#alexa play potential breakup song

[extasiswings]

In true fashion, dealing with my saltiness by writing through it.  Did someone call for a Big Sister Intervention Hour featuring one Sophia Diaz?  Because personally, I think it’s what we all need. 

Eddie gets the text on a Thursday night after a long shift. He’s on the couch next to Ana when his phone buzzes—

Coming to LA end of next week for a work thing, dinner/drinks Friday at my hotel?

He knows Ana sees, even if she doesn’t ask, and before he can stop himself he asks—

“Do you want to meet my older sister next Friday?”

He can’t explain why his chest feels tight in the silence before she agrees.

He can’t explain why it stays tight even after she does. But he texts Sophia back and sets a time and later that night, when he’s in bed alone, staring up at the ceiling, he breathes until the tight band around his lungs finally loosens.

A week later, the three of them meet on the patio of the hotel bar—

His heart is racing as he hugs his sister and then steps aside and introduces Ana. He doesn’t know what to expect—there was never a lot of love lost between Sophia and Shannon, and she’s always been a little protective—but Sophia just smiles and says it’s a pleasure to meet her and they sit and—

Eddie finds himself relaxing the longer they all talk, breathing a tentative sigh of relief—

At least until Ana excuses herself to use the restroom and the smile drops off Sophia’s face the instant she’s out of sight.

“Eddie, what are you doing?”

“I—“ Eddie’s stomach twists and he reaches for his water glass for lack of anything better to do with his hands. “I don’t understand what you mean—I thought you were having a good time. Don’t you like her?”

“Yes, I think she’s very pretty and very nice,” Sophia replies, her tone and the look on her face unchanging. “But what are you doing?”

He swallows and tries not to shift under the scrutiny.

“I’m dating,” he replies, shoulders tensing. “A perfectly wonderful woman. Is there a problem with that?”  

“Uh, yeah, I’ll say,” Sophia shoots back. “Do you even know her? Does she know you? Do you have anything in common? Because I feel like I’ve been sitting here with two pod people play acting at being in love.”

Eddie’s jaw tics. “Of course we know each other, we’ve been dating for four months—“

“She calls you Edmundo.” His sister scoffs. “Nobody’s called you Edmundo regularly since you were seven and were able to ask them not to except for abuela. Last I knew, you still corrected anyone who called you that outside of family.”

“It’s just a name,” he argues. “It doesn’t matter. She’s a—“

“Wonderful woman, I got that,” Sophia interrupts. “But what do you really know about her? What do you like about her? Tell me that right now and I’ll shut up and butt out.”

“I—“ Eddie clears his throat and takes a drink. “She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s good with Christopher, she’s a great cook—“

“See, that just sounds like you’re ticking boxes off the Good Potential Wife checklist,” Sophia points out. “What do you like about her? What about her makes your heart race? Your breath catch? What are her little quirks that you find adorable? What about her specifically—not a generic list of traits that could apply to anyone—makes you want to be with her?”

Eddie opens his mouth to tell her off, to answer all of her stupid questions—because he absolutely can answer them, he can—

—but no words come to his tongue. His throat closes up. His mind goes blank.

“I—she’s perfect,” he manages finally, but he feels how weak it is even before his sister just hums and nods once.

“That’s what I thought,” she replies. “She’s perfect...on paper, right?  She’s perfect. But Eddie...that doesn’t mean she’s perfect for you.”

“We’re good together,” Eddie insists, even as his stomach twists, even as Sophia’s dark eyes feel like they’re seeing right through him, stripping him bare, holding up a mirror so he can see himself.

Sophia lets out a long breath and reaches for her purse before pushing back her chair.

“Eddie, you’re my brother and I love you, which is why I’m going to tell you what you need to hear even if you’re not going to want to hear it, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for a response before she says—

“If I learned anything from watching you with Shannon, it’s that you don’t need a wife to play house with—you need a partner. Someone who knows you—the real you, not whatever weird sanitized version of you I just sat through dinner with—someone who is capable of really having your back. Someone who makes you better, not smaller. Someone who makes you happy.”

“I am happy.” But even as he says it, the words taste like ash on his tongue.

Sophia rolls her eyes and drops a few bills on the table to cover her share of the check.

“I’m your sister. I’ve known you since the day you came out of the womb. Don’t lie to me. It won’t work.”

She stops next to his chair and kisses his cheek. “You can tell Ana I said it was nice meeting her but I wasn’t feeling well. Call me later.”  

And that’s—

Eddie slumps back in his chair and rubs his hands over his face. And he thinks. What does he know about Ana really? What does she really know about him?

Surface things—basic details. Where they were born, where they grew up, siblings, jobs. She knows he was married and that Shannon died, but when it came to talking about their separation he found himself reaching for the old half-truth that Shannon left for a few years to take care of her mother rather than the reality that she only spent six months doing that and just never came back. She knows about his medal because of show and tell, but she’s never asked about his scars and he’s never wanted to explain in any detail, he doesn’t talk about the nightmares he still gets sometimes. He doesn’t talk about the spiral he went down when Shannon died or how he came out of it. He doesn’t talk about how his parents didn’t want him to move to LA or how they’ve never trusted him with Christopher—

Nothing difficult. Nothing complicated. Nothing dark. With Ana he’s a version of himself who has it together all the time, who is always strong and in control and competent.

Sanitized. Like Sophia said.

And the thing is...Eddie doesn’t think he wants to show her any of those pieces of him that are less than polished, shiny, clean. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

“You okay, Edmundo?” Ana’s hand falls to his shoulder and he jumps. “Where’s Sophia?”

God, but Sophia was right about that too—when did he stop feeling comfortable correcting her?

He clears his throat.

“She wasn’t feeling well,” he lies quietly. “But she said it was nice meeting you.”

Ana’s hand slips off of his shoulder as she sits down again, a resigned look flickering across her face.

“She didn’t like me.”

Eddie sighs. “She did, she just...”

“Didn’t like me with you?” Ana fills in. She bites her lip and nods. Then she asks—

“What are we doing here, Edmundo?”

“Eddie.” It slips out and her eyebrows raise slightly.

“Eddie,” she corrects. “It looks a little like you want to run in the opposite direction as fast as possible.”

Eddie swallows hard. “You’re a wonderful woman, Ana—“ he starts, and she shakes her head, pushing her chair back.

She kisses him once, and it feels like goodbye even before she says—

“It’s okay. We don’t have to do all that.” Her thumb glides over his lower lip and the corners of her mouth turn up faintly before she pulls her hand away.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she says quietly. “You deserve that too.”

And just like that, Ana Flores walks out of his life.

It doesn’t hurt. Instead, he can breathe. Which really says it all.

Eddie pulls out his phone.

Get back down here, you’re buying my drinks for the rest of the night, he sends.

Be there in five, Sophia replies. Followed by—

Proud of you.

He sends back an eye-roll emoji and a middle finger and gets a heart and smiley face blowing a kiss in return.

“What are we drinking?” Sophia asks when she slides into Ana’s abandoned seat and waves over the waiter.

“Can we get two tequila shots please?” Eddie asks the man, and Sophia laughs.

“Just like old times,” she says.

“Yeah, but this time it’s my breakup and I’m not holding your hair back at any point tonight,” Eddie shoots back.

His sister knocks her shoulder into his.

“You’re gonna be okay, kid. I know it.”

Eddie looks back at the entrance like he can still see Ana there, then back at Sophia.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I think so.”

[1dnatural]

alexa play potential breakup song by aly and aj

[tamsong]

sophie after keefe betrays everyone at the end of neverseen: alexa, play potential breakup song by aly and aj

sophie when she reads keefe’s letter at the end of unlocked: alexa, play potential breakup song (explicit) by aly and aj

[lovphobic]

last thing too. love how she got so shitty that i sent the stuff she got me for my birthday back. like damn just get a fucking refund its not that deep. i couldve kept it and sold it or trashed it or burned it but i didnt. sending shit back is as civil as a breakup gets. alexa play potential breakup song by aly & aj

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Waves

Waves is one story that contains two stories, and these two stories contain so many more. It is the story of a young man who tries to find his way in the world after some hard personal setbacks. It then becomes the story of how his family copes after his story takes a turn for the worse. Contained within these stories, by implication, are the stories of almost everyone, for at any time in the film you get the sense that all this has happened before, it is all happening elsewhere now, and that if you shifted the camera over a few streets, you might see similar things happening there. Trey Edward Shults has created a sure-to-be-enduring masterpiece of family drama that is laser-focused but also says much about our world and the way we are to one another.

Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is a high school senior, and one of those kids who you felt had it all: he’s a wrestling star, in perfect shape, with nothing but potential ahead of him. His gorgeous girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) hangs on his every word. If he blew out his knee tomorrow, his future would still be relatively bright thanks to the small businesses he stands to inherit from his caring stepmother Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and driven father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown). Harrison harbors a perfect gleam of doubt in his eye, making us low-key aware that Tyler himself might not think everything is absolutely perfect. Indeed, Tyler carries deeply buried resentments toward Catherine for replacing his dead mother, and less-deeply-buried resentments toward his father, who constantly makes it clear that his son is never allowed to rest or relax for even a moment. The perfect boy is a ticking time bomb, and his ideal world subject to fracture from the slightest setback.

That happens when he learns he has a severe injury that will end his sporting career. He does not know how to tell his dad, who is the kind of person for whom getting injured is a matter of willpower rather than, you know, physical reality. Then Alexis becomes pregnant. This is presented as a creeping realization rather than a single dramatic moment. They decide to get an abortion, but Alexis changes her mind, resulting in a massive fight and a breakup. Tyler’s world falls apart, helped along by the same stubbornness his father beats into him daily.

These scenes are shot and paced by Drew Daniels, who also shot Shults’ previous two films, as claustrophobic despite taking place in public. Placing the camera inside cars with the arguing couple, or close by them as they are harassed by racist anti-abortion protesters, he also speeds along with them when they are in a hurry, always keeping close, almost never offering a wide shot. The movie is frequently adorned with bursts of color. Police lights, traffic lights, the colors of an evening sky, are all made to wash over the characters, in some shots almost infusing them as the camera spins slowly, say, on a car trip, or after a moment of great impact. The result is to ramp up the tension to desperate levels, even in scenes where all anyone is doing is talking. The music, too, is essential, with the song “What A Diff’rence a Day Makes” sung by Dinah Washington serving as a motif against a backdrop composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The pair presents lows when they are needed, and blinding, distracting highs when tension spikes, perfectly following the film’s own hills and valleys with their own musical ones.

We think we’re in for one movie, one story. I personally thought it was going to be something like a Bruce Springsteen song, where the glory days of High School give way to the ignominious existence of simply getting older, having kids, and fighting out a relationship with precious little glory to be had---the existence of ordinary people. Then the film blindsides you. It comes quick, as life often does, so quick we doubt what has happened could really be so. The aftermath also comes to those affected with little warning. Ronald, the father who always exercised total control, finds his world suddenly without it, and like all people who need control and lose it, he spirals into alternating anger and apathy. Catherine retreats inside herself, her marriage over in her mind. Tyler himself does what any 18-year-old would do: though horrified at what his life has become, he tries to escape from it, because this cannot be the end of his story. No one dies, metaphorically or otherwise, at 18, after all.

Perhaps not more affected than her parents, but the one on whom we feel those effects the most, is Tyler’s younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell). She has barely been seen up until now, but we shift focus to her, and see the rest of the story through her eyes. Time passes. Her brother is gone, her parents are around but absent, and she has to live her young life with little support, becoming a quiet and introspective teen. This is interrupted by the arrival of Luke (Lucas Hedges), a former teammate of her brother’s, and the two begin what looks like a life together. The wheel turns; her brother’s life has ended, his future snuffed out, but hers is in front of her. How she chooses to approach it will be a stark contrast with that of Tyler, and these thoughts follow us throughout the rest of the film. I reflected that behind every seemingly bad or broken person is one that was once ordinary, and behind those people are other people, the ones who have built them, in ways intended and unintended.

Indeed, I reflected on much, and my thoughts may be entirely personal to me, because the movie never once tells you what to think about the events in it. Shults has crafted a screenplay free of overt drama, free of speeches directed more toward the audience than the characters, free of proselytizing any sort of message. Witness the scenes in which Emily and Luke comfort the latter’s dying father, who he is estranged from. There is no specific transformation in their relationship, no moment of realization, just the quiet getting over of barriers. There is only one moment of overt confession in the film, between Emily and her father, and when this happens we realize we have never seen them truly interact before.

Little touches like this, playing with our perspective, evoke the sense of passing time and how easy it is to let those around us slip away, or push them away. Other, more traditionally dramatic films I’ve seen recently will slip from my memory, while this one with few bursts of drama and much of ordinary life may stay living in my mind for years to come. Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

[frankensteindotpdf]

Jon’s TGWDLM Livestream

I offered to write out all of Jon’s answers in his q&a (not verbatim, just a summary but also it got a little long, sorry for that) so here it is! sorry if there’s typos, i wrote this at 2am lmao i put most of the qs in bold

it was hard not to kiss jeff in WDYWP, especially because his face was so close (great way to start it off)

“Sing the beginning of Moana wasnt improvised”

He loves Not Your Seed and Show Stopping Number

His favourite piece of fanart is one of the first ones with red paul blue paul (in let it out) and he had it as his homescreen for a while

he got into starkid by doing Power Prom with jeff and lauren, (as well as another show with jeff and another with quite a few of the starkids) and then they asked him if he was interested in auditioning and he sent in a video audition and tah dahhh

if he could play any other character from tgwdlm it’d be hidgens (though he says part of the reason he loves hidgens so much is because robert did such a good job fleshing him out)

“how close are you and jeff” “uhh who’s jeff?”

paul’s job was originally gonna be a movie critic (buzzfeed-esque) (and at one point in WDYWP they brought up how he was reviewing a Hamilton movie musical-which was, incidentally, his fav deleted bit) but it ended up being at a customer service center “but most of the time he fixes printers and plays on the internet”

jaime helped out with some of the lyrics to CORC/COPC because she’s a barista

his fav memory with the cast was before shows and one time when they hung out after the show at a diner

his fav line that almost made him break every time was “Latte hottay...my wife...yknow like borat, dude” (it made him break a couple of times but he was always walking off stage like right as he said it)

he really liked the line “we’ll make a jammin’ cup of java, mocha latte with the froth for you, jack, frappuccino!” he just thought the wordplay was real good

fav joke was probs the moana bit (he broke a couple of times there too)

fav song was Show Stopping Number (and he said the way the songs flow when you’re listening to it on the album is so good)

he never found it boring to go to rehearsals because James and Lauren are such good choreographers and all the actors are so good at singing and dancing he got to watch them perform all the time and he really enjoyed it (how pure)

his reaction to hearing the show’s plot was “hell yeah, this is gonna be so much fun”

when he first heard let it out he was stoked because in high school he had tried performing Confrontation from Jekyll and Hyde with just a boom box so no one could actually hear the music and it didnt go well so he felt like that song was letting him redeem himself

his fav moment from the show’s run was the first show because they were so stressed because it was the first time they went all the way through the show with tech and music and it went really well “It was magical. we were all,like, on this adrenaline endorphin high and, uh, it was awesome.”

fav character from any starkid show is either nick playing robin or nick playing obi wan from Ani (he’s seen the scene where obi wan walks into the bar “probably a million times” because he loves the timing and the dry humour) but also nick gage as sultan from Twisted

fav moment to watch in the show was the part after Not Your Seed when the aliens were trying to talk at the same time

“would i have wanted to sing more? no, because i got to sing these two awesome songs” Let It Out was really fun to do but also daunting, and in Inevitable he got to sing parts of the other songs

no real mishaps with the blood capsules, just getting fake blood all over his face and shirt (but that was fine cuz it made him look like more of a badass in the next scene, as long as he remembered not to wipe it off)

fav line that he said? “ok”

“will i ever make my own version of Love Never Dies?” he wants to be in a musical about death (more of a “silly fun romcom”) and thinks that concept has so much potential

he’s inspired by The Adventure Zone and that’s where he got the name Travis from (idk what he’s talking about being inspired about, he never really says)

if paul drank the coffee, he would have been infected

there were no pranks, but

before one of the last shows he was rehearsing outside and he “stepped in human poop” like 20 minutes before he had to go on (he threw out the shoes ofc and luckily a member of the band had extra shoes that fit)

general advice? “number 1 surround yourself with people who love and support you and that you trust and you like to have a lot of fun with 2 if you can develop a skill that you l can support yourself when you’re not working, develop that skill, its really important just so you can put food on the table and also you’ll hear a ton of advice and there are a lot of training programs about how to act and how to sing but find whatever works for you...understand the character and do whatever you can to remove tension” (that was a lot lmao but i thought it was good advice)

there were lots of little improvised bits in the show but his fav was trying to figure out what he and emma were gonna say when they were going through the alleys

before every show they’d put their arms around each other and make a one word story (i can explain the game if you dont know what it is)

paul still wants a carpet

the starkid actor he’d want to play paul (if it wasnt him) would be brosenthal or brolden

fav food is “fuh”?  im sorry im a dummy ive heard of it but i cant spell it but yeah he likes it cuz it hydrates you and it’s delicious

he doesnt know the “alexa play despacito” meme

he’d love to speak mandarin (and do a film in china, he’s never been)

paul cant hear the background music when the aliens sing

his fictional band would be named either Territorial Fashionistas, The Light Quixotic, or Immortal Bond

fav fan moment was with a fan who had just had a really bad breakup which reminded of himself and how being true to yourself is more important than staying with your partner

dark mode looks cooler on his phone so he likes it best

in songs where he got to watch others singing and dancing, he was smiling on the inside and the fact that he couldnt sing or dance for most of the musical was made up for by the songs he did get to 

MY QUESTION!! (yes, i screamed) “Why did Paul offer bill and mr.davidson a ‘nice caramel frappe, nothing better’ when he only ever ordered black coffee?” he’s gotten them for Bill before cuz it’s his favourite, and he was just saying anything to try to get away from mr.davidson

he knows the lyrics to Moana because he secretly loves musicals after having watched so many with Alice growing up, but he wont even admit it to himself “he says he likes hamilton way more than mamma mia, so, yknow. he has an opinion”

he hopes it’ll come to chicago but he doesnt know if it will

his fav musical is a tie between Chess and Little Shop of Horrors

the backstage was really nice

he was honoured to have lauren spit on him

he was, of course, sad when it was over (but he’s stoked to move to LA)

finally, in the ending he revealed what his decision was for the end with paul, but i think it’s better expressed through a gif so check out: https://showstoppinnumber.tumblr.com/post/182153650669/theguywhodidnotlikemusicals

that was so long haha sorryyy i didnt wanna leave out anything. it was fun! hope you enjoy it, @realshowstopper!! if y’all have any qs hmu

[nanostims]

this is so sad alexa play potential breakup song by aly and aj

[xmenau]

this is so sad alexa play potential breakup song

[harryfeatgaga]

I go "teehee" then "Alexa, play potential breakup song"

JNSBHDGHUFBRGFHUJK