to help reopen the camp where her friends were all murdered two years prior by a madman with no motive other than to kill that disappeared into the night without a trace.

It’s a rapid ride that she falls into easily forgetting how much time passes watching with rapt attention as if she hasn’t seen it dozens of times before. So of course she notices something wrong with the film in an instant. At first the screen crackles a bit, a passable glitch she brushes off, but then it happens again. This time along with the screen warping unnaturally. She sits up straight, John taking notice their eyes meeting for a beat before returning to the screen.

Zatanna scans the audience as the ground shakes, light bursting out of the screen. No one else seems to notice; all just happily watching the film without a care in the world.

The screen morphs again, Zatanna pushes the popcorn out of her lap her hands at the ready, magic just at her lips. But she’s not quick enough two hands still showing the movie across them reach out grabbing each of them by the neck.

They both fight back John biting at the hand while Zatanna kicks at the one holding onto her. They don’t so much as flinch pulling the both of them in closer and closer to the screen till they’re going straight through it. The sounds of a chainsaw and the blood spatter of the unsuspecting gas station attendant enveloping them.

Everything goes dark for a moment, a scene change, then they’re both being thrust hard onto the ground landing face first into dewy grass. Gone is the just right temperature of the movie theater, replaced now by the warm breeze of a summer evening. The darkness of the theater no longer surrounds them instead the slow burn of a summer sundown.  

Zatanna sits up with a groan. “John,” she says shoving at his back, he groans in response slowly lifting himself up. Zatanna looks around the trees swaying in the wind, she shifts the other way and there she sees it the bright red Camp Crystal Arawak sign she currently has a replica of hanging over her big screen tv at home.

“Holy shit,” she says. John twists looking the same way she is.

“Are we-“

“We’re in Killer Blade 2,” she says half in awe that she knows she shouldn’t be feeling. “We’re in Killer Blade 2,” she says again lifting up from the ground, a little more enthusiastic this time. She knows this is probably bad, but she can’t help it.

“Probably not a good thing, love,” John says lifting himself up from the ground trying to reign in her excitement.

“I mean, yeah, probably not. Probably a villain did this to mess with us,” she says eyes looking all around taking in the scenery like she’s never seen it before. “But come on, I mean who hasn’t wanted to live inside their favorite movie?”

“I haven’t,” John says dusting the grass off of his suit.

Zatanna turns giving him an eyeroll over her shoulder. “Well, that’s because your favorite movie is A Clockwork Orange.”

“And your favorite movie is about a man with a machete for a hand,” he shoots back.

“Not until the third one,” she says reaching back. “Come on, the massacre hasn’t started yet, that’ll give us time to figure out how to get out of here.”

“Oh goody the massacre hasn’t started,” John says taking her hand.

They walk under the large arching sign and it’s almost as if the air shifts, the warm summer night giving way to a cooler breeze as if the space knows it’s about to become a wasteland of death. Zatanna points naming out cabins and which characters will perish where as they walk through the campgrounds. Her hand reaching out every now and then to run her fingers along the set she’s memorized every inch of.

A few teens portrayed by twenty and thirty somethings come barreling out of a cabin laughing.

“Shit,” John says trying to pull Zatanna behind one of the cabins so they’re not spotted. He assumes that will just make things more complicated.

“It’s fine they probably can’t see us, they’re scripted they can’t move off of it,” Zatanna says continuing to move forward.

“Hi, y’all!” one of the campers shouts. Zatanna and John freeze in their tracks.

“Or maybe they can go off script,” she swallows turning around. Janet, the films signature slutty girl, is waving at them frantically not a care in the world.

She’ll have cares soon enough when her macabre ending comes because she just can’t resist running off to the woods for one quick blow job with mega jock Brad who will die with his pants at his ankles.

“Hi!” Zatanna waves back a corny smile across her face. She nudges John with her elbow and he joins along a little less effort put into his smile.

“Are y’all lost?” she says that thick southern girl accent she’s putting on mixing with the actresses’ natural valley girl cadence.

“Sort of,” Zatanna says putting on her own little southern twang. John looks at her wide-eyed mouthing a question of what she’s doing. “Roll with it,” she whispers under her breath as Janet makes her way towards them, perky and practically bouncing with every step. Brad and a few of the nameless body count stroll along behind her.

“Oh, no!” she says rushing right at Zatanna giving her a hug not questioning their outfits or the bandolier of shotgun shells she’s wearing. Bless this sweet, horny girl.

“What’s up with the get ups?” Brad asks, at least having a little more sense to question their presence.

“You see we were at a costume party at the old West-Cain cabin on the other side of the lake and it got broken up by the cops,” Zatanna says coming up with a quick story using her knowledge of the movie’s landscape to her advantage. A party occurring prior to the events of the film at the cabin they’ll spend the entire movie trying to get to is a passable excuse for their presence. Especially for this crowd.

“And our ride ran off without us and left us stranded in the woods,” Zatanna continues with an overdramatic rolls of her eyes. “We just started walking and luckily stumbled upon y’all.”

“Well thank goodness you did; those woods get really spooky after dark. Especially after what happened,” Janet says with a shiver. She reaches out grabbing Zatanna’s hand pulling her along not giving any further information. That’s okay Zatanna knows better than her what happened. “I’m Janet and this is my boyfriend Brad.” She says pointing to the blonde walking alongside them. The nameless body count characters have peeled off ahead of them heading towards the dining hall.

“I know,” Zatanna says accidentally, Janet giving her a funny look. “I mean it’s printed on your shirt.” She quickly corrects, Janet looks down at her shirt like she’d forgotten that fact and possibly even forgotten her own name.

“Oh, yeah,” she says with a giggle.

“I’m Zat-” she starts deciding her name might be a little too complicated for this group. “Zee,” she says instead. “Just Zee,” she smiles at Janet throwing a hand over her shoulder. “And this is my boyfriend John.”

John snorts. She never calls him that, it’s what he is technically speaking, but the word never seems to fit for them. “Good to meet you,” he says.

“Ooh,” Janet says shimmying her shoulders. “From jolly old London are we?” she says putting on a god-awful British accent, mixing terribly with the two she’s already battling.

“Liverpool technically.”

“Like the Beatles,” Brad says with a nod of his head slapping his hand down on John’s shoulder with a loud clap. “Cool.”

John just gives Brad a thumbs up and a slightly grimaced smile rubbing at his shoulder as they walk up the steps to the dining hall.

“We’ll get you guys all set up in here,” Janet says dropping Zatanna’s hand and pushing open the double swinging doors. “Anton is the only one with a car, he doesn’t love driving at night, but I’m sure he’d be able to give you two a ride into town. He’s too nice to say no.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Zatanna says emphatically looking over at John. “Truly we can just get a little water and head back out there.” Look for magic signatures, find a portal or some sort of tear they can slip through to get back into their reality. Anton will be a hindrance to that.

“Nonsense,” Janet says dragging them along and introducing them to other counselors in the room. They may be going off script here, but Zatanna can’t help but notice she only gives names to the characters who are given them in the movie.

Anton is happy to help, a do gooder who will lose his head in act three, twirling his keys around with a wink before heading out to his car. Zatanna knows for a fact he will find his tires slashed, the night of terror truly about to begin.

“You two just sit here and drink these,” Janet says settling them at a table. Brad sits two glasses of water in front of them. “I’ll be right back.”

She won’t, if the leer Brad gives her as she walks away is any indication.

“So what’s the costume?” Brad asks turning the chair on the other side of the table backwards and sitting down in front of John.

“It’s from a movie,” John says not going into further detail.

Brads hums. “I don’t watch a lot of those.”

“Ironic,” John says leaning back.

“Yeah, totally,” Brad says absolutely not knowing what the word ironic means. He gets up with a nod jogging over to Janet wrapping his arms around her waist, shoving a hand down the front of her tiny shorts.

“Well that’s subtle,” John says watching them slip out of the side door.

“Yeah they’re about to die,” Zatanna says using her normal voice turning her body towards his. “Look, we’ve got to get a move on and find our way out of here, cause shit is about to hit the fan.”

She lowers her voice leaning into John. “Us being here isn’t affecting the plot all that much, Anton is going to go to his car and find the tires slashed. Then on his way back he’s gonna find Janet and Brad’s bodies. It’s pretty much a non-stop kill fest from there.”

“Let’s try and not be a part of that,” John says getting up from his chair. They make their way to the little backdoor they watched the couple slip out of moments ago when the kitchen door swings open blocking their path.

The walking epidemy of the 1980’s teen dream steps out. He’s got that same curly hair like the boys in Nightmare on Elm Street, rocking a crop top and denim shorts, baseball cap clipped to one of his belt loops. It’s a look she has managed to wrestle John into a few times and it delights her to no end.

“Oh my god, that’s Ray Bronson,” Zatanna says excitedly twisting them away from the door a bit.

“Who?”

“Ray Bronson,” Zatanna says sounding half in love. John tries not to be jealous. “He was a bonafide scream queen in the 80’s and 90’s. His character, CHARLEY, was originally supposed to survive this movie alongside Star, but he was dating Sidney Strode at the time and when she quit the movie he refused to be in the third film so they rewrote the ending.”

She steps away from John lingering near Ray Bronson as he shares high fives and bro hugs with a few other guys in the room. John follows after her.

“You could tell production was mad at him for bailing cause his ending is grisly,” she sighs quietly looking the man up and down.

“How grisly?” John says trying not to get the guy’s attention, keeping his voice low.

“Him and Star get split up and first one of his arms goes through the meat grinder in the cafeteria, he gets away bleeding like crazy. Then he gets his legs chain sawed off and as he crawls away somehow still conscious the killer picks him up and ties his only remaining limb to the back of a truck and does doughnuts in the field till CHARLEY smacks into a tree and basically his whole body explodes. It’s disgusting,” Zatanna says with a delighted grin.

“You look far too happy about that,” John says with a chuckle.

“Don’t get me wrong CHARLEY is dreamy as hell and you root for him in a way you don’t root for anyone but Star cause he’s a genuinely a great horror movie boyfriend, but the FX team goes all out for his big death scene,” she says with a fond nostalgic smile. She can be a real freak sometimes, John loves it.

The front door swings open again and the music swells. Zatanna and John look up finding no plausible source for the music, the generic 80’s pop playing from the radio is gone, the score taking over welcoming its final girl back to the screen.

The room freezes all eyes on her as she makes her way over towards CHARLEY.

“Star 2.0,” Zatanna whispers watching as a tall tanned woman flips her long black hair over her shoulders. Her outfit is different than a lot of the others, the blue and white polo replaced with a red t-shirt sporting the name of the camp, a little white washed denim jacket on top of it. It’s the outfit Zatanna sported for Halloween all those years ago. “She’s not my favorite Star, but she has the best final girl scream. This is so cool.”

John gives her look.

“Okay, potentially extremely dangerous, but also,” she pauses gesturing wildly to their surroundings. “Camp Crystal Arawak. I wanted to go here so bad when I was a kid, I was bummed when I realized it wasn’t a real place.”

“You wanted to come to the murder camp?”

Zatanna just shrugs with a little smile.

“You were a twisted little one, weren’t you?” John says fondly.

“Maybe just a little bit,” she says with a playfully tilt of her head. “Come on, Anton’s about to bust in it’ll be a good distraction for us to get out there and investigate.”

***

Night has fallen completely by the time they slip outside and out on the ridges of the camp not far from Anton’s car Killer Blade is waiting, lurking. Zatanna guides them in the opposite direction, better to avoid the killer for as long as possible.

The woods are quiet, largely carnage free for now as they make their way through the trees. Zatanna snaps her fingers trying and failing to find magic at her fingertips.

“Dammit,” she says a flicker of light coming from her fingers for a second, immediately expunged. “My magic is on the fritz.”

“Same here,” John says tapping at the exposed sigil on his collarbone, it doesn’t even flicker to life for a full second.

They continue walking along looking for some sort of magical energy signature until a rustle comes from the right. They briefly stop, but Zatanna keeps them walking along as if nothing has been heard.  

“White guy, pony tail,” Zatanna says under her breath keeping close to John. She watches as he dives behind a tree thinking he’s gone unnoticed.

“There are several of those here,” John murmurs back. Zatanna looks the way of their potential bad guy again, the goatee man sneaking his head out from behind it for a second. For a bad guy capable of something this elaborate he sure is acting like a cartoon villain in the moment.

“That one,” she says inclining her head towards the tree line. “He’s not in the movie,” The man slinks back behind the tree disappearing into the background of the movie.

“You sure?”

“You saw his outfit, all black, long jacket; that’s out of place at a summer camp. Plus I’ve seen these movies a hundred times, I know every detail down to the background actors and he’s not one,” she says stepping towards the tree, John following right behind her.

Zatanna attempts to ready her hands with magic, but it flickers out once again. The man behind the tree snarls when they make eye contact and immediately twists making a run for it.

“No you don’t,” John says chasing after him.

He doesn’t get far, John may smoke a pack a day, but when he’s stubbornly determined enough the man can run. He catches up to the guy tackling him to the ground the two struggling with each other rolling on the grass. Zatanna comes to a stop in front of them watching as John gets the upper hand pushing the man into the grass.

“You cannot hold the demon of illusion!” he shouts ripping his hands into the grass a flickering beam of bright white light coming up through the ground. He sinks his hands into the light disappearing in an instant the light closing up right behind him causing John to fall face first into the grass.

“Fuck!” he shouts his voice lightly muffled by the grass.

“Demon of illusion,” Zatanna says. “I appreciate that demons have just started introducing themselves with job title cards, it really cuts down on the research time.”

“Doesn’t help us get out of here though,” John says getting up from the ground.

“Illusion explains why no one else in the theater reacted when we got sucked in. And it explains why his powers work, but ours don’t he’s in control of the whole thing,” Zatanna puzzles with his reasoning though. “Did we do something to this guy? Did you beat him in a poker game?”

John just shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t think so, of course some of those games are a bit of a blur.”

A piercing scream sounds in the distance.

“Did you hear that?” John says looking up from where he’d been scuffing at the grass the demon had disappeared through.

“The massacre has started,” Zatanna says grabbing John’s hand. “We should head back.”

“We should?” John says incredulously running alongside her.

“The demon probably wants to see us go through it and we can’t do that if we’re just wandering in the empty woods,” Zatanna says increasing her pace. “Plus I kinda want to see it if we’re being honest,” she adds on with an apologetic smile, gritting her teeth.

The screams get louder as they get closer, the whirring sound of a chainsaw slashing through the night air.

Zatanna skids to a stop, John crashing into her back. Her eyes are locked upward and John follows her line of sight. Before them stands a behemoth of a man clad in a white long-sleeved shirt and dark overalls, heavy work boots caked in mud and a lightly burnt scarecrow mask over his face. He sheaths the machete in his right hand into his blood splattered overalls choosing instead to rev his chainsaw back to life.

Zatanna backs up as Killer Blade takes a slow step their way. She and John end up side by side backing up slowly. John reaches out an arm ready to block Zatanna and take this chainsaw for the both of them if he has to.

Zatanna raises her hands, “Kconk siht rellik otni eht eerts!”

Nothing happens. Killer Blade just tilts his head inquisitively at her.

“Shit!” Zatanna says dropping her hands pulling at John’s back. “Not just a glitch, magic definitely doesn’t exist in this world.”

She pushes John down the both of them just narrowly keeping their heads as Killer Blade swipes the chainsaw at them. They take off in a run faster than either of them have ever run heading back in the direction of the cabins.

“I thought the killer had magical powers?” John asks as they run looking over his shoulder. Killer Blade is catching up somehow despite the fact he’s walking at a snail’s pace compared to them. Slasher movie logic hard at work.

Zatanna shakes her head pulling John to the right away from the dining hall. There’s nothing but abandoned dinners in there and within the next few minutes Killer Blade will find his way inside and give Marcie the cook a new haircut. Scalp free. “Not until the third movie and it’s never explained as magic so kind of a grey area anyways.”

She rushes them to cabin 28 pushing at the door that blissfully hasn’t been barricaded yet. Not that the barricade does much good.

Star screams high pitched and perfect for the silver screen; Zatanna screams right back on instinct. John pulls her back the screaming settling down.

“He’s back,” Star shudders pushing past Zatanna and John to pull at the screen door tight as it slaps in the wind.

“We noticed,” John says and CHARLEY gives him a questioning sharp look that John just ignores.

“If we stay put and wait Freddy will be here soon,” Star says pushing a dresser in front of the door. CHARLEY rushes over to help her. God, Zatanna loves her, but she doesn’t utilize a single thing she learned from the first movie for the first two acts.  

“Freddy’s not coming and we need to get out of this cabin,” Zatanna says putting her little accent back on. She doesn’t want to bring on questions about her lack of cute little southern accent distracting them. They need to get out of here, they need to find the illusion guy and they need to stay alive. She also knows that Freddy is not coming, the owner of the camp is very, very dead broken into two over a tree stump outside the West-Cain cabin that only Star will reach in the end.

“She’s right,” Anton says. A voice of reason for at least the next five minutes. “We need to get to the phone in the craft cabin.”

It’s broken, not even by the killer, just by poor maintenance. But it is logically where the story goes next. The script finds a way.

A quiet scratching comes from the outside, the metal of a machete running along the jagged wood outside.

Everyone in the cabin freezes for a beat, screaming when the machete pushes through the screen door.

“Out the window!” Zatanna shouts shoving her way to the back. She’s slightly stealing Anton’s final attempted hero moment, but she can’t be bothered. Killer Blade slashes at the door shoving at the dresser blocking his entrance.

She takes a breath cringing a bit before she crashes her elbow through the glass of the back window. She knows for a fact it’s stuck and there’s no time to waste for her and John. John comes up beside her helping clear the shards before hoisting her up and out of it.

He follows her, Star and CHARLEY sliding out behind him. Anton, Zatanna knows is scuffling inside with the killer and he won’t be making it to the window.

“Anton,” CHARLEY shouts about to reach back inside, but Star pulls at him to run.

The craft cabin isn’t too far, but the killer is nice and distracted hacking Anton to bits right now and soon he’ll mow down a line of nameless camp counselors while Star finally re-finds her gumption. They have time and they’ll find two other survivors there.

***

The craft cabin is playing out exactly as it should. The phone doesn’t work, everyone panics and unbeknownst to the characters in the room, they’re the last five standing.

Star meanwhile is quietly finding her strength, building a weapon that will take her further than you’d ever expect out of a shovel from the gardening supplies in the back, loading her pockets with toxic spray paint that will save her life when she and CHARLEY get separated on their way to her salvation.

“We have to get out of here and find that illusion demon fast. He can’t be far, he’ll want to see us get chopped up,” Zatanna says talking to John but watching Star as the music swells her moment of power coming to a head.

“Out there doesn’t seem so safe,” John says ignoring as the room around them descends in to mild chaos. Star announces her plan to run to the West-Cain cabin, but the arguments end quick, CHARLEY taking hold of his girlfriend’s hand, nothing but a sharp pair of scissors as his weapon, as they confidently storm out of the doors.

“We’re running out of time, that was Sidney Strode’s last scene, when Star walks back through that door,” Zatanna says turning to the big green swinging door with the bloodied handprints on it the couple just walked out of. “She’s gonna be Renai Lambert who plays her for the remainder of the film which is only about twenty minutes.”

“What do you think happens to us if the movie ends and we’re still in it?” John wonders.

Zatanna shrugs. “There’s only one ever one final girl in the Killer Blade films,” she says ominously.

“Let’s go then,” John says rushing for the still swinging doors. Faint protests from the remaining survivors huddled in the corner call after them, but they ignore their pleas. They slip around the corner, off to the side away from where the moonlight catches on the killer’s rusty blade.

They make their way back into the tree line, John letting Zatanna be his guide. She knows exactly where the killer will be.

“I have an idea,” she says stopping when they find a patch of well grown earth. She reaches down taking a clump of dirt in hand along with some ivy and flowers. “Magic in our sense doesn’t exist in this universe. It’s born out of myth and humanity that doesn’t exist in this world, but magic of the earth? That exists in nature, in all nature.”

“The green,” John says watching as Zatanna closes her eyes and focuses. The green isn’t an expertise either of them have, but they’ve been friends with Swamp Thing long enough to know a bit to get by. Tracking using the earth is easy if you have the right belief, attitude and intentions. And Zatanna is filled to the brim with all three as their clock starts to run out of time.

John keeps watch as she centers herself the dirt falling through her fingers, the flower and ivy glowing a bit to life. She doesn’t understand the green, she never could she isn’t connected to it in the way people like Alec are, but she knows how to respect it, how to ask for its help in small ways. A tracking spell for a man that’s clearly set them up for a grisly movie worthy demise she believes isn’t asking too much.

The dirt swirls in the air drifting out on the wind like the living thing it is, the flower and ivy following along.

“John,” she says opening her eyes pointing forward. The little bit of earth moves fast in the air and they follow behind it quickly.

The earth leads them right to their target, sporting an evil smirk.

“Your end is near,” he says.

“Nah,” Zatanna says simply rushing at him. She rams at him knocking him into a tree hard. She struggles with him for a moment pressing her knee into his stomach holding him in place. He moves his hands about to pull the same trick he did before, but John’s quick to their side stamping hard down on one of his wrists and grabbing the other hand tight.

“You can’t stop me, you can’t break free,” he spouts. “You wronged me and you’ll pay.”

“We don’t even know you,” John says twisting the wrist in his hand. The demon grits his teeth.

“Of course, just another demon who’s crew you banished to hell. Just another on your laundry list of banishments. Well you won’t forget me now, when you burn in hell you’ll remember my name. You’ll remember the demon of illusion who ended your life through the plot of a silly little human film. You’ll remember Choronz-“

“Are you actually doing a big villain speech right now?” Zatanna says with a sigh cutting him off.

The demon looks taken aback. “I was trying to,” he says angrily.

“You really shouldn’t, it’s very generic of you,” she says angering him further. He blasts a shot of magic at John knocking him back a few feet, using his leverage to kick up at Zatanna. He scrambles upright, but Zatanna is on him once again, swinging a fist that connects right with his jaw. He twists around John landing another hit to the other side of his face. They don’t always need magic to win a fight.

He fights back, or tries to at least, every attempt he makes at waving magic their way they duck, quicker than him. Catching him hard in the gut or the neck or wherever they can reach with every movement.

Zatanna shoves him back to the ground John kicks him hard in the chest, a few times over for good effort and that’s when Zatanna spots it, a burst of light like the one the demon had created in the ground when he disappeared earlier.

“John get him up,” she says and John does so lifting the demon by the collar of his coat. His power might be impressive, but his endurance is not. He clearly relies on his illusions to do all the work and when he tries a different way he loses his grip on even that.

John hits him hard and square in the eye and the crack in the scenery grows, more light pouring out of it. The sounds of thunder rumble in the distance, a crack of lightning too bright and violent to be real. The music swells again, this time some 80’s metal hair band ballad playing.

Zatanna looks up just a John punches the demon hard in the gut again, a slow crawl of words coming down at them. The credits are rolling, their time is up.

She wastes no time tackling both John and the demon through the crack of light. They land hard on the floor, the sticky carpeted stairs of the theater not having the gentle give of the summery grasslands.

The demon tries to scramble away put John pulls him down by his long coat. Zatanna brings her hands at the ready her magic tingling at her fingers, regaining its strength in the world where it belongs.

“Hsinab siht owt-tib wohsedis nomed ot lleh,” she says a wave of burning hot fire leaving her hands and hitting the demon head on as he attempts to knock John with his elbow. The demon goes up in a cloud of burning flames, screaming for a moment before he’s nothing but ash falling to the ground.

John and Zatanna’s eyes meet the two letting out a synchronized breath of relief.

“Ummm,” a voice sounds and Zatanna turns. The credits stop rolling the room going silent, just the blank, confused faces of their fellow movie goers staring at them.

Zatanna bites her lip a forgetting spell at the front of her mind, before her stage presence kicks in bowing to the people with a wave instead.

“Happy Halloween!” she says in a cheery voice nudging John with her foot encouraging him to give the audience a wave as well. He does so, just not quite with the flair she possesses.

They all begin clapping immediately none the wiser that what just happened was real, even if they all still look a little confused what any of it has to do with the movie. It’s Halloween, weird shit happens all the time. She hears a couple near the front whisper to one another about how realistic practical effects have gotten.

“Let’s go home,” Zatanna says pulling John up and hastily down the aisle and out of the theater.

***

Zatanna runs her fingers along the contents of the closet adjacent to her bedroom a tired smile on her lips as she hangs their freshly magically cleaned costumes up alongside the collection of previous years.

She closes the closet door with a flick of her wrist before gliding down the stairs to her recently magically built entertainment center. She’s traded in her lacy dress for an old Killer Blade t-shirt she’s had since high school and some little jack-o-lantern shorts.

“You sure you’re not too disappointed we didn’t finish the trilogy at the theater?” John asks lying flat on his back on the couch a bowl of popcorn resting on his stomach. He tosses a few pieces in the air, only actually catching one in his mouth.

“After the hands-on experience we had tonight a comfortable at home viewing is more than enough,” she says tapping her Camp Crystal Arawak sign before making her way over to him. She picks up the bowl of popcorn just as he grabs another handful once again largely missing his mouth sitting it aside on the floor. She ignores the mess nudging his legs, he gets the message making space for her. She climbs on top of him making herself comfortable against his chest letting her hands drift up under his sleeveless Hellraiser shirt.

John hums bringing one arm around her and reaching into the pocket of his skeleton sweatpants Zatanna bought him earlier in the month for the remote. He presses play the opening title card of Killer Blade 3: The Final Stab splashing onto the screen.

“You enjoyed being in the movie too much,” he says with a smirk tossing the remote on the floor beside the popcorn bowl laying his hand none to discreetly on her pumpkin clad butt.

“I think I enjoyed it the exact appropriate amount,” she says scratching her nails at his sides playfully. He squirms moving his other hand to the small of her back pushing her shirt up dragging his fingers across her skin.

“You reveled in being chased by that psycho,” he says moving his fingers up higher along her spine.

“I didn’t revel, I simply partook with a normal amount of horror fan enthusiasm,” she corrects lifting up her head digging her chin into his chest with a smile. “Now shush,” she says turning her head back to the tv. “I’m watching the movie.”

John chuckles tilting his own head toward the screen, a perfectly timed rumble of thunder sounding just as Killer Blade, now equipped with superpowers and a poorly structured machete hand, takes over the screen. Blissfully just on the big screen this time, right where he belongs.

[samaellevampire]

GHOVIE GHOVIE GHOVIE

Tuesday I cried because I thought the Ghovie wasn't going to be shown in a movie theater near me.

When suddenly on Wednesday (day on which cinemas release new films on screens in France) I saw that it was going to be shown in the town near my house (not even in the city center lol).

I have the honor to announce to you that I managed to get 2 fucking tickets because we can buy them in advance even though the ticket office opens at 3 p.m. in France.

The film won't be playing in one of the big cinema halls and at the moment there aren't many people who have reservations. So, I know there probably aren't many Ghost fans in my town but it makes me sad. I don't have any friends who are fans of this group so I'm going to drag my little brother with me to accompany me.

Anyway, in any case I'm super happy, I keep jumping up and down and shaking my hands while hitting things around me (it's just my autistic stim don't worry).

~~~~~~

I hate you Tornado Fungus, it doesn't help my disorders what I'm experiencing here, with all the love of Satan of course <3

[lukasnovo]

MAD POSTMODERN CINEMA IN BROOKLYN (fragment from Modern New York)⁠:

In Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner, developer behind the 1990s Brooklyn MetroTech, purchased a run-down adult movie theater in Brooklyn Heights and replaced it with 110 Court Street. Ratner was always being criticized for the lack of architectural quality in his projects, and so he commissioned award-winning office Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates to design the thirteen-story cinema complex.

The architects clad the vertical stack of windowless screening halls in tiles arranged in a wild mix of patterns, giving it an enigmatic appearance. But nothing could soften the overbearing size of the building. The movie theater was known for rowdy screenings, where shouting, food fights, and even fistfights between the patrons weren’t uncommon.

A large Barnes & Noble bookshop and a Starbucks on the ground floor signaled the area was gentrifying. The once-high crime rate that kept businesses away from the area faded away—between 1994 and 2002 murders there had declined by 72 percent. It was a similar situation across much of the city.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

When I see once-high end stores turned into junk shops it makes me sad, but nothing can beat this bargain shoe bazaar hiding inside a former Belle Epoque Theater in France. Look at this, from my archives:

Here’s an old program from the theater.

This is sickening-  The red velvet curtains are still hanging on the stage, the hall has ionic columns and gilded moldings. Have they no respect?

Advertising posters of the Belle Epoque in the style of Henri Toulouse Lautrec are perfectly preserved on the double staircase at the back.

Harsh neon lighting. The neo-classical balconies look like they’re being used as stock rooms. The young woman who took the pictures said that the smell of rubber was overwhelming.

Built in 1914 the movie palace could accommodate up to 1200. It was one of the top 15 cinemas in Paris during the 1920s.

During intermission, singers, bands and even orchestras would entertain the audience with extravagant musical interludes.

Pictured left in 1983 and right in 2009, before the awning disappeared. Sometime around 2009, it lost its art deco movie theatre awning on the façade, ensuring the theatre hiding inside would be truly forgotten.

The folks in charge of deciding which buildings deserve protection as historical monuments in France, just didn’t feel the theatre was worth saving.

After about a 20 min., a salesman came up to the photographer and told her to stop taking pictures. “It’s private!,” he grumbled. “If it’s anything,” she said, “it’s more of an embarrassment.”

https://www.messynessychic.com/