#also while it is technically not a tv show moment and is instead a cast interview moment

[augustheart]

sometimes i remember moments from tv shows and my stomach starts hurting

[grapenehifics]

Chapter 44

(Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40473339/chapters/109325631#workskin)

I love the 'making your (friend/parent/sibling) talk to you on the phone while you wait for someone else to arrive so you don't look like a dork with no friends' trope.

"You're six-two and can run a five-minute mile" is from Armie Hammer's line in The Social Network: "I'm 6'5", 220, and there's two of me!"

Is it realistic for Dathan to give Anakin a $20,000 check? No. Their lawyers would do some sort of escrow/money order type thing. I mean, what is Anakin supposed to do with that, just waltz up to the bank? That's a great way to get audited by the IRS. But I like this scene, so I kept it, illocigality be damned.

Satine spreading out all her papers and working on cases in the backseat of the car while they run errands is from The Lincoln Lawyer (book and movie both).

I had to very quickly learn about skateboard construction to write this; I know nothing; I fell the first time I tried riding one and ended up with a lump on my hip the size of a baseball, walked with a limp, and wasn't able to wear pants for a month, and haven't tried again since.

I'm going to spectacularly mangle the quote. But. The final scene of the last episode of the first season of True Detective, as I remember it but I only saw it once so it is very possible I'm mis-remembering, has Woody Harrelson helping Matthew McConnaughey leave the hospital, and once they're outside he asks him if there's anything he needs from back there (like, he probably means, your toothbrush, or things like that). And Matthew McConnaughey says, no, I have everything I need. (Meaning you, my best friend, my support, etc.) Everyone else seems to remember the bit after - which is good too! - about the light winning. But that moment - even fuzzily - has stuck with me ever since. That's what I was going for when Obi-Wan asked Ahsoka if she had everything she needed. Even if she didn't - it's only stuff. You can always get a new toothbrush. In the ways that matter, yes, she has everything she needs.

Nicki's mom being named Debbie is a joke borrowed from my mother, who is convinced half the women in America of her generation are all named Debbie.

Anakin thinks the concept of 'bad' words in general is stupid, but does have the presence of mind to realize it's important to other people, and not saying 'fuck' in front of her friends' parents will probably make Ahsoka a more socially acceptable houseguest.

OMG, guys, you're literally mooning over each other on some random woman's porch. Time and place, friends!

The pre-pandemic explosion in popularity of pub trivia made me really, really happy. I hope that comes back someday, in some form.

I spent way - way! - too much time researching what judges actually say in adoption court. And then I remembered the judge isn't actually the important character, in this scene, and I could cut all that out and stop worrying about technical accuracy and just write about our main characters hugging it out. So I did that instead.

Here's the story behind "Thank you for my life." So there was this book about Army doctors, called M*A*S*H. Robert Altman made a movie, also called M*A*S*H. Donald Sutherland played the main character, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce. It was popular enough that CBS was going to make a TV series of it. They offered the role of Hawkeye to Donald Sutherland, again, but he wasn't interested in TV and turned it down. So they cast Alan Alda instead. And playing Hawkeye on TV came to define Alan Alda's career. 99% of people who know who Alan Alda is, know because of M*A*S*H. M*A*S*H was on TV for something like fifteen years. Alan Alda was in every episode, cast his family in some episodes, directed and wrote some episodes...it was this huge cultural phenomenon. And he never would have had all that if Donald Sutherland had taken the job instead.

So, at some point in there, there's some awards show, or charity gala, or something like that, I don't remember what, and Alan Alda and Donald Sutherland happen to both be in attendance. And somebody says, hey, let's get a picture with the two Hawkeye Pierces. Now, Donald Sutherland and Alan Alda had never actually met before. They played the same role, but at different times and in different things, and they'd never overlapped. But suddenly they're standing next to each other. And Donald Sutherland said Alan Alda shook his hand and said, "Thank you for my life."

[steveyockey]

Regarding how Supernatural sees and literally portrays its own fans: there are the cringy loser man (who also turn out to be gay which is of course even worse), the straight fetishizing women and the delusional queer fangirls. What I don't understand: where are the fans that Supernatural actually wants? The 'real' fans, the actual target group, so I suppose cool straight dude bros? They're never shown as fans of the show! Because how Supernatural portrays is, it's actually cringe to like Supernatural at all which is funnily just the show shitting on itself (and also true). Or what do you think?

I mean I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s cringe to like supernatural! specifically it’s cringe to like supernatural with a passion, which is funny because like, kripke’s original pitch mentions buffy, the x-files, star wars, properties with active fan communities who rooted for pairings and continue to write fic. it feels like those fans come with the territory! it’s genre fiction! but of course supernatural also came up at the perfect time for its writers to have a better awareness of their fan communities than most of the stuff that came before them, and, what’s more is they chose to do that. becky, demian, and barnes are all names of forum mods from back in the day. they’re mean-spirited caricatures, but they are also currency! in-text acknowledgment! that’s a powerful drug. how mad can you be that you’re getting made fun of for having no life outside a silly tv show that thinks you’re a loser when you’re now a character in that tv show!

it’s difficult to source who supernatural was technically supposed to be for, there’s no actual quote of kripke naming teenage white boys as his target audience, but I did dig up this bad boy from 2009 that suggests dawn ostroff (the cw’s president at the time) was not happy the property pitched as being for males ages 13-25 was instead attracting women 14-45. I mean, we know the first two seasons of supernatural were “the DVDs most requested by armed forces personnel in iraq and afghanistan,” so clearly on some level the “intended audience” was being reached, but it seems at least the perception on the inside was those poor boys were getting massively outflanked by women. there’s a couple levels to this. first of all, the show premiered on the wb. it’s not to say the network couldn’t attempt to attract new viewers (and this was probably part of the intent of the show), but teen soaps were in its dna. they had no way to STOP the women already tuning in for gilmore girls from keeping the tv on another hour. second, though the show is purportedly “about” topics that read as exclusive to men (cars, rock, violence), there’s an obvious appeal to people attracted to men in its casting choices and the way its shot. like jensen didn’t do that fucking titantic necklace ad because he’s the epitome of masculinity, he did it because he was an androgynous dicaprio-type cutie! sure, his look may have been aspirational to teenage boys wanting that same type of attention, but again, there’s no way to prevent women from getting it directly from the source! and for all the show claims to tell us about the single man tear stoicism of it all, dean cries like a little bitch. because he’s not the action hero, not at first! he’s a scared kid who was forced to grow up. and sam’s fucking dean from gilmore girls! he’s got the bangs and the goofy smile! these aren’t the guys the women watching wanted protecting them, they were guys they wanted to provide comfort. and the camera plays into it! as our good friend sheila o’malley puts it, jensen and jared “are objectified in a way usually reserved for female stars.” you can discuss this in terms of a male objectification fantasy, there’s a wonderful post out there equating the compromising positions sam and dean find themselves in on hunts to a sort of bodice-ripper erotic thrill in being taken control of, but that only provides more space for the comfort fantasy. and this is nothing to say of just being interested in the genre! that the attention of female fans is devalued and assumed to have less complexity than the relationship men have to their beloved works. which is CRAZY because lgbt fans and women in fandom are the entire reason supernatural even made it this far! yes, there are swaths of “regular” people at home who watched supernatural in a non-obsessive way, but they weren’t the reason the show saw a 27 percent increase in its audience over the ninth season. that’s passionate fans, and fan communities encouraging passionate fans of other things to join them. supernatural might not have explicitly wanted these fans, but they are the reason for its success at almost any stage of the show’s airing and, while they may have been creating fanwork outside the bounds of the text, their reasons for coming to the show were not invented. what gets me riled up about “fan fiction” is I enjoy 99% of it, the one thing I can’t stand being the suggestion that what the fans are doing is based on a reading of the show the text itself doesn’t support. the text supports it because YOU put it there! just like you put everything else there that already made the show appeal to people outside the “target” audience! all of which is to say. I don’t know who the fuck supernatural was meant for. I don’t really care except in the moments it illuminates something within the text for me or when this idea is wielded effectively in the “ring ring! eric!” type jabs on here. because the show had the audience it had! it didn’t have any other! it took all that fucking con money and continues to do so, I don’t think there’s any better metric than cold hard cash.

[lokiondisneyplus]

undefined

'Loki' takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU

Ten years after Hiddleston first chose chaos in Thor, Marvel’s fan favorite God of Mischief is going even bigger with his time-bending Disney+ show.

Tom Hiddleston is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious purpose: After playing Thor's puckish brother for over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no one understands the mercurial Asgardian God of Mischief as well as the actor. He can teach an entire seminar on Loki if given the opportunity — which he actually did during pre-production on his forthcoming Disney+ show. In conversation, Hiddleston quotes lines from his MCU debut, 2011's Thor, almost verbatim, and will playfully correct you if you mistakenly refer to Asgard's Rainbow Bridge as the Bifrost, which is the portal that connects Loki and Thor's homeworld to the Nine Realms, including Midgard, a.k.a. Earth. "Well, the Bifrost technically is the energy that runs through the bridge," he says with a smile. "But nine points to Gryffindor!" And when he shows up to the photo shoot for this very digital cover, he hops on a call with our photo editor to pitch ways the concept could be even more Loki, like incorporating the flourish the trickster does whenever magically conjuring something. The lasting impression is that playing Loki isn't just a paycheck.

"Rather than ownership, it's a sense of responsibility I feel to give my best every time and do the best I can because I feel so grateful to be a part of what Marvel Studios has created," the 40-year-old Brit tells EW over Zoom a few days after the shoot and a week out from Thor's 10th anniversary. "I just want to make sure I've honored that responsibility with the best that I can give and the most care and thought and energy."

After appearing in three Thor movies and three Avengers, Hiddleston is bringing that passion to his first solo Marvel project, Loki, the House of Ideas' third Disney+ series following the sitcom pastiche WandaVision and the topical The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Led by head writer Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Heels), the six-episode drama sees Hiddleston's shapeshifting agent of chaos step out from behind his brother's shadow and into the spotlight for a timey-wimey, sci-fi adventure that aims to get to the bottom of who Loki really is. "I wanted to explore slightly more complex character questions," says Waldron. "It's not just good versus bad. Is anybody all good? Is anybody all bad? What makes a hero, a hero? A villain, a villain?"  

Even though Loki — who loves sowing mayhem with his illusion magic and shapeshifting, all with a major chip on his shoulder — has never been one for introspection, the idea of building an entire show around him was a no-brainer for Marvel. When asked why Loki was one of the studio's first Disney+ shows, Marvel president Kevin Feige replies matter-of-factly, "More Hiddleston, more Loki." First introduced as Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) envious brother in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Loki went full Big Bad in 2012's The Avengers. That film cemented the impish rogue as one of the shared universe's fan favorites, thanks to Hiddleston's ability to make him deliciously villainous yet charismatic and, most importantly, empathetic. The character's popularity is one of the reasons he's managed to avoid death many times.

"He's been around for thousands of years. He had all sorts of adventures," says Feige. "Wanting to fill in the blanks and see much more of Loki's story [was] the initial desire [for the series]."

The Loki we meet on the show is not the one who fought the Avengers in 2012 and evolved into an antihero in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before meeting his demise at the hands of the mad titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we'll be following a Loki from a branched timeline (a variant, if you will) after he stole the Tesseract following his thwarted New York invasion and escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody during the time heist featured in Avengers: Endgame. In other words, this Loki hasn't gone through any sort of redemption arc. He's still the charming yet petulant god who firmly believes he's destined to rule and has never gotten his due.

Premiering June 9, Loki begins with the Time Variance Authority — a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the Loki Variant seen in Endgame because they want his help fixing all of the timeline problems he caused while on the run with the Tesseract. So there will be time travel, and a lot more of it than in Endgame. As Loki makes his way through his own procedural, he'll match wits with new characters including Owen Wilson's Agent Mobius, a brilliant TVA analyst, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer. The question in early episodes is whether Loki will help them or take over.

"One of the things Kevin Feige led on was, 'I think we should find a way of exploring the parts of Loki that are independent of his relationship with Thor,' or see him in a duality or in relationship with others, which I thought was very exciting," says Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. "So the Odinson saga, that trilogy of films, still has its integrity, and we don't have to reopen it and retell it."

Yet, in order to understand where Loki is going, it's important to see where he came from.

Hiddleston can't believe how long he and Loki have been connected. "I've been playing this character for 11 years," he says. "Which is the first time I have said that sentence, I realize, and it [blows] my mind. I don't know what percentage that is exactly of my 40 years of being alive, but it's substantial."

His time as Loki actually goes a bit further back, to 2009 — a year after Robert Downey Jr. big banged the MCU into existence with Iron Man — when he auditioned for Thor. It's no secret that Hiddleston initially went in for the role of the titular God of Thunder, but Feige and director Kenneth Branagh thought his natural charm and flexibility as an actor made him better suited for the movie's damaged antagonist. "Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise," says Branagh, who had previously worked with him on a West End revival of Checkov's Ivanov and the BBC series Wallander. "Tom has a wild imagination, so does Loki. He's got a mischievous sense of humor and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player."

Hiddleston fully immersed himself in the character. Outside of studying Loki's history in the Marvel Comics, he also researched how Loki and the Trickster God archetype appeared across mythology and different cultures. "He understood that he was already in something special [and] it was a special character in a special part of that early moment in the life of the Marvel universe where [he] also needed to step up in other ways," says Branagh, who was impressed by the emotional depth Hiddleston brought to the part, especially when it came to how isolated Loki felt in the Asgardian royal family.  

There was a lot riding on that first Thor feature. For one, no one knew if audiences would immediately latch onto a Shakespearean superhero movie partially set on an alien planet populated by the Norse Gods of legend. Second, it was integral to Feige's plans for the shared universe. Loki was supposed to be the main villain in The Avengers, which would not only mirror how Earth's mightiest heroes joined forces in 1963's Avengers #1 but also give Thor a believable reason for teaming up with Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), and the rest of the capes. Feige first clued Hiddleston into those larger plans when the actor was in L.A. before Thor started shooting.

"I was like, 'Excuse me?' Because he was already three, four steps ahead," says Hiddleston. "That took me a few minutes to process, because I didn't quite realize how it just suddenly had a scope. And being cast as Loki, I realized, was a very significant moment for me in my life, and was going to remain. The creative journey was going to be so exciting."

Hiddleston relished the opportunity to go full villain in Avengers, like in the scene where Loki ordered a crowd to kneel before him outside a German opera house: "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation," says the Machiavellian god. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"I just knew that in the structure of that film, I had to lean into his role as a pure antagonist," Hiddleston recalls. "What I always found curious and complex about the way Loki is written in Avengers, is that his status as an antagonist comes from the same well of not belonging and being marginalized and isolated in the first Thor film. Loki now knows he has no place in Asgard."

Loki did find a place within the audience's hearts, though. Feige was "all in" on Hiddleston as his Loki from the beginning, but even he couldn't predict how much fans would love him. Feige recalls the reaction at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con: "Did we know that after he was the villain in two movies, he would be bringing thousands of people to their feet in Hall H, in costume, chanting his name? No, that was above and beyond the plan that we were hoping for and dreaming of." It was a dream Feige first got an inkling of a year earlier during the Avengers press tour when a Russian fan slipped past security, snuck into Mark Ruffalo's car, and asked the Hulk actor to give Hiddleston a piece of fan art she created. "That was one of the early signs there was much more happening with this quote-unquote villain."  

Despite that popularity, the plan was to kill Loki off in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, but the studio reversed course after test audiences refused to believe he actually died fighting the Dark Elves. Alas, he couldn't out-illusion death forever. After returning in Taika Waititi's colorful and idiosyncratic Thor: Ragnarok, Hiddleston's character perished for real in the opening moments of Infinity War. In typical Loki fashion, before Thanos crushed his windpipe, he delivered a defiant speech that indicated he'd finally made peace with the anger he felt toward his family.  

"It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'" says Hiddleston, who shot that well-earned death scene in 2017.  

But, though he didn't know it yet, the actor's MCU story was far from over.

Credit: Charlie Gray for EW

When Hiddleston returned to film two scenes in Avengers: Endgame in 2017, he had no idea where Loki portaled off to after snatching the Tesseract. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers," Hiddleston recalls. To be fair, it's likely the Powers That Be didn't necessarily have answers then. While Feige can't exactly recall when the writers' room for Endgame first devised Loki's escape sequence, he does know that setting up a future show wasn't the primary goal — because a Loki series wasn't on the horizon just yet.

"[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s," says Feige. Soon after that, though, former Disney CEO Bob Iger approached Feige about producing content for the studio's forthcoming streaming service. "I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."

As for Hiddleston, he didn't find out about the plans for a Loki show until spring 2018, a few weeks before Infinity War hit theaters. "I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," says the actor. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."

Nevertheless, Hiddleston was excited about returning for his show. He was eager to explore Loki's powers, especially the shapeshifting, and what it meant that this disruptive figure still managed to find a seat beside the gods in mythology. "I love this idea [of] Loki's chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don't know whether you can trust him. You don't know whether he's going to betray you. You don't why he's doing what he's doing," says Hiddleston. "If he's shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it."

“The series will explore Loki's powers in a way they have not yet been explored, which is very, very exciting.”

The thing that truly sold Hiddleston on the show was Marvel's decision to include the Time Variance Authority, a move he describes as "the best idea that anybody had pertaining to the series." Feige and Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard had hoped to find a place for the TVA — an organization that debuted in 1986's Thor #372 and has appeared in She-Hulk and Fantastic Four stories — in the MCU for years, but the right opportunity never presented itself until Loki came along. "Putting Loki into his own procedural series became the eureka moment for the show," says Feige.  

The TVA's perspective on time and reality also tied into the themes that Waldron, Loki's head writer, was hoping to explore. "Loki is a character that's always reckoning with his own identity, and the TVA, by virtue of what they do, is uniquely suited to hold up a mirror to Loki and make him really confront who he is and who he was supposed to be," says Waldron. Hiddleston adds: "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled. He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."

To truly dig into who Loki is, the creative team had to learn from the man who knows him best: Hiddleston. "I got him to do a thing called Loki School when we first started," says director Kate Herron. "I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU — from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic."

Hiddleston got something out of the Loki school, too. Owen Wilson both attended the class and interviewed Hiddleston afterward so that he could better understand Loki, as his character Mobius is supposed to be an expert on him. During their conversation, Wilson pointedly asked Hiddleston what he loved about playing the character.

"And I said, 'I think it's because he has so much range,'" says Hiddleston. "I remember saying this to him: 'On the 88 keys on the piano, he can play the twinkly light keys at the top. He can keep it witty and light, and he's the God of Mischief, but he can also go down to the other side and play the heavy keys. And he can play some really profound chords down there, which are about grief and betrayal and loss and heartbreak and jealousy and pride.'" Hiddleston recalls Wilson being moved by the description: "He said, 'I think I might say that in the show.' And it was such a brilliant insight for me into how open Owen is as an artist and a performer.'"

Owen Wilson as Mobius and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in 'Loki.'| Credit: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios

Everyone involved is particularly excited for audiences to see Hiddleston and Wilson's on-screen chemistry. "Mobius is not unlike Owen Wilson in that he's sort of nonplussed by the MCU," says Feige. "[Loki] is used to getting a reaction out of people, whether it's his brother or his father, or the other Avengers. He likes to be very flamboyant and theatrical. Mobius doesn't give him the reaction he's looking for. That leads to a very unique relationship that Loki's not used to."

As for the rest of the series, we know that Loki will be jumping around time and reality, but the creative team isn't keen on revealing when and where. "Every episode, we tried to take inspiration from different things," says Waldron, citing Blade Runner's noir aesthetic as one example.

"Part of the fun of the multiverse and playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular," says Feige, who also declined to confirm if Loki ties into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and/or other upcoming projects.

Making Loki was especially meaningful to Hiddleston because they shot most of it during the pandemic, in late 2020. "It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life," he says. "It's a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don't quite know yet, and maybe I don't have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time."

While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Loki beyond this initial season, Hiddleston isn't preparing to put the character to bed yet. "I'm open to everything," he says. "I have said goodbye to the character. I've said hello to the character. I said goodbye to the character [again]. I've learned not to make assumptions, I suppose. I'm just grateful that I'm still here, and there are still new roads to explore."

[asleepinawell]

Book Recs

I was gonna do one of these at the end of the year, but I’ve somehow managed to read 26 books this year already (12 novellas, 14 novels), almost all featuring queer authors and/or characters so this is already a long list.

Note: There’s a few on here I was kind of meh about, but in most of those cases it was a ‘book might be good but it’s not for me so i’ll mention it to put it on people’s radar anyway’ type of thing. Insert the usual necessary tumblr disclaimer about all of this being only my opinion and your opinions are valid too etc etc.

In order of when I read them:

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir - Fantasy novella from the author of gideon the ninth that’s a twist on the classic princess trapped in a tower waiting for a prince story. Quite fun. (novella)

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht - Dark fantasy about revenge and magic. m/m couple but like I said it’s pretty dark and twisted all around so definitely not a happy queer romantic story. My opinion was interesting premise that could have been executed better and probably should have been a full novel to embellish on the world building potential. (novella)

A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine - Probably tied with murderbot as the best things I read this year. Scifi, f/f couple, wonderfully done exploration of what it means to fall in love with a culture that is destroying your own. More of the many queer anti-imperialist books that have come out recently and certainly some of the best. The second one is a direct continuation of the first. (2 novels)

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - This is the third in the Baru Cormorant series (The Masquerade) and was my favorite so far. The second and third book were originally one book that got split I believe and the second book didn’t stand alone as well (though was still great), but the third book really made up for that. Dark fantasy world starring a queer woc whose country and culture is destroyed by the imperial forces of that world colonizing and assimilating them. She vows revenge and decides to work her way up within her enemy’s ranks to enact it from within and bring an empire to ruins. Really really fascinating study of so many different aspects of our own world and the systems which enable and allow bigotry and how bigoted and violent narratives are used to control minorities. This is definitely a darker series and I was particularly impressed with some of the commentary on the racism prevalent in non-intersectional feminism as depicted through a fantasy world. Can’t wait for the last one to come out! (3 novels, 1 forthcoming)

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells - There’s six of them--5 novella and a novel--and the first is All Systems Red. Told from the point of view of a self-aware droid/android that is rented out by a corporation to provide protection in a dystopian capitalist hellhole future that isn’t that unlike our current capitalist dystopia but is in space. Muderbot hacked the chip that controlled it and instead of going rogue just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite tv shows. Murderbot is painfully relatable and the books are both funny and poignant. Highly recommended. (5 novellas and a novel).

Winter’s Orbit - Everina Maxwell - This was a m/m romance novel with a scifi backdrop of royal intrigue. Generally I’m more into scifi with a queer relationship in the background than vice versa, so it wasn’t my favorite, BUT I think it was still well written and someone looking for more of the romance angle would enjoy it. Has all your favorite romance tropes in it, especially the yearning. (novel)

The Divine Cities - Robert Jackson Bennett - Three book series. I’m very conflicted about this one. Set in a fantasy world where an enslaved nation overthrew the country enslaving them and now rules over them. It’s a story of what happens after the triumphant victory and within that it’s also a murder mystery tied into the dying magic of the conquered nation. It also has a six foot something naked oily viking man fist fight a cthulhu in a frozen river. The second book was by far my favorite, mostly due to the main character being brilliant. My conflict comes from the fact I don’t feel like the story treated its women and queer characters well. Like it had really great characters but it didn’t do great by them overall. That and the third book didn’t live up to the first two. But still definitely worth a read, can’t stress enough how cool some of the world building was. (3 novels)

Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant - This might be the only one on here I disliked. It’s got a doomed boat voyage and creepy underwater terror and monsters and a super diverse cast of characters, but I just didn’t enjoy the writing style. While having a diverse cast is great, there were a lot of moments where it felt like characters were pausing to explain things about themselves that felt like a tumblr post rather than a normal conversation you might have while actively being hunted by monsters. I also bounced off all the characters. But a lot of people seem to have liked it so if you’re into horror and want a book with a f/f main couple then maybe you’ll enjoy it. (novel)

Dead Djinn Universe - P. Djèlí Clark - Around the early 1900′s, a man in Egypt discovers a way to access another world and bring Djinn and mysterious clockwork beings called Angels through. As a result, Egypt tells the British to get fucked and Cairo becomes one of the most powerful cities in the world. So Egypt, magic, djinn, a steampunk-ish vibe, oh and the main character is a butch queer woman who enjoys wearing dapper suits and looking fabulous while she investigates supernatural events. Her girlfriend is also mysterious and badass. And she has a cat. There’s three novella (one of which technically might be considered a short story) and then the first novel. You should absolutely read the novellas first (A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Angel of Khan el-Khalili, The Haunting of Tram Car 015). Super fun and imaginative series. (3 novellas and a novel, more forthcoming)

River of Teeth & Taste of Marrow - Sarah Gailey - From the book description

“In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true. Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two. This was a terrible plan.”

Queer hippo riders!!!! Very much a western but with hippos. Main couple included a non-binary character. Loved the first one. The second one I was more meh about due to one of the characters I was supposed to like having obnoxious man pain that a woman had to take the brunt of the whole time. Also there were less hippos. But queer hippo riders! Definitely read the first one, and they’re both novellas so no reason not to read the second as well. (2 novellas)

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers - I may be the only person who hasn’t read the long way to a small angry planet at this point, but I did grab her new novella and I loved it. It made me want to go sit out in the woods and feel peaceful. The world it’s set in feels like a peaceful post-apocalypse...or diverted apocalypse maybe. Humans built robots and robots gained sentience, but instead of rebelling they just up and left and went into the wilderness with a promise that the humans wouldn’t follow them.The remaining human society reshaped itself into something new and peaceful. It’s the story of a monk who leaves their habitual monking duties to go be a tea monk and then later wanders into the wilderness and becomes the first human in ages to meet a robot. Very sad there’s no fan art yet. (novella, more forthcoming)

The March North - Graydon Saunders - This was such a weird book that I’m not sure how to explain it. The prose style is hard to get used to and I suspect a lot of people will bounce off it in the first chapter. There’s no third person pronouns used at all and important events get mentioned once in passing and if you blink you’ll miss them. Set on a world where magic is extremely common to the point that rivers sometimes run with blood or fire and the local weeds are something out of a horror movie and most of the world is run by powerful sorcerer dictators, one country banded together (with the help of a few powerful sorcerers who were tired of all the bullshit) to form a free country where powerful sorcerers wouldn’t rule and the small magics of every day folks could be combined to work together. The story revolves around a Captain of the military force on the border who one day has three very powerful sorcerers sent to them by the main government with the hint that just maybe there’s about to be a big invasion (there is) with the implication of take these guys and go deal with this. The world building is extremely complex and very cool...when you can actually understand what the fuck is going on. There is also a murder sheep named Eustace who breathes fire and eats just about everything and is a Very Good Boy and belongs to the most terrifying sorcerer in the world who appears as a little old grandma with knitting. It had one of the most epic badass and wonderfully grotesque battles I’ve ever read. But yeah, it is not what I would call easy reading. Opinions may vary wildly. I did also read the second one (A Succession of Bad Days) in the series which was easier to follow and had a lot more details about the world, but overall I was more meh about it despite some cool aspects. The chapters and chapters of the extreme details of building a house that made up half the novel just weren’t my thing. (novels).

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson - In this world parallels universes exist and we’ve discovered how to travel between them, but the catch is you can only go to worlds where the ‘you’ there is already dead. This turns into an uncomfortable look at who would be the people most likely to have died on many worlds and how things like class and race would fit into that and what we would actually use this ability for (if you guessed stealing resources and the stock market you’d be correct). The main character is a queer woc who travels between worlds with the assistance of her handler (another queer woc) who she has the hots for. She accidentally stumbles on a whole lot of mess and conspiracy and gets swept up in that. Really enjoyed it. (novel)

Witchmark - C.L. Polk - Fantasy world reminiscent of Victorian England (I think?) where a young man with magical gifts runs away from his powerful family to avoid being exploited by them. He joins the army and fights in a war and comes home to try and live a quiet life as a doctor, but a murder pulls him into a larger mystery that upturns his life. Also he’s extremely gay and there’s a prevalent m/m romance. This one was a fun-but-not-mind-blowing one for me. (novel, 2 more in the series I haven’t read)

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon - This was one of those that everyone loved but I couldn’t get into for some reason. I tried twice and only got about halfway through the second time. It’s got dragons and queer ladies and fantasy world and all the things I like, but I wasn’t that invested in the main story (which included the f/f couple) and was more interested in the smaller story about a woman trying to become a dragon rider. There are few things that beat out a lady and her dragon friend story for me and that was the storyline that felt neglected and took a different turn right when we got to the part I’d been waiting for. But, I know a lot of people whose reading opinions I respect who loved it, and if you like epic fantasy with dragons and queens and treachery and pirates and queer characters then I’d say you should definitely give it a try. (novel)

Bonus: I didn’t read these series this year, but if you haven’t read them yet, you should.

Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice) - Ann Leckie - Spaceship AI stuck in a human body out for revenge for their former captain, but that summary does not come close to doing it justice. Another one examining imperialism and also gender and race.(3 novels)

Kushiel's Legacy Series - Jacqueline Carey - This is two series, six books total, and starts with Kushiel's Dart. Alternate universe Renaissance-y Europe in a fantastical world where sex isn't shameful and sex workers are respected and prized. Lots of political intrigue and mystery. A lot of BDSM and kinky stuff too (the main character is a sexual masochist, oh and also bi!). I first read this series when I was fifteen or sixteen and it definitely made a big impression on me. Same author also wrote the Santa Olivia series which I’d also recommend. (6 novels)

The Locked Tomb (Gideon the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir - I mean, if you follow me, you know. If you don’t follow me you still probably know. I’d have felt remiss to have left them off though. Lesbian Necormancers in Space. Memes! Skeletons! Biceps! Go read them. (2 novels, 2 forthcoming, 1 short story)

Books On My To Read List:

Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

This Is How You Lose the TIme War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee

Also, if anyone has any recs for scifi/fantasy books starring queer men (not necessarily having to do with a queer relationship) and written by queer men I’d love them. There’s a lot written by women, and some of them are great, but I’d love to read a story about queer men from their own perspective.

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Why do you think so many fans, even those who wouldn’t be considered casual viewers of the show think that those who romantically ship Mike and Will are kidding themselves? Sometimes I feel like I’m missing something, like we’re not even watching the same show. From my perspective, it’s beyond me to how someone could look at Mike and El’s romantic relationship, especially after s3, and think it’s proper.

Great question. I’ve touched on this issue a time or two before, but perhaps never in such a direct manner. I think there’s several things in play here that lead to the more “mainstream” fans considering it crazy when Mike and Will are seen as a romantic pairing. I think these same causes also lead to fans missing how improper, to use your terms, Mike and El’s relationship is. Some of these things are more valid than others, but they’re all valid in the sense that they are real, meaning that people aren’t just being petty. There are those out there who are petty, of course, but I think it’s unfair to cast all fans we disagree with in with that group.

First, let’s get this out of the way, heteronormativity maintains quite the stranglehold on American culture. Yes, we’ve come a long, long way. Gay characters and couples are portrayed in a much more positive light compared to twenty or more years ago. Still, they continue to be treated as a shock, either in behavior or reveal. By that I mean that these characters are either blatantly obvious or a complete surprise. There is seldom any middle ground here. This is, in my opinion anyway, a remnant of the transition of gay characters from caricatures to genuine characters. Fans, American fans at least, want to seem accepting to gay people, but they also want it crystal clear that gay people are different from them. To quote Homer Simpson from Homer’s Phobia, a 1997 episode of The Simpsons, “I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming!”

The 90s were a time when gay people were starting to be seen as decent people instead of deviants. They still weren’t equal, though, and were often used as props and novelties. The Gay Best Friend trope came out of this idea that gay people were fun and exotic, and many would also use them as a way to show how progressive they were. It was a step in the right direction, perhaps, but gay people were still not seen as equals.

Why is this important? Well, maybe it’s not, but not only is Stranger Things the product of two brothers who grew up in that era of thinking, but so is the largest segment of the viewership. Most Stranger Things viewers fall in the 18-29 and 30-44 demographics. I, myself, fall in the latter category. While we all laughed at Homer’s idiotic homophobia, we all knew deep down that we were similarly taken in by stereotypes and heternormativity. That is to say, that being straight was the normal, expected way of things, and gay people was something neat and trendy, but that only happened to other people.

This mindset persists today, though it does seem to be slowly eroding. We still expect most characters to be straight. I suppose, in some ways, this makes sense. The majority of people in America (and likely the world) still identify as heterosexual, so, technically, statistically, being LGBT is “abnormal.” Still, the degree to which I see LGBT people being open about their identities sometimes catches me off guard when I stop to think about it. It’s something that was unimaginable when I was a teenager, barring being in an identified gay club or neighborhood. The fact that it catches me off guard, despite identifying as bisexual, is proof that those mechanisms of my upbringing persist.

I am able to see the romantic undertones of Mike and Will’s relationship because I’ve been there. I’ve been in love with a same-sex friend and been afraid to say anything about it. I’ve agonized over whether it was real or just a phase. I’ve struggled with hiding it. I’ve tried to keep my feelings hidden while also letting them slip out in controlled bursts of not-quite-platonic gestures. I’ve even wondered how I could be “like that” when I acted and dressed just like any other guy I knew. Despite living it, I still saw “it” as something foreign and different. It’s only because I lived it that I can see through the heteronormativity and recognize homosexual love in “straight” TV and movie characters. I’m sorry, but Poe Dameron was definitely into Finn, and Finn, at the very least, idolized Poe, and you can’t convince me otherwise, no matter what Disney tried to pull by giving them both inconsequential female love interests.

(Christ, this is turning into a real rant here, oh well, the bottle has been opened.)

So, yeah, heteronormativity basically tells us that if characters are gay then they’ll act a “certain way” so we know. Mike and Will don’t do this, so, to most fans, they aren’t gay. Heteronormativity and pop culture tropes also tell us that male and female leads are meant to end up together. Now, in defense of other fans, the Duffers do play around with all sorts of tropes, so it’s understandable that people would expect things to be just as formulaic in Stranger Things. The problem these fans don’t see, however, is that the Duffers seem to like subverting the tropes.

For those of you who aren’t aware, subverting a trope means that we are led to believe that we’re being shown something we’ve seen time and time again, only to end up with something else. Season 1 was so big on this that I fell in love with the show. Adults Are Useless? Joyce did not sit around while the kids solved the mystery. Hopper wasn’t the ineffectual drunk cop I was expecting him to be. Jerk Jock? No, Steve is actually a nice, if dopey, guy once he stops letting his friends influence him. Virgin Survivor? No, sex is not seen as a vice needing to be punished, so Barb dies instead of Nancy. The Duffers know what we expect to see, they tease us with it, then pull the rug out from under us.

So, what do we expect in terms of romance? We expect our opposite sex leads to pair up. This would mean Mike & El and Joyce & Hopper as our kid and adult lead pairs, respectively. Mike & El, in particular, seems to be something they’ve tantalized fans with, both in the show and marketing. We can look at that relationship, though, and see that it’s not built on much. That’s somewhat in line with many kid relationships, so, really, it’s expected that it would similarly fizzle out as those relationships generally do. These are two kids who knew each other for a week, then spent a year apart. If anything, they’re more in love with the ideas of each other they created in that time apart than anything else. This could explain why their relationship was so shallow once they’re together again. We all experienced this type of crush or relationship before, the one where we don’t really know the person so we create a version of them in our minds. This version often clashes with the real one once we get to know them. Still, we’ve all been there.

This brings me to my final point: identification. We identify with characters when we watch TV shows and movies. I dare say most, if not all, of us can identify with these kids getting these crushes and early relationships. The youngest fans probably identify even more since they’re currently in those stages of life. I’m sure many young fans identify with either Mike or El, and perhaps fantasize about being with the other (or both?). Whether we realize it or not, we’re casting our own wants and needs onto the characters. Some fans want Mike and El together because it validates their own feelings and experiences.

I know that I certainly identify with Mike and Will through my own teenage experiences. I identify with other characters for more mature, adult reasons, as well. Yes, a part of me ships Mike and Will because of this. The difference here, compared to other ships I’ve gotten behind, is that this actually seems real. There is canon evidence that Mike and Will appear to have non-platonic feelings for each other, feelings built over a very long friendship. Mike legit seems like the closeted, possibly not even aware, gay kid going through the motions of a straight relationship. Will seems like he’s actively suppressing any romantic urges because he’s spent his life being bullied for being queer. They’ve been written to have more genuinely romantic moments than Mike and El have had. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the writers will have some explaining to do if they don’t get together. Many fans will miss it, due to the reasons mentioned above, but it’s all been laid there before us. Nobody should be surprised, but they will be.

[veronicamarsconfessions]

Joel Silver, The Ruthless Producer (But He Wouldn’t Allow Logan To Be Killed)

This blog talks a lot about Joel Silver and his influence on pop culture (especially his role in Veronica Mars). He is well known as one of the “Bosses From Hell” in Hollywood and yet he is the lesser evil from other producers like Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin. Which is not a compliment whatsoever. But he is known as very protective with his assets such as his TV shows.

It is surprising that we hardly heard about sexual misconduct allegations against women/men (yet) especially during this decade alone. According to many, he is not interested that much in sexual hedonism as he is more concerned with being on top of the food chain. He is a married flamboyant producer who is deeply serious about his investments. He is always at the movie/tv set, watching everything like a hawk, making sure that everything is working accordingly. He dislikes unprofessional behavior from actors or showrunners, and most of the time, he just loathes writers. “Writers sometimes don’t know what works and what’s not. I don’t care if you are a brilliant writer, but I know better than anyone else in this business.”

That is the young Joel Silver, playing a frustrated director named Raoul in the movie 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. According to interviews, Raoul was based on himself but more tamer.

Joel Silver was a type of producer who likes to change a lot of the source materials, to the chagrin of the creators. Many just saw him as this tough guy producer who is very meticulous and wants the job done properly. Sources said that he liked to yell a lot, but hardly physical towards his employees (unlike Scott Rudin).

This is why it was so shocking that he and Rob Thomas had a fistfight argument at the Veronica Mars set. Rob must’ve pissed him off so bad that he resolved to a fistfight. According to a TVGuide interview, Rob said that Joel wanted to have Tara Reid as Trina Echolls and Paris Hilton to be put in the show as a guest star while promoting the House of Wax movie. Rob hated the idea and Joel didn’t take it lightly. Their brawl was reported to many blogs and forums back then.

Joel was frustrated and furious that Rob was adamant about his vision, citing that he knows more about what works and what’s not in the industry, and that includes casting and storylines. Rob insisted that Veronica should be with the love of her life, which was Duncan Kane. Both Joel and Rob head-butted about this because Joel knew that Logan was more a compatible and popular character than Duncan. Not liking the idea of being blackballed all the time, Rob wrote Logan as insufferable in season 2, hoping that fans would turn against the character.

The plan backfired as the fans at the time rejected Duncan instead. Diane Ruggiero even admitted that they were reading the feedbacks especially from Television Without Pity and she said that they didn’t have a choice but to get rid of Duncan. At the time, they also didn’t know whether the show was going to be renewed or not in season 3, especially during the merger between UPN and WB to form The CW. The fans’ voice was clear: they wanted LoVe (Logan & Veronica) to be together. This didn’t bode well with Rob, but the fans (and Joel) have spoken. He finally got rid of Duncan by sending him off to Australia with his baby. And that was it, the end. Logan and Veronica got back together.

But season three came, and another obstacle came in a form of Dawn Ostroff (the president of CW) who wanted some changes in the show for the network to be more teen-friendly. Gone the whole Noir and mystery style, they focused more on the white teen drama and a love triangle. At this moment, Joel decided to stay behind the scene. He was no longer hovering, he had other projects, other money to pursue. He still co-owned Veronica Mars. But he was no longer involved much.

When Veronica Mars was canceled, Joel immediately snatched Jason Dohring - he approached Jason "out of the blue” and said, “There's a role, and I'm making it younger". Joel offered the main role of the CBS vampire procedural series Twilight to Jason before it was changed into Moonlight. Jason read two pages of the script featuring Josef Kostan and was interested in the character's "dark" and "sharp" personality. Jason had to go through the normal audition process and was not sure he would have gotten the role without Joel Silver, who had "pushed it through to the end". Joel noticed very early that Jason had a main protagonist charisma so he fought for him to be cast as Josef Kostan. Jason’s performance was praised by many critics and fans alike as this sarcastic manipulative vampire. Unfortunately, the writing of the show was atrocious and the rating was abysmal because of the Writers Guild strike and they had to hire ghostwriters to keep going. After one season, Moonlight was canceled and it was another money down the drain for Joel.

When the idea of a movie was pitched, Joel said the movie would NEVER HAPPEN. “There are no fans for this market. Sales of DVDs and merchandise are nonexistent.” Joel was thinking as a producer; no sales for the merchandise = no fans, which is wrong, obviously. But that was the way many producers thinking at the time, and still are. After his company severing ties with the Warner Brothers, Joel was no longer interested in any mention of the Veronica Mars movie. Knowing that Joel would not approve of the Kickstarter, Rob and KBell decided to go straight to Warner Bros head honcho Kevin Tsujihara and asked for a chance to get a Veronica Mars movie funded by the fans. The movie then was made, and Joel was proven wrong for this particular moment.

Sharks however started to circling Veronica Mars movie - a lot of producers started to take an interest in the Kickstarter when they found out that it became successful and a phenomenon — notorious producer Harvey Weinstein wanted to grab the rights of Veronica Mars and he boasted that he could make it more successful under his Miramax banner. But his rival, Joel Silver, wouldn’t have any of it. Joel might not be responsible with the Kickstarter, but he sure the hell would burn a swimming pool first before Miramax steals VMars.

Rob and Joel have a “good work” relationship - they definitely aren't friends in real life, but most of the time they avoid each other except in public events and red carpets. Their relationship is mostly being tolerant of each other. Joel didn't even bother to come to the Veronica Mars movie red carpet even though he was the executive producer of the movie and this franchise was a part of his life. Many thoughts for him not attending the red carpet were to avoid any embarrassment because he said that there were no fans of Veronica Mars. If it was allowed, Rob would say ‘fuck you’ to Joel as he strutted on the red carpet during the premiere of the Veronica Mars movie at the Chinese Theater.

However, when HULU took an interest in a VMars miniseries, Rob asked Joel for a favor, which is to get Kristen Bell to work around NBC The Good Place contract. As HULU is a part of Viacom and also an umbrella company for CBS and CW where VMars reside, technically she couldn't and was not allowed to be working with a rival company. So Joel helped Rob by calling the NBC president Noah Oppenheim to lend Kristen Bell to HULU temporarily. No words or interview about how Joel thinks about season 4 and how they killed off Logan Echolls; a character he protected during his reign back then. It is obvious if he was in charge of Veronica Mars season 4, he would scold Rob Thomas for killing the Golden Goose or maybe already stopping him before it happened. He might have a soft spot for Jason Dohring himself, calling him a “talented actor but too quiet for this industry”.

Joel Silver seems to have moved on from Veronica Mars and its tumultuous relationship within. He has a bigger problem than handling a franchise that has crashed and burned because it flew too close to the sun; namely being sued for the death of an assistant and the fact that he was kicked out from his own company (Silver Pictures) by the company CFO Daryl Katz, and also he is a bit struggling with financial means. But no matter what, Joel Silver was a part of Veronica Mars with its complicated history. And he definitely has no problem keeping going - after all, he is one of the notorious bosses in Hollywood.

[letterboxd]

In Focus: The Truman Show.

Inspired by Letterboxd data that revealed it to be a lockdown favorite, editor-at-large Dominic Corry looks at the ever-evolving importance of contemporary masterpiece The Truman Show.

It has long been apparent that The Truman Show is an unnervingly prescient film. The story of a man who becomes aware that his superficially idyllic life is, in fact, a live-streamed television show has gone from being high-concept to every-day.

Thanks to the three Ps—the prevalence of mass urban surveillance, the proliferation of reality television and the pervasiveness of video in social media—the notion of cameras filming our every move is no longer a paranoid fantasy, but real life. The twist being that, for the most part, we all willingly signed up for it, and did all the filming ourselves. As Yi Jian saliently observes in his review: “Not to get all ‘we live in a society’ on Letterboxd but I know a person or two in real life that would actually give anything to trade lives with Truman, it do be like that sometimes”. It indeed do, Yi Jian.

So it’s something of a cliché at this stage to point out how we are all living in some version of the The Truman Show, and you don’t have to be a member of the royal family to feel that way. Yet, somehow, the film has become even more pertinent over the last eighteen months. And it’s a pertinence reflected in the massive uptick in viewership for the film as seen in Letterboxd activity.

During the month of February 2020, the last moment of the Before Times, The Truman Show had a modest 1,235 diary entries. That number tripled in April of that year, by which time the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear. And by July, deep in the worst of the pandemic, Truman fervor peaked, with a further 178 percent leap over April’s numbers, firmly placing it in the top 200 films watched by our members in a year of lockdown. (By the way, ‘diary entries’ mean activity where the member has added a watched date; many thousands more also marked Truman as ‘watched’ in those dark months, but didn’t specify a date.)

It’s not difficult to imagine why we might become more interested in revisiting this eminently re-visitable film. During lockdown, social media—including Letterboxd—took on a greater presence in terms of how we communicated with each other. We got used to seeing footage of faces more than actual faces. We were all the stars of our own ‘Truman Show’, and simultaneously the audience of everyone else’s ‘Truman Show’.

Christian Torres boiled it down effectively when he wrote: “Now every movie I see seems to be related to my life in quarantine. I am Truman and I want to escape.” And Sonya Sandra eloquently captured the film’s increased contemporary significance in her review: “This is a real-life daylight horror film. The best kind. Even more relevant in 2021 than ever. We are all Truman, we all want to find what is real in our fake lives filled with media, capitalism and ideology. And it’s our job to fight the storm and get to the truth of it all. Nothing is real, everything is for profit, and everyone is selfish. Go out and find what is real, because it’s definitely not here.”

With its deft, dazzling blending of the profound and the humorous, the optimistic and the cynical, it’s difficult to think of anything released since The Truman Show that comes as close as it does to being a modern-day Frank Capra movie. It’s hopeful, but has its eyes wide open. There’s a darkness in the themes of the film that is never replicated in the colors on display.

While everyone involved delivers career-best work, we must principally credit the triumvirate of talent at the center of the film: director Peter Weir, screenwriter Andrew Niccol and star Jim Carrey.

Star Jim Carrey and director Peter Weir on the set of ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

Weir is a director who inspires much online love whenever his name is mentioned, but he isn’t really mentioned all that often. Or at least as often as he should be. The Australian filmmaker has delivered masterpieces across multiple genres, and it’s extremely sad that he hasn’t directed a movie since 2010’s not-quite-true World War II drama The Way Back, arguably one of his lesser works. That’s also, insanely, one of only two movies he’s made since Truman, the other being Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the wide and rabid affection for which regularly kicks up on Twitter (not to mention demand for a sequel).

Weir doesn’t do many interviews, and while this 2018 Vanity Fair article marking Truman’s twentieth anniversary has many quotes about the film’s modern relevance, Weir doesn’t offer any commentary to that effect, presumably preferring to let the work speak for itself—though in this 1998 interview he did talk about the relationship between the media, the general public and the people we become fascinated with, as a “complex situation”.

The Vanity Fair article does, however, reveal a fascinating ‘what if’ scenario relating to Christof, the god-like director of the in-movie TV show played by Ed Harris, who offers up a pile of pretentious auteur clichés: mononymous, beret, etc. (beyond the whole god thing, that is). When Dennis Hopper, originally cast in the role, wasn’t working out, Weir considered playing the role himself, which would’ve added yet another meta layer. It brings to mind how George Miller styled Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne) after himself in Mad Max: Fury Road, or how Christopher Nolan’s haircut shows up in most of his films.

Ed Harris as Christof in ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

And, at one point, it could have gone mega-meta. Weir, in the 1998 interview, talked about a “crazy idea” he had, a technical impossibility back then but easily achievable with live-streaming now. “I would have loved to have had a video camera installed in every theater the film was to be seen [in]. At one point, the projectionist would … cut to the viewers in the cinema and then back to the movie. But I thought it was best to leave that idea untested.” Imagine.

Weir also played a role in helping to shape the originally much more overtly dark screenplay into the cheerier (on the surface at least) shooting script, which is solely credited to fellow antipodean, New Zealand-born Niccol, also a producer on the film. Both men have done the majority of their work in America, but it’s tempting to credit the film’s tone-perfect sense of heightened Americana to the degree of separation offered by their foreign provenance. In any case, it’s clear that open-air mall designers were paying attention.

Niccol’s original screenplay made his name in Hollywood, and revealed a storyteller excited by big ideas. He moved into directing with the smaller-scale Gattaca, released a year prior to Truman (itself delayed to meet Carrey’s availability). Niccol’s subsequent filmography includes several legit bangers (Lord of War hive step up!), and his endearing dedication to lofty allegories in a genre setting makes him an increasingly rare breed in Hollywood.

Like Weir, he is not the greatest fan of giving interviews, but the Vanity Fair piece quotes him making an interesting point: “When you know there is a camera, there is no reality,” thereby making Truman “the only genuine reality star.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by MusicMoviesMe, who writes that “‘Truman Show’ beats all other reality shows out there like Bachelors, Survivors and Kardashians. Come on, when you know there’s a camera at your tail, there’s no reality. So yes, Truman beats all reality shows out there bar none!”

The role was perfectly suited to Jim Carrey’s affected mannerisms, and his status as one of the world’s biggest stars meant he could relate to Truman more than most people. Then, at least. Nowadays, of course, we are all Truman.

“It is always incredible to see how far The Truman Show was ahead of [its] time,” observes The Closer79. “In a world where celebs are monitored 24/7 and we are showered with unnecessary private information on the web, where talent-free wannabes become famous and where you sometimes [wonder] what kind of surreal show society you are in—Truman and his fake show life cleverly have anticipated all of this. Only Truman knew nothing of his luck and he was granted an escape from his glass prison. We don’t really have this possibility… Aren’t we all Truman? Sometimes even voluntarily…”

Austin Burke concurs: “I have always known that I really enjoyed this film, but I had no clue that it would hold up so well years later… Could this be because the strange world that he finds himself in is far more similar to our world today? Possibly, but the idea and themes are so much more relevant now compared to when this originally released.” And while DallasFrance is conscious of piling on about the film’s prescience, his review highlights how there really is no limit to the film’s meta qualities:

“Instead of writing a review about how this film predicted social media, or how we’re all Truman, or yadda yadda yadda, I’ll instead fixate on the miraculous fact that two absolute legends were cast as primary viewers of the Truman Show:

1. The old lady from The Running Man who starts betting on Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger). ‘He’s one bad motherf*cker!’

2. The villain from The Karate Kid Part II:

‘Live or die, man?!’ ‘Die!’ ‘Wrong!’ *hooooonnnkkk*

I’ve never seen either of these actors in any other roles. With the second one, I felt like I was watching a character from my childhood watch a character from his childhood come to realizations about the characters in his childhood. So actually… the movie’s really about me.”

Never change, LB membership.

We are all generally pretty aware of how ahead of its time The Truman Show was, but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Maddie’s review shows that there’s always some new angle to consider: “Imagine being an extra in this movie… You would be an extra, playing an actor, playing an extra. Think about that long enough and tell me that doesn’t make you want to walk into the ocean.”

Kev goes even further: “Watching other people watch somebody else while also watching that person while also watching the person watching over that person is a great reminder that watching is weird, and to be watched is to not own yourself. Don’t watch, don’t try to be watched. Just live.”

Or perhaps Will encapsulates the film’s ability to present an ever-evolving message best, writing that, “clearly, this is video proof that we live in a simulation.” Beyond mere prescience, The Truman Show is a telling mirror to whatever era it is viewed in. Its message will continue to evolve.

Now that we’re finally (touch wood) emerging from the pandemic, it will be fascinating to see what The Truman Show has to say about its audience and the world they live in, in years to come. Rest assured, it will be well-documented by you, the Letterboxd audience.

Also: can Peter Weir please make another movie? Like, seriously.

Related content

A Meta-Reality: Robert’s list of layers of film in life and life in film

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

[thesaltofcarthage]

Loki takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU

from Entertainment Weekly

Ten years after Hiddleston first chose chaos in Thor, Marvel’s fan favorite God of Mischief is going even bigger with his time-bending Disney+ show.

By Chancellor Agard May 20, 2021 

Tom Hiddleston is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious purpose: After playing Thor's puckish brother for over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no one understands the mercurial Asgardian God of Mischief as well as the actor. He can teach an entire seminar on Loki if given the opportunity — which he actually did during pre-production on his forthcoming Disney+ show. In conversation, Hiddleston quotes lines from his MCU debut, 2011's Thor, almost verbatim, and will playfully correct you if you mistakenly refer to Asgard's Rainbow Bridge as the Bifrost, which is the portal that connects Loki and Thor's homeworld to the Nine Realms, including Midgard, a.k.a. Earth. "Well, the Bifrost technically is the energy that runs through the bridge," he says with a smile. "But nine points to Gryffindor!" And when he shows up to the photo shoot for this very digital cover, he hops on a call with our photo editor to pitch ways the concept could be even more Loki, like incorporating the flourish the trickster does whenever magically conjuring something. The lasting impression is that playing Loki isn't just a paycheck.

"Rather than ownership, it's a sense of responsibility I feel to give my best every time and do the best I can because I feel so grateful to be a part of what Marvel Studios has created," the 40-year-old Brit tells EW over Zoom a few days after the shoot and a week out from Thor's 10th anniversary. "I just want to make sure I've honored that responsibility with the best that I can give and the most care and thought and energy."

After appearing in three Thor movies and three Avengers, Hiddleston is bringing that passion to his first solo Marvel project, Loki, the House of Ideas' third Disney+ series following the sitcom pastiche WandaVision and the topical The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Led by head writer Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Heels), the six-episode drama sees Hiddleston's shapeshifting agent of chaos step out from behind his brother's shadow and into the spotlight for a timey-wimey, sci-fi adventure that aims to get to the bottom of who Loki really is. "I wanted to explore slightly more complex character questions," says Waldron. "It's not just good versus bad. Is anybody all good? Is anybody all bad? What makes a hero, a hero? A villain, a villain?"  

Even though Loki — who loves sowing mayhem with his illusion magic and shapeshifting, all with a major chip on his shoulder — has never been one for introspection, the idea of building an entire show around him was a no-brainer for Marvel. When asked why Loki was one of the studio's first Disney+ shows, Marvel president Kevin Feige replies matter-of-factly, "More Hiddleston, more Loki." First introduced as Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) envious brother in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Loki went full Big Bad in 2012's The Avengers. That film cemented the impish rogue as one of the shared universe's fan favorites, thanks to Hiddleston's ability to make him deliciously villainous yet charismatic and, most importantly, empathetic. The character's popularity is one of the reasons he's managed to avoid death many times.

"He's been around for thousands of years. He had all sorts of adventures," says Feige. "Wanting to fill in the blanks and see much more of Loki's story [was] the initial desire [for the series]."

The Loki we meet on the show is not the one who fought the Avengers in 2012 and evolved into an antihero in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before meeting his demise at the hands of the mad titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we'll be following a Loki from a branched timeline (a variant, if you will) after he stole the Tesseract following his thwarted New York invasion and escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody during the time heist featured in Avengers: Endgame. In other words, this Loki hasn't gone through any sort of redemption arc. He's still the charming yet petulant god who firmly believes he's destined to rule and has never gotten his due.

Premiering June 9, Loki begins with the Time Variance Authority — a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the Loki Variant seen in Endgame because they want his help fixing all of the timeline problems he caused while on the run with the Tesseract. So there will be time travel, and a lot more of it than in Endgame. As Loki makes his way through his own procedural, he'll match wits with new characters including Owen Wilson's Agent Mobius, a brilliant TVA analyst, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer. The question in early episodes is whether Loki will help them or take over.

"One of the things Kevin Feige led on was, 'I think we should find a way of exploring the parts of Loki that are independent of his relationship with Thor,' or see him in a duality or in relationship with others, which I thought was very exciting," says Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. "So the Odinson saga, that trilogy of films, still has its integrity, and we don't have to reopen it and retell it."

Yet, in order to understand where Loki is going, it's important to see where he came from.

Hiddleston can't believe how long he and Loki have been connected. "I've been playing this character for 11 years," he says. "Which is the first time I have said that sentence, I realize, and it [blows] my mind. I don't know what percentage that is exactly of my 40 years of being alive, but it's substantial."

His time as Loki actually goes a bit further back, to 2009 — a year after Robert Downey Jr. big banged the MCU into existence with Iron Man — when he auditioned for Thor. It's no secret that Hiddleston initially went in for the role of the titular God of Thunder, but Feige and director Kenneth Branagh thought his natural charm and flexibility as an actor made him better suited for the movie's damaged antagonist. "Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise," says Branagh, who had previously worked with him on a West End revival of Checkov's Ivanov and the BBC series Wallander. "Tom has a wild imagination, so does Loki. He's got a mischievous sense of humor and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player."

Hiddleston fully immersed himself in the character. Outside of studying Loki's history in the Marvel Comics, he also researched how Loki and the Trickster God archetype appeared across mythology and different cultures. "He understood that he was already in something special [and] it was a special character in a special part of that early moment in the life of the Marvel universe where [he] also needed to step up in other ways," says Branagh, who was impressed by the emotional depth Hiddleston brought to the part, especially when it came to how isolated Loki felt in the Asgardian royal family.  

There was a lot riding on that first Thor feature. For one, no one knew if audiences would immediately latch onto a Shakespearean superhero movie partially set on an alien planet populated by the Norse Gods of legend. Second, it was integral to Feige's plans for the shared universe. Loki was supposed to be the main villain in The Avengers, which would not only mirror how Earth's mightiest heroes joined forces in 1963's Avengers #1 but also give Thor a believable reason for teaming up with Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), and the rest of the capes. Feige first clued Hiddleston into those larger plans when the actor was in L.A. before Thor started shooting.

"I was like, 'Excuse me?' Because he was already three, four steps ahead," says Hiddleston. "That took me a few minutes to process, because I didn't quite realize how it just suddenly had a scope. And being cast as Loki, I realized, was a very significant moment for me in my life, and was going to remain. The creative journey was going to be so exciting."

Hiddleston relished the opportunity to go full villain in Avengers, like in the scene where Loki ordered a crowd to kneel before him outside a German opera house: "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation," says the Machiavellian god. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"I just knew that in the structure of that film, I had to lean into his role as a pure antagonist," Hiddleston recalls. "What I always found curious and complex about the way Loki is written in Avengers, is that his status as an antagonist comes from the same well of not belonging and being marginalized and isolated in the first Thor film. Loki now knows he has no place in Asgard."

Loki did find a place within the audience's hearts, though. Feige was "all in" on Hiddleston as his Loki from the beginning, but even he couldn't predict how much fans would love him. Feige recalls the reaction at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con: "Did we know that after he was the villain in two movies, he would be bringing thousands of people to their feet in Hall H, in costume, chanting his name? No, that was above and beyond the plan that we were hoping for and dreaming of." It was a dream Feige first got an inkling of a year earlier during the Avengers press tour when a Russian fan slipped past security, snuck into Mark Ruffalo's car, and asked the Hulk actor to give Hiddleston a piece of fan art she created. "That was one of the early signs there was much more happening with this quote-unquote villain."  

Despite that popularity, the plan was to kill Loki off in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, but the studio reversed course after test audiences refused to believe he actually died fighting the Dark Elves. Alas, he couldn't out-illusion death forever. After returning in Taika Waititi's colorful and idiosyncratic Thor: Ragnarok, Hiddleston's character perished for real in the opening moments of Infinity War. In typical Loki fashion, before Thanos crushed his windpipe, he delivered a defiant speech that indicated he'd finally made peace with the anger he felt toward his family.  

"It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'" says Hiddleston, who shot that well-earned death scene in 2017.  

But, though he didn't know it yet, the actor's MCU story was far from over.

When Hiddleston returned to film two scenes in Avengers: Endgame in 2017, he had no idea where Loki portaled off to after snatching the Tesseract. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers," Hiddleston recalls. To be fair, it's likely the Powers That Be didn't necessarily have answers then. While Feige can't exactly recall when the writers' room for Endgame first devised Loki's escape sequence, he does know that setting up a future show wasn't the primary goal — because a Loki series wasn't on the horizon just yet.

"[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s," says Feige. Soon after that, though, former Disney CEO Bob Iger approached Feige about producing content for the studio's forthcoming streaming service. "I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."

As for Hiddleston, he didn't find out about the plans for a Loki show until spring 2018, a few weeks before Infinity War hit theaters. "I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," says the actor. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."

Nevertheless, Hiddleston was excited about returning for his show. He was eager to explore Loki's powers, especially the shapeshifting, and what it meant that this disruptive figure still managed to find a seat beside the gods in mythology. "I love this idea [of] Loki's chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don't know whether you can trust him. You don't know whether he's going to betray you. You don't why he's doing what he's doing," says Hiddleston. "If he's shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it."

“The series will explore Loki's powers in a way they have not yet been explored, which is very, very exciting.”

The thing that truly sold Hiddleston on the show was Marvel's decision to include the Time Variance Authority, a move he describes as "the best idea that anybody had pertaining to the series." Feige and Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard had hoped to find a place for the TVA — an organization that debuted in 1986's Thor #372 and has appeared in She-Hulk and Fantastic Four stories — in the MCU for years, but the right opportunity never presented itself until Loki came along. "Putting Loki into his own procedural series became the eureka moment for the show," says Feige.  

The TVA's perspective on time and reality also tied into the themes that Waldron, Loki's head writer, was hoping to explore. "Loki is a character that's always reckoning with his own identity, and the TVA, by virtue of what they do, is uniquely suited to hold up a mirror to Loki and make him really confront who he is and who he was supposed to be," says Waldron. Hiddleston adds: "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled. He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."

To truly dig into who Loki is, the creative team had to learn from the man who knows him best: Hiddleston. "I got him to do a thing called Loki School when we first started," says director Kate Herron. "I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU — from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic."

Hiddleston got something out of the Loki school, too. Owen Wilson both attended the class and interviewed Hiddleston afterward so that he could better understand Loki, as his character Mobius is supposed to be an expert on him. During their conversation, Wilson pointedly asked Hiddleston what he loved about playing the character.

"And I said, 'I think it's because he has so much range,'" says Hiddleston. "I remember saying this to him: 'On the 88 keys on the piano, he can play the twinkly light keys at the top. He can keep it witty and light, and he's the God of Mischief, but he can also go down to the other side and play the heavy keys. And he can play some really profound chords down there, which are about grief and betrayal and loss and heartbreak and jealousy and pride.'" Hiddleston recalls Wilson being moved by the description: "He said, 'I think I might say that in the show.' And it was such a brilliant insight for me into how open Owen is as an artist and a performer.'"

Everyone involved is particularly excited for audiences to see Hiddleston and Wilson's on-screen chemistry. "Mobius is not unlike Owen Wilson in that he's sort of nonplussed by the MCU," says Feige. "[Loki] is used to getting a reaction out of people, whether it's his brother or his father, or the other Avengers. He likes to be very flamboyant and theatrical. Mobius doesn't give him the reaction he's looking for. That leads to a very unique relationship that Loki's not used to."

As for the rest of the series, we know that Loki will be jumping around time and reality, but the creative team isn't keen on revealing when and where. "Every episode, we tried to take inspiration from different things," says Waldron, citing Blade Runner's noir aesthetic as one example.

"Part of the fun of the multiverse and playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular," says Feige, who also declined to confirm if Loki ties into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and/or other upcoming projects.

Making Loki was especially meaningful to Hiddleston because they shot most of it during the pandemic, in late 2020. "It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life," he says. "It's a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don't quite know yet, and maybe I don't have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time."

While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Loki beyond this initial season, Hiddleston isn't preparing to put the character to bed yet. "I'm open to everything," he says. "I have said goodbye to the character. I've said hello to the character. I said goodbye to the character [again]. I've learned not to make assumptions, I suppose. I'm just grateful that I'm still here, and there are still new roads to explore."

Additional reporting by Jessica Derschowitz

[pappydaddy]

Heather Part Two (j.m.)

A/N: Okay, so I have decided to start saying as little as possible in my A/Ns just to see if it brings in more interaction, if you guys want me to continue my ramblings, just shoot me a DM or something and I won’t stop them. This is a repost bc nobody saw this the first time?? Pls interact with this (preferably reblogging, but likes are good too!) 

 Anywho, this is the second part of Heather (my JJ imagine based on Heather by Conan Gray) and this is told from JJ’s perspective, I got this idea when I found this kinda parody/cover of the original song which will be linked below. I put some different scenes in this one too so it’s not just a retelling of my first part. Anyway, enjoy!!

Show/Movie: Outer Banks

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Reader

Warnings: Sad, angst, longing, negative thoughts about oneself (appearance, personality, etc), comparing to other people, jealousy, unspoken feelings

Might do a part three? I’ll probably do a part three.

Heather Cover by Zachary Tay

Part One | Part Two - You’re here!

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation

- not my gif -

  He didn’t technically see her when she arrived at the beach, but he still knew she was there before she wandered down the dunes. He couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder, trying to get a peek of her. There she was, her shoes swinging by her side, her hair blowing in the wind as she walked. She didn’t look towards the group of her friends, instead, she scanned the beach and JJ found himself missing her gorgeous eyes. He watched her, her eyes slowly drifting towards the fire JJ sat at. In a spilt second, their eyes connected and JJ wished he could stay in her gaze forever, but her eyes were ripped from his as she breezed past the group.

 The girl under his arm laughed loudly, making him draw his eyes away from Y/N. He looked at the black-haired girl (Heather) donned in his sweater, clinging to him as she laughed at something John B had said. “What’s so funny,” JJ asked, trying to play off his absence. He didn’t really listen to John B’s recount. “Oh, must have had to heard it in the moment, I guess.” He mumbled, his eyes following Y/N as Jack, her co-worker from The Wreck ran towards her, a large smile on his face. He took in Y/N’s appearance, the sweater she wore was too big for her, it certainly wasn’t hers. It dawned on him like a lighting strike; it was Jack’s sweater. He felt a pang in his heart, remembering how she looked in his own sweater, the very sweater Heather wore right in that moment.

 He remembered how good Y/N looked in his sweater and how often she wore it after he had given it to her. On Heather, it was just a piece of polyester fabric, but on Y/N, it was much more than just a sweater. The day she gave his sweater back to him was the day he concluded that she didn’t like him. He couldn’t imagine how he even thought she would like him, he’s not even good enough for his father and he could barely stand himself. How the hell would Y/N want him if he didn’t even want himself? He didn’t even understand how Heather liked him.

 His eyes followed Jack as he ran off once again, obviously apologizing profusely to Y/N. Jack was everything JJ wasn’t: sweet, smart, hard-working, career driven, and loved. JJ wanted to hate Jack, but he couldn’t, he was too good of a person. He could see that Y/N and Jack would make a good couple, he could see why Y/N would have her gaze set on him. His dark hair, his tall stature, his boy-next-door smile - he was the complete package.

 Setting his eyes on Y/N yet again, he saw her sit down on a piece of driftwood, staring out at the ocean as the waves lapped up towards her barefeet. He let himself imagine that the sweater she was wrapped up in was his. He often replayed the December night he gave his sweater to her in his head, imagining that he had actually done what he wanted - kissing her. He liked to live in that alternate story at night, laying in his bed. He sighed, glad he didn’t kiss her in the long-run, for he didn’t know who he liked more: Y/N or Heather. “JJ, you should tell Heather about that one time when John B was high off his ass when CPS came knocking on his door.” Kie laughed, capturing JJ’s attention from the girl sitting on the driftwood.

 “Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” JJ laughed, remembering that day as he launched into his story. Though his eyes weren’t on her, Y/N still plagued his mind, having been there that day as well, skipping school to smoke with JJ and John B. He laughed as he retold the story, poking fun at John B, but leaving Y/n out of the story, not wanting to pull her into his fling with Heather, knowing there will be drama if he did.

 Though he was immersed in the story he was telling, he still noticed Y/N standing and walking along the beach, leaving the party before it even started. The bleeding colours in the sky made her skin glow with pink and orange, making her look like the figure of beauty. As she walked away, JJ could have cried. He didn’t understand how he, the boy who wanted nothing to do with the messiness of love, ended up in this situation.

____

  The words Kie had told him earlier rattled in his brain like a single pill in a bottle. His mind played that moment back like a movie reel continuously playing. Once it ended, it restarted again. Like a painful torture device used to drive him to the brink of insanity.

 “I don’t get why Y/N keeps avoiding us! We never see her anymore, not since Heather started hanging out with us,” JJ groaned, plunking himself down on the couch dramatically. He had asked Y/N earlier at school (after cornering her at her locker) if she wanted to have a movie night just like old times, but she had told him she was going to study for a big biology test she had. “Why does she even need to study anyway? She’s at the top of her biology class, only second to Pope, of course.” JJ threw in the last comment, pleasing his friend who sat beside him on the couch, a freshly popped bowl of popcorn in his lap.

 “You guys do know why, right?” Kie asked, looking over her shoulder at them as she shifted through the DVD collection, the group deciding to go old school for the night. JJ shook his head while John B and Pope both nodded, making noises of understanding. JJ looked around, confusion clearly painted on his face.

 “Y/N still likes JJ.” Pope commented, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth, chewing it as if what he had just said was common knowledge.

 “What?” JJ asked, panicked, glad that Heather was hanging out with some of her other friends tonight instead of being with them. If she had been here, he would have never be given this piece of information.

 “You didn’t know?” John B asked, bewildered that JJ hadn’t picked up on anything.

 “Obviously not-” JJ cried, his eyes wide.

 “It was obvious, we all thought you had known by at least December third when you gave her your sweater, we thought that was you making your move on her finally.” Kie explained, shrugging.

 JJ still couldn’t believe that. If only he had seen how much she liked him, maybe he wouldn’t be praying for his eyes to catch her’s every time she walked by him. Maybe he wouldn’t want to cry every time they broke eye contact. Maybe he wouldn’t have assumed she likes Jack. He groaned, flopping around in the spare bed at John B’s, staring up at the dark ceiling as moonlight casted the window’s shadow onto the white surface.

 If he had known how much Y/N liked him that night, he wouldn’t be questioning who he liked more still. Maybe he didn’t like Heather at all. Now that he knew that Y/N likes him, he started to realize that maybe he didn’t truly like Heather, instead, only liking the idea of the distraction from the one he really liked. Though he realized this, he couldn’t do anything about it anytime soon. He had plans to eat lunch tomorrow with Heather and the group, he couldn’t break up with Heather at The Wreck.

_____

 Y/N was working today. That was the whole reason they were eating at The Wreck, to see her. John B and Pope missed her, Kie was able to see her during the shifts they shared or during shift changes, but the boys hadn’t seen her. JJ and Heather stood on the deck, leaning against the railing and JJ was giving the performance of his life. He couldn’t have Heather thinking that something was going on with him (he still had no idea who he liked more) so he was trying to act as normal as possible around her despite the fact that a war raged in his mind.

 He tried to keep his eyes on Heather as she talked adamantly. JJ nodded along, not really listening. Heather was beautiful and kind, but JJ grew bored easily. They had nothing in common. He was a surfer, she was from the city filled with concrete buildings and shopping malls. She just didn’t understand the joy in the little things. When JJ wanted to stargaze, she’d rather gaze at a TV screen. When JJ wanted to just sit on the beach and listen to the waves, she wanted to take pictures. When JJ just wanted to sit on his surfboard and let the waves roll under him, she didn’t want to ruin her make-up.

 Her hand squeezed his as she asked him about the stores he shopped at. He, not wanting to ignore her, joined her one-sided conversation and explained his mode of gaining clothes. She listened for the most part, but listening wasn’t really Heather’s strong suit. She loved to talk, not that JJ minded, but he would also like to have a conversation without being interrupted with a completely different story. He shot a glance in through the door, seeing Y/N at a table, talking with the costumers. She nodded, a shining smile on her face. JJ loved talking with Y/N. She’d listen, she’d talk. He’d listen, he’d talk. It was a perfectly balanced conversation with Y/N.

 He looked back down at Heather when she had asked him yet another question, but JJ wasn’t listening. “I’m sorry, what?” He asked, blinking. Heather giggled, thinking JJ was just a spacey type person who stared off in the distance, zoning out easily.

 “I asked about your shark tooth necklace, I’ve always wanted one.” She told him, the hand, that wasn’t in his, reaching up to fiddle with the shark tooth. JJ looked down at it, smiling fondly.

 “My friend made it for me with the shark tooth I found, I’ve never taken it off since they gave it to me.” He left out that it was Y/N who made it for him while she was going through her necklace making phase in middle school. She had made it too big originally, but it was okay since JJ grew since then.

 “Oh, well, maybe I could wear it sometime,” Heather asked flirtatiously. JJ gulped, not knowing what to say. He didn’t want to give it to her, but he didn’t want to start a fight before they ate a meal with his friends in public. Instead of answering, he pressed his lips to her’s in a lingering, long kiss. Heather smiled, giggling against his lips. Pulling away from the kiss, JJ glanced at the parking lot to see if John B and Pope were there yet, but his eyes came up with nothing. Heather shivered as a strong wind blew by them. “I’m a little cold.”

 JJ looked down at her, seeing that she didn’t have his sweater on. It was different, when Y/N had his sweater, she always wore it, or at least brought it, just in case she got cold. Heather didn’t bring it anywhere unless JJ asked about it. Wordlessly, JJ unlaced their fingers, dropping his arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. “I wonder if Y/N is cold? She doesn’t have a sweater on, only a t-shirt.” He thought, watching the parking lot out of the corner of his eye. He sighed, trying to clear his mind.

 “Yo! Let’s get some grub! I’m starving,”John B cheered, piling out of the van with Pope who cheered in agreement. JJ pulled away a bit too quick to play it off as normal while John B and Pope jogged up the stairs, their sneakers slapping the wooden deck. They walked right into the restaurant, leaving Heather and JJ to follow them. The bell above the door dinged, making Y/N and Jack look up from what they were doing. JJ looked up, seeing Jack leaning across Y/N, his shoulder touching her torso ever so lightly as he cleaned up spilt water. “Hi, Y/N! Where is your section?” John B asked.

 “Sorry, John B, I’ll have to take your table so she can get cleaned up, next time.” Jack told him, getting another dry towel to try and help her dry her clothes so she wasn’t dripping everywhere. JJ could sense John B’s disappointment, and he had to admit he was a little bit disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to hear Y/N’s sweet voice that he missed so much.

 “Thanks, Jack,” John B nodded his chin in Jack’s direction. “Maybe we’ll talk before we leave, Y/N.” Y/N looked back up from her shirt at the mention of her name, nodding. Their eyes connected as Kie and Heather jumped into a conversation. Every time their eyes connected, it was such a relief to JJ it truly was a sight for sore eyes. Much to his disappointment, their eye contact was gone as fast as it came when Jack interrupted.

 “That should be good, Y/N,” She looked from JJ’s eyes to meet Jack’s. The sight of her eyes connecting with Jack’s made JJ want to cry, missing that tiny connection that seemed to be the extent of their friendship these days. “You should go get changed, I’ll take these to the table for you, table four, right?” The group started to move, but JJ wanted to stay there, see if their eye would meet again before she disappeared to change, but he had to go with them. He was just out of earshot when she replied to Jack who carried the tray of drinks towards table four effortlessly.

____

 He knew he shouldn’t have done this at school. He was kicking himself as Heather weeped, her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Heather,” He whispered, nervously looking at the crowd watching them. They were stood next to the side of the building, the crowd gathering in the parking lot. He had tried to do it privately, but he also wanted a clean cut. When he saw his sweater in Heather’s hand, he had known that today was the day. “It’s just not working out.” He tried to console her, his fist gripping the sweater he held now.

 The group watching whispered, making JJ roll his eyes. Now he was going to be painted the villain, the heartless asshole who broke up with the girl in front of the whole school even though they just see her weeping and gasping, not the part where JJ was actually considerate for once. Normally, it was a harsh slap to his cheek and a few tears slipping past their eyes as they walked away, not full on sobs. Especially since they were only going out for three weeks - tops.

 Heather looked up from her hands, letting her arms swing at her sides as she glared at JJ. Black streaks of makeup cascading down her cheeks. With a final, harsh glare at JJ, she ran off, the group of people parting to let her through. JJ watched her run, his shoulders deflating at his ruined chance of keeping the break-up private. His eyes landed on one of the pairs of people Heather parted in her haste to escape: Y/N and Jack. They stood side by side, Jack holding both their books in his hands, both their bookbag straps on his shoulders.

 The group quickly dispersed, giving JJ a perfect view of them. He could see Jack say something to Y/N before she said something back, their eyes catching each other, once again making eye contact. JJ was so absorbed in her eyes that he didn’t notice the sympathetic smile she sent his way. It felt like forever as he stared into her eyes, her just staring back. He wanted her to stay, he wanted to stay, but he couldn’t just break-up with Heather and then turn around, rush towards Y/N, sweep her off her feet and profess his love for her - then he would be an asshole.

 “Come on, Y/N, let’s go. We can’t be late for our shift.” JJ heard Jack tell her, forcing her to break away from JJ’s eyes. He felt tears prick his eyes at the loss of their moment. His eyes never left her, once again hoping for their eyes to connect again, even though he had to watch her eyes connect with Jack’s which caused his heart to throb painfully. Watching her turn and walk towards Jack’s pick-up truck was the sight that made him want to die, then the pain in his heart would stop - right? The picture of her sitting in his passanger seat didn’t sit right with JJ. The thump of Jack tossing their books and bags in the bed of his truck made JJ flinch, but he still never took his eyes off Y/N, not even when Jack slipped onto the bench seat beside her, starting his truck and slamming his door.

 His pleas were answered when Y/N turned to gaze out the window, their eyes connecting once again in a fleeting moment before Jack slowly pulled out of the spot, exiting the nearly empty parking lot. JJ watched the truck as it drove down the road, waiting until it was out of his sight before he moved. He found out who he liked more. It was Y/N. It was always Y/N.

[televinita]

Thoughts after 1 episode of...

Continuing "the further (ironic) adventures of Televinita Literally Doesn't Know Anything On Television Anymore," last week a new blogger I follow declared this FOX show I’ve never heard of her favorite of 2021, and upon seeing a cast list with 3 of my veteran TV faves (particularly PIPER PERABO, MY LOVE) + “a show about making a [fictional] dance reality show,” I immediately threw myself into it.

I ADORED what I saw, so I’m going to take a moment before moving on to jot down some thoughts.

(Gonna make a concentrated effort to teach myself character names as I go, too)

Part One: Character Impressions

1. Oh my god I love Scott Foley as the heartless drama-driven producer. (Nick?) Although I shouldn’t have led with that phrasing because I want to say exactly the same about all of the following people:

2. Simone Recasner as Gabby. I’ve never seen her before but she has INSTANT screen charisma and also is incredibly pretty. How is she crowding out Piper for Resident Screen Beauty Queen.

3. Piper Perabo as Paula, OBVIOUSLY; we’ll come back to this.

4. Mallory Jensen, a.k.a. Our Beloved Queen Madalena from Galavant, as the somehow even meaner judge/choreographer Monica.

5. John Rudnitsky, another new-to-me face, as sad-sack Mike.

WHO’S THE HOT FOOTBALL DUDE AND WHAT IS THIS MAGIC HE’S WORKING ON ME, THE GAL WHO NEVER CARES ABOUT ATHLETES. Am I subconsciously now primed to love football players after spending the first trimester of 2021 watching The Game and the last one watching Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders?? But dude is ripped, and once again I did NOT think I was the kind of person who fell for muscular broad-shouldered dues, but this one’s really working for me. Also I like that he’s got such an affable personality and notably did not take one look at Gabby and go “girl plz.” The rage issues do not have me so much as batting an eye because frankly, that’s just me on an average Tuesday, only it’s through a computer screen instead of smashing jerks’ windshields in person.

edit: oh right, his name. Apparently, Ser’Darius Blain as Reggie Sadler.

Second-tier love but I think she’ll grow on me: Teri Polo as Julia, and also her entire family, from Hey, It’s That Guy Seth Morris to her suuuuper pretty daughters (who are real-life sisters according to IMDB; let me see them more!)

Seems to be more of a guest star, but don’t let me forget Gabby’s mom! She is SO SWEET.

Honestly there is not one person who enrages me on sight so far, and that just...never happens on TV shows these days. The exotic dancer and the incestuously-dancing twins are probably lowest on my totem pole, but only because of the inevitable Omega rule. I’ve watched shows where I disliked almost half the cast more than I dislike them.

Part II: Story Thoughts

I love the premise of this show.

Really like that I have suffered nothing even close to a sex scene so far. I don’t trust this pattern to hold, but it’s a better sign than not that they didn’t count on that aspect to bring viewers to their pilot.

Oh, Mike. I have all the sympathy, while also understanding why his wife left him? Love this state of things for me!

Also love his supportive buddy group.

And even though I have decided I would currently be just fine with him saving his marriage because his ex is cute as a button and I want her to have her happy-guy husband back if she wants him, OF COURSE I AM SHIPPING HIM & PAULA LIKE A MADWOMAN.

The fire escape dance-flirting was SO CUTE. Are you kidding me??? Entire rom-coms are BUILT on this! (also: yes plz to the “technically she fired him but neither of them knows that...but the producers know” drama.)

I also feel like Paula’s breast cancer backstory is going to come back in dramatic fashion and I’m here for it.

My heart’s just gonna be over here breaking for Julia, if that’s okay. I’m not there yet, but in 10-15 years I will be, and I can already empathize with her trying to compete for social media followers with people half her age, and kinda feeling like you’re still in your 20s/disconcerted by the reality of the world not seeing you that way. I am personally offended every day that I now look too old to be a traditional college student.

I feel very little about Justin as a character so far, but that guy can dance.

My heart is all the way broken for Gabby losing out on her dreams for a smaller life as a teen mom, and I want to hear more about the depression that caused her to cut ties with her best friend ("I couldn’t be anyone’s friend” oh hatpin to the heart, I’ve felt that before), right before he needed her because Homophobe Dad. I hope there are flashbacks.

Speaking of sad things about Gabby...

“She’s going to fall in love with him, and he’s going to break her heart.” Oh I am MAD that you pegged me for exactly what I want to happen (the first half anyway), and also what I agree will make for good TV and keep me watching. So I guess I’m also a little impressed?

Gonna measure my expectations and just quietly ship Gabby/Reggie in my own way so that nothing can disappoint me. They have such good buddy chemistry! I would be fine with that! (I say...but we also know how long that tends to lasts with me.)

But seriously, it has been like a YEAR or maybe TWO since I even cared about new TV characters enough to think of them outside of watching the show, let alone felt genuinely shippy about them; I am so thrilled.

[rachelbethhines]

TTS Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Someone asked me to rank my fav and least fav TTS songs a while back, but I’ve since then relistened to the soundtrack and there’s a whole bunch of songs that just forgot about, so here’s a more accurate ranking now that the songs are more fresh in my mind

32 .  Life After Happily Ever After (Reprise)

This song is infuriating, because the finale is infuriating. Listening to this song just makes me angry all over again because it reminds me just how unsatisfying the ending to TTS was. I wanted to turn it off at several points. I barely can get through it despite it being so short. It doesn’t help that the soundtrack leaves all the dialogue in there and fails to actually end the song. It just cuts off before the final note.

31. Hook Foot’s Ballad

Does this even count as a song? Why is it here on the soundtrack but not the Hurt Incantation? Did Menken really waste his talent writing a joke and did the showrunners really waste money and limited resources on this?

30. Friendship Song

Bland, boring, and pointless. It was clearly written as a marketing stunt for the radio disney charts and not as anything to do with the plot of the series. They just throw it up on screen to fill out the running time and don't even let the whole song play through. It’s pitiful.

29. Waiting in the Wings (Reprise)

I didn’t think much of the original song one way or the other, but the reprise is soooo dumb. The plot twist it introduces winds up ruining the whole show and sabotaging both Cassandra’s and Rapunzel’s characters. It’s not even a nice sounding song on it’s own. The kid’s voice is irritating (who I’m sure is doing her best, but really little kids shouldn’t be made to sing professionally as a general rule) and the melody just as bland as the first time it was played. The only reason to like this song is if you’r a mega fan of Cassandra’s or her VA, which I am not. (Note: this is not a criticism of Eden Espinosa, I just don’t happen to follow any of the VAs in this show)      

28. Through It All

I like the instrumentals in this song, and that’s about it. Everything about this song is wrong. It doesn’t fit the story, it’s a misuse of the cast and songwriters, it’s a waste of valuable screen time, the melody is dull, and the dang soundtrack had to throw in that lame dialogue about ‘greatest threat ever’ at the beginning. If you want a pump up song in your story then you got to earn it. You can’t just tell us things are bad, you got to show it. A joyful horseback ride and everyone sitting in a bar safe and sound isn’t threatening or depressing enough to warrant a cheering up session. Plus the song itself doesn’t add anything to the overall story.

27.  The Girl Who Has Everything

Sometimes I think the writers were willing trying to sabotage themselves. It’s as if they were determined to make the only two main female characters in the show unlikeable bitches in season three.   Don’t believe me? The creator Chris has said this song only exists to highlight how much easier Rapunzel has things than Cass and went onto say that Rapunzel was in the wrong during their conflict because ‘she held Cassandra back’. (Oh yeah she totally ‘held back’ the grown woman who left on her own accord, returned on her own accord, and then assaulted and tried to murder a bunch of people for no reason of her own accord.) But this song does succeed in furthering season’s three narrative that Rapunzel is a spoiled selfish brat. Shame the story fails to address this setup and never has Rapunzel learn to be a better person. Rather the narrative bends over backward to tell us how special Rapunzel is without any sense of self awareness and this song falls into that same trap; making it both irritating and pointless.

26. Listen Up

Yeah, I talked about this on my salt marathon, but I just don't like this song very much. The melody is fine but the lyrics are a real miss in my mind. It doesn’t help matters that the song is indeed pointless in the grand scheme of things.

25.  Livin’ the Dream

This is much on the same level as Listen Up as it features the same problems. It doesn’t add to the narrative and the lyrics kind of let it down. I placed it higher just because I like the melody a little more.

24.  More of Me

This song is a lot like the Friendship Song in that it was created to be an end credit song for the pop charts and you’d be forgiven in forgetting it even exists. However, it at least got to actually play all the way through. I think this song was a real missed opportunity. I honestly believe that it should have been the opening theme song of the show instead of Wind in My Hair. It’s more built to serve such a purpose and it’s a waste of resources not to actually use it. Alternatively, I would have accepted it being reworked into the actual series as a character song. Especially since we’re missing a song in season three due to budget cuts.  

23. Wind In My Hair

Speaking of theme songs, I think I would like Wind In My Hair a lot better if i didn’t have to listen to it every episode. On its own it actually has a lot of things going for it; a nice melody, interesting instrumentals, good singing, ect. Unfortunately it’s just over exposed, and none of those elements lend themselves naturally to an intro song for a tv show. In fact the theme song feels really out of place and is edited oddly to fit the shorter intro. 

22. Wind In My Hair (Reprise)  

Honestly the theme song is mostly comprised of this reprise, but it has the opening instrumentals from the OG song frankensteined onto it. This means that the version that plays before every episode is on fullblast all the time to keep the energy up, but that’s not how the song is suppose to go.  The actual reprise that plays in the pilot builds to a crescendo, starting soft and melancolony and getting louder and more hopeful and determined. It sounds a lot better in full because of that.  It’s still too overexposed though. Both these songs would probably be higher on the list of not for the theme song version. 

21. With You by My Side

This song is fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either. What knocks it down the list is the fact that Lance isn’t in it, despite Lance being right there.  Like don't bother hiring a famous Broadway singer if you’re not going to have him sing!  But that speaks more to the poor writing of season two than anything else. This song also doesn’t really add anything to the narrative as, contrary to what the writers intended, it doesn’t actually enhance the emotional impact of Cassandra’s betrayal later in the episode. The song itself is just tacked on and doesn’t take the opportunity to lay down any foreshadowing for that plot point.  

20. Next Stop Anywhere

Another perfectly serviable song. It’s not bad but nothing outstanding. It gets the job done. It’s also really ho-hum and the soundtrack keeps all the unneeded dialogue, which is a pet peeve of mine. 

19. Waiting In the Wings

Despite it’s hype, I never thought much of Waiting in the Wings. It’s got nice instrumentals and Eden Espinosa gives it her all in the singing department. The problem is it’s too generic. It’s a bare bones basic ass ‘I want song’. Cassandra's movations are weak and unsupported by the narrative, the melody is boring, and it honestly doesn’t add anything to her story. I mean it should, it’s her character solo, but because she’s written so poorly the song just winds up undermining the character in the end.   All I’m saying is that, this is not the song from season two that I would have nominated for the Emmys. But it’s still Alan Menken, it’s still nicely performed, and given the rest of the competition for that year, it did deserve to win. 

18. If I Could Take That Moment Back 

This song is also pretty generic, but it’s less boring than I See the Light, (yeah, I said it, I See the Light is boring) so that’s a win in my book. Ergo this holds the title of the only New Dream duet that I enjoy. But there’s better stuff on this list. 

17. Next Stop Anywhere (Reprise)

Well no, I take that back. The reprise of Next Stop Anywhere is also technically a New Dream duet. It’s still not anything amazing, but it works for what it is. Plus, Adria’s opening dialogue in the soundtrack version doesn’t bother me quite as much as some of the other dialogues choices that were kept in.  

16. Stronger Than Ever Before 

I really enjoyed this song in the moment. It’s catchy and fun, and it finally has Lance doing something rather than ignoring his existence. However it is borderline unnecessary in terms of story placement, and I’m slightly mad at it now that I know that we could have gotten a Rapunzel and Varian duet but it was scrapped for this instead.   

15. Crossing the Line

Keeping with the theme of ‘songs I have conflicting emotions about’, we have Crossing the Line.  This song is confused. It starts and stops, the melody isn’t clear, the orchestration is playing tug of war with the singers for dominance, and it’s basically Alan Menken and the show’s creators ripping off Frozen. (I guess he’s kicking himself for leaving that particular project?)   But it’s interesting. I never heard anything quite like it. It’s memorable even if it doesn’t fully work. It’s got these interesting bits and pieces to it that just never quite comes together as a whole. Some of the lyrics are some of the best Glenn Slater has ever wrote and is far better than the story actually surrounding the song. Yet there’s other lines that are total cringe. Sometimes the song is bold and catchy and gets you all hyped up, and then other times its limp and staggering and feels so awkward to listen to.  Yet it’s not boring or generic and so I have to place it higher than the rest of the songs that’s come before. (Also, there’s some amazing orchestral covers out there that really pulls together the various parts really well, just fyi) 

14.  Nothing Left to Lose

I really don't like this song.  I’ve been one of its biggest critics ever since it was leaked by the marketing team earlier this year.  And yet... I can’t in good conscience place any lower on this list.  All of the problems I have with it are the exact same problems I have with Crossing the Line. It’s confused, the various pieces don't line up, the instrumentals are competing with the vocals, the song’s progression is weird with it’s constant key changes, some of the lyrics are good while others are absolute shit, ect and so forth.  It also actively works against the story it's trying to tell. The song wants you to sympathize with Cassandra, but her lines are as shallow as a puddle and makes her look like a sociopath. Especially when she’s physically attacking Varian through out for no reason. Also neither character learns anything from the exchange and it fails to impact the story.  By all accounts this is a bad song.  But I’m Varian trash.  There I said it. You happy?  Varian’s parts in the songs are fine, good even, and the song is anything but bland. I would rather listen to a mess then be bored to tears by a competent yet standard four chord pop song. 

13. I’d Give Anything

This song is nice to listen to. Story wise it absolutely sucks and shouldn’t have been in the finale at all. But it sounds pleasant.  This is one of those songs that could pop up randomly on the radio and I would just think it it a nice sad break up song. I can’t say that about some of the other misplaced songs in the show. This one however, you can very much, absolutely divorce this song from the narrative and it would be fine.  Now that’s not good writing, and it’s very much a waste of limited resources, but I’m rating the music here first and story second. 

12. Buddy Song

The Buddy Song also absolutely did not need to exist but it also sounds nice. Plus, it makes use of Lance so I’m a little more lenient towards it.   I can’t however place it higher since it really is just Alan Menken ripping off Alan Menken. Like, I would not be at all surprised to find out that this was originally a deleted song for Aladdin or something.  

11. Bigger Than That

What can I say, Lance just gets good songs. When the show bothers to give them to him.  Unfortunately, it’s not the best placed. It kind of interrupts the more important drama of Be Very Afraid, and probably should have been saved for a later episode. Especially since it hinges on a plot point that is contradictory to Lance’s character.    We should have gotten a Varian and Rapunzel duet here and given Lance his own episode in the second half of season three. This song could have easily been refitted into being a bonding moment for him and the girls. That would also have filled out the season’s original songs to the usual eight instead of only  seven.

10. Life After Happily Ever After

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. The top ten. The best of the best.  This song makes the cut for three reasons.  1. It lyrically and musically interesting 2. It does the job of furthering the story and the characters  and 3. Eugene’s part is so damn good.  Like this song could have easily fell down into the ranks of ‘fine but generic’ if it wasn’t for the bridge with Eugene. That puts it over the top and to my mind makes it better than anything from the OG film. (well almost anything, Mother Knows Best is still great)    This is the barometer by which I measure all of the music in the series. Is it better or worse than Life After Happily Ever After? Because this is the level that I equate good musicals with.  What keeps on the tenth spot and not higher is the dialogue that still left on the soundtrack and the lack of a Cassandra introduction. That and also the rest of the songs are just flat better. 

9. Hurt Incantation 

Hurt, Decay, Reverse, whatever you want to call it, this was such a cool fucking concept. One that was utterly wasted by the show.  I place this so high because it just sounds awesome! It looks good too, and it offered up so many possibilities from a story perspective.  What lets it down is the lack of follow up for it and it’s too short. There’s needed to be another verse. It also should have been on the actual soundtrack instead of  Hook Foot’s Ballad.  (The Heal Incantation also was sung in What the Hair, but I’m not counting it since it was written for the film) 

8.  The Girl Who Has Everything (Reprise)

I hate the initial song and the set up that it took to get here, but I love this reprise. It’s perfect. This is what the story needed more of. Rapunzel taking her life into her hands, and her proposing to Eugene would have been the perfect capstone for her arc.  In fact I’m angry we didn’t actually get that. There’s absolutely no reason why Rapunzel couldn’t have done so and we could have had her and Eugene engaged during the second half of season three. How much better would have it been if Cassandra threatened their wedding plans and that’s why they couldn’t go through with it until after the series ended? So much more tension that way. 

7. I Got This

This is a really good song that actually futhers the characters and the narrative. Moreover it’s refreshing to see the heroine not be perfect and to fail sometimes due to her own inadequacies. It’s just a shame that the series didn’t follow through with this set up, but I appreciate the attempt all the same.   

6.  Set Yourself Free

This is the only song in the series that’s an actual satisfying pay off for anything. Music wise it’s nothing too special, but in terms of context it just works. We were sorely deprived of such resolutions and songs with actual meaning in the show. 

5. View From Up Here

This song is too good for the episode it actually appears in. We needed something like this back in season one to introduce Cassandra with. It also sadly doesn’t fit with the wider narrative after season three. However I shall still appreciate it as a ‘what might have been’ type song. 

4.  Let Me Make You Proud 

The only reason why this song isn’t higher is just overexposure and I’ve no one to blame but myself for that. I’ve listened to this song way too many times. As such it tends to alternate between this, View from Up Here, and the next song on the list. But make no mistake it is glorious. Fantastic instrumentals, set up, and of course amazing vocals. 

3.  Everything I Ever Thought I Knew

Yes, I know this plot point didn’t lead anywhere, but it works for this song at least. Also Eugene’s VA is a really underrated singer. He sounds nice and he emotes really well.  Though I’ll be honest, this jumped up to third place because it was fresh in my mind after listening to the soundtrack before making this list. I’ve always liked the song and I do rate it highly, but it can change places with Let Me Make You Proud and View from Up Here at anytime depending on my mood. 

2.  Let Me Make You Proud (Reprise)

This song is heartbreaking!  Story wise it probably shouldn’t exist because it gives away the twist too soon, but who cares, it’s awesome!  Varian’s arc is the most compelling in the show and the only thing that saves TTS from falling into mediocre obscurity; and it’s songs like this that help make the arc stand out even more than it already does. 

1. Ready As I’ll Ever Be

I said it before and I’ll say it again; Ready As I’ll Ever Be is the greatest thing Alan Menken has ever written in his entire career!  If you know anything about the multiple award winning songwriter then you know that is no faint praise and I do not dole it out lightly.  This song is the reason why this show even has a fanbase. People are still getting into the series because of this song. And no matter how many times you listen to it just rocks!   It’s complex, layered, moody, and with a fantastic beat and energy. The performances are wonderful and the instrumentation glorious. It belongs in the hollows of Disney’s greatest hits and not regulated to a spin-off tv show that failed to make its money back.  I weep for the lost potential that this song and this show had. It hurts to know that so many people will never see this flash of brilliance that has come out of the House of Mouse, will never know the wonderfulness that is Varian.  Ah, ‘c'est la vie’, I suppose. Tangled the Series got what it deserved, but it's crew did not. While I can not in all honesty recommend the series in full; I do sincerely urge any Disney fan to check out the songs at the very least. Especially this one.  And that’s it. There’s my official ranking of all the songs, and I hope those of you read my Tangled reviews appreciate the hours it took into making this. 

[the-working-class-guide-to-films]

Tenet-No Spoilers

I am a massive Christopher Nolan fan. I’m a fanboy, I’ll admit. Nolan, for me, is the goat. I don’t think there’s a director out there today that can create movies like he does, the way he does it. The mix of pure spectacle, blockbuster action using real effects, combined with interesting characters and personal, real stories is something that is rarely achieved in the film industry today. 

John David Washington is The Protagonist, who after a mission goes wrong is recruited by a secret organisation, Tenet, to prevent the end of the world. He learns that there is a technology in the future that allows objects to be reversed through time and that people are buying these and selling them on the black market. Objects such as inverted bullets that cause much more damage than regular ones.

There has been criticism of Tenet that it is too complicated and confusing. And yes, this is definitely the most complex Nolan film to date. The inverted/reverse time business is quite bizarre and takes a while to get your head round but towards the end it certainly becomes a little easier to understand. The plot itself however is more complicated. All Nolan films are complex and there are always clues throughout that you won’t notice on the first watch that you will on the second. But the plots aren’t as difficult to understand than Tenet. With Tenet, I think the second watch will be to understand what you didn’t from the first one, and then on the third viewing it will click. Maybe, maybe some people got it straightaway, maybe some people won’t get it on the third. I think the film, and this isn’t just a criticism of Tenet, but of most films, is that the dialogue at times was difficult to understand. It’s hard to get your head round this in the first place, never mind when you can’t make out what they are saying. During the more exposition scenes it was hard to make out what was going on, and Tenet needed these scenes to be clear in order for the viewers to maybe get a better understanding of the plot. My biggest criticism of Tenet however is that it lacks the human side of his films, especially in comparison to his other films. Not that I went in over-hyped because I never think that is a good idea. And maybe the film was his homage to the spy genre where it wasn’t intending us to care as much about the characters. But in all his films, and however epic the scenes we always care about the character, that I feel is the main part of the film, it is what we are drawn to. Whether that be magicians in the Victorian era, a caped crusader, three layers deep in a dream or floating through space; it is the human element that always keeps the film grounded. I felt that Tenet didn’t strike that balance. And that’s not to say that John David Washington wasn’t good, because he was fantastic, but I didn’t necessarily care about his character because he didn’t have anything personal for us to relate to. In Inception and Interstellar, the two main characters are fighting to see their children again. It’s personal, it shows the human side. Washington’s character didn’t have that, it was him saving the world, and yes that’s brave and courageous, but why, why did he care? What was HE fighting for? And that was what disappointed me the most about Tenet because that side of Nolan is I think the most under appreciated. I LOVE the set pieces, the action, the mind-boggling plot, but the human side is what brings it all home. I was blown away during Interstellar with the visual side of it, the black hole, the waves, all of that. But it is when Matthew McConaughey’s character breaks down seeing his grown up daughter via a TV or reuniting with her at the end of the movie that overshadows everything else. Tenet didn’t have these personal moments and that was a real shame.

No doubt about it, Tenet is the biggest Nolan film to date. It is honestly huge. No matter how confused you may, or may not get, you won’t be bored. It’s a lot of fun. In most action films you’d expect to see maybe 2 or 3 small action sequences followed by the big kick ass action sequence at the end. Tenet has 4 or 5 big kick ass action sequences. The opening of previous Nolan films, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises really set the standard for opening sequences in action movies, Tenet follows suit and kicks off from there without skipping a beat. A lot of the scenes involve the inverted time structure, where the object is going backwards in time (I think that’s how it works), it’s incredible to watch.

It’s absolute madness. I don’t think I’ve seen something like it before. If I have, not to this extent. It’s barmy, but it is fantastic. Technically it’s a delight. The whole plane scene has been talked about, how Nolan bought a real plane to crash instead of just using visual effects. That’s the standard that action films should be aiming for. Yes, visual effects are a work of art, there is no denying it and I certainly won’t be shitting on it that some people do. I am incredibly envious of the skill. But there is something magical about watching real effects, and it’s become part of Nolan’s signature. 

Away from the jaw-dropping action scenes and the incredible technical ability on show the acting is fantastic. John David Washington is superb in this and should hopefully cement his name as an A-list. His character has it all, cool, scary, witty, he captures all of this. And it isn’t just his acting that is top notch but it is a very physically demanding role which as you might expect from a former American Football player, you might expect. I don’t think there are many actors who could have struck the balance quite like JDW did. Sure, an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis could do the acting, but he couldn’t do the physical side. Dwayne Johnson could do the physical side, but he can’t act. Washington achieves both terrifically. There is a huge, and brilliant supporting cast in Tenet, most notably Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh who each bring something different and exciting. Nolan comes under criticism for portrayals of women in his films which is something I don’t necessarily agree with but in this Debicki’s character is the one who we probably care about the most and it is her character that brings the humanity to the story. 

4/5 Now I’ve had a day to digest it, and now I have written this review, I’m really excited to watch it again. If it wasn’t for COVID I would probably watch it about 4 times. Maybe on subsequent showings I could give it slightly lower (although I’ve tried to be impartial) maybe I’ll think it is better once I understand it more. Yes it is a shame that the human side of the film is lacking slightly, but the technical ability on showing will blow you away. No matter how confused you are, you won’t be bored.

p.s There has been criticisms from some corners of the film industry saying that Nolan, and the studios, are irresponsible for releasing Tenet as the film to bring cinema-goers back, especially when the film is complex. Why would the audience want to watch a film they can’t understand? Now I have an issue with this. Critics slam the Fast and Furious franchise because it is over the top, silly, action fuelled, spectacle garbage. Critics will also jizz over films such as Midsommar, The Shining, The Lighthouse for their complex and interesting storylines. Now I love these films, but what exactly are those films about, and would you know directly coming out of the cinema. Would the link between Greek Mythology, Prometheus and giving knowledge to civilisation be known to you when you came out of The Lighthouse? Probably not. Isn’t there like a whole documentary on The Shining because there are so many fan theories? That film is weird af. I’ve always found an issue of classism within the film industry, especially when reviewing certain films. Action films are seen as dumb, lowest common denominator garbage, and yet odd artsy stuff is seen as the pinnacle of film. Nolan somehow manages to get these both together and yet now they criticism him when this complex stuff is the shit they love. Now critics want a film like Fast and Furious to bring people back, but you know they’d shit on it at any other point. Maybe Nolan can do no right, people have called his films obnoxious because they are too smart. Well maybe these people mistake the intelligence of the general viewer? Who knows, I’m just mad the Nolan hasn’t won a Best Director award, or hasn’t even got a knighthood when people like Ed Sheeran or Phillip Green have?

[salvatoreschool]

Every The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies Ship Ranked

53. Daroline (Damon Salvatore and Caroline Forbes)

Our first ship is our worst ship because we can't find literally anything nice to say about Daroline. Consent issues, mind-control, and death threats are not exactly the stuff of great romance, and Damon should thank his lucky stars Caroline forgave him for this abominable period when they were together.

52. Calaric (Caroline Forbes and Alaric Saltzman)

Ew. Gross. No. Kill it with fire. We've got no idea what The Vampire Diaries was trying to do with this ship, but we hated every second of it, and we're not ashamed to say it. We don't care that years had passed since Caroline was his student or that there were weirder ages gaps on the show, trying to ship a student-teacher relationship feels wrong no matter which way you slice it.

51. Klenevieve (Klaus Mikaelson and Genevieve)

Klenevieve was a blink and you'll miss it kind of ship on The Originals, but it still technically counts. Ultimately though, Klaus and Genevieve's connection was mostly physical, and there were far too many double-crosses and manipulations on both sides of this relationship to give it much credit.

50. Parkwood (Liv Park and Tyler Lockwood)

Liv and Tyler's love story kind of flew under the radar on The Vampire Diaries, but that's probably just because there were like 18 insane storylines happening at once in Season 6. This ship was actually pretty cute, and the only thing keeping it from a better ranking is the fact that Tyler, you know, killed her with his bare hands to activate his werewolf curse.

49. Malaric (Meredith Fell and Alaric Saltzman)

Talk about ships that flew under the radar. Alaric and Meredith Fell shared a brief tryst in Seasons 3 and 4 of The Vampire Diaries, but this relationship always felt like it was built to move the plot forward instead of the other way around. Kind of too snooze-worthy to deserve a good ranking.

48. Menny (Matt Donovan and Penny Ares)

We're not going to pretend like we cared even a little about Matt and Penny's romance on The Vampire Diaries. However, we're also not going to pretend like the scene where Matt hallucinates her ghost and begs her to take him with her after his car crash was anything other than devastating emotional torture that came out of nowhere and has stayed with us to this day.

47. Jolaric (Jo Parker and Alaric Saltzman)

Jo and Alaric really got the rough end of the stick as far as TVD ships go. They'd only just started to find their groove when Jo found out she was pregnant with twins, forcing them into a shotgun wedding that ended in tragedy. If these two had been given the time to start their family together the way they should have, we have no doubt they could have become one of the show's best duos ever. We'll have to settle for them creating one of the best duos ever -- Josie and Lizzie Saltzman!

46. Rizzie (Rafael Waithe and Lizzie Saltzman)

It's hard not to ship all of the Legacies kids with each other considering the great chemistry that cast has, but Rizzie is one we just never loved. Lizzie seems too intense for Rafael, and Raf doesn't exactly seem like the kind of guy that would give her the level of attention and devotion she requires. This ship was kind of a flop in Sesason 1, and we'd prefer it stay that way.

45. Debekah (Damon Salvatore and Rebekah Mikaelson)

Damon and Rebekah shared one night of tearing ballgowns and tuxes off each other, and then it was never really spoken of again. It's hard to properly rank a ship that basically came down to "that one time we had hate sex," but hookups like this were what The Vampire Diaries was built on.

44. Haylijah (Hayley Marshall and Elijah Mikaelson)

We really wanted to rank Haylijah higher on this list, but all the passion and angst in the world can't distract us from the cold hard truth: Hayley and Elijah had issues. Major issues. Not the least of which being that he killed her in the final season of the show. Whether you consider their love story to be one of the best or worst this shared universe ever created, at least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that they gave it all they had.

43. Klaurora (Klaus Mikaelson and Aurora de Martel)

For as long as we've known Klaus, he was always teetering on the brink of insanity, which is kind of what we loved most about him. Aurora, on the other hand, has been batshit crazy her whole life and it's so not a good look on her. This weird, obsessive, "let's see who can out-crazy the other" romance was not to our taste at all.

42. KymG (Kym and MG)

We can't claim to be huge fans of the romance between Kim and MG on Legacies, though their names fit together so perfectly for a ship name that we almost demand they be endgame based only on that. Unfortunately, the show never really gave them the screen time they needed to get us invested in their love story before Kym decided she'd had enough superantural shenanigans and left Mystic Falls.

41. Elijah Mikaelson and Antoinette Sienna

On every TV show, there are ships that just make us shrug, and Elijah and Antoniette are definitely one of those. They don't even have a ship name, that's forgettable this tryst was. Even with memory loss, hidden pasts, and romantic pinao duets, this couple was kind of just meh.

40. Sizzie (Sebastian and Lizzie Saltzman)

Sebastian and Lizzie may have had potential, but in the end it turned out to be wasted. Their chemistry was off the charts, but like many teenagers swept up in romance, they never really took the time to connect or learn about each other. Maybe that's why they ended on such a sour note. Still, at least Sebastian went out a hero?

39. Jicki (Jeremy Gilbert and Vicki Donovan)

You know, we were really rooting for Jeremy and Vicki when The Vampire Diaries first started. They had that whole, rebels who are too cool for school, but not too cool for love thing going on. Ultimately though, we don't think Vicki would have ever calmed down enough for Jeremy, who was really only pretending to be a wild child to deal with his parents' deaths. This ship just wasn't to be.

38. Maroline (Matt Donovan and Caroline Forbes)

You know those Season 1 ships that you know are never going to make it, but every time you look back on them they make you nostalgic? That's what Maroline is for us. A cute relationship between two characters we love dearly that just never quite fit perfectly together. That being said, if there had been no vampires or life-or-death scenarios in Mystic Falls, Maroline absolutely would have been endgame material.

37. Stalerie (Stefan Salvatore and Valerie Tulle)

Stefan and Valerie had one of the weirdest love stories we've ever seen, but there was still a small part of us that was rooting for them. In a world not besieged by curses and vampire hunters and prison worlds, these two could have really been something! Sadly, Stefan has like five more appealing ships, which is probably why they never really made it that far.

36. Hafael (Hope Mikaelson and Rafael Waithe)

Legacies made a solid attempt to recreate another brotherly love triangle, but we weren't really feeling it with Rafael, Hope, and Landon. Raf and Hope have a great friendship going, but it's probably best left there considering how much more fans seem to prefer her relationship with Landon.

35. Marcille (Marcel Gerard and Camille O'Connell)

Remember when Marcel and Camille were a thing for a hot minute? Neither do we! Sorry to Marcille fans, but though these two had decent chemistry, they just never got a lot of attention as a couple, and so their love story kind of faded into obscurity.

34. Jasie (Jade and Josie Saltzman)

The Vampire Diaries universe sure does love its enemies to lovers ships, doesn't it? Josie and Jade started off on opposing sides in Kai's prison world, but after Jade turned her humanity back on, things started to change between them. At least the sex dreams they started having about each other did. Jade and Josie might be perfect for one another, seeing as they both understand having a dark side that's hard to deny.

33. Carenzo (Caroline Forbes and Enzo St. John)

While Caroline and Enzo never made it past the friendzone, we wouldn't have hated it if they'd had a thing. There was a lack of "epic love story" vibes between them, and when Enzo was at his worst, Caroline brought out the light-hearted, carefree side of him. Plus, all things considered, he really was her type - morally scrupulous Brit, who would burn the world down for the people he loves -- why does that sound familiar?

32. Mizzie (M.G. and Lizzie Saltzman)

Every day we go back and forth on whether MG and Lizzie are soulmates or whether they're the perfect best friend duo of all time. Could they possibly be both? Sure, Lizzie takes MG for granted sometimes, and MG can be a little thoughtless sometimes, but that doesn't mean these two aren't connected in a deep, meaningful way that most people can only dream of.

31. Noralise (Nora and Mary-Louise)

Though we only got them for one season, Nora and Mary-Louise had us from the moment they said hello. We do love a bad girl, and two bad girls together? We're toast! Our favorite thing about this ship is that while it was clear Nora and Mary-Louise didn't care about much in this world, they cared about each other, and that was more than enough for them.

30. Klayley (Klaus Mikaelson and Hayley Marshall)

When The Originals first premiered, we were sure Klaus and Hayley would eventually fall in love and live happily ever after with their precious loophole baby, but ultimately these two just weren't meant to be anything more than one really hot night. That being said, watching them as co-parents just proves that not all ships need to be romantic to work.

29. Rope (Roman Sienna and Hope Mikaelson)

Roman and Hope's sweet, timid flirtation on The Originals was like a breath of fresh air after some of the intense, life-changing, epic love stories we'd been getting for five straight years. Rope -- whoever came up with that ship name was having too much fun that day -- would have ranked higher if the whole relationship wasn't just Roman's ploy to get close to Hope's family.

28. Stebekah (Stefan Salvatore and Rebekah Mikaelson)

The Vampire Diaries had the best flashbacks on TV, hands down, partially because when your characters have lived for centuries, you can really mix things up. One of said mix-ups was the revelation that Stefan and Rebekah had been an item back in the 1920s, and while their romance is probably best left in the age of prohibition, it was always one of our favorites.

27. Hizzie (Hope Mikaelson and Lizzie Saltzman)

Hope and Lizzie would definitely have that whole "enemies to lovers" thing going for them if they ever decided to take the plunge together. The bond we've seen these two develop over the course of Legacies has been so wonderful to watch, and while at the moment we prefer them as badass besties, we wouldn't hate to see them head towards romantic territory someday.

26. Janna (Jeremy Gilbert and Anna Zhu)

When The Vampire Diaries first paired Jeremy and Anna together, we thought our little vampire-loving hearts would give out. They were both so damaged and dark and alone in the world that they somehow fit perfectly together. Not even multiple deaths could keep them apart! Losing this one was hard, but at least ghost Anna came back to hang out occasionally.

25. Datherine (Damon Salvatore and Katherine Pierce)

Call us crazy, but even through all the craziness and manipulation, there seemed to be a spark of something between Damon and Katherine that was just undeniable. Maybe it was the fact that they both put up a dark and diabolical front to mask their real feelings about the way their lives turned out. This wasn't a ship for the ages, but it certainly was a pairing we'll remember forever.

24. Kennett (Kol Mikaelson and Bonnie Bennett)

You know a fandom is strong when it can build a ship of dreams out of like 2 episodes and 10 lines of dialogue, but that's about all Bonnie Bennett and Kol Mikaelson ever shared. And yet somehow, Kennett is always going to feel like the one that got away in terms of ships that totally should've happened but never did.

23. Klamille (Klaus Mikaelson and Camille O'Connell)

Despite their messy ending, Klaus and Camille's relationship showed us sides of each character that we otherwise would never have seen. Though it was missing some of the passion usually found in The Vampire Diaries and The Originals ships, it was still absolutely heartbreaking to watch Klaus lose a woman who meant so much to him when Cami died.

22. Jandon (Josie Saltzman and Landon Kirby)

This short-lived romance between Josie and Landon may not have been super popular with fans, but it was perfectly in character for both these self-sacrificing loners to find their way to one another. It may not have been a romance for the ages, but it was an age-appropriate and utterly endearing one, and that's good enough for us!

21. Kolvina (Kol Mikaelson and Davina Claire)

As one of the few ships that managed to make it out of The Originals series finale alive, we have to give Kol and Davina props. Their love story survived multiple deaths, body-swaps, and that pesky problem of Kol accidentally murdering Davina that one time. We want nothing more than peace and happiness for eternity for these two crazy kids.

20. Jalaric (Jenna Sommers and Alaric Saltzman)

While some believe Alaric's love life is cursed, those of us who watched the early years of The Vampire Diaries know better. Alaric will simply never find someone as perfect for him as Jenna Sommers, which means he's destined to fall in and out of subpar ships forever. Poor guy, it's rough when your soulmate dies so early on in the first of three sequential shows.

19. Klefan (Klaus Mikaelson and Stefan Salvatore)

This one's another ship was never technically canon, but as far as we're concerned that was a GRAVE mistake. Klaus and Stefan had chemistry coming out of their ears, and you're seriously trying to tell us that nothing happened between these two during their days of debauchery in the 1920s? Yeah right, you're not fooling us!

18. Jayley (Jackson Kenner and Hayley Marshall)

Jackson and Hayley may not have had the passion and the fire that some of the best TVD ships boasted, but they had something that very few other pairings had: A rock-solid friendship built on trust and understanding that grew organically into true love. Considering how crazy their world was, they both needed a relationship like this to keep them sane, which is maybe why we ended up loving it so much?

17. Kalijah (Katherine Pierce and Elijah Mikaelson)

Katherine and Elijah only shared maybe a handful of scenes together over the entire course of The Vampire Diaries, but they're somehow one of three ships we would have watched an entire spin-off about. Their love stood the test of time and somehow overcame hybrid-sized grudges, and that's about as romantic as it gets.

16. Rebel (Rebekah Mikaelson and Marcel Gerard)

Though we love Marcel and Rebekah (especially when we think about the day they both take the cure and grow old together), this couple had one major problem... One of them wasn't on the show all that often, which meant their romance faded to the background every time Rebekah left town -- which was a lot. We'll put this in the category of ships that were done dirty by logistical, behind-the-scenes stuff.

15. Bamon (Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore)

The Bamon saga was one of the most topsy-turvey things to follow on The Vampire Diaries, but we loved every minute of it. From shipping them a little bit in Season 1 to hating everything about it in Season 3, to watching them grow into best buds in Season 6, Bonnie and Damon went on a journey unparalleled by any other ship in the TVDu. Do we kind of wish they'd given romance a try? Sure. Are we going to let that invalidate how awesome their story was? No way.

14. Gialijah (Gia and Elijah Mikaelson

We're probably going to get some hate for this, but if we had to pick between all of Elijah's ships, Gialijah would probably win out. Sure, they weren't star-crossed lovers or centuries-old flames, but if you're looking for a healthy dynamic (of which Elijah was sorely lacking) with great chemistry and some awesome scenes, Gialijah is the ship for you.

13. Handon (Hope Mikaelson and Landon Kirby)

Hope and Landon are kind of the Stelena of Legacies. Not a pairing that we think will be endgame (no matter how heartbroken that will leave us), but integral to the DNA of the series nonetheless. We're content to enjoy this sweet couple strive for their happy ending, and we'll even root for them most of the time as they grow up together and figure out this crazy supernatural world.

12. Jaiden (Josh Rosza and Aiden)

Oh, Josh and Aiden... the ship that was too pure for this world. Literally. Though both these characters bit the dust before all was said and done on The Originals, their love story was super sweet, and, hey, at least we got to see them reunite in the afterlife!

11. Beremy (Bonnie and Jeremy)

If any of you ever had a crush on your older brother or sister's friends, you'll understand our undying love for Beremy. There was something so cathartic about watching Bonnie realize that Jeremy had grown up to be a sweet, sexy, utterly dateable guy instead of Elena's annoying little brother. Even though the didn't end up together, they deserve a high ranking in this list of epic ships.

10. Posie (Penelope Park and Josie Saltzman)

Considering how few episodes of Legacies Penelope was in before she bounced, it's remarkable that so many people fell so deep in love with the Posie ship. We guess there's just something intoxicating about a bad girl who will do bad things for the girl she loves. If you come for Josie, Penelope will come for you!

9. Steferine (Stefan Salvatore and Katherine Pierce)

Is it weird that we always kind of thought Stefan and Katherine would end up together when all was said and done? Don't get us wrong, that relationship was toxic at best, but when they were on screen together, you just couldn't pull your eyes away from them. It was like watching a really sexy, complicated train wreck in action.

8. Forwood (Caroline Forbes and Tyler Lockwood)

Considering how often Caroline and Tyler were separated (by distance, evil hybrids, or opposing loyalties), it's pretty impressive that they were still one of the most memorable ships from The Vampire Diaries. It some mixed the sweetness of Maroline with the passion of Klaroline, creating a happy middle ground for fans to enjoy.

7. Freelin (Freya Mikaelson and Keelin Malraux)

Did we really understand the term OTP before Freelin existed? We doubt it. Freya and Keelin had their ups and downs on The Originals, to be sure, but through it all, there was never a doubt in our minds that these two strong, smart, sexy women were absolutely made for one another. Knowing they're living out their happily ever after in New Orleans with a cute little baby named Nik is the only thing that gets us through the day sometimes.

6. Steroline (Stefan Salvatore and Caroline Forbes)

Considering how many ships exist in this universe, it's shocking that Steroline is one of only a handful to make it down the aisle. Poor Stefan seemed doomed to be forever locked in a love triangle with his brother until Caroline Forbes entered his life. Not only did he no longer have to deal with love triangle BS, he got to marry his best friend, who he knew would support him through thick and thin. If only it hadn't taken them so long to figure out how awesome they could be together.

5. Benzo (Bonnie Bennett and Enzo St. John)

Sometimes it's hard to ship characters that are thrown together at the end of a series as opposed to the beginning, but that was not the case with Bonnie and Enzo. One minute they were two characters who'd never really interacted much, and the next they were epic loves who built a strong relationship built on trust, compassion, and a lot of laughter. Honestly, they fit so well together even we were surprised by it!

4. Stelena (Stefan Salvatore and Elena Gilbert)

Of all the ships to ever grace our screens over the years, there was something truly special about Stefan and Elena. Maybe it's because we associate their love story with some of the best years The Vampire Diaries ever had, or maybe their connection really was just too epic for words. Whatever the case, Stelena was one for the history books, and we dare you to say different.

3. Hosie (Hope Mikaelson and Josie Saltman)

It might seem weird to put a ship that's not, technically speaking, canon (yet!) so high on our list, but we absolutely won't apologize for it. Putting aside the obvious fact that these girls are definitely, majorly, into each other, Hope and Josie have proven over and over again that they not only understand each other on a deep, intimate level, they also care enough about one another to go to the ends of the earth to keep each other safe and happy. That kind of devotion when paired with a healthy, supportive dynamic is a killer combination.

2. Klaroline (Klaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes)

Klaus and Caroline never really got the timing right, but maybe that's what makes this ship one of the best in the history of The Vampire Diaries universe. They were enemies, they were lovers, and they were kind of even friends for a minute there, and the fact that they never really got a chance to be together only makes this ship more EPIC. Plus, it's kind of impossible not to swoon when a guy declares he'll be your last love.

1. Delena (Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert)

Was there ever any doubt that this list would end here? Whether you loved Delena or not, there's no denying this couple was iconic, and a large part of The Vampire Diaries' success was built on their love story. Sure, we would have preferred for them to not have different versions of the same fight for four seasons in a row, but that doesn't mean we don't still get major chills whenever we rewatch their first kiss or their series finale happily ever after.

[punkcupcakestyles]

Love Song

Part 15

Catch Up!

Sofia Welsh-De La Rosa and Timothée Chalamet will star in new Amazon series and, honestly, I won’t talk about anything else ever again

Amazon Prime has just announced the release of its new original series set in 1970’s New York. According to Hollywood Reporter, the new series will be lead by Sofia Welsh - De La Rosa, Timothée Chalamet, and Logan Lerman, and will be produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out and Us) and directed by Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey). The ambitious project is in talks with some other big names in Hollywood, such as Meryl Streep and even Robert de Niro, to join the series.

Honestly, I’m gagging. 

This might come as a surprise as both Sofia, who has been enjoying lots of Oscar’s buzz for the third year in a row, and Timothèe are on the prime of their movie careers, as two of the most prominent young actors in Hollywood, but according to many sources, Sofia has been looking for a way to work with Peele for a long time, while Timothèe is excited to add some action to his resume, after his role in Hostiles and The King. Also, rumor has it, Amazon is willing to pay a hefty (and I mean hefty) amount of money to sign the young stars. 

As for Logan Lerman, this is his the actor’s first TV role since 2005 and is set to be his comeback after his career faded a bit to the background. With the star-studded cast, Amazon is hoping this to be the platform’s next big hit. 

There is no doubt that Sofia, Timothèe, and Logan are three of THE most talented young actors today, with Sofia being the reigning queen of the pack. Recently, the actress has played a pirate, a thief, a devious courtesan and a feminist writer trying to bring down love, and she’s been rumored to have just signed a deal with Disney to play her very own princess, as well as an undisclosed character in MCU’s highly anticipated Black Widow. She truly has the range, Darling!

Sofia was seen having coffee with Timothèe early in the week, before the show’s announcement, which sparked rumors that the actress had ended things with Harry Styles after he had dinner with his ex in London. She was also seen leaving the James Corden Late Late Night’s studio with Logan...

@BobbyC I’m sorry but all of them are gay...

@Peanutbuttah Eh, she can’t act anyway

@Loveisloud @peanutbuttah She can act, she has been in commercial and art-house movies and has received rave reviews every time. You just don’t like her because she’s dating your fave. 

@Arewethereyet she’s an sl*t. So glad Harry’s done with her…

@Soph Are you drunk Buzzfeed? One does not leave Harry Styles for anyone!

****

Harry was cooking. 

The air smelled like garlic and butter and I breathed in deeply, just realizing how fucking hungry I was, as I followed him to the kitchen. It just occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten anything that day, other than a cup of coffee that Harry had made me in the morning. It was a little strong for my taste, I liked mine with sugar, even when my mom kept telling me I was being violently disrespectful to coffee. I didn’t care, not one bit. 

I never really ate on interviews or auditions days, it made my tummy feel funny and I was usually afraid that my clothes wouldn’t fit like they were supposed to after, so, no food for me, thank you. Usually, D would force-feed me as soon as we were done, practically shoving fruits, nuts, and salads down my throat (sometimes even a burger!), but today I was way too anxious and excited to even pay attention to her efforts. I was going on a date with Harry, I couldn’t care less about anything else!!!

And now, I was fucking hungry and it smelled even better in the kitchen.

“I didn’t know you cooked,” I smiled, looking at the pasta that was boiling on the stove and the bubbling alfredo sauce. Grilled prawns and a green salad were carefully plated in rustic blue and gold plates.

My eyes traveled to him, and I saw him hesitate for a second before he gifted me with a shy smile. He was so lovely, it was no surprise that my head became fuzzy every time I was around him. Even the most superficial thought struggled to grab a hold to my brain. I wondered if anyone could keep their wits around him, but somehow, I doubted it.

“It takes my mind off of things,” he finally said. “And I kinda wanted to impress you, I guess.” 

The admission made my heart soar in my chest and I beamed at him as he stood in front of me. I admired his beauty for a second, his skin was slightly tanned and it looked almost delicious against the white fabric of his shirt, and his smile was warm, making me feel giddy as he trapped me against the counter with his arms on each side of my body. 

I wanted to kiss him, so so badly, but instead, I let my fingers brush over his neck until they reached the tips of his hair. It tickled and he laughed softly with the most wonderful smile.

“Really?” I asked him softly, cause I didn’t want to break the intimate moment we were sharing. 

“Yeah. A bit silly, innit?”

“No, it’s not silly. But, if you wanted to impress me, then you should’ve made a chocolate lava cake,” I teased. “You would’ve gotten me, then.”

“Chocolate, uh?” The right corner of his lip shot upwards, and an adoring feeling hit me right in the chest like a tidal wave. 

“Yeap.”

“I’ll keep it in mind for next time,” Harry muttered, his words getting lost in the air as he leaned down to kiss me.

I realized that it was all I wanted: To kiss him slowly, maybe even for hours. But I knew I had to stop him. I was under his spell and there was nothing I could do about it, nothing I wanted to do, anyway. But even I could admit that this was just a dream, one that I wanted to remember every second of. So when he was gone, I would still have those memories. 

So before his lips could brush mine, before he could melt my brain with his kisses, I pressed my forehead to his and dropped my hands to his chest, right where his heart was beating rapidly. 

“Sorry,” I said shyly, casting my eyes down so I wouldn’t have to look at him, not a few more seconds, not until I had gathered the will to stand strong by my decision. 

“Is there something wrong?” His voice was full of sincere concern, a little bit rougher as well, which made his accent more noticeable. 

“No,” I shook my head, finally looking into his green eyes. “Everything’s perfect.”

“You just don’t want me to kiss you?”

“It’s just...I want to remember every bit of tonight,” I said, as I tried to ease the utter embarrassment that was crawling over my chest. Who said stuff like that? Writers in cheesy movies or bad teen shows. Fuck. 

“Except for my kisses?” He insisted, almost like a little boy fishing for reassurance. I brought my fingers to his cheek and grazed them it until he smiled at me. 

The answer was “fuck, no”. His kisses were a memory I wanted to carry with me forever. But I also wanted to have that night, so I could carry it with me, and compare it to every other date, every other person that would come my way. 

“I want to remember the little details,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “The dinner you made, which is really close to burning, the grandpa pants…”

“Hey! These look cool! And the sauce, I have it under control!”

“If you say so,” I sneered mischievously, twisting my lips into a mocking smile as he pretended to be offended. “And I want to remember everything you did to make me feel special”

Harry’s arms looped around my waist as he pulled me to his chest and I hugged him back and looked at him, battling the need to just lean in and kiss him. His lips were so pink. 

We both sucked at the whole “no kissing allowed” thing, and somehow that made me feel a lot better. For once, I wasn’t the needy, dreamy one. 

“What do you think?” I asked in a whisper, smiling against the brush of his lips as he bumped our noses together.

“I want to kiss you, Sof, all fucking night long,” he pouted. “Been thinking ‘bout it all day.”

“I’ll make it up to you. Just...lemme have this, yeah?”

“Why?”

“Cause…” I laughed embarrassedly. “I already have your kisses in a little folder in my brain. Now I wanna have this.”

“Is it just me in that folder?” Harry asked, suddenly interested in some other thing that frowning. Curiosity and amusement were burning in his stare and I rolled my eyes at him, almost scoffing at the fact that was the only thing that had managed to catch his attention. 

“Mostly you…” I conceded, even though the petty part of me was all for rolling out with a long list of names before I got to his name. “And Sebastian Stan…” I said, not being able to resist it. 

“Bucky Barnes?” His eyebrows twisted in confusion and he looked at me as I licked my lips, considering just how weird I wanted my answer to be.  

“And the cartoon, too...” I replied, a little bit too casually for it to go unnoticed, but Harry didn’t seem to notice, cause as he was nodding thoughtfully, his hands traveled to my neck again, making me look at him as he dipped his head down to reach the curve of my neck. 

“That’s a bit greedy, baby,” He whispered against my skin, pressing soft kisses down to my pulse point. I wasn’t sure if that was technically a kiss, and I didn’t care, it felt so good. “Someone else?” He was cheating, and we both knew it. I could feel his smile growing bigger, and I sighed as he grazed his teeth over the curve of my neck and let his tongue soothe my skin. “Babe?” He insisted, just to tease me. It was hard to think, and he knew it, but I wasn’t going to admit it just yet. 

“Uh.” I licked my lips and struggled for a second, as I struggled to remember what was it that I was going to say. “Chris Evans, “ I began. “and uh, Michael B. Jordan. Mmm… and Logan Lerman.”

“Isn’t that the guy you’re gonna work with?” He asked, stopping suddenly to look at me. I fluttered my eyes open and smiled when they could finally focus on him. 

“Yeah, him and Timothée Chalamet.”

“Mmmm...I don’t know if I want to share my folder with them,” Harry pouted, which made me laugh. I realized it was no laughing matter, but still, a warm, almost giddy, laughter kept bubbling out of my tummy. 

“Why? Does it make you jealous, H?” I teased.

“Should I be?”

“Mmmm...I don’t know. I honestly think I would let Logan fuck me...those eyes, man.”

“So funny, S…” Harry rolled his eyes. He was not as amused as I had expected him to be. 

“You shouldn’t be,” I said softly, looking him in the eyes, serious and sincere.  

“You sure?” He asked and I was sure he wasn’t talking about Logan Lerman anymore. 

“I’m sure, baby.” I wasn’t even lying. “So, who’s in yours?” I asked, cause maybe that’d take attention away from myself. I didn’t think things through though, cause he had a whole bunch of options for his answer. Who could it be? One of his supermodel exes? His singer ex? This wasn’t a fun game at all. 

“You.”

“Oh, so THAT’S how you answer that kind of question!!” I exclaimed, which made him laugh, and, as he did so, his dimples showed on his face, making him look a little boyish. He was fucking pretty, Jesus. 

“I’m not even trying to be a good boyfriend here,” Harry chuckled, and I relished on the way the word `boyfriend” sounded out of his lips. So pretty, so fucking pretty. “My folder is called “When Sof’s not around”, and I think we need to fill it up, so I don’t run out of thoughts.”

“Oh, we don’t want that,” I scrunched up my nose and shook my head at him as a smile played on my lips. I was so fucking happy and I couldn’t even figure out why. 

“No, we don’t.” The tip of his tongue lapped across his pink lips, and I followed it with my eyes, taking a second or two before I peered up to him again. “I was hoping we could kiss all night,” he said softly. “and maybe I could eat you out by the pool.”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit…”

“You wouldn’t need one, baby,” Harry laughed, a mix of mischief and endearment lacing with it. I couldn’t stop staring at him, and my knees wobbled a bit as he leaned down, bumping our noses together one more time, as the soft brush of his lips against my skin made me shiver. 

“Don’t cheat,” I whispered and his soft laugh echoed down in every inch of my body. His lips grazed over my forehead, as he pressed a soft kiss to my skin. 

“Ok, baby. We’ll do it your way.”

“Thank you.”

“I think it’s silly, y’know?” He started, pushing me back so he could look at me with his bright green eyes. “We’re just starting, Sof.”

****

I wanted to kiss him. 

I looked at him, licking a spoonful of dessert with my head propped on my hand as I listened to him talk, but all I could think of was how much I wanted to lick the trace of chocolate out of his lips. 

“Is there something wrong, S?” I noticed there wasn’t much concern in his voice, not like there usually was when he asked me if I was ok. This time, there was a hint of mockery, almost as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and that all I wanted to do was to sit on his lap and press soft kisses from his jaw to his lips. 

Fuck.

“No,” I smiled sweetly, cause I wasn’t one to go down without a fight, and I took his hand in mine and pressed it to my lips before I looked at him again. 

“Were you distracted?” His smile was turning more devilish as the seconds went by and I felt myself get warm as he leaned closer, his hands dropping to my thigh and pressing softly to it.

He wasn’t gonna win. I was not going to let him. 

“Nope,” I said, letting the ‘p’ pop between my lips. “Tell me about your album, I promise I’ll be a grown-up about it.” 

“Nice save…” Harry chuckled. “I think you’re gonna like it.”

“I have recently discovered that I’m a very jealous person. I don’t think I’ll like it, but I’ll be happy for you.”

“You shouldn’t be jealous.” A smile tugged on his lips and I felt warm, so warm inside, I couldn’t help but smile as well. “And I think you’re like it, especially since I made a few last-minute changes, against Jeff’s will.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he kept saying I had the guts, the audacity to change the album when we’re about to drop the first single.”

“What changes?” I insisted, because Jeff’s feelings were the least of my concern at the moment. 

I wished I could have played it cool. Maybe that would’ve made me look more interesting, aloof, unapproachable, and all those things a girl should be in front of her crush. But my heart was racing and the world was turning chaotic as my head ticked, like a tiny little bomb. 

I needed to know. 

Tick, tick. 

“You’re already sure you’re not gonna like it,” Harry smirked, surely unaware of the mess inside my head. “You might as well wait for it.”

No!!! TIck tick. 

“Oh, please, please, pretty please?? What’s the advantage of this if I can’t get a tiny sneak peek?”

“Well, for instance, you get me to cook for you…”

“It was delicious, thank you.”

“And you get me to eat you out at night when you’re not being stubborn and imposing kiss-bans.”

“I like that very much, too,” I giggled, looking at his green eyes as he got just a bit closer, just an inch away from me. 

“So it’s not such a bad deal, is it?”

“I guess not.”

“Good.” His bottom lip rolled into his lips and he bit it thoughtfully for a couple of seconds as his eyes kept burning little holes into my soul. That’s how it felt. “Let’s watch a movie, baby. Are there any bans on cuddling?”

“No, not yet.”

His fingers squeezed mine and he got up swiftly from the table, smiling brightly as we covered the few steps to a different room near the pool, where a giant screen awaited for us. There were a bunch of individuals blue chair, blue and velvety, and a larger one, that was meant to comfortably fit two. The room was dark, only lit by the lights coming from the screen, and I followed him blindly until we were sitting side by side. Slowly, we found each other, and as Harry sat against the armchair, I settled between his legs, cuddling up to his chest while his large hand rested on the curve of my waist. 

He smelled like a lazy Sunday morning when the rain is lightly tapping on your windows and all you can hear are the chirping birds when still early, so the world hasn’t woken up just yet and you get to focus on that feeling, on the promise of what’s coming. 

He also smelled like pasta and chocolate, and I didn’t mind that at all. 

He felt soft, comforting, and sweet, but above all, he felt safe. I was safe with him. 

And, I struggled for a bit, trying to understand what came next, what was the warmth and giddiness that settled in my tummy every time I looked at him. 

“You ok, baby?” Harry asked and I nodded absentmindedly, not ready to let my thoughts go just yet. What was it? “Wanna watch Set It Up?”

“Yeah, whatever you want. your choice.”

“Are you sure you’re ok? You don’t say that often.”

“Oh, shhh, Harry I always do whatever you want.”

“We definitely have different definitions of ‘Whatever Harry wants’” He mused and I propped myself up to look at him, almost suspiciously, almost angry.

“Do we? What do you want?” I asked. 

“To kiss you. And for you to stay the night.”

“I have a bed, y’know?” I quirked my eyebrow, looking at him as I had already won the argument. 

“Yeah, unfortunately…”

“And we promised we would behave tonight.”

“You can stay in a different room,” he offered. “Or I will.”

“What’s the point then?”

“You won’t have to miss me in the morning…” he shrugged. I laughed out loud, despite my best efforts to look offended. “And I won’t have to miss you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Love. 

He looked a lot like love. 

And love looked a lot like him. 

***

Harry Styles and Sofia Welsh were out grabbing Fro-yo and I’ll never be as cool as either of them

Yes, I know what you’re gonna say: Are they paying you to write this sh*t? And the answer is yes! someone’s paying me to write this sh*t! Alas, neither Harry nor Sofia is. I wish. 

The usually private couple, and bear in mind I am using the word couple loosely here as they haven’t confirmed to be dating, gave the world a glimpse of their relationship as they stepped out in Los Angeles to grab ice-creams and bubble teas, along with friends.

Ever since the rumors of their relationship spread around, the couple has been mostly keeping a low profile - which is not very surprising as Harry Styles is not very open about his personal life since he was a member of One Direction and a large part of his fans believed him to be romantically involved with one of his bandmates (that was a mouthful! And also very true, there has been a lot of conspiracy theories about it)

Sofia, who’s in the middle of an Oscar campaign (and has been showing us just how much designers adore her), sported a pair of leggings, a crop top, and a large blazer, a perfect outfit for the ever-changing LA weather, and looked happy and relaxed as she waited for Harry to get their orders. Both stars took photos with fans and left together in Styles’ classic car…

****

We were made out of good intentions. 

We slept together that night and every night after that for an entire week. We didn’t do much, we kissed and cuddled, and spent our mornings lazily together until one of us had to go out to the real world. We even went out and we kept stealing looks and smiles at each other, like two little kids that were too shy in front of their crushes. 

Photos were taken. Articles were published. Midge was elated. 

Harry’s new single was coming out that night, and there was going to be a party to celebrate it. If it was a hit, they were going to celebrate their success and all the hard work that went into it. It was a flop, and it was not going to flop, they were going to drink for better times ahead. 

“Fuck!!!” 

I stared at the ceiling, willing my body to move and failing miserably at it as every little muscle in my body contracted painfully. My arms hurt, and my legs felt like they were on fire. 

I just needed 5 more minutes before I got up and got ready to leave. 

It was day 4 of “my new life” as my trainer liked to call it, and after another lunch of grilled chicken and steamed broccoli, I was ready to quit. I had trained and dieted before for different roles, but this time, I had a feeling she wanted to suck the life out of me. It even made me reconsider if I needed to be in a Marvel Movie. Would Midge kill me if I quit?

“Sof…” The male voice scared me just a little, as I thought I was alone in my house. I turn around just slightly, as much as my tired poor body could handle and smiled as I saw Sam standing by my door. “Can I come in?”

He was holding a tray, with something that looked like a sandwich, coffee, and a glass of water, along with a white bottle of medicine. I nodded, grunting even at the soft movement, and he walked quickly to my bed, setting the tray down before me as he stood awkwardly. 

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I struggled to ask while I propped myself up and sat criss-cross on my bed. I sounded angry, and maybe I was, why would he bring me a sandwich? It was all I wanted to eat and all I couldn’t eat at the same time. 

“I’m off work today, and I wanted to check on you. Cat told me you’ve been feeling under the weather. I called your mom and she told me you should “just eat a sandwich and take an aspirin”, so here they are,” he said, offering me a childish smile as he pointed the tray with a little too much joy. 

“I can’t eat a sandwich,” I sulked. “And I need to get ready, I have to go to Harry’s.”

“You can eat a sandwich. And he can wait 5 minutes, you’re always there.”

I realized we hadn’t talked about the kiss, not really. I avoided being alone with him, and whenever the occasion presented itself, Sam would go out of the room, giving me space and maybe waiting for me to be the first one to reach out. I had never done that. Honestly, I didn’t think I would.

“You’re right, Sammy,” I said, picking the sandwich in my hands and noticing that he had already cut the crust off. “Thank you.”

It was weird between us, tense and quiet, and I didn’t like it. I bit into the bread looking at an empty spot on the wall as I waited for him to say something. Anything, I would take it. But Sam remained silent, pressing his palms on his thighs as he went to get up. 

“Sam,” I called for him and I smiled shyly when he finally turned around. He took his time, though, and for a moment there, I was scared he was going to leave. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what you want to hear when someone you like kisses you.”

“I shouldn’t have…”

“Did you want to?”

“Yes,” I breathed and I realized I wasn't lying. I did want to kiss him, there was no use in denying that. 

I put the sandwich down on the plate and moved closer to Sam until I could see the golden freckles that were hidden in his light brown eyes.

“Do you remember that night when you came through my window and stayed the night with me?”

“Yeah, I heard your dad scream, and I wanted to be there in case…”

“I know, Sam. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since then,” I admitted and he kept staring at me as if he was considering what his next move would be. Would he kiss me? Did I want him to kiss me?

“You’re not being fair to me, Sof.”

“I know. You haven’t been fair to me either, but here we are.”

There was a moment of panic, cause for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. He leaned over me and I held my breath as I looked at him, not able to stop him just yet. But as his lips brushed over my forehead, I closed my eyes, smiling as he pulled away from me. 

“Eat the fucking sandwich, Sof,” he replied and it wasn’t enough. I took his hand before he could leave and I licked my lips, peering up to him with something more than just fear pressing up to my chest. 

“Are we good?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we’ll talk about it again when he gets back with his ex.”

That was a low blow, and we both knew it, but I just stayed quiet as he left the room, wondering if I deserved it. 

****

It took me a while to get ready, so I was late for Harry’s party. I went straight to the pool, where a large screen had been set up and the new video seemed to be on a loop. I couldn’t find Harry anywhere, but at the same, he was all I could see. I stared at the screen, looking at his golden skin as he was surrounded by the adoring crowd, at the way they kept touching and the expression on his face as he leaned into them. The song didn’t even matter, cause all I could focus on was his stupidly beautiful green eyes. 

I mean, I had watched his videos before. I had seen him fly through the sky and be surrounded by kids, but this was different. Those were entertaining and beautiful, and I felt the emotion in my tummy simply because it was him, and somehow, just seeing him made me happy. But in this one he meant to capture your attention and a little bit of your soul. He wanted to be desired and to be free along the way. And it was such a fucking sexy video.  

I lost count of how many times I allowed myself to watch the video, but it was probably too many times. After a while, I decided it was time to look for the real Harry, who was still nowhere to be seen, so I left the pool, smiling and greeting everyone as I passed by. 

I hoped he was alone, cause I wanted to fucking kiss him like no one else was looking. I wanted to tell him how lovely, talented, and amazing he was. I was going to kiss him a lot and praise him, it couldn’t get better than that. 

I looked for him in the living room, where a small crowd was throwing back cocktails and beers and went out to the front door, where people were lounging about, a bit drunkenly. But he wasn’t anywhere, and I was starting to feel uneasy. 

It took me more than a few minutes to make my way to his room because people kept getting in my way. I did my best to smile and engage in silly conversations about nothing, but my heart was growing heavy and my brain was too anxious to even remember if I had succeeded. 

I heard him talk even before I stood by his door. I couldn’t quite tell what he was saying or who he was talking to, but I noticed that his words were a little bit slurred, and his accent dripped thick in his low voice. The door was slightly ajar and I pushed it open and stood by the frame as I saw him talking on the phone. He had his back to me, so he didn’t notice that I had arrived, not that it mattered. 

“C, you’re drunk,” I heard him say and I wished he had just said a different name. “No...I know I told you it was just a PR relationship...Cause I need time to figure out...Really, C? Wanna know if I still love you? You’re not being fair...” The last part came out as a dry laugh, and I knew I had to leave, it was rude and inappropriate, but, most importantly, it was breaking my fucking heart. But my feet seemed like they were made out of cement, and my legs had chosen that moment to numb out of pain. So, I was still standing there when he turned around, and probably saw the tears that were threatening to spill down my eyes. 

I wanted to know the answer too. Could I know it? It’d save us a lot of pain. 

“Bye, C.”

He dropped his phone to the bed and I looked at him as he walked quickly to me. He looked flustered and worried, but it all seemed so distant, that it didn’t matter. 

“Baby,” Harry said, but that wasn’t my name. Did her call her baby too? He probably did, he was a ‘baby’ kind of guy. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, I was looking for you cause I wanted to check if you wanted me to post something on Instagram,” I lied. “D already drafted a tweet, it’s really simple.”

“Sof, how much did you hear?”

“Nothing. I’m gonna get a couple of photos and uh, I’m gonna go home, I think I need a rest day.”

His hand went to grab mine, but before he could do it, I turned and walked away rushing down the stairs until I could get lost in the crowd. 

Fair? None of us was being fair.