#and i think it would be such a cool character turn if zac started playing as said parasite instead

[zincbot]

forgot i love sci-fi a normal amount

[aeoneris]

for archival reasons, and because rise has officially ended, i'm coping by looking back at the past two years and thinking about the master utsushi rabbit hole. this is based on a long reply i sent to a mutual but i think it deserved to have its own post where others can read it and i can expand further on certain details. or something. i don't know. i have no idea who will read this but if you do, please enjoy...

the ballad of master utsushi.

he was there regardless.

always watching.

waiting.

i wound up getting attached to utsushi-kyokan (master/instructor utsushi), ウツハン/utsuhan (utsushi x hunter) ship, and finding his Japanese fan community late 2021, and i've been chatting with mutuals and friends i made there since. at that time, capcom had opened up pre-orders for his nui (plushie). this plush is lovingly referred to as "Unui-kun", and people love to take him around and bring him places. here's my Unui-kun in new york city lol

fans love to dress him up and make clothing and accessories for him. had i known just how attached i would become, i would not have set my Unui-kun to ship via surface mail delivery because it took about 2-3 months extra for him to arrive... ;;

but anyway, it seemed that his popularity was growing because they continued to make more merch of him. he seems to have more than any of the other characters.

many of these are limited print/pre-order only, or were from specific events like the capcom cafe features. trying to get his merchandise became crazy, because scalpers started to pick up on how badly people wanted goodies of him?!

just how popular is this guy?! what's with the character tax!!

and how did this even happen... we're playing monster hunter, not an idol game! but i think it really speaks a lot for itself how rise had such colorful characters that you could get attached to. it seems he really jives with many female and queer players, so good on capcom for that hehe. many of the japanese fans i've met are either older women, very often mothers, or gnc, which i found to be really cool. the english-speaking utsushi fans are usually the same, too. the solidarity is real...

I found out that a lot of ppl, including myself, shared a similar experience: they missed out on a majority of utsushi's flavor text in base rise bc they didn't talk to him or the other NPCs very much during village and high rank quests, and therefore didn't even think much of him until after the fact. people double-taking when going through the game again and actually catching on to his antics... I think what really got things going was when they released his DLC voice and learned about his, uh, extremely affectionate lines towards the hunter when it comes to mew mew and blowing a kiss LOL. (the "welcome back, master!" line?!?! there's so much art of him in a maid outfit... and the way he says ace/manadeshi in his sleep at the table?!?! scandalous?!?!) even for me, he got my attention only once i saw the official art of him (realizing "hey he's got a cute design actually") and eventually encountering utsushi x hunter fanart on pixiv. another thing that got me noticing him was brian david gilbert's now deleted tweet about how zac efron and utsushi are the same. thankfully, we have the internet archive to save the existence of this post and i have to make sure people experience this lost media.

once i realized how weirdly close he was to the hunter, the gears started turning

i confirmed that ppl really did notice that it was unusual for an instructor character to refer to his pupil as "manadeshi (beloved/dearest disciple)" in the manner that he does, being so close to them in a way that felt so familiar and warm. he was already popular enough that by valentine's day 2022, fans literally sent real chocolates to capcom addressed to utsushi. i knew about this for a while, but i was shook that they wound up officially addressing that this really happened during the last update video.

after they received his chocolates, they immediately got one of the (female) illustrators on board to quickly draw that really cute valentine's day art of utsushi. the japanese tweet for that artwork had even a little bit more text than the english one…

that "i'll always be watching over you" line…

(and while i'm here, i have to mention the valentine's day art we got for 2023- i made a separate post about THAT.)

we started to suspect capcom caught on to this niche community's love for utsushi, and they started to kind of... troll us??? LOL.

throughout the previews of sunbreak last year, they would start obsessively sneaking utsushi into those chibi artworks. and when npc followers were announced, people were scrambling to find out if he was going to be one of them, but there also was some weird radio silence about him for a bit...

in one of the earlier trailers that showed the elgado hub for the first time, there was a very short part of the clip where ppl could see someone standing in the distance at the corner of the screen. all the utsushi fans went nuts because they were taking a magnifying glass and zooming up at there wondering if it was really him, because everyone wanted him to be there in sunbreak LOL.

of course we'd eventually find out that would be his perch for most of the game! it was only during the final preview trailer before the release of sunbreak did they finally announce utsushi as a follower, as if they were saving the best for last. and sunbreak dropped, we got to see him in elgado and enjoy hunting with him. and it didn't end there. he wound up being featured in two of the short stories released last summer, and we would not forget this incident.

when i think about how easy it is to just play through the story and miss out on following specific out-of-the-way flavor texts, let alone know about all this outside of the game, i wonder if utsushi joining the hunter in the battle against amatsu in the penultimate battle was strange, because he has such a spotlight on him, even being the one who allows you to ride an apex which was normally impossible. if people didn't acknowledge him before, certainly people would love him now.

his final line after you defeat amatsu: it's cute and silly in english... but in japanese, his line and delivery was extremely, almost unabashedly... romantic. many people were shocked because it sounded like a fervent confession.

"I'll say it once more... You are my pride, my beloved disciple."

finally, during the last update video…

we got this line straight from the director LOL. utsushi wound up being his personal favorite character in rise, and perhaps why we wound up seeing more and more of him in sunbreak.

all in all, if you kept up with the flavor text of rise, and if you followed utsushi's dialogue throughout the base game and expansion, the emotional pay off at the end was even better! and it is a shame when this stuff is mostly optional or you have to go out of the way for it, with so much being missable with every bit of progression. but making a monhun where story and character interactions are pushed more… i think they were on to something. it's probably something that could be divisive, but personally I think they should go all in on it more in the future. Rise proved that they could make charming and memorable (not to mention, named) characters... if they lean into it more in a future entry, then i hope they do it in a way where everyone can enjoy it and not feel like they missed out. but I also hope they would make it so that people don't feel overwhelmed with flavor text... it comes down to taste, but i think i have faith that monhun can try making more character-driven stories while still keeping the core of the series in tact.

here are some more miscellaneous utsushi things that i didn't know how to fit in earlier:

he's been featured multiple times in capcom cafe entrees. here's his matcha latte dango drink:

and for the sunbreak stories: a cake based on his fight with rathalos together with the royal guard, and then a drink that represents his... uh, struggle across the ocean to chase the hunter to elgado. because they will never let him live that down. i won't either.

here's a t-shirt of utsushi and kagami you can pick up on amazon right now. kagami was a very interesting arc when he was first shown- he was introduced as a long time friend of utsushi, training together in the past, but eventually parting ways.

his seiyuu in japanese is a sentai actor who loves monster hunter, so essentially, kagami is lowkey like a self-insert for him lol. he's goofy in english because he's voiced by a certain youtuber, but in japanese he takes a different direction of silly because he has a "chuunibyou" edgelord cringe way of talking. it's such a shame that kagami wasn't really in the game itself besides being mentioned in a few mission descriptions because i would've loved to see him interact with utsushi and the hunter, and i wish the royal knights and many of the NPCs had more cutscenes or something. it makes me think, if it weren't for the pandemic, could rise's story and scenario have been something more because of the DLC voice characters like hibasa/monju/kagami? anyway, a popular headcanon is that utsushi and kagami are ex-boyfriends lol (i personally like this one and adapted it for my utsuhan fanfics). but there are even those who ship kagautsu too (although it is rare because people overseas are a little wary of shipping characters who are based on real people).

and lastly, one of my personal favorites... the diseased kyokan shirt. this is from an online capcom shop, and you can use a proxy service like fromjapan.com to order it.

if you read this all, thank you! happy hunting! with the instructor! we love that guy! the guy of all time!

[thevalleyisjolly]

Friends. Countrymen. Intrepid heroes. Lend me your ears!

I know what you're probably thinking. Lapin Cadbury is a certified Iconic Character. He wasn't here for a long time, but by the Bulb was he here for a memorable time. But this is not about some chocolate bunny that got his head smashed in, ok? This is about Cumulous "The Hungry One must feed" Rocks, most senior elder of a secret monastic order dedicated to magic, trans-flag colour themed monk with literal death powers, and resident chicken enthusiast.

I mean come on, if nothing else, vote for Cumulous for the chickens' sake.

Now I'm not denying that Lapin isn't a great character.  But let's review.  Local urchin gets trapped in a pact with an archfey patron, infiltrates the church and the royal family under her direction, cleverly navigates a few social situations, before discovering the nature of the cosmos right before sacrificing himself to save said royal family.  Compelling, I grant you, but let's face it, it's a typical warlock backstory made memorable by Zac's acting and some great rolls.  Who doesn't have tension with their patron?  Who doesn't put on appearances sometimes to hide what they really feel?  Warlocks are high charisma by design, they're the natural people to infiltrate and deceive and find things out, and then it's just a matter of how you play it with the information you find.  Was Lapin epic?  Yeah, sure, but past the style and flair and witty one-liners, you've really just got a bog-standard warlock.  Magnificently played, to be sure, but nothing new under the sun.

Cumulous Rocks, on the other hand, is a royal cousin who mysteriously disappears decades ago in order to join a secret monastic order established by Lazuli which is dedicated to the protection of magic in the land.  This ballsy motherfucker learns how to harness the power of death, and then cool as a cucumber asserts that no, he doesn't worship the annihilating devil-figure of entropy from whom he draws power, he just uses it as he needs to and is not otherwise bound to it.

What. A. Power. Move.

And you'd think this guy would be all hardcore gungho all the time, right? And yeah, he'll kill first, ask questions later, especially if you're a dog or a chicken, but then he's crying over magical artifacts and reaching out to his relatives in their grief to offer comfort and his ideal ending is just magic flourishing and not having to kill animals anymore- 

Is there onion flavoured cotton candy, because Cumulous Rocks has layers.  He's a warrior, he's a softie, he made himself hard so that he could be a protector, he's brutally and honestly open with his emotions.  He's dedicated everything he has to the oaths he swore, he longs to connect with the family that forgot about him for most of his life, he can turn into a literal cloud and run a million miles a round, he leapt across a chasm with nothing but a handful of hit points to punch the Sugar Plum Fairy in the fucking face.

Let me reiterate. While on the point of literal death, he tried to fistfight an ancient archfey who is a major Candian magical figure, and in doing so ate up her actions and allowed the party to defeat her.  Lapin would tell you to vote for him and the Sugar Plum Fairy getting fucking decked in the face.

A vote for Cumulous is a personal win for Lapin.  Vote for this pastel death monk who punches ancient eldritch archfey in the face and is absolutely not about to get involved in any interpersonal drama.  The man's got a mission and by the Hungry One is he going to see magic restored to its rightful place in Candia.  And you know what?  

Lapin asked "Where is your Bulb now?"  And Cumulous motherfucking Rocks made sure the answer was "Not enforcing political, religious and cultural hegemony over Candia anymore."

Now that's what I call achieving not just your character's goals but your previous character's goals. Lapin might have started this fight, but Cumulous finished it and then some. This monk kills religious fascists and colonizers.

Vote for Cumulous Rocks.

[strawberryshortcakegirl]

Guac and Evie Rewatch: 1.02 of HSMTMTS

Hi!! Went on vacation for a while but the rewatch blogs are back!

Why is it that all I remember from the Read-Through episode was chaos

I love how Big Red simply acknowledges that EJ is basically a Hollister model and then you see EJ's promo pic for Season 3 and it all makes sense

Okay so right now Nini is talking about if you look in the background there's like some tickets and flyers for musicals and things hung up in her room. And we all know Nini's phone case is a Playbill phone case too. I just feel like Season 2 Nini kinda ditched her love of musicals way too fast

So I just searched up Throb and realized that it's not an actual smell/perfume or whatever. My whole life is a lie.

OKAY BUT IMAGINE SOMEONE JUST COMES UP TO YOU AT A MALL AND SPRAYS PERFUME ON YOU-

EJ calling Ashlyn the bomb proves that this was filmed in 2019

Time for mental health time with Evie! Okay we see that EJ says that he's only pretending to be happy about playing Chad on his Insta story because inside he's a "bucket of sadness." It's obvious that his goal on Instagram is to seem like a person who has his life figured out and gets whatever he wants. Therefore, he says "blessed to be playing Chad" as if that's the part he wanted all along and he was expecting it.

Idk why they are so amazed by the rehearsal room

How does Miss Jenn not know that Natalie Bagley is the stage manager lol

This has bothered me since day one: Miss Jenn goes from Gb major to F major when singing We're All in This Together. Still the high note was amazing and I relate to Gina mouthing "yessss" after hearing it

"Abysmal read through, a brilliant opening night" I think a more accurate quote from my experience would be "Abysmal rehearsal, a mediocre opening night" but whatever

Big Red I mean if you took the SATs every week you would get better at it and then you could turn in your actual highest score... 😏

SEB IS SO CUTE WHEN HE SAYS I JUST WANNA RAISE THE ROOF GAHHH

Carlos and Miss Jenn just scrolling through Zac Efron's Instagram while they wait for the blocking rehearsal to start is a mood

Shouldn't Miss Jenn be reported for making two exes kiss? Especially since one of them specifically states that she doesn't want to

DATING HER DOESN'T MEAN YOU OWN HER ASHLYN QUEEN I'm currently trying to get my friend to learn that CRUSHING on her doesn't mean you own her -_-

Carlos and Gina knowing the Big Book of Broadway kinda predicts their friendship in Season 2 which is pretty cool

Honestly the dancers in this show are legendary

I think when I first watched the series, I always hated Ricky and him being all desperate until he talked about his parents going through some trouble. I like how they added that in early. It gives more depth to Ricky's character than him just chasing after Nini

How come Nini's room is twice the size of my room T_T

You can tell Gina is just talking to Ricky so she can get Gabriella but eventually later in the conversation, she gets much more real and genuine

Ricky dancing to HSM at midnight hit too close to home

Ashlyn just playing piano in the empty auditorium is somehow kinda majestic. Idk why. And she was so unpopular in Season 1. When she saw Nini, she immediately said she could leave immediately. And then in Season 2 she was the lead <3

TODAY I LEARNED THAT MISS JENN SAID BATHS KEEP ME SANE NOT BATS

Yeah I would kill for an autograph from Andrew Lloyd Weber so I'm not judging

WONDERING IS THE BEST SONG OF SEASON 1 AND I WILL FOREVER STAND BY THAT. It's so raw because it's live. Tim has wrecked that now with the autotune in Season 2 and 3. Bring back the quality from Wondering Tim

The whole gigantic package just to hold Vanessa Hudgen's (V-Hudge's... O_o") phone though

Haha Portwell was so different back then

I do think it's truly excellent that the two villains of Season 1 became two of the most beloved characters of the show.

Welp that's the end!! Btw these are now called Guac and Evie rewatches :)

[karlajoyner]

first of all: i absolute LOVE your write

also....can you write an enemies to lovers smut with reggie or jeremy (what you feel more comfortable with), and if you have a taglist for jatp could you add me?

(english isn't my first language, sorry if there's something wrong!)

Why Wait? (Jeremy Shada x Reader)

A/N: So I got two requests a Jeremy one and a Reggie or Jeremy enemy to lover one so I put them in one. I have a enemy to lover one coming out about Charlie. It’s a smut and gets well aggressive so make sure not to read it if it makes you uncomfortable! It was as well per someone's request so I hope you guys enjoy!

Requested by: @epikskool (Tumblr)

@agotzmann (Wattpad)

Warnings: None

(P.S I do not do smut for Jeremy, Madison, Jadah, Booboo, and or Sacha! Only for their characters!)

————

I sighed getting out my car unprepared for tonight's events. My best friend Savannah invited me to a game night with some of her co-stars from her new show on Netflix. They were nice people I visited on set a couple times when they were shooting in LA and got along pretty well with most of them. Well all except one. Jeremy. Jeremy Shada.

Flashback

I frustratedly walked towards Savannah's set beyond pissed. I was visiting my best friend on set today when I anonymously received photos from an unknown number. After 2 hours of sitting in her trailer I had just confirmed that my now ex boyfriend had been cheating on me and to make it worse it was with someone who I though was my friend. I finally reached the location she was filming at watching as she spoke to the director who was probably giving her instruction. She threw a glance at me realization hitting her what we had suspected since I got the pictures was true. I stood back as she said something to the director before making her way towards me.

"Did you talk to him?" She asked.

"Yeah. He admitted it to me. He straight up told me he cheated on me" I said on the verge of tears.

"He's such an asshole" She whispered pulling me into a hug.

“I know. I just don't know what I'm gonna do Savannah. I live with the man for fucks sake" I sobbed pulling away.

"Well for starters your moving in with me"

"I can't do that Sav, our lease isn't up for another 2 months"

"Your not staying with that jerk for 2 months y/n. Over my dead body am I gonna let my best friend stay in the same apartment with such a pig" She said getting ticked off. I sighed knowing there was no point in trying to argue right now when I was filled with too many emotions to count. I simply nodded fidgeting with my fingers.

"Go wait for me in my trailer. I almost done with this scene then I'm done for the day. After that we can go pick up some clothes then head over to mine for a breakup ritual"

"You really think that'll fix this?" I asked letting another tear slip out.

"No but it'll sure help. We'll order takeout, paint our nails, and have a high school musical marathon"

"Your just saying that because you can't wait to drool over Zac”

"Well yeah but your gonna be doing the same"

"Fair enough" I said smiling at the girl.

"See you in a bit k?"

"Okay" I smiled walking away.

I was walking back the route I came from when I received a message.

"You know we don't have to stop it here if don't want to😏" I read aloud making anger boil in me. He's such a fucking Asshole.

I groaned in frustration suddenly feeling myself collide with something hard.

“What the fuck!?" I cried holding my forehead. I looked up realizing I had just collided with an opening door.

"Oh my god are you okay?"

"Do I look okay? Are you fucking serious?"

"Look I'm sorry but you don't have to be such a dick about it" The person spoke. I finally looked up seeing a guy around my age who looked awfully familiar but I couldn't place my finger on it.

"I'm the dick? You hit me with a fucking door"

"Look I said I'm sorry" He said sticking out a hand to help me up. I was so fed up with men today. I scoffed standing up on my own.

"I don't need your help. Just watch where your going next time"

"It's not my fault. I didn't know anyone was gonna be passing by"

"So it's my fault I just got knocked to the ground by an opening door?" I shouted holding the part of my head that was now throbbing.

"W-well n-"

"You know what save it! I'm tired of men today I'm tired of everyone" I said passing by the dark haired guy bumping his shoulder in anger. That guy ended up being Jeremy Shada. Savannah's cast mate. And now my worst enemy.

“I brought lasagna” I announced to the group of people who were in the living room. Specifically Charlie, Savannah, Sacha, Owen, Jadah, Tori of course, and unfortunately enough Jeremy.

“Yes!” Sacha shouted with excitement. I giggled putting down the dish in the kitchen going over to greet everyone.

“Hey Charles!”

“How you doin?” He smirked making me laugh.

“I’m doin good baby. How you doin?” I played along. Recreated one of my favorite scenes from friends.

“This is why I love you! You get me!” He shouted pulling me in for a hug.

“Hey Owen. Sacha” I greeted the two boys with a hug.

“Y/n! We missed you the last couple weeks on set”

“Owen you were shooting in Vancouver”

“I know we just really missed you. Savannah was no fun”

“I was fun!” The girl shouted form the kitchen.

“What he means is we missed our biggest cheerleader” Tori corrected.

“I am great aren’t I?” I jokingly flipped my hair on my shoulder earning laughs from around the room.

“I beg to differ” Jeremy’s voice spoke making me roll my eyes.

“Seriously? I just got here and your gonna start?” I asked looking at him.

“Hey! Guys! It’s game night let’s chill out tonight” Charlie tried to reason shuffling the uno cards in his hand.

It wasn’t the first time he or any of the other cast tried to talk me and Jeremy down but sometimes his side comments got to me so much that I’d burst. God I hated his luscious dark hair. And his snarky little smirk. And his beautiful brown eyes. And his adorable dimples.

“Charlie’s right” I spoke calming down.

“It’s game night. I’m with my friends and nothings gonna ruin that. Even you Shada”

“It was ruined the moment you stepped in”

“Man chill out” Owen said placing a hand on Jeremys shoulder. I watched as the two small talked on the side before turning my attention back to the rest of group.

Internally groaning I took a seat in between Jadah and Savannah who had finally made it back to the living room.

“Glad to see your lasagna didn’t come out burnt” Savannah said making me let out a giggle. Referring to the first time I tried baking lasagna.

“Sav that was one time and it was an accident”

“I can think of other things that were an accident” Jeremy said my eyes going wide. Gasps filling the room.

“Dude yo chill out”

“That’s low even for you Jeremy” I said standing up and making my way down the familiar hallway. I reach a room I recognized as Toris. Locking myself in. I began to cry sitting down on her bed in the center of the room.

That was it. Those were the words that finally triggered me.

Flashback

“Your a drunk! Can’t even take care of your own daughter!” “She was a fucking accident!” “You don’t mean that daddy” I cried holding my chest to my knees. Drowning out the voices of my parents fighting. Wanting anything. Anything to happen that would get me out of this house. But nothing did.

My thoughts were cut off by a sudden knock on the door.

“Who is it?” I questioned wiping the stray tears that had escaped.

“It’s me”

“Who’s me?” I asked sniffling.

“Jeremy”

“Go away you fucking prick”

“Can we talk? Please” He pleaded confusion hitting me. Why would he want to talk to me? Why now?

I made my way toward the door slowly unlocking it.

“What do you want?” I asked moving back onto the bed.

“I wanna apologize. Savannah told me about your parents. She also said if I didn’t cool it she’d have my head” He said moving slowly to sit beside me on the bed.

“Yeah. She’s a sweet girl but she’ll have your head in seconds” I tried to joke only to have more tears fall down my face.

“Look I’m really sorry for acting like such a jerk”

“A dick” I corrected him earning a chuckle from the guy.

“A dick. I’m really sorry”

“For the sake of our friends outside. I guess I’m sorry too. Sav always talks about how much of a great guy you are but I never actually got to know you. I honestly I don’t know why I always went out my way to attack you”

“I do” He spoke. My head cocking to the side in confusion.

“I mean I know why I always acted like that”

“And why is that?”

“Maybe it was to conceal the big fat crush I had on you since the moment I laid eyes on you”

“What?” I questioned looking him in the eyes.

“Don’t make me say it again. Look I’ve acted like such an ass especially lately. But every time I see you I just remember the first time we met. How beautiful you were. But then we interacted. And now I realize how terrible I really was. Then the way you reacted didn’t help the situation. I mean it looked like you weren’t having the best day and I made it worse. And guilt has been eating away at me ever since but I could never bring myself to apologize because of my stupid pride”

“Your pride is pretty stupid. But your face makes up for it” I spoke with a nervous smile.

“Was that a compliment?” He teased.

“So what if it was? What are you gonna do about it Shada?”

“Well for starters.....I’m gonna take you on a date. A proper date. Maybe to the beach. We could have a picnic. Make a day out of it. The I’ll drive you back to yours and Savannah’s. We’ll walk hand and had up to your door. We’ll make casual small talk about how great it was. Then I’ll say we should do this again sometime and you’ll agree of course. Then I’ll lean in at the last second and....kiss you”

He said our bodies seemingly to have gotten closer within the period he had begun talking to now.

“Why wait?” I whispered finally looking straight at him to see him already looking at me.

We gazed into each other’s eyes until our lips met in the middle. The kiss was short but sweet. We finally pulled away looking down I watched as he intertwined our fingers. Smiles plastered on both of our faces

This was it. No more backhanded comments. No more glaring at each other from across the room. No more uncomfortable tension in the air.

It was me and Jeremy.

————

Up Next: Charlie Gillespie x Reader (Smut)

Owen Patrick Joyner x Reader

Sacha Carlson x Reader

[faedawayyy]

ALL GENERATIONS OF CARMICHAELS aesthetics here. 

GRANDPARENTS.

hank carmichael (- grandfather of the family, grew up in a wealthy family in london & gained control of his family’s multimillion dollar film company by killing his older brother, who was supposed to take it over.    sylvia carmichael - the daughter of a widowed russian man. she moved to london at 16 to model and was cast in several films from hank’s studio before they met and married.  

PARENTS/AUNTS/UNCLES. 

edwin carmichael - (eldest son) a very successful real estate agent, he came out as gay when he was 14 and was bullied a lot but has refused to not be proud. theatre enthusiast and married jonah when he was 45 & adopted ruby from italy as a baby. 

james carmichael - (second eldest son) an ambitious visionary, a creative and worked with hank from the age of 15 on the film studio. it’s always been his passion but he also got greedy later in life and dabbled in a lot of crime which got out of hand.  jonathan carmichael - (youngest son - written by synn) so how I imagine Jonathan is that he is very strict with Theo, and has held him to the standard of “why can’t you be more like Anastasia and Leo?”  I always imagined he was a bit jealous James was head of the company, and really wanted to be it too. However, I feel like he’s doing what he can to keep a “my life is going exactly how I imagined it” façade, and won’t really voice his frustrations other than with Theo and his wife behind closed doors (important to note this doesn’t mean any form of physical abuse. Only verbal). I feel like he’s kinda excited that Theo is coming around to more acting because it’s closer to what he wanted for him, but he won’t admit to it ofc  hes a bit salty with Theo for not wanting to marry Margaret even though that’s what HE wanted, like with brody and Disney and Kendall and mason. elizabeth carmichael - (oldest daughter) she got married incredibly young to the man hank pushed her towards and it was toxic from the get-go. when she fell pregnant, he left her and she spent all of her twenties as a single parent raising marcus. she’s now the cool rich aunt. 

cynthia billings - (youngest child) also married the man she was pushed towards - an owner of a successful restaurant chain - and it worked out like a fairytale. they live in lilac heights. cynthia is a complete disney adult and proud, basically a big kid. 

SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

patricia carmichael - (wife of james) she never wanted to marry james in the beginning but her dad, who was the governor of new hampshire at the time, knew hank and thought it was a brilliant idea. she’s artistic, passive, quiet, idealistic and the calm to james’ bold and abrupt nature. she grew to love him and lived most of her life in his shadow. 

jonah carmichael >> edwin’s husband  agatha carmichael >> jonathan’s husband laurence billings >> cynthia’s huband 

THE GRANDCHILDREN - age order/the characters in the same block are around the same age (oldest/middles/youngest) 

theodore carmichael (?) - (jonathan’s son, played by synn)  denver billings (29) - (oldest son of cynthia) - went through college and trained to be a doctor before deciding against it & travelling the world, a backpacker, owns a camper van, homosexaul, responsible. (sam claflin)  anastasia carmichael (28) - (oldest of james, played by zoë) - driven and intelligent, business-minded and has a great eye for fashion. never wants to disappoint her parent or grandparents but has recently divorced her husband, ryden banks. (elsa hosk) iris billings (27) - (second oldest of cynthia) - worked as a fashion journalist in los angeles for the longest time & was constantly made to feel less than because of her body and size. at 26, she threw in the towel and ditched city life for the east coast. she now lives in her grandparents hamptons holiday home and is starting a fresh. (nicola coughlan)  leonardo carmichael (27) - (second oldest of james, played by katie) - leo’s the oldest son of james and often put on a pedestal because of it. he was raised to be an all-rounder and has the typical mindset of a carmichael man. however, unlike his younger brother, he often fails to meet the extra expectations on his love life and avoids settling with the girl his parents want for him. (chad michael murray)  marcus carmichael (27) - (son of elizabeth) - elizabeth’s child. despite their money, he grew up seeing the heartache and crap his dad put her through and became hardened through that. he also did a lot of underhand and shady jobs for james, landing him in jai once or twice. (bill skarsgaard)  hayley billings (26) - (third oldest of cynthia) - hayley started living with a boyfriend none of her family approved of when she was 16. he was 42. she dropped out of school and worked at his bar in london, cutting of the rest of the family when they objected. her boyfriend - shocker - turned out to be a piece of shit and majorly abusive. 10 years later, she’s escaped him and has plucked up the courage to move back home and is reconnecting with the family. (victoria pendretti)  mason carmichael (26)  - (third oldest of james) - mason’s artistic and on the more introverted side of the family. even though he’s praised in his own way, he’s always felt like he needs to be more like brody and leo. his love life is definitely in the spotlight just as much as his projects. (austin butler)  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- brody carmichael (25) - (fourth oldest of james) - the product of being raised on “masculinity”. in high school, he was a sports star, he’s always been a charmer and never learned how to lose. people would call him a mini-leo but it quickly became clear who the real favourite was when he made his relationship with disney official. despite the aggressive drinking problem, it’s been hard for any of his siblings to impress their parents quite as much. (zac efron)  marie billings (24) - (fourth oldest of cynthia) - her mothers daughter, a lover of fantasy, magic and romance and never wants to grow up. she works as a primary school teacher & adores it. yet, she struggles to actually date/branch out like most do. her expectations and daydreams of romance are more fulfilling than the real thing to her. (sophie turner/saorise ronan)  ruby rosini (23) - (edwin’s daughter, played by nadine)   miles carmichael (22) - (second youngest of james) - cynical, sarcastic and the self-proclaimed black sheep of the family. miles is massively introverted and the least enthusiastic about any family gathering. last year he found out he isn’t james’ biological son and has felt disconnected ever since. (hero finneas-tifin) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------betty billings (21) - (fifth oldest of cynthia) - betty simply hates the idea of having to work. she’s dramatic and extroverted and the family’s kim kardashian. she has star quality, for sure and a ton of charisma. she’s a shop-a-holic and people struggle to get her to do anything else. (olivia holt)  bella carmichael (19) - (youngest of james, played by nadine) - bella is the youngest child of james and has burnt out. after being thrown into ballet, sports, tutoring and every other class you can imagine from the age of 4, she’s done with teachers and being an over-achiever. bella hasn’t been herself since her dad’s “death” but is very good at hiding it to the point where everyone thinks she’s doing amazing. (anna bruevla/katherine newton/elle fanning)  hadley billings (18) (twin, youngest of cynthia) - hadley is the oldest of the billings twins by five minutes. he’s vegan and an animal lover and very interested in politics. he is an anti-carmichael man in the sense that he shows more than anger, saddness and horniness in his emotional range. very gentle and arguably the nicest cousin. (ross lynch)  freddy billings (18) (twin, youngest of cynthia) - freddy is the youngest and also the brightest of the bunch by far, to the point where an IQ test dubbed him a genius at just 7. he was put into all sorts of competitions and given all kinds of scholarships. but because teachers and adults love him so much, he’s also a little shit, the definition of a class clown. he doesn’t work hard to achieve, he just does and that’s what annoys people the most. (romeo beckham) 

[julieandthephantomsblogduh]

Wake Up - Episode One, Part Two

DISCLAIMER - I don’t any of these characters except for Liv Patterson. Also please don’t take credit for something that you didn’t write. The songs mentioned here will be linked down below. Please stay safe ya’ll. Love you guys and just be kind.

Los Angeles, 2020 - Los Feliz High School

Teenagers walk out of their classrooms heading towards their lockers and next periods. A teenage girl clearly avoiding all human beings walks amidst the crowds towards her locker opening it.

“Hey Underachiever”

The girl looks towards the friend standing beside her, smiling, “Hey disappointment, hey good-for-nothing”

“Hey you guys” Lia smirks leaning against the lockers.

“Okay,” Flynn says, “I know you don’t want me to ask you this but have you figured out whatcha gonna do today?”

“I’ll know in the moment” Julie shrugs off.

“Seriously girl?” Lia asks, “That really all you're giving us?”

“You know what Ms. Harrison said right… this is your last chance,” Flynn says

“I know” Julie replies looking at the other girls, “I was there.”

“See you at the rally,” The girls turn to find Carrie walking around handing out flyers.

“Ugh, what is she handing out?” Flynn asks.

“Umm desperation” Julie says.

“Ha”

Carrie walks up towards the trio, “Here you go” she says passing them all flyers, “My groups performing at the spirit rally tomorrow! I’m sure you guys have nothing better to do.”

“Huh, nothings way better than having to watching you Carrie.” Lia snarks

Flynn, quickly adds on, “OMG Carrie thanks.”

“Oh My God Malia, Flynn,” Carrie retorts, playing with her necklace, “Don’t bother coming!”

Carrie sashays away. Flynn crumples up the flyers, while Lia sticks her tongue out behind Carrie. Julie smiles watching Nick lean against a pole.

“Nick?” Flynn asks exasperated, “Still girl, you KNOW they’re gonna get married and have a bunch of unholy babies.”

“Yeah but Nick’s a sweetheart”

“Huh” Lia scoffs, “A sweetheart dating a demon. How ironic.”

“And you’d actually have to talk to him to know that… and remember…” Flynn says, “only one of them have to be a demon to have a demon baby… DEMON” Flynn yells towards Carrie.

“Yes girl!” Lia laughs high-fiving Flynn as the girls quickly look away from Carrie.

“Now there’s that smile,” Flynn says to Julie, “Let’s go prove everybody wrong.”

The girls leave the lockers and enter their music class, taking a seat next to each other

“Nice job Nick,” Ms Harrison tells him as he finishes up his guitar solo, “Almost as good as your game against Glendale. Okay we have one last performance, Julie?”

Julie slowly gets up from her seat and makes her way towards the grand piano.

“Yass Julie! Let’s go my Queen” Lia yells from her chair as Flynn smiles towards Julie giving her an encouraging look. Ms. Harrison spares Lia a look making her sulk down her chair smirking. Julie slowly sits down.

“Take your time” Ms. Harrison tells her.

Julie’s hands hover above the keys for a moment, and slowly stands up. Lia and Flynn share a look and stand up too, “I’m sorry…”

“Is this when we clap?” Carrie says.

Julie runs out and Liv and Flynn are right on her toes, Lia bumping into Carrie on her way out, “Watch it Carrie.”

Julie’s home - after school 

“Oh good you’re home,” Julie’s dad walks down the stairs towards Julie and Lia as they study together, “I was about to go watch your brother’s game, Hi Lia.”

“Hi Mr. Molina! How you doing?”

“I’ve had photoshoots all day. Didn’t even get a chance to eat, but I got a phone call today.”

Julie looks over at Lia across the table and back towards her dad, “Yeah I figured as much.”

“Yeah, well it was my realtor friend…”

“Oh!” Julie smiles towards Lia, and glances back at her dad, “That.”

“Yeah and she says if we’re serious about selling the house then she wants me to take some pictures, for the websites. Which means we have to do a lot of cleaning and get rid of some stuff… and maybe you can… tackle mum’s studio?”

Lia watches Julie’s face fall and catches eye contact with Mr. Molina, “You’re the expert… your brother and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. It’s okay honey if your not ready I can…”

“No,” Julie looks up at Lia then at her dad, “It’s alright. Maybe i’ll try tonight.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Molina gets up, “yeah awesome yeah, thank you and don’t forget the loft. You know those old instruments that were there when we moved in? They need a new home.” Mr. Molina gets up.

“Mum would like that.”

“Yeah she would… Oh god I’m gonna be late,” he starts reaching in his pockets trying to find his keys.

“Under the mail”

“Your a life saver”

“Bye Mr. Molina”

“Bye Lia”

Later at night, Julie and Lia walk down to the studio

“You’re sure you’re up for this, we can turn back right now,” Lia asks standing at the door with her hand on the handle.

“Yeah… I think I need to”

“Alright,” Lia slowly opens the doors, “After you ma’am.”

Julie walks over to the light switch, flipping it. She slowly makes her way towards the grand piano and sits down. Lia slowly puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry mum,” Julie starts, looking up, “That I haven’t been in here…”

After a moment of silence, Lia breaks the moment up, “C’mon Jules, lets go check the loft.”

Julie climbs to the top while Lia spots her from the bottom. “Hey look at this,” Julie makes her way back down, “It’s some sort of CD?”

“C’mon lets play it”

The girls take a seat, bopping along to the 90’s rock song.

1, 2, 3!

Take off, last stop

Countdown till we blast open the top

Face first, full charge

Electric hammer to the heart…

Woosh

“AHHHHHHHHH…”

“What the hell is,” Lia turns from looking at Jules to in front of her, “That…”

“AHHHHHHHHH”

THUD

Three boys literally fall out of the sky, like literally. Julie and Lia stand up and look at each other.

Groans and other pain-filled noises

The boys slowly start to get up, all out of breath but still looking fly. “Ohhh… woah! How did we get back here,” the cute middle one says.

Julie and Lia look at each other and back at the boys, “AHHHHHHHHHHA”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the boys all huddle together, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Lia grabs Julie’s hand as everybody continues screaming and drags her towards the house . They run into Carlos and Mr. Molina in the driveway.

“Woah wait slow down guys,” Mr. Molina grabs onto Julie, “You’ve look like you’ve seen a ghost”

“We did!”

“Cool!” Carlos chimes.

“Not cool”

“C’MON!”

Julie runs away pulling Lia behind her, dragging her up the stairs and into her bedroom shutting the door all while screaming, “AHHHHHHHHH”

“Omg girl please stop screaming,” Lia begs, as Julie texts Flynn 9-1-1 on their group chat.

“C’mon Flynn, 9-1-1 means 9-1-1!” Julie cries.

“Okay lets all just take a breath, ghosts don’t exist right, those were just three boys who like broke into the studio, yeah they broke into a studio by… popping outta nowhere, Oh my god I’m going crazy I…” Lia rambles on as Mr. Molina knows on Julie’s bedroom door, poking his head into the room, “Hey”

“Ah… dad”

“Hey just wanted to make sure you’re okay”

“And that’s my cue to leave, I’ll be downstairs” Lia says, walking out.

“You don’t believe me do you dad?”

“Honey, of course I do I see your mum all the time”

“This isn’t like that”

“I know it’s different for all of us”

“Dad… you’re not listening to me… I SAW something out there,” Julie grabs onto her dad pointing towards the shed.

“Alright, okay okay,” He takes a seat, “I’m listening.”

“Tell me what you saw, it’s just you and me here”

“You sound just like Dr. Turner”

“Well maybe seeing Dr. Turner again isn’t such a bad idea”

“DAD,” Julie takes a pause, “Can we just drop it?”

‘Alright, dropped,” he slowly gets up sticking out his finger, “We good?”

“Yeah,” Julie smiles, crossing her finger with his “We’re good.”

As soon as he leaves Julie slowly creeps towards the window as Lia rushes back into the room. Lia peers over Julie's shoulder, “We’re going back aren’t we?”

“Duh”

“Okay fine,” Lia rolls her eyes, “We clearly need to watch more horror movies, but this time,” Lia looks towards the wall, “We go in prepared.”

Back at the garage

Julie walks in first with a cross in front of her as Lia slowly makes her way beside her, looking for, well three ghosts.

“Are you still here?” Julie questions as Lia glances around, “Whatever you are…”

They look around the room and when they don’t find anything, Julie drops her hands to her sides.

“See, nothing,” Lia says walking towards the middle of the room, “we clearly just imagined that whole thing”

“No, I know I’m not crazy!”

Woosh

“Well we’re all a little crazy”

Julie and Lia turn to face each other, “Ahhhh,” Julie sticks the cross in front of them.

“OH My…” The pink sweater ghost pleads, “Please stop screaming!”

Lia slowly puts her arms around Julie pulling her back “Well who are you?”

“YEAH,” Julie continues, “And what are you doing in my mum’s studio?”

“Your mum’s studio?” The boy with the very Zac Efron haircut asks, walking around the girls as they follow him with their eyes, “This is OUR studio,” he protests as he slides across the grand piano, “Okay trust me fine, yes the grand piano is new and, and… and… MY COUCH!” The boy jumps onto the leather couch sitting against the wall. Lia slowly pulls Julie closer to her.

“But that is definitely not my six string…” he looks around and slowly backs up back to his friends, “Can you give me just one second? Just give me a second. Thank you.”

Lia and Julie slowly separate as the boys huddle in front of them.

“What is going on?” He whispers, “How did they get their stuff in here so fast?”

“Maybe… just maybe,” the boy in the leather jacket inputs, “Maybe they are witches. There’s chairs floating in the ceiling.”

“Okay there is no such thing as witches,” The dude in the pink sweater retorts while the Zac Efron doppelgänger looks around.

“You sure? Because I used to think there was no such thing as ghosts!” “Huh that’s fair”

“Okay so,” Efron says, “We’re going with witch?”

“No we are not going with witch. They are not witches. Look they’re just scared.”

Lia and Julie look at each other very, very confused. The pink sweater guy slowly walks up to them, “Why are you in out studio!”

Julie goes to punch the dude with her cross but her hand goes through the boy. “Okay c’mon,” Lia slowly pulls Julie away, “How did you do that!”

“Okay clearly they don’t understand what’s going on,” the boy murmurs, “Okay look…” he starts, “We’re ghosts… alright we’re just three ghosts and we’re really happy to be home,” Lia gives Julie a side glance, “Soo… thank you for the flowers, they really brighten up the room.”

“We’re actually in a band called Sunset Curve,” the Efron boy starts.

“Tell your friends,” Leather boy smirks.

“Last night was supposed to be a really big night for us. It was gonna change our lives.”

“Umm I’m,” The sweater boy says, “I’m pretty sure it did.”

“This is freaking me out!” Julie pulls out her phone, Lia slowly pulls Julie closer to her, and pulls Julie’s cross back in front of them.

“Umm what is that,” Efron boy asks, pointing at Julie’s phone while the boys look kinda confused, “Uh what are you doin.”

“It’s her phone,” Lia says.

“Stop talking to them Lia,” Julie interrupts, “They aren’t real. There's no such thing as cute ghosts.”

“Oh so,” the leather boy steps up, smirking, “You think we’re cute?”

“Seriously dude!” Lia exclaims.

“Soo…” Pink sweater leans over, “Who you calling.”

“I’m googling sunset swerve.”

“SUNSET CURVE!” The boys say synchronized.

Lia rolls her eyes, as she looks over Julie’s shoulder.

“Whoa there is a sunset curve,” Julie looks from Lia to the boys, “You did die… but not last night… 25 years ago?”

Lia grabs onto Julie’s shoulder tighter as the boys protest, “25 years ago? No. No. No. That’s impossible,” Leather boy starts, “After we floated out of the ambulance all we did was go to that weird dark room where Alex,” He points to sweater dude, “Cried.”

“WELLL,” Alex squeals, “I don’t think I… I think we were all pretty upset… okay”

“But that was just for like an hour,” Efron boy starts, “We just showed up here.”

“Look,” Julie shows them her phone, “I’m just telling you what my phone says. See, you died in 1995,” Julie glances back at Lia, “When you were seventeen - it’s now 2020.”

“So we’re in the future?” Leather dude asks.

“Wait so,” Alex asks, “It has been 25 years? I have been CRYING for 25 years? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!”

“Well you’re a very emotional person,” Leather boy starts.

“I am not!” Alex protests.

“Thought you were afraid to come out here?” Carlos walks in, “Talking to your ghost friend? How does he look? Is he hideous?”

“Huh he can see you,” Alex says to leather boy.

“No” Lia interrupts, “No he can’t”

“What?”

“Ahh what do you want Carlos?” Julie asks.

“A normal sister for starters, dad’s calling you for dinner. He said you could stay too if you wanted to Malia. Stop being weird and come eat.”

“He couldn’t see you…” Julie starts, glancing back at Lia.

“I mean yeah that’s… ” Alex starts, “Usually how ghosts work?”

“Look…” Julie starts, dragging Lia behind her and towards the doors, “I’m very sorry about what happened to you guys but you have to leave.”

“But wait we,” the Efron boy starts, “We didn’t get your guy’s names.”

“I’m Lia,” Lia says, “She’s Julie.”

“Cool, I’m Luke… ” Efron Boy starts, coming closer. Julie pulls out the cross again and Lia grips onto her, “by the way… and this is…”

“Reggie,” leather boy says, “Reggie. I’m Reggie, hey.”

“And Alex, how’s it going.”

“Ba dah”

“I… I need to leave, I’ll see you tomorrow Jules… I just. I have to go home,” Lia stutters as she runs out of the shed.

“Lia!” Julie says as the boys look on curiously, “Okay?”

Julie walks out leaving the boys behind.

“They seem nice,” Reggie says.

“Did you miss the part where Julie kicked us out…” Alex asks, “Yeah? Ok.”

Lia’s Perspective - After walking out

I’m so confused like what is happening. Mum and dad don’t talk about him much but it has to be him right? In a rock band. Died in 1995 - when he was seventeen. I’m so confused. It would make sense right? Being able to see my brother and his band mates. But he doesn’t know who I am. Or that I even exist! And how could Julie see them too, but Carlos couldn’t. My entire life had been hindered by someone I had never met and today I met him.

“Ugh this is so frustrating!”

Come on Malia Patterson, pull it together.

Once I get home I say hi to mum and dad and head straight upstairs. Instead of heading back into my room, I walk down the hall towards the bedroom that was always closed. A room that held many memories, many I will never know and some that I created.

Dad wasn’t home yet and I had been playing with my small guitar in my room. It wasn’t very good but I was only six. I had been writing a song and I wanted to show my mum. I wandered out of my bedroom and called out for her.

“Momma! MOMMA?”

I saw the door that was always closed open. Mommy always told me to not go in there alone. I slowly crept up towards the door and found momma sitting on the bed with tears falling down her face.

“Momma? Momma why are you sad?”

“Ohh… my sweetie, come here.”

Slowly I walked in and looked around. Walls covered with posters and a worn out acoustic guitar on the wall. Slowly I crawled onto the bed and touched my momma’s face.

“Momma why are you sad? Why are you crying?”

“Ohh I just miss your brother.”

“Momma why did he go away. Why can’t he come home?”

“Oh baby. Your brother is somewhere else. Somewhere happy. We want him to be happy right?”

“Yes momma. But I want you to be happy to!”

“Sweetheart...”

“Mommy I wrote a song, do you want to hear it? Maybe it can make you happy. And maybe Luke can listen to it and be happy too!”

My mum gently brought me onto her lap.

“Oh sweetheart, I don’t know.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Daddy!”

He came and sat with us on the bed.

“Malia was just going to play something”

“Yeah mommy, are you ready”

I jumped off her lap and started playing the song I wrote. That moment is one I don’t think I’ll ever forget. My high pitched screech going along with the untuned music from my guitar. The regret and remorse on my mother and the wet tears against my dad's eyes. I tried so hard to make them smile and I promised that one day I’ll make them happy no matter what it took - I promised to bring Luke back to them.

I chuckle to myself. I slowly open the door and walk in, closing the door behind me and flipping on the light switch. That moment was 10 years ago. After Luke’s death they had never come into this room until i was born and became curious about why this door was always closed. They never let me listen to rock music or listen to Luke’s music. Literally they’ve blocked the work rock from all my devices. Still, I would come hear and just take in the rock posters and listen to the few tapes left behind. I slowly reach for the guitar that I used to sneak into the room to play with. After I hit a certain age, mum took away my tiny guitar and would not let me play any “rock” instruments. Unfortunately for her I took after my big brother a little too much. She always used to say she couldn’t take the idea of losing another child. Sitting on the bed I quickly tune it and strum the worn out strings. Slowly I started playing that song I made all those years ago.

I’m sorry I can't be who

You’ve wanted me to be

I always tried to make you smile

But I’ll never be

Able to make you feel like he did

I’ll try my best to make you smile

And never cry again

But if you ever get sad

I promise to

Come and sing this song to you

Cause every time your tears fall

My heart breaks a bit

Cause I will never be able to

Make you smile like he did

I smile to myself, a little chuckle coming out as I gently place the guitar on the bed beside me, and lay down on my back. Is it possible that If I could see him, mum and dad could too? This whole thing is so confusing. And surreal. I met my brother. My big brother. My big brother who doesn’t even know I exist. I wonder what he’s like. Dad always said I reminded them of him so much, it hurt. I wonder how alike we really are. As my thoughts overrun my brain, I slowly close my eyes, thinking about how I could finally bring Luke back home to mum and dad and make them smile again.

The Next Morning - The Molina Household

Julie headed to the studio before Lia would pick her up to head for school. Yesterday had been a hard day for Julie but it must have been confusing as hell for Lia too. Julie wished her mum was around right now to talk to. She would have known what to do.

“Guys?” Julie asks, looking around the studio, “Guys?”

She slowly walks towards the grand piano, touching the words her mum had written. Julie lays them out in front of her and hovers her hand above the keys. Her hand slowly trembles as she starts to play.

Here's one thing I want you to know

You got some place to go

Life's a test, yes, but you go toe-to-toe

You don't give up, no, you grow

And you use your pain

'Cause it makes you you

Though I wish I could hold you through it

I know it's not the same

You got living to do

And I just want you to do it

So get up, get out relight that spark

You know the rest by heart

Wake up, wake up if it's all you do

Look down, look inside of you

It's not what you lost

It's what you'll gain raising your voice to the rain

The sunlight slowly streams through the window, almost as if Julie’s mum was hugging her

Wake up your dream and make it true

Look out, look inside of you

It's not what you lost

Relight that spark time to come out of the dark

Wake up, wake up

Mr. Molina smiles, hearing his daughter sing again for the first time in a year

Better wake those demons

Just look them in the eye

No reason not to try

Life can be a mess

I won't let it cloud my mind

I'll let my fingers fly

And I use the pain 'cause it's part of me

And I'm ready to power through it

Gonna find the strength, find the melody

'Cause you showed me how to do it

Lia makes her way towards the shed and pauses at the sound of Julie as a tear falls from her eye

Get up, get out relight that spark

You know the rest by heart

Wake up, wake up if it's all you do

Look down, look inside of you

It's not what you lost

It's what you'll gain raising your voice to the rain

Wake up your dream and make it true

Look out, look inside of you

It's not what you lost

Relight that spark time to come out of the dark

Wake up, wake up

Carlos stands outside, smiling, happy that he’s got his sister back

So, wake that spirit, spirit

I wanna hear it, hear it

No need to fear it you're not alone

You're gonna find your way, oh

Julie stands up, feeling the music and passion running through her veins as she sings her heart out

Wake up, wake up if it's all you do

Look down, look inside of you

It's not what you lost

It's what you'll gain raising your voice to the rain

Luke, Alex and Reggie whoosh in behind Julie and look on with admiration, empathy and betrayal

Wake up your dream and make it true

Look out, look inside of you

When you feel lost

Relight that spark time to come out of the dark

Wake up, mm, wake up

Julie slowly sits down, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding onto. She reaches for the sheet music to see her mum had written, ‘Julie you can do it, Love Mum” She holds onto it as tears fall from her face as she looks up to the sky. The boys whoosh outside just as Lia comes in. She see’s Julie, takes a seat beside her and just holds onto her.

*this GIF is not mine cause I literally do not know how to make GIFS... it is however made by @juliecurve​ so thank you for that

Now or Never. Performed by Sunset Curve

Wake Up. Performed by Maddison Reyes

*the other song is just made up of lyrics I actually wrote when I was eight like I legit found it in my notebook so I apologize I might change it in the future but for now these lyrics are important to our character Liv and they MIGHT give an insight to who she is as a human being

ALSO lemme know if you want me to write all the parts in the show (like scenes that don’t involve Lia - like would you have liked me to write Julie talking to the boys about her mum even though Lia wasn’t there - you can just message me about this or write it down below if you wanna see me do that) 

Again love y’all. Stay safe, be kind. Oh and tell your friends 😉 

[bowl-of-shortness]

Vacuo Trip!

“Arriving in Bishop Vacuo. Remember to grab all your things as Atlesian Airlines is not responsible for any lost items on the plane, thank you for flying with us!” The speaker rang out, waking Mellow up from their not-so-comfortable nap. “Ugggghhhhh” Who knew that flying from Atlas all the way to Vacuo was going to be so miserable. “What an easy, 13 hour flight over” Mellow groaned, irritated. “I thought you’d be happy to be here, it’s your home country and you two have talked so highly of it.” They turned around to see Jade looking at them, confused. Behind her was Ochre and Birdie unpacking team BOMZ’s stuff, Ochre looked over, “Mellow’s just tired and hungry, once they get some food they should be back to normal.”.

As the team walked out of the very nicely air-conditioned plane, the heat hit. “When you said it was hot I didn’t realize you meant like this.” Birdie complained. “Ah come on it’s not that bad! Keep in mind you’re still wearing your Atlas clothes so once you change it’ll be all better!” Ochre laughed.

Once they got off the plane, BOMZ set off into the city to go to the place they’d be staying. Birdie suddenly looked around where they were before saying “Hey wait where are we staying?” Jade looked at Birdie with a concerned expression, “I thought you booked a hotel?” “Nope. I thought you did.” There was silence for a moment. “Do we not have a place to stay?” The two started panic before Mellow spoke up, “Relax, We’re gonna be staying with some of our family. There’s plenty of rooms for everyone.” Jade gave a suspicious look, “And this person is?” “Our dad!” Ochre popped up excitedly.

Birdie and Jade exchanged confused looks, sure the twins had spoken about their dad before but not enough for them to get a good idea of who this guy was. Soon the 4 arrived at a small shop with a house on top. Mellow excitedly ran up to the door and knocked. When the door opened a man stood in its doorway. He smiled at the twins before looking at Birdie and Jade almost accusingly. The twins quickly spoke in Vacuan to the man and he seemed relieved when they were done talking and invited BOMZ in. “Sorry to scare you,” the man says as he walks behind the counter of the register area. “I didn’t know who you two were when I had seen you, those two,” he points to Mellow and Ochre “Explained that you both on their team. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you two, my name is Steel.” He smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you too.” Jade smiled and shook hands with him as Birdie did the same. “I’m Jade and this is Birdie.”. “Wait where did—.“ Birdie looked around the shop not seeing Ochre or Mellow anyone, Steel laughed “Ah they have a tendency to do that when they’re here! They’re probably up in their rooms. Which are up those stairs, we have a few extra rooms so feel free to make yourselves comfortable.” He pointed to the stairs on the opposite side of the shop. “Thank you for letting us stay here.” Jade said relieved, “Hey both of them said that you two have been real nice to them so I’m perfectly fine with you two staying here if that’s true.” Steel said.

They walked upstairs and found Mellow practically crying out of happiness while eating a granola bar, Ochre soon walked over to the two. “What did I tell you? They just needed some food.” They all snickered at the comment. “Well I’m SORRY that my body just decides to make me absolutely miserable when I’m hungry.” Mellow spoke into the bed as BOZ laughed. “Here I can show you guys the separate rooms.” Ochre led them down the hallway to two nice looking rooms, “These are the guest rooms, you don’t need to worry about doing any cleaning, Dad gets a little paranoid if these rooms aren’t kept clean so he cleans them consistently.” Ochre laughed rubbing the back of their head. “I like it! It’s really nice. Everything here is really nice. Especially your dad.” Jade smiled while unpacking. Ochre looked down for a moment “Yeah he is, I’m really glad he was the one who took us in and not someone else. We got really lucky.”.

——————————————————————————

“Get up fellas we’re going to dinner!” Mellow yelled, scaring everyone awake from their naps. “Jeez, c’mon can’t I sleep a bit longer?” Ochre whined “Nope because if I let you sleep you won’t eat dinner.” Mellow said rolling their eyes as Ochre glared, half of their face still in the pillow.

After everyone had gotten changed BOMZ left to go get something to eat. The 4 walked around for a bit, Mellow and Ochre pointing out places they had been and telling stories about those places.

“So Ochre where should we go for dinner? There are a ton of good places around the shopping district but I’m not sure which one we should go to.” Mellow asked excitedly. Ochre thought for a moment and then whispered to Mellow, Mellow nodded “C’mon! You two have gotta be quicker than that!”, Mellow then started running down the sidewalk. “Mellow wait!” Jade yelled as BOZ ran after Mellow until they got to a brick building with neon letters. “The Dune Diner?” Birdie questioned, “THIS is where we’re having dinner and it’s really good so don’t worry!” Ochre gave them a thumbs up.

The minute the twins got inside their faces lit up, “This place has always been one of those places in Vacuo that never changes” Ochre smiled. The team sits down in a booth and they start talking, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two so excited to be in a restaurant” Birdie laughed, “Well what can we say? This place has a lot of awesome memories.” Ochre snickered. Jade raised an eyebrow, “Oh? Is that a story I hear coming up? What makes this place so special?” Jade looked around as she spoke. “Well then let me tell you a story about our first day with Steel.” Ochre began.

“In order to tell that story, let me tell you how we met him in the first place. Originally Steel didn’t, well, ‘legally’, adopt us. Mellow and I stayed in a shady orphanage in a shady part of town so Steel, who was still a hunter at that point, was there on a mission to bust some dust smugglers. He ended up going into the orphanage to interrogate the people who owned it in case they were involved and saw Mellow and I all beat up. He asked if he could take us but when the orphanage owners looked at his information, they said no.”

“What why?! He seemed like awesome guy!” Jade said confused.

Mellow sighed, “For a really dumb reason. Because it was a shady town, nobody trusted hunters of any kind. When they saw he was a hunter, they said no.”

Birdie scoffed, “That’s BS, if they knew he was a good person and could take care of you two they should’ve let him take you guys.”, “So what did he do instead?” Jade inquired.

“Well he kinda took us at night, during that day he managed to gain our trust and we really liked him. Mellow and I would’ve done ANYTHING to get out of that orphanage and so we went with him. He got in trouble with his boss but when he explained why he did that he was miraculously let off without punishment! He was then given the papers to adopt us and the rest is history!” Ochre smiled excitedly.

The others smiled as well. “But I haven’t told you guys the story of Mellow and I’s first day with him.”

“Do tell, I’m interested to hear what mischief you two got up to that day” Jade said sarcastically, “HEY!” Mellow looked at Jade, acting fake hurt as they scoffed.

“ANYWAYS. The first day was actually on the day of the Desert Festival. So there was a lot going on and a lot to do! He first took us shopping to get some better clothes, we found a ton of fun clothes to wear that day. Afterwards we went to a restaurant which was this one! We had gotten a lot of food and had eaten a good portion of it since we hadn’t eaten well in a while, we did take a lot of it home afterwards though. Later we went out to the festival grounds and played a ton of games with Steel, looking back now Steel probably let us win a lot of those but hey! It was still fun. Once we got home Mellow and I were in awe at the place we would be staying at and immediately started running around and playing with each other. We did that for a while before Steel called us over and led us to the rooftop of the building.” Ochre expressed, reminiscing.

Ochre sighed, “Mellow and I to this day say it was the coolest thing ever.”

“It was! We had never seen them before!” Mellow exclaimed.

“So what was it? That you saw?” Birdie questioned curiously, “Fireworks. At first we were spooked because of how loud they were! We clutched onto Steel immediately because we didn’t know what the noise was until he told us to turn around. When we did we saw these gorgeous colors that were appearing in the sky at random and we ran to the ledge of the railing to look. I’ll never forget how cool that was.”

Jade looked amazed, “Wow I can’t imagine how that must’ve felt, seeing something like that for the first time.”. Ochre laughed before leaning back in the booth, “Yeah Vacuo is pretty great” Mellow looked over.

“Yeah but Vale is too. We’ve got a ton of great memories in Vale as well.” Mellow smiled widely, “I think we’ve all got some good memories in Vale.” Birdie added.

“Yeah maybe for YOU ALL, I had to stop Mellow from jumping off the Beacon tower once!”, “YOU SAID YOU WEREN’T GONNA HOLD THAT AGAINST ME!” Mellow yelled being over dramatic. BOZ laughed.

The night ended in a lot of jokes, stories, laughs, and a whole lot of team fun.

——————————————————————————

This was a ton of fun! I hope I got everyone’s characters on point. If I didn’t I’m sorry 😞

Anyways characters belong to:

Bird: @immortal-green-snom

Ochre: @otterdoesart

Mellow: Me!

Jade: @zacs-of-rwby

[xaidyl]

You could explain individual stuff! I find these explanations very fascinating, actually! OwO

okay! lets do this (this may be a very long post with lots of my random opinions but we’ll go with it) (and also please bear in mind these are jokey and in no real way a representation of these real people with real actual lives.)

***spoilers for most D20 seasons with this cast***

1.The babysitting 

Actual parent:Brennan 

From my experience DMing, you are effectively a parent to the players. He would also be an excellent dad

Wine aunt: Siobhan

Siobhan gives me vibes of someone who would take a bottle of wine to go babysit, then sit and tell the kids stuff about cults that they weren’t meant to hear. She would definitely teach the kids swear words, and they would love their cool auntie 

Great at babysitting: Lou

Part of the key to babysitting is being relatable to the kids, but also self assured enough to get them to behave. the person who holds that key is Lou Wilson. He also has played dad-energy characters, and that is the kind of vibes that you look for in a babysitter. 

Mediocre at babysitting: Murph

This scenario needs some theatre of the mind. Imagine Murph, he’s read all the babysitting books, he knows everything he could need to know, he lives with Emily Axeford. He’s more than prepared for this task. He tries so hard. The kids love him. The kids also walk all over him. They don’t get to bed in time. He wanted to do a good job. He tried so hard to do a good job. Yet somehow, luck is against him. 

The house is on fire, God is dead: Emily

Fig. Sofia. Jet. All three of these characters would set a house on fire without hesitation, and not one fears God. What does this have to do with Emily’s babysitting ability? Well, all these characters are teaching us to be chaotic beings, just like Emily. We are the children, and D20 is our babysitter. Emily would only replicate the same thing in this babysitting scenario. 

The children: Zac and Ally

I believe it was episode 9 of the unsleeping city. Neither Zac nor Ally were involved in the scene in question. Siobhan makes a reference to Eliza Doolittle, to which Zac makes a Dr Doolittle joke. Beardsley then shouts ‘I can see my dick’, a reference to a different film. This is fairly normal behaviour, and would not make either of them children in this scenario, had they not continued to hysterically laugh for the next ten minutes or so. Sat at opposite sides of the table. I think Zac starts crying at some point. They are absolute children, and also both have strong baby energy. Neither babysit, they are the ones that need babysitting. 

2. Can they be killed?

Cannot be killed: Brennan

The man is a God. Enough said. Also I’m pretty sure your body would reject your soul before it allows you to kill him. 

Can only be killed by one thing: Siobhan

You would be tricked into thinking Siobhan would be easy to kill- her constitution score is so low, after all. However, you would be wrong. The low constitution score has only made her stronger. More aware. What is the one thing that can kill her, though? Nobody knows, she’s only told those she truly trusts. It could be the most rare poison in the world. Or it could just be Mike Trapp. He (allegedly) has previous.

Can be killed but it won’t last: Emily

It is not anything to do with Emily that her death won’t last. In fact, Emily would be pretty easy to kill. However, if you kill her, Murph will do everything in his power to bring her back. He travels to the end of the earth, and then Emily Axeford is back and gets her new death date in a fancy gothic necklace.

Can be killed but at what cost?: Lou

What cost? The cost to the world. The world would be significantly worse off. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. It’s not worth it.

Can be killed but it’s not worth it: Murph

It’s not worth killing Murph because you would have precisely 0.7 seconds before you were killed by Emily. There is no way you can profit from this scenario, you would be dead before you even realise you’ve been successful. 

Can be killed and it would be pretty funny: Zac

I feel like we don’t discus the correlation between Zac Oyama characters and dying enough. Gorgug was the first D20 death. Lapain was the first D20 perma death. Ricky just like had a weapon that causes him to die. If you killed Zac, it would just be funny because its happened so much. Sorry Zac.

Can be killed but why would you, you monster?!?!: Ally

We’ve already discussed this. Beardsley is Baby. Leave them alone. 

Please kill them they suck: Box of Doom

I dont trust them

3. The fitness gram pacer test

this is definitely the most controversial of the charts, but there’s three of things you need to understand about my reasoning.

1. Zac is fast at running  

This has been seen a couple of times, namely: adventuring party, where Zac tried to tease Brennan about showing off how fast he his at running, but it turns out it was just Zac speaking his mind, and he is the one who always shows off at how fast he is at running. Also, the video on Siobhan’s instagram of Zac jumping over that table. 

He is also very bad a squats. Why would you be bad at squats? Bad knees. Why would you get bad knees? Running without sufficient warm up. Why would you skip warm up? Because you are very focussed on being able to run fast. 

2. Zac is willing to defend his title of running fast

The way he accused Brennan on adventuring party, he knew what he was doing. Sabotage. Brennan may also be able to run fast, but Zac would prevent him from getting a good score. How? He has his ways. Zac is a good boy, but not when it comes to running fast.

3. I felt bad

I had to give Zac at least one good one :)

Anyways onto the other choices:

Actually tried and got a low score: Brennan, Murph, Siobhan

We’ve already spoken about how Zac sabotaged Brennan to be the best at running. Murph is here because he would try really hard but something unlucky would happen. His shoelaces come untied. He accidentally gets caught in the Zac/Brennan feud. 

Siobhan started off with the intention to try, but after Lou, Emily and Ally had all done, she realised they were in fact much more interesting than the fighting going on. She walks out mid lap 

Didn’t try, got a low score, doesn’t give a shit: Lou and Emily

Its important to understand that both Lou and Emily are capable of getting a high score, they are just better than the whole thing. Why is their DnD group doing a pacer test? Why did Zac suspiciously force them to do this whole thing? 

The difference between them is Lou knows the feud is stupid and has like actual work to do? He sits and auditions for some other big film. He still watches over his laptop. 

Emily however, simply wants to watch the world burn.

Despite their different approaches to the situation, they both have a bet going on who’s going to be the fastest runner.

Ran one singular lap and finished: Ally

Ally Beardsley shows up at the track wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt that is impracticable to run in. They have a llama with them. At no point do they explain this. They walk round the track once, drink their water from a plant pot, then spend the rest of the time cheering on the others with words that don’t quite make sense. 

4. Storming Area 51

They cant stop us all: Zac and Brennan

Neither mean it maliciously, but both believe entirely in what they are saying. 

Brennan is definitely the guy to go mad over a conspiracy theory. He made all the crown of candy NPCs. He is basically betraying himself. He knows not to trust anyone. He doesn’t trust area 51. The next season of dimension 20 is this as a subliminal messages all the way through. 

Zac says it accidentally. He’s making a character for the charity livestream. He’s still got a hundred hours of character making left. He’s done so many bad squats. Unintentionally, he makes a character that forces all the zesbians to storm area 51. 

Have fun getting shot, dumbasses: Lou

The rest of the cast are being weird again. Lou is equally as capable of being weird, but sometimes they need to chill. It starts with Emily talking about diner ice. It finishes with Brennan wearing a foil hat at all times. 

You guys stop, someones actually gonna do it: Murph

Murph is a good, lawful boy.

Actually shows up: Emily and Siobhan

They ride a motorcycle there together. They wouldn’t have gone alone, but as a duo they are an unstoppable pair. Emily wants to break into a government facility. Siobhan desperately want to be in the real life x-files.

One of the Aliens: Ally

Emily and Siobhan open a door at area 51. Behind it is Ally Beardsley. They are wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt. They have a llama standing behind them. This is not explained at any point. They drink from a flower pot and eat a quesadilla that appears out of nowhere. 

5. Stabbing 

Would never stab anyone: Murph

Murph is a good, lawful boy

Would stab in retaliation: Lou, Murph, Zac

Lets be honest, the entirety of a crown of candy so far has been these three taking stabs (or metaphorical ‘where is your bulb now’ stabs) as retaliation for a stab another one of these three had done.

Yells “I won’t hesitate bitch” first: Ally and Siobhan

I can’t really explain this one much more other than i’m pretty sure both these people have said this phrase at least once in their life.

Would stab as a warning: Emily

This would be promptly followed by Murph getting her to stop stabbing. Or, depending on the situation, encouraging her to keep stabbing.

6. The water fountain

Fills up a bottle and drinks from it: Lou and Siobhan

This is the normal way to drink from the water fountain. They were also both very concerned at watching Beardsley’s various different drinking apparatuses in adventuring party. 

Bought 4 water bottles so this wouldn’t happen: Murph

He is prepared. Something probably still goes wrong, but at least he’s got three water bottles left. 

Drinks straight from the tap: Brennan

Brennan is a busy guy. The tap is there, it’s convenient, he needs to get back to planning. There’s so many campaigns, so many characters, so many voices. 

Dehydrates: Zac

Honestly I’m not sure if this man would drink water if nobody told him so

Drinks from a puddle: Ally

like they drink from a vase with a flower, a puddle really isn’t that much of a stretch.

Licks the tap: Emily

She just wants to see the world burn. Also, she knows Brennan drinks straight from the tap. She has to get payback somehow. 

7. A child starts crying

Makes the child laugh: Lou

We’ve already discussed how Lou has dad energy. I feel like he’s know exactly what to say and how to act to get the child to stop crying. This is less stupid than the rest of my explanations, but I always love how expressive Lou is when he plays dnd. I’m not sure whether its the way he holds himself or the way he gestures, but I’m pretty sure if I was a crying child, I would stop crying if Lou Wilson told me a joke in that very soothing point.

Tries to play with the child: Siobhan and Ally

These two kinda give me older/younger sibling vibes. As a team I recon they could create a game that would calm this child down. Also Ally knows techniques to help adults calm down, they could probably implement these ideas into a game for children.

Gives detailed instructions: Murph

His knowledge comes from the books he has read to learn how to babysit, and the one time he babysat. His explanation is rather frantic however, mostly because he is trying to defend Emily in his answer.

Cries with the child: Zac

He’s sad because all his friends are speaking to this child an nobody noticed how fast he just ran.

He’s also baby, as we’ve said previously, so he probably relates to the child somewhat

The reason the child is crying: Emily and Brennan

The child just watched episode 9 of a crown of candy. 

[jq37]

so...... thoughts on the first ep?

**spoilers for start spreading the news**

What is UP you guys? The new season of Dimension 20 is out and your girl is back (implies I left, which is false) with only the hottest of takes.

Usually I vomit up my opinions with little rhyme or reason and, don't worry, I'm not changing that format any time soon. But, because of the structure of the episode, I think it'll be easier to use headings and go through each character/element of this. So let's do this y'all!

The Setting

I think the best thing you can do as a writer or a creative person in general is the make something that only you could make, you know? Like, make the thing that only someone with your specific life experiences and weird brain could have come up with. And I really think that this is that for Brennan. I already talked about this in other posts, but the version of NYC that Brennan created for this game is that to me. Like, magical NY has been done, but the specific details? Who else could have written, "The annual SantaCon is actually Santa dumping all of his defective clones into NYC where the magic barrier that keeps normals from seeing magic will disguise them and the protectors of the city will be able to deal with them"? That's so specific and so wild and so New York and so Brennan.

And I haven't lived in NY for so long but I've had one winter here and the way he describes what it's like to walk down the street during winter in the city is so real. Like smelling garbage then laundry detergent then sugared nuts from those corner stands and you're freezing and then baking in the subway in your coat. That was so so real. (I will be saying this phrase a lot so get used to it now)

And I like that he didn't make the obvious choices, you know? Like we've had three, like, magical figureheads across D20 and those are usually classic old, white, possibly British roles, you know? Like a Gandalf or a Dumbledore. But he had Aguefort in FH and now Esther and Alejandro in TUS. I just think it's cool that we're getting some different archetypes to fill these roles instead of the same dude c.p'd in again, you know?

Also, the fantasy NYC map is so dope. I wanna go back and try to read everything on it when I have the chance. 

Pete

Ally is a DRUG DEALER. I thought Pete was gonna be a stripper but he's a DRUG DEALER. Honestly, I could have figured this out sooner if I'd just checked Urban Dictionary like I did just now and found out that "plug" means "someone who is a resource for obtaining something valuable that would otherwise be difficult to obtain" or, more simply, "drug dealer". But I'm glad I didn't because it was much more fun to find out in real time.

Ally makes some character choices sometimes that are too specific to not be rooted in life experience and that whole microwave cheese monologue was one of them.

Pete's official diagnosis is that he has "a lot going on."

Ally almost won MVP line of the episode with, "Shot my tits off." Murph losing it in the background killed me almost more than the actual line.

I really, really want Pete's doctor to be a recurring character because he is wild in how wild he isn't. He has so much wild stuff happening around him and he is in a wild line of work but he seems like a relatively stable guy. I love him. Also, the completely wrong cadence he used to say, "lgbt ally" was gold.

Is Ally ever gonna have a character with a good relationship with their parents? One time? Ever?

I literally don't even know how to begin to address the wild magic trip Pete went on. Like, I don't think Ally knew what they were doing when they decided to be a wild magic sorcerer. I don't think they knew what kind of challenge they were issuing to Brennan. And after seeing the wild nonsense Brennan consistently came up with for Jer'ih'meh in Bloodkeep, I can't want to see the insanity he spits out for Pete.

"You're the one who they they wanted to play a wild magic sorcerer."

Also, Brennan just using lyrics from "New York, New York" for whatever dream demon or whatever was going on in that trip was, like, equal parts clever and hilarious. Sidenote, do you think all the ep titles are gonna be from songs about NY? I mean, there are enough songs I bet.

Pete has this thing where he constantly lands on the exact wrong part of the situation to focus on. Like later when he gets stuffed in the magic closet at the hospital and he's like, "Hospitals are so advanced, also go much is this gonna cost?" Ally's comic timing on that is always perfect.

WILD that that was the first intro. Like, way to kick off the new season with a bang.  I really wonder what this episode would have felt like if this was the last intro or if the intro for the two normal people hadn’t been right at the top. Actually now that I’m editing, I feel like we almost got the intros from least experienced w/ this stuff to most experienced. Because Pete is a total noob. Sophia is also a noob but she has met Kugrash at least once. Then you have Ricky who’s only been in this for about a year. Then Kingston who probably has more experience than Kug by years but Kug has been a rat man his whole life (presumably). Finally Misty who is probably like a BS amount of years old and steeped in this stuff. Honestly,  if I was DM’ing, I might have fudged the die rolls to look exactly like how it turned out. 

Sophia

Emily describing her character and slipping into her character voice gradually as she went on was so pro.

"Like if Fran Dresher went on an Amy Winehouse bender." I love her.

"Did you not want baby bangs?"

"She's a WHOO-OAR."

I'm gonna die if Brennan make than woman an actual succubus because of an offhanded comment.

My favorite thing is when Emily is saying some nonsense and she can barely even get through it without breaking. Also, Murph is so visibly amused by Emily's entire intro. It's great.

I love that both of the "normal" characters spent most of this episode intoxicated in one way or another.

So Emily absolutely won the episode in my eyes for coming up with one of the sickest burns I've heard and in real time. A dude tells her to read his dick and she, after only a momentary pause, says, "No I'm not gonna read your dick (beat) because I don't read short stories!" Brennan doesn't even make her roll. He just narrates her success. The table goes wild. The bar she's at goes wild. Zac specifically is cracking up. Like, I feel like this is gonna be a little bit of a deep cut reference but did any of you ever play the Monkey Island games and do the insult swordfighting? That's what that scene was. Amazing.

Murph's, like, entire posture and expression (@ 1:24ish) when Emily is saying Sophia thinks she saw a giant rat man who gave her an egg sandwich and Gatorade is total gold.

"Gotta kill some brain cells to kill the ones with the memory of Dale in them."

OK so funny story (funny to me at least) at the Fantasy High live show, I was talking to some other girls who were there and we ended up talking about how the small of a woman's back is basically the worst place you can casually touch them outside of the really bad places and how viscerally terrible it is so when Brennan said one of the trolls touched one of the girls there and Sophie/Emily was like BIG NOPE, I had a That's So Raven flashback to that conversation immediately.

Emily leaps into action...and rolls a nat 1 to fight a bunch of trolls. She actually does really well in the rest of the fight though so that's good.  

Oh, also Siobhan made everyone dope themed dice boxes!

Ricky

I hope Dimension 20 runs for the next 10 years and I hope Zac plays a good, big, doofus in every single season.

"He's basically like Superman if Superman were Japanese." Love.

Also, I love the distinction that he's 5' 8" but buff.

Ricky surrounded by a raging fire: First of all, that's a cool bear.

I like the way that Brennan skinned the cleric and paladin powers for this game so they're more about values than deities. I was wondering how it was gonna work in this setting and I think this was such a cool way to handle it.  

I really think Brennan has a great handle of presenting certain things in such a way that it's interesting for the players as well as the audience. Like, when Ricky is trying to escape the burning apartment, he puts an obstacle in his way that forces him to use his Paladin powers (to create water specifically). It's not really a hard "puzzle" or something he has to roll for, but it introduces to the audiences that he's not just a firefighter. I just think it's really cool that he's able to pull off narrative things like that without actually controlling the characters. (And, props to the players too, of course, for being so consistently entertaining).

"Mr. March."

Ricky in the middle of the winter: I'm not as tan as I used to be.

Ricky rooftop runs like a freaking superhero.

OK, this is barely related to what I'm talking about right now but it's important to me that you all know this. I commented in an earlier post that Ricky clearly had circus music playing in his head at all times and then I was like, "Hmm, I wonder what that one circus song is called." You know, the song that you think about immediately when you hear the phrase "circus music" so I looked it up and APPARENTLY it is a CZECH MILITARY MARCH known alternately as (brace yourselves) ENTRY OF THE GLADIATORS and THUNDER AND BLAZES. I kid you not. That's actually what that song is called. I called my brother and told him immediately. OK, back on topic.

Is a questing blade a thing? I feel like it's a Thing from legend or fairy tales or something but, when I Google it, I come up with basically nothing.

Does Ricky have a thing for Esther or is he just a super awkward texter and nice guy who does not want to be set up by his sister for a different reason?

I need Brennan to explain how the Santa Question works in this world. The question being, "Why don't parents freak about the gifts they're not buying?" and, side question, "Why don't poor kids get presents?" My go-to answers are always, "He Jedi Mind Tricks into thinking they bought them," and, "He has to work within each family's socio-economic means in order to not be obvious." So there are def plausible answers. But, like, this is something I like to see addressed when we're doing the "Santa is real," thing.  

"I grew up with twins and one of them was worse than the others so that makes sense."

"Is Santa good?"/"The ethics of it are alarming, I won't lie."

So, my paranoid thought for this episode is I'm a little Concerned that someone down the line (maybe Esther, but hopefully not) is going to take advantage of Ricky's Big Dumb energy and his "It's the right thing to do," mentality and manipulate him into doing something Not Great. Like, it's not based on anything besides mainlining a ton of media over the past 24 years but I'm just gonna keep an eye out.

Re the Santa/Peppermint Zombification: Hey Brennan, turn your location on. I just wanna talk.

I have to say, from the bottom of my heart, what the hell?

That creeped me out in the same way that episode of Adventure time where Princess Bubblegum (infused with the primal elemental candy energy or whatever) turned everyone into Candy people and everyone started singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart. What a weirdly specific body horror thing for me to encounter more than once. That one peppermint tooth thing is gonna haunt me. 

Kingston

I gotta say, props to Lou for pulling a complete 180 on the kind of character he picked this time around. He went from playing this super extra rich pretty boy to this salt of the Earth quasi patriarch and he's just as comfortable with it. Kingston is so real. I went to church with like 50 guys like him back home.

Why are you fighting so hard about free food Kingston? Take the free homecooked food Kingston!

The intensity of his, "I will be here until I die," was hysterical.

Mentioned this before but I love the flavoring of the cleric class where instead of being attuned to a deity Kingston is basically attuned to the entire city. Also, the perks are excellent. Bus service anywhere for free. Sign me up.

I like that Ricky's sister works at the hospital. It's a really cool potential connection for later.

"We're gonna take the thing outchyo butt. We're not gonna deny you medical services."

"Aint nothing wrong with being a freak." --Kingston Brown

Fantasy creatures having to deal with updated tech (like the Toll bridge trolls talking about EZ-passes) is one of my fave urban fantasy tropes.

"I've got a really sweet smelling man here!"

"Yeah, my tooth fell out and now it's a candy. Hey, how much is this gonna cost?" This is what I’m talking about. Priorities my dude.

I love that Kingston knows Pete's weird mob doctor. It seems like part of his deal is that he just knows everything about everyone in the city (within whatever parameters).

Pete says, in quick succession about Ricky, "I feel like he would bully me," and, "He seems like a golden retriever," which I feel are almost mutually exclusive statements.

Kugrash

Well, I asked what kind of druid nonsense was happening in Central Park and the answer is Murph apparently.

I really wish I could have been there when Murph announced he wanted to play a literal rat.

"I am the shit that feeds the flies. A dumpster druid."

"Wherever you are rat Jesus, I love you." You're killing me Brennan.

Aww Kugrash goes around feeding the homeless and stuff. He's like this grumpy ass rat man who really cares about the community.

"Santa you fucking bum." --Kugrash

"I'm sorry are you a rat?"

The idea of a roach with a hobo sack pisses me off because it's adorable but roaches are the worst.

"Is Santa dead?"/"I don't know. I'm not religious."

"Santa Claus is real and he's DEAD."

Brennan loves to use the modifiers "full" and "fully" and I have picked it up irl and in my writing.

"Let's get a little fucked up and go see if Santa's dead!"

Just that whole squirrel interaction.

The sixth borough huh? Interesting. I see you Brennan.

Also, the detail that Kug's clothes are made from old MTA vests is great.

Misty

Siobahn is playing basically exactly the character I thought she'd be playing but she's doing it so much better and more extra than I could have imagined.

"A lady would never say her age, so I won't."

Is her pianist magic or something too? I have my suspicions.

So Misty gets some kind of bard and/or fairy high from praise and adoration which is interesting.

What kind of weird, morally dubious and/or unpleasant fae thing is Misty gonna have to do soonish? It's not gonna be good. Fae stuff never is.

DON CONFETTI

"I don't study magic. I just *am* magic."

So many of these intro vignettes end with, "You don't know that...but you do know who does." Like I said before, I really love the weaving together of all the story threads to get everyone in the same place at the same time in an organic feeling way.

Also he makes all these transitions sound cinematic, like he's writing the description parts of a movie script and not narrating in person.

Public Library! I knew we'd end up here eventually but I didn't know it'd be pretty much immediately. Like, if you're going w/ the "NY is magic" premise, the library has to figure in, you know?

Emily immediately having Sophia recognize Ricky as Mr. March was such a funny and on point character decision. I love how one-off, spur of the moment lines end up being running jokes because other players pick on them and drop them an hour later.

"Are you a rat?"/"Yeah, I'm a rat man!"/"I'm sorry if that was rude."

Brennan: The lions are alive and they're boyfriends.

Misty and Siobhan both are genre savvy enough to want to nip a knights/knave door puzzle situation in the bud.

Ricky on escape rooms: I'm not very good at them but I can definitely try my hardest. (Guys, I love him so much.)

Love me some MC Escher steps.

Underrated Misty line: It's all infernal to me.

Misty's little, "Ugh" at learning they have to go to Times Square is the real NY experience.

Is this Alejandro dude gonna die? What's the over under on this dude eating it very soon?

Misty encouraging Pete to shoot Alejandro is so needlessly chaotic which is a common fae trait and I really hope this escalates.

I dunno what Murph rolled for initiative but he looks like he just shamed his entire family line.

And we’re fighting an army of crazed Santa clones next week! We have literally just started and we are already fully off the rails.  I cannot *wait* to see where we go from here if this is the *starting point*. 

[waywardnerd67]

Fangirl Dreams: Night Out

Summary: After being apart from Jensen and Zac for several weeks, they are all back home for just the night and (Y/N) wants to spend it with them both. Their night out ends up threaten the perfect little world they had carefully protected for the last six years. Characters: Jensen Ackles, Zac Levi, Reader Pairing: Jensen x Reader x Zac Warnings: Fluff/Smut Word Count: 3445 A/N: As always this is unbeta so all mistakes are mine. Likes, comments and reblogs are splendid and I will love you doubly for them! Enjoy!

Check out: Fangirl Dreams Masterlist

(Y/N) stepped off the plane seeing Clif waiting for her, “Did you have a good flight?” he asked.

She nodded, “Yeah just long. Where is Jensen or Zac?”

“Jensen is at home already and Zac’s flight is delayed. Up to you if you want to wait for him or not. Jensen was going to order food for dinner.” He explained grabbing her suitcase from the turn aisle.

(Y/N) nodded, “I want to wait.”

Clif chuckled, “I figured you would. Come on, we can go wait in the car and I will come back in for him.”

She followed him out to the car stretching her legs out in the backseat. The last six weeks had been a whirlwind for the three of them. Once Jensen and Jared announced the ending of the show, (Y/N) made the decision that her character also needed to come to an end which played well into what the writers were building up in the series finale. Shooting her last few scenes with the guys were emotional and then she immediately had to leave for the second half of her book tour overseas.

It had been four weeks since any of them had seen one another in person. She felt as if she were missing two of her limbs without Jensen and Zac. Thankfully, they had two whole weeks together for Christmas before Zac would have to go back to Los Angeles for the big premiere of Shazam. Jensen and her would have a few weeks after that until he had to go back to Vancouver leaving (Y/N) alone in Austin.

She felt the cool air filling the car as she peeked open her eyes smiling widely seeing Zac climbing into the backseat. She sat up instantly wrapping her arms around his waist before he could even shut the door. His strong arms wrapped around her as she relaxed for the first time in weeks.

“I missed you.” He whispered against the top of her head.

“Me too handsome.” She squeezed him a little tighter not being able to be close enough to him.

Arriving home, Jensen was impatiently waiting outside pacing along the driveway of their house. When he saw the two of them get out of the car he pulled them both into a hug. The weeks apart were particularly tough on Jensen who was not used to being alone for so long. Clif helped bring in all their bags then left for the night.

They all sat around the living silently eating Chinese food and absentmindedly watching the movie on the TV. Seemingly they were all lost in their own minds as they adjusted to be around one another again. (Y/N) sat up turning off the TV to catch their attention which it did.

“I want to go out tomorrow night.” She announced as Jensen and Zac both looked at her.

“Um, okay. Who do you want to go out with?” Jensen asked placing his food on the table in front of them.

(Y/N) squared her shoulders getting ready for the push back she was about to get, “Both of you. I want to go out on a date with both of you.”

Hazel and olive eyes stared at her widely before Zac spoke up, “Gorgeous as much as I would love that we can’t. If we do then I have to be the third wheel, the friend.”

They had all gone out before in public, but Zac was always the one who drew the short straw. Keeping his distance from her and acting like the best friend. Seeing how sad he would look at the end of their outing always broke (Y/N)’s heart.

“Zac’s right, pretty girl. We can’t just simply go out in public without risking what is really going on here.” Jensen’s even tempo voice had her standing up in front of them.

“Seriously? Guys we live in a day and age where guys can turn into girls and vice versa. There is every sexual type out there being celebrated and supported. You really don’t think our fans our society will not be able to comprehend how one woman could be full in love and committed to two men.” She ranted feeling like a mad woman.  

Jensen looked over to Zac who was leaning back in his seat, “Dude you’re not considering this?”

Zac shrugged, “She has a point. Our society is opening up to all possible things. It would be nice to go out the three of us together. Dress up, wining and dining the night away.”

“Have you two lost your minds? We’ve kept this secret for six years fearing the fact we would all lose our jobs and possible future jobs. What has changed?” Jensen said as (Y/N) knelt in front of him.

She held his hands tightly, “These last four weeks is what changed. Four weeks without seeing you two and it nearly broke me. I can’t go through that again. We already don’t get to spend enough time together and I don’t want to spend the time we do have together hiding from the world. Jensen I just can’t do that anymore.”

He looked over to Zac who ran his hand through his hair, “I’m with her man. I’m sick of hiding and honestly, I want to be able to tell people I’m happily committed to (Y/N). Instead of having to dodge the question constantly.”

Jensen sighed deeply before looking back to (Y/N), “Before we go out in public, I think we need to tell our managers and publicists. Just to be prepared for any backlash.”

(Y/N) climbed into Jensen’s lap hugging him tightly and kissing him, “Alright, I agree to that, but can we still go out tomorrow night please? We need to get out and blow off some steam.”

She watched as he rolled his eyes, “Zac make the reservations. We are taking our girl out on the town tomorrow.”

The next day, Jensen was the first one to call his manager and publicist alone in his office. Zac and (Y/N) were putting up the Christmas tree when he walked out flopping down on the couch.

“How’d it go?” she asked nervously.

“Surprising well. Apparently, we’re not hiding it as well as we think we are. There are a lot of rumors floating around we are in a relationship together. Mostly though, fans just think it is cover-up for Zac and I being together.” Jensen explained as (Y/N) started laughing.

Zac bent over slightly running his hand over his ass, “You wish you could have a piece of this Ackles.”

Jensen began making gagging noises covering his mouth as if he were going to throw up. (Y/N) started laughing even harder as Zac acted like it hurt his feelings. “Seriously though, they seemed okay with it. They did tell me for us not to go out in public yet until we decide to go public. Then I stopped listening as they started naming off magazines and reporters.”

(Y/N) walked over sitting next to him, “I’ve actually had a thought about that. What if I wrote a book about the last six years of our relationship? The story of how we all became an item, how it’s worked for us and throw in some candid pictures of us.”

Suddenly, both of them were looking at her panic on their faces, “I don’t about that (Y/N).” Jensen said as she looked over to Zac.

“Yeah gorgeous. It’s one thing to say hey we are what we are and that’s that. A tell-all book will be complicated.” Zac said sitting on the arm of the couch next to her.

She sighed getting up walking towards the stairs, “You don’t think I’ll write our story to my best ability. This isn’t some kind of money gimmick for me. I just want people to know the whole truth without making any assumptions but whatever if I’m not good enough then I’ll forget it.”

Zac called out, “Wait…”

Just before Jensen said, “(Y/N), we don’t…”

“Forget it. I’m going to go upstairs for a little bit before we attempt to go out in public for the first time.” She said leaving before anything else could be said.

(Y/N) knew she was overreacting, but she could not help it when they both shot the idea down. She had been working on the book for months now writing so many important moments throughout their relationship. However, she needed them not only to be on board but be apart of the process. There were many things that only the two of them knew that had a much impact on their relationship.

As she laid on her bed with her eyes closed, (Y/N) heard the door open and close. Feeling the bed dip down in front of her she opened her eyes to see bright hazel ones looking at her. “Hey.” He whispered.

“Hey.” She said sniffling as Zac ran his hand down her arm coming to rest on her hip.

“You know that neither of us were saying that you’re not good enough, right?” He asked as she looked away studying the design on his t-shirt.

She shrugged silently as he pulled her closer to him, “Come on (Y/N), you know we think you’re an amazing writer.”

“I know, but it hurts more when you tell me to not write about something that literally means everything to me. Our story, our lives, you and Jensen are the center of my universe. I won’t be sorry for wanting to share that story with everyone.” She said looking up at him as tears threaten to fall down her face.

Zac brought his fingers over her cheek then moved a piece of her hair behind her ear. “You shouldn’t be sorry for it. We just want to make sure it is done in a way that doesn’t give the wrong impression. We don’t want to make this a publicity stunt. It has to be done in a way that shows the fans we are coming out to them honestly.”

(Y/N) rested her hand against his chest tracing the lines of the design silently gathering her thoughts. “I’ve already began writing the book.” She whispered.

“What?” Zac asked as she looked up at him seeing the panic in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, no one knows about it until just now when I told you. I began writing it months ago. Our story is so unique, and I think it will help others who may be going through the same thing. Honestly, it’s been the easiest piece I’ve ever written but it’s missing two chapters.” She looked right up at him as his eyes widen.

Zac shook his head, “Oh no. Gorgeous, I’m an actor even a singer sometimes but writer. No, I leave the Shakespeareing to you.”

(Y/N) sat up cross legged as Zac propped himself up on his elbow, “There are certain parts of our story that only you and Jensen know. I’m not saying you have to write but I need you two to tell me your sides. Like the trip to you two took to Nashville one weekend together then afterwards Jensen proposes to me. How was that decision made between you two? When did you decide to move to Austin and why? Stuff like that Zac is what’s missing.”

He looked down at the mattress for a moment before sighing, “You know it will be like pulling teeth from a man with dentures to get Jensen to agree to this.”

A spark of hope struck inside of her as she launched herself on top of him, “So you’ll be apart of it?” she asked as he laughed.

“Anything for you, gorgeous. Now it’s almost time for our reservations so you better get that fine ass in gear and get ready.” He said kissing her then getting off the bed, “I’ll talk with Jensen about the whole book thing, promise.”

“I love you Zachary Levi.” She said as the most breathtaking grin spread across his face.

“I know.” He said laughing as he walked out shutting the door behind him.

An hour later, (Y/N) was walking down in a simple black dress, flats and her (Y/C/H) hair straighten flowing down her back. Her breath was taking away from the two men waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Jensen was in plaid suit with a white button down shirt and dark green tie while Zac had on a navy suit with a black button down shirt the first couple of buttons undone. They looked like they were getting ready to walk down the red carpet.

Jensen helped put her coat on as Zac held out his arm for her to hook hers with. Jensen then did the same thing, “Are you ready pretty girl?” he asked.

She swallowed the nerves trying to choke her as she nodded, “Y-Yep.”

At the restaurant, Jensen sat across from her and Zac as she looked at him curiously. “We have to start somewhere, and Zac is always sitting across from us. His turn to sit next to you.”

The small gesture meant everything to her as she smiled at him. Once drinks and dinner were ordered it was as if nothing was different between the three of them. Conversation flowed freely about their separate adventures. When dessert came, (Y/N) sampled for each of their plates. Zac’s hand squeezing her thigh as she let out little moans of approval.

“Now you know what I go through with her.” Jensen chuckled.

“It’s like sitting next to a constant porno playing with her. Moans and whimpers throughout the whole meal. I’m dying here.” Zac said dramatically as she slipped her hand over his hard length just like she would do when Jensen was sitting next to her.

Jensen smiled seeing Zac’s surprised face, “Ah but you are rewarded for sitting next to her.”

“Fuck. Me.” He whispered as she continued to stroke him.

She grinned up at him, “That’s the plan handsome.”

After dinner, they walked to a nearby bar that had live music playing. So far that evening none of them had been recognized or at least approached by fans. The bar was loud with customers and the music thumped throughout the place.

After a few drinks, (Y/N) dragged both men up on the dance floor. Facing Jensen first she held onto his shoulders as they sway together to the beat. Zac’s hands covering her hips as she pressed her ass against him. Being sandwiched between the two men, feeling their bodies and the music playing around them had (Y/N)’s knees getting weak.

The next song she turn to Zac to dance with him while Jensen said he was going back to the bar for a drink. “You know I’ve only ever liked dancing with you.” He said into her ear as she pressed herself more against him.

Looking up into his glossy eyes she could not help herself to push up capturing his lips. At first his body tensed up gripping her tightly, but then she felt him deepening the kiss relaxing against her. When they broke apart she grabbed his hand pulling him towards Jensen.

“Come on, we need to get home now.” She said as the two men laughed following behind her.

Clif was waiting for them as the three of them climbed into the backseat. Not caring if he saw or not, she straddled Zac’s lap kissing him and grinding her hips against him. One hand pulling at his hair as the other reached down stroking Jensen’s hard cock through his pants.

“Shit (Y/N)…” he hissed as she broke the kiss with Zac to lean over to kiss Jensen while Zac kissed down her neck.

They barely made it in the door before the two men were stripping her out of her dress. Clothes were being thrown in every direction as they walked up the stairs to their bedroom. Jensen pressed her against the wall his large hands gathering her breasts as his mouth covered one of her nipples. Her hand ran down his body until her fingers wrapped around his length pumping over him slowly.

“Shit!” she cried out feeling Zac lifted one of her legs over his shoulder running his tongue over her slick lips.

Jensen was now pushing his hips against her hand as he sucked and licked her nipple. “Fuck I need to be inside of you.” He grunted stepping back from her.

Zac, however, was not letting her go anywhere as his mouth worked over her aching mound. Her finger tangled into his hair as she grinded herself against his face. “Shit Zac!” she cried out when he pushed two fingers deep inside her.

Jensen came back over to her his hand brushing against her breasts until he tugged and rolled her nipple between two fingers. “Come on pretty girl the soon you come for Zac the sooner you get us both where you want us. Come for us (Y/N).”

Her body began shaking as her orgasm hit her pulling Zac’s hair tightly crying out his name. “Damn gorgeous, I’ve missed the taste of you.” He said standing up as she held onto him.

“Pretty girl, where do you want us?” Jensen asked holding himself in one of his hands.

Trying to catch her breath a memory flashed before her mind bringing a smile to her face. She shakily walked over to the bed getting on all fours in front of them. She heard each of them mumbling curses watching her getting into position.

“Jensen front, Zac back just like the first time.” She said both men groaning at the memory.

Jensen held his cock right at her as the tip of her darted out over her lips flicking over it. She looked up at him seeing his rigid body as he kept himself in control. She nodded giving him the okay as he pushed his thick cock into her mouth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He chanted.

Running her mouth along his shaft a few times she came off with a small pop looking back at Zac who was stroking himself. “What are you waiting for handsome? It’s not going to fuck itself.” She said making his eyes widen briefly before darkening.

Lining himself up he gripped her hips snapping against her throwing her body forward a loud moan escaping her lips. Jensen’s hand fisted into her hair as he would push in her mouth, Zac would pull out of her. It felt like hours as they kept a steady pace driving her mad. She pushed herself hard back against Zac surprising him unable to speak from Jensen’s cock stuffed in her mouth.

Jensen chuckled, “Dude when will you learn that you won’t break her. Let’s give her what she wants.”

The moment both men thrusted into her at either end she felt like her body were burst. Both chasing after their release Jensen fucking her mouth as Zac was pounding into her from behind. The way they filled her in every way possible overwhelmed her in all the best ways.

Jensen came first as she gagged on his cock deep in her mouth, “Fucking hell! Fuck!” he yelled feeling his legs trembling. He gently pulled out of her mouth sitting laying down on the only empty space of the bed breathing heavily.

(Y/N) could feel her own orgasm starting to spreading, “Oh god. Harder Zac fuck please I’m almost there.” She called out lean down to start meeting his thrusts.

He was grunting as he snapped his hips roughly against her. “Shit I’m c-coming!” She felt his cock twitching deep in her sparking her own release as she cried out his name repeatedly. He pumped into her a few times riding out his release before pulling out of her.

The three of them laid there blissfully exhausted as each man curled into either side of her. “I would say that was a successful first outing.” She said once she could breathe halfway normal.

Zac and Jensen both held up their thumbs silently entwining themselves around her. The next thing (Y/N) knew there were buzzing and ringing echoing throughout her ears. She woke up to see her boys still sleeping peacefully. Reaching over Jensen to grab her phone she saw a ton of missed calls and text messages.

Opening the first message she saw from Jared and she shot up from the bed. “W-What’s wrong?” Zac mumbled as Jensen groaned.

“We have a problem.” She said showing them both the linking Jared had sent her.

“Oh crap.” Jensen and Zac said at the same time just as their phones started going off again.

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Masterlist!

My Nerd Herd: @waywardbaby @ladywinchester1967 @akshi8278 @ericaprice2008 @deans-baby-momma @spnbaby-67 @dean-winchesters-bacon @carryonmywaywardcaptain @-lovepeacenhope- @destiel745 @carribear31 @srsllydunnodoncare @whimsicalrobots @thisismysecrethappyplace @starstruckzonkoperatorbat @adoptdontshoppets @mrswhozeewhatsis @bella-ca @drakelover78 @imascio08 @pisces-cutie @dwgrl1903 @mannls @the-salty-asian @winchesterprincessbride @xostephanie @superromijn @witch-of-letters @time-travel-bouqet @screechingartisancashbailiff @myinconnelly1 @sister-winchesters99 @thekatherinewinchester @babykalika2001 @maddiepants @tumbler-tidbits @sandlee44 @destielhoneybee @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @thefaithfulwriter @stoneyggirl @supernaturalginger @superheroforrent @steph-goldandblood @unrealistic-nerd

[highroadsteve]

the greatest lie (part one) — t.h.

pairing: tom holland x actress!reader

warnings: a tiny bit of angst

requested :: thanks love!! and im sorry this is so late :(

a/n: part two will be published soon

masterlist

The sound of your tv was playing in the background, along with the loud voices coming from everywhere around you. There was chaos in your house, chairs being moved and squeaking as they glide across the wooden floor, high heels were clacking against the wood, makeup that was placed on the table was being shuffled through. You let it all happen, unbothered, knowing everyone there is taking care of you and making you look as good as you can for the awards show in five hours.

Zendaya, also known as one of your closest friends, was talking to you from the other side of the table. Your eyes were focused on your phone, scrolling through Instagram but still listening intently to the words that were coming out of Zendaya’s mouth. The hair clips in your hair were placed comfortably on your head, making you look like a child with pigtails on when the hair stylist was curling it. Zendaya laughed at you, taking a picture of the scene in front of her and posting it on her Instagram story.

“Hey dude, you should meet Zac Efron.” She brought up casually in conversation. You looked up at her, furrowing your eyebrows and widening your eyes a bit.

“I’m sorry, what?” You asked.

“Yeah, he told me he wants to meet you and I told him I’d introduce you to him. So basically, you‘re already going to meet him, I don’t know why I asked.” Zendaya let out a breathy laugh, causing you to reciprocate but roll your eyes as well. “He’s super cool anyway, you’d love him.”

“I’m sure he is, but Z, he’s literally like one of the most famous people ever. You do realize you’re talking about the Troy Bolton.“ She shrugged, shaking her head at you with a sarcastic grin.

“So what?”

You pursed your lips and shrugged as well, continuing your scrolling online. The person working on your hair moved over to your side, letting the makeup artist work on applying the foundation to your face.

“Who knows, you might just fall in love.”

...

The white car stopped in front of the event, the chauffeur saying their farewell to the two of you. After thanking them, both you and Zendaya stepped out from the same side. You helped Zendaya by holding out your hand, and she took it, using her other hand to clutch her dress. The interviewers were quick to arrive, already asking questions from the moment you opened the door. Nevertheless, you still smiled politely and stopped for a minute to be interviewed.

The two of you walked on the red carpet, waving to the fans that were standing behind the small barricade that stood between you. Some people were shoving cameras into your faces, trying to get the inside scoop to your personal lives. You simply dodged the questions with ease, losing Zendaya during the answers when she drifted away to be photographed. Excusing yourself, you made your way to the main carpet, posing for the cameras in front of you.

As you entered the venue, you looked around for Zendaya but found other people you know, greeting them with a warm smile and making small talk. Meanwhile, Zendaya had found Zac Efron and was having a conversation with him, getting him ready to meet you. He really was excited to finally meet you, having been supporting you from afar and admiring all of your work. You were also absolutely stunning, it was no surprise that he thought so.

After finally catching a glimpse of Zendaya’s tall figure from across the room, you walked to her, waving at a few people along the way. Once you made it there, you nervously smiled.

“Hey, I thought I lost you back there. Was starting to get worried.” You stated, looking into Zendaya’s eyes. You turned and looked at Zac, a huge smile placed on your face.

“Y/N, this is Zac. Zac, this is—“

“Y/N Y/L/N. The beautiful star of M/N. Big fan.” He stuck out his hand, gently taking yours and pressing a soft kiss upon it. You blushed, placing your other hand on your chest and posing for the camera that took a picture of you two. He pulled away and smiled at you.

“It really is amazing to meet a fan.” You replied. He laughed, shaking his head slightly. “But seriously, you’re making my childhood dream come true. I’m over here meeting Troy Bolton!”

“Did you ever, doubt your dream will ever come true? Did you ever...I forgot the rest.” He sang his iconic song slightly and laughed. It clicked in your head, making you gasp and almost drop your drink.

“This is the best day of my entire fucking life.”

The rest of the night consisted of you and Zac hanging out when you could. It wasn’t awkward at all between you. You would be talking about something that recently had happened, and stood up together whenever Zendaya would win an award. It was all fun and games, up until it was time to go and you had to go through the red carpet.

“Y/N! Y/N! Is Zac Efron your rebound? Is he replacing Tom Holland now?” You tensed up at the loud voice questioning you, your eyebrows furrowing in shock. That name hadn’t crossed your mind the entire night and it hit you like a train when you finally heard it. You looked around, Zac grabbing your wrist and gently pulling you with him into the car with Zendaya.

“Shit, Y/N. I’m sorry, I should’ve said something, I just—“ You shook your head at Zendaya, a crooked smile on your face as you tried to find light in the situation.

“Dude I’m totally fine.”

“You sure?” Zac asked, the concern evidently on his face. You nodded, elbowing him playfully.

“Of course, can’t wait to kick your ass at Mario Party.” You retorted and Zac smirked, rolling his eyes.

“I’d like to see you try.”

...

You were pacing around in your room, your finger in your mouth as you nervously chewed on your nails. Zendaya sat on the bed, her eyes trained on you with worry.

“I know you’re nervous but you’re going to be okay.” She spoke, titling her head slightly and curling the corners of her lips downwards.

“I just don’t think I can face him.” She sighed at you, knowing exactly well the reason you’re nervous.

Tomorrow is the first day of filming for the new Spiderman movie, Far From Home. Since you were an actress from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you were going to make an appearance as Peter Parker’s love interest/partner in crime. Sure, it is completely normal for someone to be completely anxiety-ridden before acting in a huge movie that was pegged to make millions of dollars. Although this was a huge reason of your freak-out, there was also another.

Tom Holland was the actor who played Peter Parker in the new Spiderman movie franchise. He became extremely well-known after his debut in Captain America: Civil War, which is where the two of you had met. Your character was fighting alongside Tony Stark, having met Peter Parker due to being on the same team. It was obvious that both of your characters had chemistry and the writers were heading towards the two of you becoming an iconic teen couple.

But the situation was that your characters weren’t the only ones who had chemistry. You and Tom Holland were also crushing on each other during the filming process. It isn’t surprising, many actors get together after acting intimately on screen.

So the two of you got together after the year of filming and after the year of becoming best friends. The both of you were so comfortable with each other, hanging out most of the week and having an absolute blast every single time. Everything was so much more fun when the two of you were together, making the older actors laugh at your outgoing behavior. There was always a slightly flirty tone in your voices when you made jokes, and the teasing from the other actors continued until you both finally decided to start going out.

So far it seems as if the both of you would live happily ever after with no problem, but the problems arose when you had to move away to Iceland and film another movie outside of the MCU while Tom had to film Avengers: Infinity War. You were completely fine with keeping a long-distance relationship, claiming that you’re still so in love with him and you want to stay with him.

He didn’t think the same. He loved you, but he couldn’t keep up with having to manage having a girlfriend and filming at the same time. He felt as if he had to prioritize one over the other and he felt it wasn’t fair for either of you. The guilt was eating away at him for weeks, until he finally spoke to you about the problem, ending things off with you through an argument.

You wished it didn’t end that way, but things were piling up on both of you and you blew up on each other. The screaming over the phone, the heat burning at your faces, the break in your hearts. It was overwhelming, so you two ended it right then and there with a harsh ‘fuck you’.

It’s been over a year since you last talked to Tom, your anger no longer there and your heartbreak is already healed. The only problem was that you haven’t spoken to Tom, or even try to speak to him. Your pride was constantly beating you up, yelling in your ear about how if he wanted to talk, he would have messaged first. You wanted to say happy birthday, you wanted to say merry Christmas, you wanted to say happy new year, but you never did.

Now it’s the day before filming and you’re crying. You’re letting go of all your frustrations into Zendaya’s shoulder. You’re letting go of all your insecurities, anxiety, and fear through your tears. You felt like a high school girl, avoiding your ex boyfriend because he did you wrong. You wanted to be mature about the situation and prepare for your role but knowing that you had to act like you’re in love with Tom was nerve-wracking.

So there you sat, your stomach nauseated with butterflies and your head pounding as the tears stuck to your cheeks. You were exhausted and you hated that the reason was because of him.

-

part two

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: I Don't Know Who'll Win the Anime Awards, But Here's Who Should 2021 The More Correct-er Edition

  Ah(hhhhhhh!), the Anime Awards. It comes earlier every year. It was only some 360-ish days ago that Demon Slayer took the coveted title, and I went 0/6 on my predictions for who would win. But as another awards show comes, much like the changing of the seasons, does a whole new collection of hot takes begin to bloom. And oh how I have been taking care of them like my new pandemic succulents (poorly)!!

  There's a lot you can say about the last year. There's a lot you can say about the last year in ANIME! But since I don't have a Clubhouse invite yet, you're gonna have to hear about it right here in written form. This is also the only opportunity I have on company time to talk about who should win and who actually should have gotten nominated in the first place, as well as make up my own totally fake awards because this is my article!!

  When presented with the likelihood of something being infinitely close to zero, Simon from Gurren Lagann said that means it isn't inherently zero, so as far as he's concerned, that makes it the same as a 100 percent chance. That's the sort of cartoon logic that is very healthy to bring into the real world, as well as guessing who is going to win an awards show, so let's get to it! 

  1. Best Director: Shingo Yamashita

  While he is not nominated, Shingo Yamashita has had an incredible year, not only directing two of my favorite openings, but also ones I could consider all-time highs. Simply put, I really like the guy and his art direction, and he always seems to deliver something unique and interesting when he is in the director's chair. Through that unique style, he was able to work with a team of really talented animators to make that statement right from Episode 1. Pay attention to the people in your life who have opinions on the direction of the Naruto vs. Pain fight, but then turn around and talk about how cool the aforementioned openings are.  

2. Best Japanese VA Performance: Mamoru Miyano's Kansai Accent

  This is a very indulgent choice (well, this whole article is), but out of all the voice actor performances this year, I'm still thinking about Mamoru Miyano's Kansai accent. Playing the volleyball star Atsumu Miya from Inarizaki High in HAIKYU!! TO THE TOP, either Miyano or the people he worked with really made sure to train him to have the thickest Kyoto accent imaginable, and I was enthralled. It's kinda hot? I think Miyano works best when he plays characters with a bit of an edge and goofiness to them (see his performance Kotaro Tatsumi in Zombie Land Saga), so having him star as the eccentric setter was a perfect fit. I do wonder if Atsumu Miya and Kotaro Tatsumi ever met if it would be an unstoppable force/immovable object situation.  

3. The "You Were Right" Award: Akudama Drive

Image via Funimation  

This is not a real award in this year's Anime Awards, but I think it deserves mention for a series that was so under-nominated. So, Akudama Drive started last October and everyone was losing it. One person (I think it was our own Adam Wescott) described it as "a show where every episode feels like the season finale." But I continued putting it off. Sure, the first episode has a guy who swings around Osaka like Spider-Man on his motorcycle, but there's no way it could keep up. I also haven't played any Danganronpa, so I wasn't familiar with this sort of Kazutaka Kodaka romp, as his storytelling and style is written all over it. But after the show finished, I went back and gave it an honest shot ... and you were all right! It's really great and doesn't let off the octane at any point! This was definitely one of the strongest series I watched this last year, with its pointed cyberpunk storytelling and a particularly fantastic season finale — which might be my favorite episode. So whatever categories Akudama Drive is nominated in, sure, I think it should win ... wait, it was only nominated for Best Fight Scene!?  Anyway, I should have listened to you all sooner. Mr. Kodaka, I'm sorry for doubting you. 

4. Best Animation: Beastars

Image via Netflix

  As I wrote in our Best of the Decade list last year, Studio Orange's utilization of 3D animation is a treasure to behold and a jewel of the industry. Eiji Inomoto and the staff at Orange are putting out shows that are frankly the gold standard for the form. Beastars is no exception, far exceeding any expectations I had for what an adaptation of Paru Itagaki's animal drama would look like. However, in the case of Beastars, it's not only the CG, but also the multitude of other animation styles the staff integrated throughout the show, and none of those unique styles ever repeats! I think it says a lot for a studio and a show that not only perfects its main style but also includes phenomenal companion pieces that are fantastic on their own. For such drive and direction, and excellence in their field, not only would it be a win for Beastars, but also a win for the everlasting creativity coming out of Studio Orange. 

  5. Anime of the Year: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

  In any other time, I would have chosen Beastars as the Anime of the Year winner (see my praise above). But this hasn't been any other year. It's been quite a terrible one, to be honest. But in some sort of cosmic irony, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! started 2020 as one of the most optimistic and deep-hearted series I've ever seen.

  A lot of people pitch Eizouken as an anime about making anime. I agree, to an extent. Anime seems to be the surface for the themes the show is playing with, as it's far more a series about the creative process and the imaginative fuel artists use when molding their ideas into something tangible. It's also about the interpersonal relationships of those creatives and how people can create community and teams around their strengths and weaknesses. It's also about how tiring and expensive it is to make one of these things! Truly, it takes a village. Eizouken grabbed a lot of anime fans' attention early last year, particularly those who enjoy these sorts of explorations of the artistic mind. My former editor and good friend Zac Bertschy was one of them and wrote the episode reviews for Eizouken every week. Each time I read one of his articles, that passion and enthusiasm lept off the page. And let me tell you, when Zac was passionate about something, he'd let you know. His thoughts and takeaways were genuine to an extent I hadn't seen in a while. This series truly was something special to him. Zac's passing still hurts, and seeing Eizouken's nomination continues to remind me of what was not so long ago. But seeing it nominated in the first place gives me confidence that anime fans around the world also saw that passion Masaaki Yuasa and Science Saru were presenting. Seeing Eizouken take a big win would be a triumph for the art and artistry we all love so much, as well as an exemplary showcase of the drive that truly makes this stuff magical. Jonathan Clements ended his book Anime: A History with a line I've been thinking about recently: "... the future of anime as an art form, and as a thing of enduring value, still rests as it did at the time of its inception, in the hands of artists and artisans with vision." I truly believe Eizouken is a celebration of that ethos. And for that, I hope it wins Anime of the Year.

  Anyway, as always, waitin' for the big one when I'm 5/5 on these predictions.

        Kyle Cardine is an Associate Editor for Crunchyroll. You can find his Twitter here!

By: Kyle Cardine

[canaryatlaw]

okay, late, but today was really all around good. I woke up shortly after ten and got ready because my brother and I were meeting my cousin and her baby (my constructive nephew) at this tea place. so I got ready and we headed over, it was cold AF today so that’s always fun, but we made it there and it’s this cute little place, we’d never been there before but it was similar to the one closer to us that we go to. so my brother, being the extravagant person he is, wanted the full high tea experience, so we did that and it was all very nice. My nephew was sleeping at first, but then he woke up and he was just all smiles, just the cutest little baby and ahhh I love him so much. so we had a good lunch there, and then went back to my house for a bit and we all held the baby for a bit and took pictures and all that, I was finally able to give them the little outfit I bought for him in like, October, which has little penguins on it and says “mommy’s cool dude” because I mean, that’s just too adorable to pass up. eventually they had to go, and it was around 2:30 at this point, and I didn’t have plans until 5:30, so I basically killed some time and just relaxed (I could’ve gotten on the treadmill but meh I wasn’t feeling it). I finally finished Batman the animated series, which I think I’ll miss watching, lol. I was going to start the punisher next, but a comic book internet friend was basically like DON’T DO IT so I’ll put it off for now lol and instead watched the first episode of the fourth season of Mad Men, which I’d wanted to start for a while because Caity was in it, but she’s only in like 6 episodes and she doesn’t show up until the fourth season, so it’s not really worth watching all of seasons 1-3 for 6 episodes. I didn’t understand most of it, which is to be expected, but I got the general gist of things, and I think it’ll be enough to understand the context by the time her character shows up in 4x03. Not too long after that my friend picked me up (I know I gave him a nickname on these posts at some point but I don’t quite remember it, I think maybe childhood theatre friend? let’s go with that) and we went to the kosher deli for dinner. I was debating if I wanted to get matzoh ball soup (because when you’re at a kosher deli you get matzoh ball soup) being that I’d had it at the diner just yesterday, but decided I wanted it anyway, so I got that with a side of a potato pancake, because of course. so that was highly enjoyable, I love that place. then we went over to the movie theatre to go see The Greatest Showman. I don’t know if you’re aware but there’s two composers, Pasek and Paul, who have been behind a lot of the biggest hits in different music platforms lately, they were responsible for the music in La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, and they wrote “Running Home to You” from the Flash/Supergirl musical crossover (and that song just makes my heart melt), but this was their latest project, so we knew it was gonna be good, and oh, it was so good. I’m not all that crazy about Hugh Jackman’s singing voice, it’s alright, I just don't think it’s necessarily leading man material, but I think he did a great job with the part and totally sold it, so I have no criticism for him there. but oh, it was so good. they start with him and his eventual wife as children and build up through their relationship until they have two little girls who are just the cutest things ever, and he eventually starts what is at first a “museum” that turns into a circus. Zac Efron plays this young aristocrat guy who ends up going into the business with him and kind of becoming his apprentice. Zac Efron has a fine singing voice, it’s nice, but I can’t look at him without thinking about how they let him lip sync in the first high school musical and only got the job for his pretty face, which feels unfair to all the incredible actors out there that could've really rocked the part, but all that aside, he did a really good job. IMO, the highlight of the movie was when the “freaks” of the circus have a bust out number called “This is Me” (a lyric from which I’ve already changed my blog title to) where they are just unapologetic and unashamed of who they are, lead by the “bearded lady” character who was just incredibly fierce and passionate, she was played so so well, and oh, it’s just so, so good. That was one song that I thought sounded a LOT like Dear Evan Hansen, but it was a great song in its own right, so that didn’t bother me at all, I loved it. Then there starts a plot where Barnum kind of takes a fascination with this European opera star and brings her to the US and starts touring with her, and the whole time he's looking at her wistfully and I just wanted be like “no! bad boy! don��t cheat on your wife!!” and in all fairness he didn’t really end up cheating on her (the opera star kind of grabbed him and forced a kiss on him, which of course got printed in the papers and was a huge scandal thing, but he didn’t really do it). Another interesting plot was the one between Zac Efron and Zendaya’s characters. my feeling about casting a male love interest that is 9 years older than the female aside, I am always somewhat hesitant when a big production like that does a story about something like an interracial relationship in a time period where that was definitely considered taboo (some would argue it’s still quite taboo now, though I bet those answers would differ drastically based on location), but I was pleasantly surprised by their plot, and I thought they actually did a really good job with it. of course I’m not an expert on the matter and may have missed things, but from what I could tell I think they did really well in not shying away from the societal forces pushing against them getting together and just how much it takes for them to be together. The climax of the movie is really when there’s a fight and their circus building gets set on fire, and everyone made it out, but they can’t find Zendaya’s character, and Zac Efron’s character rushes back into this fully engulfed in flames building to find her, only for her to come running out from a different direction a few seconds later, but of course Zac Efron’s character doesn’t know that, and there’s a moments hesitation, but then Barnum runs into the burning building after him, even with his two daughters screaming for him to come back. and shortly after he goes in a large part of the building collapses, and as much as we’re conditioned to know that in stories everything will be alright in the end and things will be okay, but there was definitely a solid few seconds there where you’re really thinking “holy shit, did they really just kill two male main characters? and they drag it out for a little bit longer before Barnum walks out with an injured but alive Zac Efron in his arms, and it was just such a powerful moment, and of course I’m crying at this point because why would I not be? And at that point they’re basically bankrupt and don’t know how to move forward without a building, and then they get the idea of a tent, and well, you know how it goes from there. but they show Zac Efron’s character in the hospital unconscious with Zendaya’s character waiting at his side and holding his hand, and he eventually wakes up, and she just kisses him unabashedly and unashamed of who was watching and yo, it was so fucking satisfying. so it ultimately ends with Barnum basically handing the reins over to Zac Efron’s character to lead the circus while he decides to focus on being there for his daughters, which was an incredibly sweet and well done ending. so yeah, lots of feelings there, and of course the music was great, I already bought the soundtrack and you should give it a listen if you get a chance. But, movie over, we decided to go to Friendly’s across the street for some ice cream despite it being frigid outside, then back to my house, things were fairly calm, I watched an episode of arrested development and then a comedy special of some sort on netflix with some family members before they haded to bed, and I got ready for bed but then got called downstairs by my brother who was trying out the weird foot peel mask things I got him for christmas, which will certainly prove to be interesting, lol. but yeah, from there I just continued in my routine and here we are. it’s almost 2 am though and I do have to wake up relatively early (at least compared to how late I’ve been sleeping in lately) so I will take my leave now. Goodnight my dears. Stay warm.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2019, Part I

On one hand, I fear the direction of American cinema, and I feel more personally distracted from great art with each passing day. On the other hand, my viewing was up 5% from last year despite my belief that I’ve gotten choosier. I even approve of most of the films nominated for Best Picture. Are the offerings just top-heavy this year? Are my standards declining? Answering questions like those is part of why I present a paragraph or two on everything I see each year, though I can’t even imagine someone sitting down and reading all of this.

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Just Mercy, Monos, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Good Boys, Frankie, For Sama, or An Elephant Sitting Still. The tiers, as always, are Garbage, Admirable Failures, Endearing Curiosities with Big Flaws, Pretty Good Movies, Good Movies, Great Movies, and Instant Classics. GARBAGE

129. Cold Pursuit (Hans Petter Moland)- A film professor of mine showed us Wings of Desire and City of Angels, its American remake, in order to show us how a film can technically cover a story while losing the essence that made it special. I can only hope that Hans Petter Moland's Norwegian original is better than his stab at an English language remake, which fails completely at balancing violence and comedy. The movie almost announces its own boredom with the protagonist as it shifts focus first to the villain and then to cops on the case, all of whom have artificial quirks to try to give them life where there isn't any. The Neeson character's journey toward revenge is empty, so the film drifts from him, but it doesn't have anything to say with the other characters either. 128. Domino (Brian De Palma)- Seeking revenge, a Libyan informant roughs up a potential terrorist by throwing him over a restaurant bar. Cut to two cops driving wordlessly. Cut to the Libyan guy dunking the other guy's head in boiling soup. That interruption spells out what the rest of the film does: De Palma could not be less interested in his replacement-level actor's shoddy policework, especially in the self-parody of the last twenty minutes. Any intensity the movie has comes from terrorists (or Guy Pearce over-salting a salad), and then the police drain the momentum. Just make a movie about terrorists, Brian! And, as I've urged you for years, get rid of Pino Donaggio. 127. Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)- Moondog, the spacey, Floridian hedonist poet at the center of the film, is supposed to be "brilliant" and "a good guy" at heart according to his daughter. But at the daughter's wedding, he shakes the hand of her fiance, whom he usually calls "limp-dick," and he says, "What's your name again?" The line got a laugh in my theater, but is it likely that he didn't know the name of his daughter's fiance? Especially if he's a good guy who doesn't hurt people on purpose? It's one example out of a thousand of Harmony Korine making the goofy decision instead of the one that would benefit character or story. I thought that Korine had taken a turn for the lucid with Spring Breakers, but he just isn't interested in making anything consistent enough for me. There's an hour of consequence-free episodes to follow, though I did cherish Jonah Hill's three improvised scenes, for which he tries a sort of Tennessee Williams voice. You can admire how audacious some of the choices are--describing Zac Efron wearing Jncos makes the film sound more fun than it is--but looking at the poster gives you about 70% of what you would get out of the long ninety-five minutes. Yes, McConaughey's shoes are funny, but what else have you got? 126. Fyre Fraud (Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nelson)- Half as good as the Netflix one. Please, by all means, explain to me what a millenial is again. 125. The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff)- One of my mentors stressed that Shakespeare worked in "cultural touchstones," truisms that weren't difficult to prove but served as a sandbox for all of the juicy stuff. So we all know that, say, too much ambition is a bad thing, but having that North Star at all times allows Shakespeare to ply his trade with character development and imagery and symbol. I know that The Kitchen isn't funny or cool or original, but it also doesn't really have an emotional or thematic core. It's a movie with neither the window dressing nor the window. I don't know what I'm getting at, but I watched the last five minutes twice to make sure that it actually was as anti-climactic and inert as I thought.

124. Climax (Gaspar Noe)- Ah, to be a provocateur who has made his best work already and took all of the wrong lessons from it. I don't envy Noe, who insists on formal rigor even when it adds nothing, who goes to greater, more desperate lengths to shock. A third of this film, embedded somewhere between the three openings, is gross young people talking, lewdly and clinically, about whom they want to bone. I thought I started watching French art movies to get away from locker rooms. 123. The Best of Enemies (Robin Bissell)- The supporting cast of Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, and John Gallagher Jr. avail themselves better than the finger-wagging, scenery-chewing leads, but that hardly matters in a movie this fundamentally broken. Apparently no one saw the problem with making a Ku Klux Klan president the dynamic hero of a school integration that he fought against, but that's how the story functions. He's the guy who casts the deciding vote and gives the speech at the end, but it's a bit anti-climactic for an audience that assumes, yeah, the White race is not morally superior to any other race. Congratulations on your realization, buddy. Long before that, Sam Rockwell’s character is inconsistent. Neither the Rockwell performance nor the Robin Bissell script can thread the needle between showing the heinous terrorist that a Klan member is and revealing the depth that foreshadows the character's change. The answer is to show the character being nice to his developmentally disabled son, which, again, doesn't get all the way there. That's cool that you love your own son, but, uh, that has nothing to do with the hatred that made you shoot up a girl's house because she has a Black boyfriend. Of course you can show these contradictions and changes in a character incrementally--lots of good movies have--but this one ain't going on the list. 122. The Intruder (Deon Taylor)- Probably the most two-star movie of the year. Prototypical in its two-starness. Instructive to me as far as what I give two stars. There’s a point of view error in the first twenty minutes that ruined it for me. ADMIRABLE FAILURES 121. Little (Tina Gordon Chism)- We're all good on body swap movies for a while. This one, otherwise undistinguished in its comedy or storytelling, is notable for just how specifically 2019 it might look in a time capsule: Here's a joke about transitioning as we're on our way to our job developing apps; there's a kid doing The Floss and talking to Alexa. Whoops! Bumped into a guy wearing a VR headset! 120. The Kid Who Would Be King (Joe Cornish)- I appreciate that somebody is still making movies for 9-10 year old boys, but I checked out hard and kind of just left this on until it was done. I don't like lore. Much less funny and urgent than Attack the Block, and it's crazy that this is the only project that came together for Joe Cornish in the intervening eight years. 119. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty)- Exhausting and joyless in its large-scale destruction, Godzilla: King of the Monsters pitches everything at the same volume, and even the end of the world ends up not mattering as a result. Despite (or maybe because of) the presence of such great actors, the screenplay dilutes the characters by having three fighter pilots or three scientists when all the lines really could have been given to one of these interchangeable figures. That's first draft stuff, homie. Still, Kyle Chandler is kind of awesome as the weathered one shouting about how everyone else is playing God. He reminds me of Larry Fitzgerald toiling away with professionalism on teams that would never sniff the playoffs. 118. Blinded by the Light (Gurinder Chadha)- I made it about twenty minutes into this movie before flipping the switch and making fun of it relentlessly. It tries to strike the heart-on-sleeve authenticity that a Springsteen song does, but if The Boss never overwhelms you with language, almost every line of dialogue in this film spells out what the character is thinking. The overbearing father is especially intolerable: "What is this music? You need to get rid of distractions and focus on getting a good job so that you don't end up a taxi driver. Like me!" I'm only sort of paraphrasing. Blinded by the Light is too well-meaning to be offensive, but it's absurd in its spoon-feeding. LMK, ladies: On the third time that I have headphones in my ears during a conversation with you, and I start buttering you up with lyrics to "Jungleland," will you still love me? 117. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (David Leitch)- What a summer, huh? The go-for-broke final setpiece redeems the film somewhat, and Vanessa Kirby is a welcome addition to the universe. But Idris Elba's first line, responding to a question about who he is, is "Bad Guy," and the characterization doesn't go too much further. I feel as if I have honed the requisite disposition to enjoy a Fast and Furious movie, but that doesn't mean that the most cliched thing has to happen at the most cliched time in the most cliched way.

116. I Lost My Body (Jeremy Clapin)- Not for me ultimately. The film presents itself as above the tropes of cinematic romance but sure seems to circle around them. Clapin is willing to set up the pins of, say, "I'm actually the pizza delivery guy but have kept it a secret for a year," but he is unwilling to knock the pins down with anything resembling catharsis. I don't know if the French bowl, but feel free to substitute whatever kind of metaphor they might get offended by.

115. The Lion King (Jon Favreau)- I saw the original Lion King when I was ten: old enough to think that Disney movies were beneath me but young enough to know nothing about art or the world. And I remember the way that the songs transcended reality: "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" turning into a Busby Berkeley number, "Be Prepared" taking on an expressionist green tint. It was mass entertainment that was far from experimental, but I remember thinking, "Can you do that?" As an artistic experiment, this remake is kind of confounding, to the point that I don't know whether to classify it as an animated or live-action film. The final scene starts upside down, and your eye adjusts to the idea that you're looking at a reflection in a stream, but that stream is a Caleb Deschanel-aided, computer-generated reflection of a reality. However, I return to my original point: You're missing something if you think The Lion King is a better story if it's more realistic. Capably made as The Lion King 2019 is, no one is referencing 42nd Street. These Disney remakes just reference themselves. 114. Stuber (Michael Dowse)- The critical community has been pretty forgiving of Stuber; I guess because it's a type of studio film that used to be common but now is not. Judged on its own merits, however, it's labored. The screenplay circles around questions of masculinity, but not in a way that hasn't been done better in other recent comedies. Perhaps most disappointing of all, I've seen Iko Uwais and Bautista fight before, and it looked a whole lot cooler than the way they're sliced and diced here. The ending's sweet at least. 113. After the Wedding (Bart Freundlich)- Think of what Julianne Moore could have accomplished in the time it took in her career for her to shoot four crappy movies with her husband. This is the type of melodrama that makes more sense after all of the revelations have cleared the air, but that doesn't mean the preceding hour and a half was any more fun because of the aftermath. 112. The Goldfinch (John Crowley)- One day someone's going to figure out how to coherently adapt a Dickensian novel and actually do that thing Crowley is trying to do: condensing two hundred pages of back story into 1/8th of a page here or a line there. Somebody's going to be able to figure out the little moments that are important and the big moments that aren't. And you'll all be sorry. The movie is ultimately hampered by the bad ending of the novel, in which a person who isn't a mystery writer has to solve a mystery. Perfect casting for Luke Wilson though. He definitely looks like a whiskey-faced dad who would steal your social security number. 111. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)- This movie is autobiographical. The protagonist has the same initials as Joanna Hogg, and she's attending film school at the same time Hogg did. But what a self-own it is for your hero, based on you, to be this inexpressive and restrained and deferential. The film is mostly about a cold romantic relationship--and I guess what the character learns through that experience--but when her beau's friend asks what she sees in him, she can't really say. Neither can the audience. I guess it's a skill to write a scene in which a family is having an argument that is so clenched-jaw reticent that the viewer can't even discern the topic of conversation for a few minutes, but it's not a skill I appreciate. 110. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)- Jim Jarmusch must be a very good friend.

109. Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy)- If the film were funny, I wouldn't mind the lack of narrative drive. If the film had narrative drive, I wouldn't mind the lack of atmosphere--glaring for a film that circles around to horror eventually. If the film had more to say, I wouldn't mind how pedantically it says it. If the protagonist's change of heart made sense, then I wouldn't mind that his conversion apparently happens off-screen. At least most of the actors seem to be having fun. I wasn't. 108. It: Chapter Two (Andy Muschietti)- I started squirming in my seat during a sequence somewhere in the circuitous second hour. Bill sees his old bike in an antiques window, haggles with a Stephen King shopkeeper cameo, and finishes the scene on a triumphant note, believing that his old bike will ride like the wind. Cut to the bike falling apart on the road, deflating his pride with comedy. Cut to a flashback of him riding the bike with young Beverly, serene and warm. Cut to him riding the bike again with determination until he stops, terrified. Within fifteen seconds, the film jerks us into four divergent emotions at a whim. The overall tone felt just as arbitrary to me, and that's before we get to the always-unclear line between fantasy and reality. And this time, the flashbacks of each young character's encounters with Pennywise are less scary because we know they all live into the present. Andy Muschietti just does not have a light enough touch to make this movie work.The last forty-five minutes are interminable. But I had all the same gripes with the first chapter, so personal taste is a factor. 107. Trial by Fire (Edward Zwick)- Perfect example of a true story that could use some poetic justice. I don't want to give away anything that the first line of the imdb summary doesn't already, but this ending could have been much more satisfying by changing one or two lines. This is a movie that recreates, multiple times, babies burning alive, but the ending is somehow more punishing. It's also one of those films that should have just begun at the halfway point. If we can praise special effects when they're done well, then they should be fair game when they're this embarrassing. Zwick definitely put his flash drive into the Lifetime computers for fire.exe.

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‘Baywatch’ Lifeguard Alexandra Daddario Used Duct Tape to Avoid a Fashion Emergency

Thanks to her longtime devotion to hot yoga, which helps her deal with anxiety and sleep issues, Alexandra Daddario thought she was ready for her close-up when she was cast as a lifeguard in the film adaptation of Baywatch.

Alexandra Daddario, who stars in the upcoming Baywatch film, visits Yahoo! (Photo: Casey Hollister)

“To do this, I thought I was in great shape,” she tells Yahoo Style.

Spoiler alert: She had major work to do. She started training with co-star Zac Efron’s fitness guru, which was body-changing. It entailed weights, TRX straps, resistance bands, and sweating at the gym up to five days a week.

“It was hard, and the more I did it, the more changes I saw in my body, the better I felt,” she says. “I had real abs. I’ve always been thin. I’m very lucky that I never had a weight issue, but I wasn’t strong. Now I had actual muscles for the first time in my life.”

Which meant that the first time she pulled on her Baywatch suit, she felt fantastic. “I had worked really hard to get where I was, so it was fun. It was a cool thing,” she says.

For her, but not for everyone.

“When I was younger, you struggle with what you look like, your confidence,” she says. “I found a place of confidence in my life. We all are gorgeous in our own ways. Just do you. If you don’t want to wear a bikini, then don’t.”

Alexandra Daddario In Baywatch. (Photo: Everett Collection)

Daddario was born and grew up in New York City, and got her big break playing Annabeth Chase, the daughter of the goddess Athena, in the Percy Jackson films; and Blake Gaines, the daughter of the rescue helicopter pilot played by Dwayne Johnson, in San Andreas. Baywatch is her second film with the Rock, and San Andreas 2 is in the works for next year. “That would be my third movie with the Rock. That’s the coolest thing ever. That’s something you have something written on your tombstone. He’s completely genuine and honest.”

And she knows how to yuck it up in Baywatch, a star-studded comedy featuring the Rock, Efron, and Priyanka Chopra in co-lead roles. “Part of the joke is that all the characters are supernaturally good-looking and take their jobs way too seriously. It was equal-opportunity hotness. Caricatures of dumb women — that’s not funny.”

To hear Daddario tell it, the same applies to the entire cast. She especially bonded with the ladies, including fellow lifeguards Ilfenesh Hadera and Kelly Rohrbach. Lo and behold, there was not a single spat.

“I love them so much, truly, as people, as role models, as women,” she says. “It’s such a cliché: cat-fighting, jealous women. I’ve found it to be completely not the case. I’ve found there to be more ego battles among men. In this cast, everyone was fantastic, boys and girls.”

Alexandra Daddario in Vivienne Westwood. (Photo: Getty Images)

She’s also finding her fashion footing, wearing silver Azzaro Couture to the film’s world premiere, donning a leg-baring Alberta Ferretti look for the MTV Awards, and stepping out in an ultrasexy Vivienne Westwood frock to the Billboard Music Awards.

On that last look, Daddario spills some dressing details. “I turned the skirt around. I duct-taped myself in. My boobs are normal. They sag a little bit and you need to lift them up. I was terrified that the whole situation would come apart,” she says. “I’m trying different things. I like to do things that are fun and colorful and not necessarily that tight-fitting.”

Alexandra Daddario in Azzaro. (Photo: Getty Images)

If Daddario seems centered, it’s because she is. Once she hit her 30s, she connected with her true self and started to know herself better. She started to do yoga, to meditate, “because I want to have a nice boyfriend and a nice career.”

Speaking of romance, she plays Zac Efron’s life interest in the comedy. And of course, that’s launched countless rumors that the two are dating. For the record, the stories are just that.

“It’s not annoying. I understand why people think that. We’re very good friends. It’s nice to think that I used to be very nerdy and I’m cool enough to be dating Zac Efron,” says Daddario. “Zac Efron is never the kind of guy I would have gotten in high school.”

Alexandra Daddario, who stars in the upcoming Baywatch film, visits Yahoo! (Photo: Casey Hollister)

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The More ‘Messed Up’ Goldie Hawn Looks Onscreen, the Better

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Never Call ‘Alien: Covenant’ Star Katherine Waterston a ‘Strong Woman’

‘Swimsuit’ Stunner Kate Upton Says She’s ‘Still Not Confident In a Bathing Suit’

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