#and that's all the actors with their little name and character name thing appearing next to them

[melminli]

Dirty Cash (Money Talks)

summary - you had nothing against your colleague, but you weren't stupid enough to be fooled by his innocent smile and appearance since you knew exactly what kind of corrupt person was hiding behind that costume. after all, you were wearing the same one.

pairing: (gong yoo/ji-cheol) the salesman x fem. recruiter reader

word count: 1.4k

contains: talk about gambling + death and murder, sexual tension?, crack and just evil morals tbh

a/n: i watched maybe the first fifteen minutes or so of bullet train, but i thought of the two funny dudes from it while writing this bcuz their dynamic was funny af. also, i will use the actor's name in this fic since the character itself doesn't really have an official one that was mentioned in the series!

You straightened your tie with your free hand while watching your train approach from the side. The station was always pretty empty at this hour, which saved you the jostling and squeezing as you entered. After that, you sat down comfortably with a light sigh - next to the free seat beside your devilishly handsome colleague. “Are you alright? Don't tell me that you had a exhausting day?” he asked you worriedly with his typical innocent smile on his face but you've known the guy for a while now and you knew exactly how dishonest he sounded right now.

You returned his gaze for a second, uninterested, before turning it back in front of you to observe your surroundings from the window. “Exhausting day? Don't make fun of me or I'll punch you in the face,” you replied monotone and Gong Yoo didn't doubt your statement for a second - or Ji-cheol as you preferred to call him since you weren't a big fan of nicknames. “I had a great time punching those bastards in the face one by one. It feels kinda therapeutic, so I'm actually feeling pretty good right now,” you told him, talking about the subject as if you were talking about the weather.

Your colleague grunted with delight at your good news. “And I would never disagree with you on that.” he said and then just watched your figure silently for a while before speaking up again. “Since you're in such a good mood, would you be willing to play a more private game between the two of us?” he suggested, making you look at him in utter disbelief.

“A private game? With you?” you repeated, amused and laughed in his face. “Hell, no. But don't worry, I'll let you know next time I want to get totally screwed by a freaky pervert,” you added, your voice dripping with sarcasm. Which will be, never.

“Come on, don't be like that,” he asked you sweetly. As sweet as the wolf who pretended to be the mother of the seven little goats before he ate them all one by one. “It's just a tiny, harmless game. It's been so long since we've played anything together.” he complained to you earnestly as if you actually cared, and you didn't.

Yeah, you remembered the last time very clearly, even if you would much rather prefer that you didn't. You hummed. “Is that so? Huh. I mean, it could be because you almost killed me in a fucking game of tic-tac-toe the last time, but that's just a theory.” You said with a shrug, clearly still resenting him for that. However, he just rolled his eyes unaffected by your grudge. “But you didn't, right? It was the other guy who got the bullet in his head.” He replied, not even remembering his name. Not that he had to.

You just glared at him while you rubbed your forehead. “Yeah, maybe. But I'm tired of risking my life just because it makes you horny and you can jerk off to it.” You made your feelings on the matter clear. “You know that the whole living on the edge of death thing isn't really my cup of tea. At least try to understand me a bit here, too.”

I suppose she's not entirely wrong, I could give it a try. I never thought about it like that before, did I? He thought to himself in his head as he ran his tongue over the back of his teeth while he pondered. How selfish of me. “So what exactly do I have to do, to convince you?” He asked you while he already had a few ideas in mind.

You grinned. “You know that very well, don't play dumb.” You demanded as you leaned closer to him so that he could hear what you were singing softly. “Money talks, money talks - dirty cash, I want you, and dirty cash, I need you, oh ~”

He raised an eyebrow, not particularly surprised. “So you want to play for money?” He repeated it, not outright rejecting your request. “Don't you have enough of that already? You're really insatiable when it comes to cash and now you want mine, too?” he joked just to get you worked up.

Though, you didn't get the slightest bit offended by what he said. “Can you ever have enough money? Besides, I'm not forcing you to give it to me, am I?” you said with a smile, already knowing that he would agree to your terms. “But if you want me to play with you, I want eight million won for every round I win.”

She's so greedy for someone who is already more than wealthy. “Aren't you exaggerating a bit? Most people don't earn that much in a month,” he continued his act of - whatever this was - because he just loved arguing with you.

“So? We both have the same salary, I know you can afford it,” you said, holding a hand in the air as soon as you felt that he wanted to stretch this unnecessary conversation even more. “You have to decide now what you want to do or I withdraw my proposal again.”

Gong Yoo closed his mouth and started grinning even wider. “You don't even want to know what kind of game I want to play?” he asked curiously, nodding and accepting whatever you wanted as soon as he saw that you actually weren't interested. You couldn't even imagine how gladly he gave in to you at this moment. “All right, I agree with your request.”

You stood up with your briefcase in hand after your station was announced. “Good. Text me when you have something in mind, I'll be there as long as it fits timewise.”

Your colleague continued to watch you with a look on his face that used to make you more than just uncomfortable back in the day - though it didn't even bother you in the slightest now. “You don't want to accompany me to the...office?”

You smiled while the train started to slow down. “Au revoir, Ji-cheol.” you just said your goodbye to him and stepped out of the doors. You didn't even spare the poor guy a second glance when he waved his hand at you from the window. She can be so heartless sometimes, he thought to himself, even if you were like this pretty much all the time. I'll have to think of something good to ask for in return should I win. I'm definitely not going to hold back when there's this much money at stake.

You didn't give a second thought to anything as you made your way home after a day's work like any normal citizen would do. However, your steps slowed considerably when you noticed a beggar in your field of vision and even though the rest of the crowd ignored the man and his entire existence, you couldn't help but focus your full attention on him. You looked at your watch, I've been off work for a while now. But even then, you couldn't help but notice that he was one of the people on your list to recruit for the game. He'll still be here tomorrow, but I don't mind another round of Ddakji. I love money more than anything - but I'm not doing this job for only that since I don't even have anything against working a bit of overtime when it comes to this.

“Excuse me,” you spoke to the man with a polite smile on your face, and he only submissively avoided your gaze as he listened to you. After all, one rarely approached people like him and why would they? He held his cup of loose change out in front of him, probably expecting you to give him a small donation, but you wanted to give him so much more than that. Even if the guy didn't know it right now - you wanted to give him another chance in life, so that he wouldn't continue to be just a miserable failure.

You ignored his donation cup. “I was wondering if you might have a moment because I'd like to make you an offer,” you continued politely and the man met your gaze at that. Yeah, you were really looking forward to what was about to happen - after all, you were known for letting your opponent only win if you allowed them to.

[felixravinstills]

Actors Being Interviewed (4/4)

—Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 8-Part Documentary

[naughtyneganjdm]

Sneaking in a Quickie

Summary: Taking your niece to a haunted farm attraction turns out to be a fun night when you convince Joel to sneak off with you to enjoy one another.

Characters: Joel Miller & the reader (OC, second person)

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59500783

Warnings: 18+, Swearing, Smut, public sex, rough sex, unprotected p in v, Halloween themed, no use of Y/N, female reader, little to no plot, mentions of Sarah, etc.

Notes: This is day 3 to go with this kinktober list. The prompt I chose was "public sex".

What you thought was going to be a boring night babysitting two kids was actually turning out to be a whole lot more interesting than you thought it would be. When your niece asked you to take her to a haunted farm with multiple attractions for Halloween, you happily accepted. You wanted to spend more time with her, but when you found out she just wanted you to go in order to be a guardian to watch over her and her friend because her parents didn’t want to take her, that’s when it seemed like it was going to be boring. It had been a long time since you had gone to a haunted house of any kind and you thought you were going to be a third wheel.

Instead, when you got to the place, you were pleasantly surprised that your niece’s friend, Sarah, had brought her father along with her. That way you wouldn’t be the only adult there. And it didn’t hurt that he was incredibly good looking.

Joel Miller was his name, and, at first, he was very shy. Soft spoken. Avoided eye contact. Before the event started, you were all sitting at a picnic table with the girls talking back and forth which left you trying to make conversation with him. It was hard, but eventually you got him talking. And once he did, you couldn’t get enough of his southern drawl. From his chocolate brown eyes to his dimples and dark messy hair, you found yourself swooning over this man.

If you were in other situations, you wouldn’t have had a hard time making a pass at him. Unfortunately you were in front of children and that wasn’t going to happen. So you could only flirt with him in the most innocent of ways.

Most of the haunted attractions didn’t start until sundown, so the four of you walked around a scare zone that they had for what appeared to be the younger children. There were mazes with paintings on the walls, a spinning tunnel, a corn maze and other odds and ends. Truthfully? You didn’t care what you were doing as long as you were close to Joel. You wanted to make a good impression on him and by the lack of a ring on his finger you knew that it’d be okay with you trying so hard.

Once the sun went down, you were enamored by how much he visibly loved his daughter, but also by his smartass attitude. When the girls asked you and Joel to go first into the haunted barn attraction that they had because they were scared, Joel reminded them that the actors often went after those in the back. And he was right. Multiple times the actors would work twice as hard to scare the girls and when they got out of line, Joel would make his presence known. So while the teens were happy to be there, they also had their bodyguard to keep them safe.

Together as a group, all of you had spent a lot of time together and the more time you spent with Joel, the hotter you were for him. And by the way he was looking at you toward the end of the night, you wondered if he felt the same.

Part of you was incredibly excited when a group of girls showed up that were friends with your niece and Sarah. They begged to go spend time with them since there was a mother with that group as well. Joel agreed but requested them to meet back at a certain time.

This was exactly what you wanted. Joel suggested the two of you take a walk through the corn maze which wasn’t incredibly busy. Walking side by side with Joel felt nice. It was a cold night and the warmth of his body radiated next to yours warming you right up.

“So…” you finally let the thing that you had been wondering all night escape you. “Are you dating anyone?”

“I don’t have time for that,” Joel admitted with a nervous breath, his brow line furrowing with him shoving his hands further into his jean pockets. “Between Sarah and work, not much time for anything else.”

“Oh,” you breathed out, giving him a small nod. You didn’t want to look too happy to hear that so you looked away. “So does that leave a lot of time for sex?”

“Wow,” Joel chuckled, stopping in his tracks to give you a once over. “You just jump right in, don’t you?”

“I’m curious,” you felt a warmth flooding into your cheeks wondering if you had overstepped with the question. “Someone who looks like you…”

“What do you mean?” Joel question, his eyebrow arching in amusement.

“I mean you’re gorgeous,” you were blunt with your response. How else could you put it? “Look at you Joel.”

“Thank you,” Joel chuckled under his breath, his dimples becoming more visible. You couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or charmed by your comment. It was also somewhat dark so it didn’t allow you to see the full emotion in Joel’s dark eyes. “As are you.”

Hearing that sent a rush through your veins.

“And to answer your question,” Joel began, pulling his right hand from his pocket to reach up to brush his fingers through his messy hair. “Not really.”

“Not really?” you repeated, confused what question he was referring to. You were still focused on the idea that he thought you were gorgeous.

“Sex. I don’t have much of it,” Joel admitted, biting at his bottom lip when his dark eyes locked with yours.

“That’s a shame,” you frowned realizing that you had reached the end of the corn maze leading you back out into the open area of the scare zone again. Most of the crowd was at the haunted hayride or the haunted barn. And anyone else was really sitting at the tables talking or hanging out. The area you were walking around was more for the younger kids and since it was nighttime, the area was rather empty. “How brave are you?”

“That depends on what you’re asking,” Joel asserted, turning to face you with a confused expression. “Why do you ask?”

“I would happily take you behind the building and give you a blowjob,” you offered in a whisper having Joel release a long exhale of air from his throat. His shoulders slouched forward, his brow line rising before he looked over his shoulder to see if you were alone. “I noticed that anyone that leaves that building goes out the side. No one goes behind it.”

“Wow,” Joel muttered and it made you panic. Yeah, that was forward, but you were jumping on what you could, hoping that you could get something from this moment. You were heavily attracted to this man and you had the time to try. Looking back toward the building that you were referring to, Joel seemed to actually be considering what you said. “You know…” Joel paused, looking back toward the large group of people again, “A blowjob sounds nice, but I’d much rather fuck you.”

Hooking his fingers firmly around your wrist, Joel led you through the field. Your heart was hammering inside of your chest with the excitement flooding your veins. As you rounded the corner of the building to the maze, you made sure that no one was watching when Joel firmly pushed you against the wall eliciting a surprise gasp from you.

“Can you be quiet?” Joel wondered waiting for your answer before he did anything else. Giving him a nod, you couldn’t form words. Or maybe you were just trying to prove already that you could be quiet. Smirking, Joel bobbed his head about and looked around you to check to make sure you were alone. Once he was certain that you were, he stepped forward trapping you between him and the building. Caressing in over your hips, his large palms squeezed at them with the warmth of his breath lingering over your mouth. “You are wild, y’know that?”

“Only in the best of ways,” you whispered, your hand pressing in over the center of his firm chest. It was then that Joel stole a kiss from your lips. It was actually pretty sweet for a first kiss in a moment like this. It lingered and it felt good. Tipping back, his eyes gazed over you and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. There was only a small amount of light that allowed you to see him from the flood lights the place had set up in the main area and the light from the moon. Palming up over his chest, you slid your fingers in underneath the jacket he was wearing to caress over his arms. Underneath you felt the firmness of his biceps and it took your breath away. “You are a fine specimen of a man Joel Miller.”

“Just you wait until you realize just how fine,” Joel growled, hammering his mouth down over yours. This time it was a very dominant, passionate kiss that had you tipping up on your toes to wrap your arms around his shoulders. Parting your lips allowed him to brush his tongue between your lips and you happily returned the gesture. Gasping out, you were surprised at Joel’s quickness when he turned you to face the wooden walls that someone had thrown up quickly in order to make this place. “We have to be quick, otherwise, I reckon I’d love to kiss you all night.”

Sucking in a sharp breath of air, your eyes slammed shut and you purred out at the feeling of Joel pressing in behind you. His hands caressed up over the sides of your body and then back again. Pushing his hips forward toward your bottom had your eyes coming to a tight close. God, you wanted this so bad. And it was super naughty considering you were in public, not far away from a large group of people.

Forcefully, Joel pushed up the material of your shirt and the light jacket that you were wearing. Finding the top of your pants, he hastily tugged the material getting it down to the bottom of your thighs along with your panties. The sudden coolness of the night air sent a shuddering chill throughout your body. What followed was the sound of Joel swiftly pulling open his belt and working his pants open.

“This is going to be hard and fast. We have to make it quick, but don’t make a sound or else we can get caught. D’you understand?” Joel grunted in your ear, pressing in closer to you and it took your breath away. “D’you?”

“Yes sir,” you panted, hissing out at the incredible amount of pressure that was put over your hips with Joel moving you where he wanted you. Bracing your hands against the wall of the building, you licked your lips and did your best to hold back the whine that you wanted to let out when you felt the tip of Joel’s cock tracing over the length of your sex. God, you wished you could have seen it, but all you could do was picture it when he teased it over your clit and back toward your entrance. A moment later, Joel’s hips bounced up toward yours filling you. “Fu…”

You had to bite down on your bottom lip to silence yourself, knowing the rules. The stretching feeling was immediate. Fuck he was big. Joel stepped forward, forcing you closer toward the building with your face pressing against the coolness of it. Once he got his footing, Joel’s thrusts were meticulous. They were hard and focused. Other than his breathing growing louder, Joel was doing a pretty good job at staying quiet.

You on the other hand were fighting to stay quiet. Every bounce forward of his hips had a smacking sound filling the air. Faint winces were falling from your lips and you started to eagerly bounce your hips back against Joel’s movements. You wanted to feel every part of him inside of you. It was an addictive feeling and you hadn’t even had it that long.

The smacking of his testicles against your clit with every forceful thrust forward was driving you crazy with desire. God, you wished this didn’t have to be a quickie, but still you were loving every second of it. Pressing his head further against the side of your neck, Joel’s breaths were more broken.

“You were a happy surprise,” Joel alerted you with a quiet voice, the warmth of his breath sending chills down your spine. Dropping your left hand down, you wrapped your arm around you to cup at Joel’s bottom. Beneath your fingertips, it flexed with every thrust forward he made. Soon with your urgings, he was pounding into you and you were having a hard time hiding the sounds. Curling his fingers around your mouth had you moaning out into his palm. An amused rumble fell from him with him angling his hips differently. “We have to keep you quiet now.”

Your legs felt like Jell-O. If he didn’t have you pressed up against the wall and he wasn’t keeping you up with his other arm wrapped around your waist, you were certain that you wouldn’t be able to stand on your own.

“God, you feel so fucking good,” Joel slurred in your ear and it had your eyes closing shut tightly. The tip of Joel’s cock was hitting your g-spot with every forceful thrust that he made forward. Your thighs were tensing up with a fire building in the pit of your stomach. So badly you wanted to make a noise, but Joel’s hand was keeping you from doing so. With the way you were shaking, Joel must have picked up on it with his thrusts becoming more powerful. They slowed down, but the force of them had you bouncing up on your toes toward the building. And after a few more determined thrusts, it had Joel pulling his hips back and away from you when your body shuddered and a wet sound followed. With an amused rumble, Joel still kept his fingers wrapped around your lips with your body now slouched forward shaking. “I did not picture you squirting during this, but I like it…”

Joel’s free hand found it’s way between your legs to caress at your clitoris, his fingers having you bucking up toward his touch, “how do you want me to finish?”

Shakily dropping to your knees had Joel smiling when you turned to face him. Stepping forward, he allowed you to grab at his hips to pull him closer to you. Taking your time, you curled your fingers around Joel’s length, pumping his flesh in your grasp. And when he let out a shuddering breath, you took him into your mouth, working to bob your head over his cock at the same tempo you were caressing over the base of it with.

“That’s it,” Joel licked his lips, his fingers pressing in over the back of your head to help lead your movements over his erection. Wet sounds were falling from his parted lips with the tip of his cock hitting the back of your throat. Thrusting toward your mouth, Joel was undoubtedly wanting to get that quick release so no one would catch the two of you. “Fuck…”

In that moment you felt Joel tensing up, his cock throbbing inside of your mouth. Bouncing his hips forward, Joel pressed you further down his length. The first line of his cum hit the back of your throat and you did your best to swallow it down. Continuing his release, Joel clung tightly to your head biting back the sounds that he wanted to make.

By the time he was done, he released you allowing you to pull back and away to rest on your knees. Joel’s cock twitched and you licked your lips, cherishing the taste of him that was still there. Reaching for his pants, Joel pulled them back over his hips. Working his softening cock back into his pants, Joel was quick to fix his clothes before helping you up.

“Come here,” Joel nuzzled his nose in against the side of your neck while he helped work your pants back up over your waist.

“So you’re a gentleman too?” you teased still feeling uneasy on your legs, thankful that Joel was holding onto you.

“Something like that,” Joel snorted, collecting your chin between his thumb and index finger. Gifting you with another kiss, Joel hummed against your flesh. You assumed he tasted himself against your flesh with him drawing his tongue out over his bottom lip. Looking to his watch, Joel huffed and shrugged his shoulders. “We need to get going.”

“That’s a shame,” you frowned hating how quickly something this amazing had to end.

“Nothing about tonight was a shame,” Joel corrected you, outstretching his hand to caress his thumb in over your bottom lip. “We’re just going to have to find a time where we can do this again and make it last all night.”  

[thesilverdoll]

This is the chance of ten lifetimes.

Every five years, twenty breakthrough actors compete over ten weeks for the name of TVs newest obsession, the silver doll. The winner, decided by the global audience, is historically known to make it big. You auditioned on a whim alongside your best friend, and somehow the both of you have made it to the final round of auditions!

Now, all you have to do is make the final cut, get along with your celebrity mentor, remember your lines and... win—all with a camera (or ten) in your face. Don't get discouraged, you made it this far for a reason.

❖ FEATURES

› Customise yourself! Groom yourself into TVs next biggest thing—pick your style, your approach to scenes, your public image, your strengths and weaknesses as an actor. As well as your appearance, personality, gender and your plan b... if you have one.

› Establish relationships with your peers! Befriend your competitors or betray them... engage in a behind-the-scenes rendezvous or two, try and gain a more intimate look into your celebrity mentors life, try and befriend everyone on stage, or keep to yourself and focus on winning.

› Compete! Participate in different challenges throughout the show. Put your best dance shoes on for theatre week, practice your screams for horror week, hope you don't get paired with someone waspish in romance week... decide how you approach each performance, and see how your choices impact your results!

› Furthermore... interact with your fans! Viewership is your best friend in The Silver Doll, so make sure you're on top of your social media game... or you can try to play the mysterious cards and keep away from public eye as much as possible, if you think that'll work out for you. Just... be careful how much you share, there's a gossip blog following the shows BTS that seems to know a little too much.

❖ ROMANCE

*full character profiles coming soon.

- Beck Taylor; he/him or she/her, 21.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Your childhood best friend that convinced you to audition beside them. Computer science student turned dropout to pursue a life on the big screen, Beck may not have years of acting under their belt, but they do have a natural talent for the dramatics. Plus, with you by their side and their on-and-off girlfriend, Sarika, at home cheering them on, they can do anything.

Beck is tall at 6'6, black, with dark braided hair and brown eyes.

- Stirling 'Sekani' Stokes, he/him, 24.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Sekani, as he wants to be known as, is the textbook example of a nepo baby. Born to two of TVs most recognisable faces, he's grown up in the spotlight. Sekani is here to prove to the world that he has the talent to grace the big screen, despite his family name... and also to prove to himself that acting is something he actually likes doing in the first place. Yeah… he’s a bit of a mess.

Sekani is 5'10, white, with messy black hair and pale green eyes.

- Troy Allard-Rose, she/her, 23.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎An aspiring actress since she was making her barbies perform dramatic monologues at six, Troy is here to win, and she’ll be damned if she lets some amateurs stop that from happening. Acting is all Troy knows, she’s been in performing arts schools and film camps alike— this is her dream. She won’t let anyone tell her she’s not worthy of achieving it.

Troy is 5’5, white, with platinum blonde hair and dark brown eyes.

Esra Ihimaera, they/them, 27.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Esra is a member of the production crew, and your very own cameraperson. They’re in charge of doing the closed interviews, and also take care of a lot of the day-to-day filming. A little less extroverted than the celebrities surrounding them, but their sweet heart and eye for detail makes them a whole lot more interesting in other aspects.

Esra is 5’11, Māori, with short bleached hair and dark brown eyes.

Bethany Tian, she/they, 28.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎One of the best stylists on the show, Beth is in charge of your hair, makeup and wardrobe for the next ten weeks. Talkative and energetic beyond belief, Beth is hard to get rest around, but she’s good to keep morale up. She’s styled celebrities for red carpets and space-exploration scenes alike. From SFX makeup to high glamour looks, there’s nothing you can’t pull off when Beth is the one styling you.

Bethany is 5’2, Chinese, with long pink hair and black eyes.

❖ THE MENTORS

*both mentors are romanceable

- Rome Alivia, he/him, 26.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ A successful child-actor turned even more successful actor into his adulthood, Rome is a family name. Though he’s scrutinising and hard to wrench out of his working mindset, Rome hasn’t let the fame get to his head. He’s dedicated to improving his mentee’s abilities as actors rather than having a focus on winning.

Rome is 6’2, white, with brown hair and brown eyes.

- Shaan Jha, they/them, 30.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎The last Silver Doll, Shaan is happy to return to the set that kickstarted their fame and fortunes five years prior. Eager to mould their best mentee into a winner, Shaan is optimistic in the best of times and downright delusional in the worst. They've proven their talents, though, and are positive it will be one of their mentees that win.

Shaan is 5'8, Indian, with long brown and blonde hair and brown eyes.

The Silver Doll is rated 18+ for depictions of drug and alcohol consumption, strong language, infidelity, and optional sexual scenes.

[ravenstargames]

✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #14 | 12.02.24

And November is over! This month has been filled with paperwork, organizing receipts, and so on, which isn't very fun, but it's part of the job!

We are making great progress with everything overall; merch has been ordered and we have received proof and approved it; our voice actors are already delivering the voiced names y'all paid for during our Kickstarter campaign; and more! Let's see it in detail, shall we? :^)

Our dear Raquel has been working hard (I think I say this every devlog, but damn) on reworking the sprites for the extended demo now that the Special postcards for the Kickstarter are done! For this next batch, she'll be working on Ara and Amon, so here's a WIP of how Ara is looking so far! 💜

I think you can see how her design is already more detailed and cohesive in some areas. We'll most likely ask for feedback when Amon is ready too, to test the waters with both characters like we did with Gael and Xal :^)

The street is coming to life! This background is almost ready thanks to Astro. We'll have four new locations in the Extended Demo to help with the pacing and the introduction of our world and story to (hopefully) make it perfect. Or something close to it!

In the writing department, I've so far added 7000 words to the prologue. We have one flavor choice, two personality choices (and several personality reactions), and three "relationship choices". These basically shape your relationship with Evie in this case. For example, you'll be able to choose if you are intimate friends, are warm to each other, or if you prefer something less physical / touchy. And Evie will remember that!

And this is just so far. While River has a kind of "set" personality, I want people to be able to shape some aspects of their life.

In the writing department I should also include the documents I've provided to our VAs, and to our composer, Tomás. More on that below!

We have a proper help screen! Wohoo! 💜

Now you can enjoy Ren'py's default help screen but looking a bit nicer. This is for those who are not familiar with Ren'py's usual keybindings and stuff :^)

Nothing else on the programming side this month. I've focused on writing the script and that's going to be my main job until I can actually start programming something!

As I said before, our beloved voice actors are already working on the voiced names! In fact, Xal's VA (Francfil Pontañeles) and Pride's (Pat Langner) already recorded them! A little surprise is that we have been able to add our default MC's name, River, as a voiced name. For those of you who want to play with that name, you'll also enjoy some voiced lines!

What else—ah! We are already working with Tomás for our OST, and we have settled in 19 tracks total. Those are even more tracks than we expected! This is thanks to you all, and especially thanks to those of you who ordered more merch via Backerkit. You made those four extra tracks possible!

Our merch has been checked and so far only the pins are missing a preview and therefore our approval. We had to edit some files (beginner's mistake!) but being the first time we do this, I'd say things have been rather smoothly! We'd like to be able to start shipping this month, but it may not be possible. Which is a bummer! But well, we settled in December / January, so January it is, if nothing happens!

(Don't mind the colors being too flashy here—they will look more cohesive in game!)

OH, and the last extra bit! I've been working on the personality choices, as you all know, and Kayden has been helping me make the icons that will appear next to those choices for those who are colorblind. An extra thing to make them pop and differentiate them better! I think they are pretty self-explanatory, and if not, well—that means we have to give those icons a twist!

November has been a chaotic month for me due to the aftermath of the floods and my vacation week. The rest of the team has also had their good amount of irl stuff happening around them, but we've made it! The new year is approaching faster than I thought, as per usual, and I hope we can finish 2024 on a good note!

And that's all! As always, please take care, have fun, and enjoy the rest of the week!

[steveharrington]

major hornets nest moment here but i must speak my truth. its so fascinating to me how will byers was clearly written with the driving motivation and intention of making him a beloved fan favorite character and instead he falls so flat that, if you asked the average casual viewer of the show who doesn't engage in the fandom like, say, your coworker, the odds of him even being in their top five of favorite characters is pretty low.

will's disappearance kicks off the plot, singlehandedly. the first episode is literally called the vanishing of will byers. his name is shouted so much in the first season that most people would recognize the reference if you used the right cadence and desperation that winona ryder does. after not being featured much in season one, you'd think season two would've just like launched will/noah schnapp into stardom with how much more screentime he's given and how dramatic his plot is that season. but instead the fan favorites of season 2 were by and large el, hopper, dustin, steve, max, even bob who's barely there. that's not to say that there AREN'T will fans out there (and online i understand there are like entire armies dedicated to him/byler, but i'm talking about the average opinion of viewers as a whole, not just in fandom spaces) but think about all the stranger things merch you see in stores, the halloween costumes, the characters that appear in promotional materials when the show has partnerships with brands....will is so rarely featured. idk if any of yall ever got the chance to visit the stranger things pop up shop in any of its various locations, but there was such little mention of will in the stores theming or merchandise that it was almost funny. actually it WAS funny, to me, someone who does not care for him

i think the flop can be attributed to many things. one, noah schnapp is just not a very good actor and he doesn't have the same appeal in his performances that millie, sadie, caleb, gaten, priah, or finn do (although finn i've noticed is also kinda falling out of favor from majority audiences). one could argue that noah schnapp intentionally isn't given much to do, which is true and i'll circle back to that, but the decline in his acting between seasons 2 and 3 is truly a sight to behold. when he's not like tied up and screaming, he reallllllly struggles on the smaller scale performances compared to the other cast members his age. he doesn't really have the charm that gaten does or the humor that priah does or the depth that caleb does. (i don’t feel bad about saying this, btw, given noah schnapp’s behavior)

back to the vanishing of will byer's screen time. my beloved prettymuchit's eric striffler commented on how diminished will and mike's roles in the story have become in s4. "noah schnapp is below the grips on the call sheet" is my fav line, but he also makes an observation on finn's role that i think is soooo accurate. when mike and will are kneeling down next to the pizza dough freezer and watching el just kinda twitch while she fights vecna in her mind, eric and his co-host miles say "this is so embarrassing! finn's like, 'oh so gaten's fighting the monster? and i'm kneeling next to a tub at a pizza place? i used to be this show" and i think the same exact sentiment can be superimposed onto will

but i think this happened naturally, as the nature of the show is to shift its focus from character to character. not to mention the duffer brothers' obsession with tweaking their story to give audiences what they want. i've always held the belief that there isn't one main character of stranger things, rather a rotating circle of characters depending on the season you're watching. season one is mike, season two is hopper, season three is el, season four is max imo. again that's a little subjective and arguments could be made to swap those a little, but overall i think those characters stories and point of views take center stage during each of their respective seasons. by season 3, the duffers wanted to kick things up to a larger scale. the UD is no longer targeting just will, it's targeting the entire town. this works because a THIRD season in a row where this one kid specifically gets possessed would just be bonkers, so they kinda had to let him take a backseat. i'm not sure why they didn't let will be more involved in the mystery-solving portion of season 3....to this day that decision baffles me, but what's done is done and the will that everyone watched in season 3 literally just kinda follows everyone around and gets a small little slice of a plotline about wanting things to go back to normal, but alas

it like totally worked, though. though there are MANY complaints commonly made about season 3, i've never heard anyone offline complain that there wasn't enough will byers. i think the group in s3 that had the most success like, commercially, would be scoops troop and then a bit farther back i think most audiences enjoyed hopper/joyce/murray's dynamic. i think if there had been a huge outcry in the minimizing of will's role, the duffers would've backpedaled immediately. they aim to please. they can't even commit to killing of a main character out of fear that audiences will lose interest if we permanently lose hopper or max, so they just do some creative writing that allows them to milk the emotional consequence of those characters deaths without actually writing them off. if audiences on a large scale demanded that will be center stage, he would be. but they dont!

final point: i think will gets fucked over by the duffers obsession with romance. in season one, two of will's strongest dynamics are with his mom and brother. which like, yeah. theyre his immediately family and he is 12. but in seasons 2 and 3, jonathan spent all his screen time with nancy and from 2-4, joyce has spent all her screen time either with hopper or in the pursuit of finding hopper. these characters are written together as a package deal, typically. it was refreshing and unexpected to see jonathan get a whole season with a friend of his very own and his siblings, but they barely took advantage of that. jonathan and will get ummmm one (1) scene to talk about their emotions in a fucking 20 hour season. it's hard for will to be a main character when he rarely gets to interact with the people that make up the other half of his main dynamics.

as for byler, im of the belief that it will not be endgame because i just don't think they're going to break up mike and el at this point. i could be completely wrong and stand corrected, but im like 90% sure lol. i do think that will's s4 storyline resonated with a lot of people. even eric striffler! i think the issue is that the vastttt majority of people who watch this show above the age of like 15 do not feel invested about the romantic relationships between any of the kids. because why would they!!! theyre literally in middle school for 3/4 of the show. you would be hard pressed to find a vocal will stan online who doesn't also dedicate 90% of their engagement with the show to byler. which makes sense, because most if not all of will's scenes revolve around mike to some degree. but according to neilsen, the majority of stranger things audience is consistently in the 18-49 age range season by season. its more likely for adult audiences to identify with adults (or characters who are narratively treated like adults, like steve and nancy) than with any of the kids. esp when the kid in question, despite being written as the focal point of the show, has less relevant plotlines, less interaction with other characters, and an actor who just doesn't deliver on charm the way his fellow younger costars do

[yuseirra]

It's kind of.. really cruel of the author to never include Kamiki in any of the colored drawings. They never developed him well enough while having him destroyed, he DID swallow up so many of the remaining chapters due to Aqua basically devoting his life and giving up on everything he built up in the entire story to killing him, but it's not like we actually know so much of this guy either. I've studied him A LOT but from your average reader's perspective he's like someone just little more than some rando, Ai's ex who's a psychopath showing up and the protag just dying with him. The thing is!! That "psychopath" laid out all the reasons why Aqua's life is precious and worth living and suggested he go back to live. This is what gets me so much. So was this the only way?? I'm coming up with my own analogies to make it have a sense- but it's the work that has to make things convincing. The readers should not do this work. The work should provide proper answers.

Ofc he could be horrible(I'm not convinced btw)but wow, even the Himekawas have Taiki visiting their grave in the final chapter with flowers when what they did is horrifying. THE WOMAN MOLESTED A LITTLE KID. STARTING FROM AGE 10-11. I really can't forgive how they just..; How can they be so irresponsible on handling such a subject? They just make a couple statements.. oh by the way I'm GLAD Taiki never had a confrontation with Kamiki. I saw how his characters of his name was written and do you know?? His name comes from how Kamiki's characters are written in kanji and I found that super cruel and creepy of Airi. That woman is a character but she's insane. I never felt Kamiki would have to confront the boy one bit. No, they never have to interact at all. What happened regarding them's still horrifying. I just saw a new drawing of the hoshino family but like, he's always nonexistent. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but he's completely excluded in that whole family dynamic when it is stated that Ai wanted to raise her kids with him. I feel really bitter because what's the point?? of all this??

I had a chat with my friend who isn't really into the series much, and she had an interesting idea.

she says since the story is SO incomplete, and the author announced they're going to write a new series- she thinks that they may be trying to create a narrative where multiple narratives can somehow converge into a part of a huge universe or something. They'll explain all the weird things through it. Wasn't Kaguya-sama and Onk set in the same world? She says. There may be some beings that are chosen by the gods or hold some specialties in them but it's never really been explained how they've come to be or what conditions they get chosen, maybe they're going to continue writing several stories and explain it through another. "They never showed the dad being really dead, didn't they? We basically know so little about him? He might come back in another story." (I went, "BUT JUST WHAT WOULD HE DO?? AI'S STILL DEAD.." oh but in that case, he might actually look ENTIRELY different because he's an actor huh. and since there's "Misogi", he might be really purified by the saltwater. He might return to being a benevolent god now. Again, what was Aqua's life then but actually;; maybe Kamiki IS still alive. We really didn't see his body or know what the heck actually happened to him.)

I have no idea... but so much is just left unexplained.., so maybe she has a point. This work is simply incomplete. We really don't know what's been happening behind the scenes or why the twins were reincarnated, what were their missions and all, everything's left on a vague note. I do feel like they're going to have Ruby appear as a cameo in the author's next work as a famous idol on TV or something like that. Perhaps this piece may be a "stepping stone" for another story to develop on the same thing. While I was sitting there, listening to her theories of it, I couldn't help but feel really annoyed at the author. Even if they have some bigger picture or whatnot(if they somehow deem this piece a complete piece of work, that's even more concerning because anyone can tell it's extremely hollow and sloppy) this isn't respectful toward their readers who came in looking for a resolution.

I did manage to come up with an explanation for this piece that I'm pretty sure of, but they didn't do the work they were supposed to do. If they want to make some other piece of work and develop that first, then it's better to leave one on hiatus and create pieces that are "complete". Stories are a product, we don't come here to look at single puzzle pieces, we want the whole picture. The time, energy, and passion spent on reading a piece shouldn't feel like a waste. If the piece can't explain what's going on on its own, it's cannot be defined as a standalone. On that regard, onk isn't a standalone because nobody can figure out what's been going on about the ending of the piece by just seeing what the series has to offer, we have to make guesses that aren't properly laid out. It's like you order a pizza and you only got the dough. No matter how great the dough is, you'd STILL want a pizza because that's what you're there for. That's what the authors did for this piece, regarding the plot, and for all the characters of the series, the only character I think somewhat survived is Ai because her story had some sort of a wrap-up. She's the only one that feels complete in a sense, so this series..in the end, heavily relied on this one character who died in the first volume. She was really iconic.

Hopefully I don't have much more to be disappointed about-

oh, about Ruby in the last chapter. They had to let her speak for herself, she doesn't feel alive. Ruby can express the feelings she has. She has a mouth for herself. Why are they letting Akane speak on her behalf when she's not even the one that has a strong bond with her? Even if she is, wasn't Ruby supposed to be some sort of double protagonist? Or an important character at least? Or it could have been the author's intent(I'm strongly sensing that this is what they were going for, they want us to be a bystander the way we watch idols on tv and look up to them without knowing how they are as a human being), in that case, this whole piece leaves such a bad taste. So NOTHING's improved from Ai's case, it even got worse, the only thing that separates Ai's situation and keeps Ruby's career being endangered is that Ruby doesn't have a boyfriend and she doesn't have twins to care for. So what's the message huh?? Don't make any of those or even if you end up doing it, lie!! Is that it?

This piece is so disrespectful then. That's unsettling.

Those pages used in the final chapter should have been entirely devoted to Ruby speaking for herself if they even care for her as someone who has a heart of a person...but I don't think it's the message they want to show, the authors must want to make a point about the nature of idols having to keep up sturdy personas and keep shining at all times, but THAT'S already been discussed FAR better with Ai's case. It's even a step turned backward, so Onk wasn't really about growth.. Ruby's lost HER character. Not every work has to be about growth but having this happen after 17 volumes of story that seemed to suggest otherwise is not just baffling, it's not consistent writing and I wouldn't be this harsh(I'm not even being harsh right here. I'm being so generous with everything I'm typing)if it were to be written out in depth.

Borrowing my friend's commentary on it: This work don't discuss any of the issues they are presenting as insightful as it should, they just toss things out there and acknowledge they exist... but the characters make a few comments about that particular topic, make awkward laughs and then brush it off after having made you thought it's going to be handled. I think... acknowledging things have some meaning to it, at least it lets you realize it exist (for example, I started paying more attention to child abuse after having seen Ai and Kamiki's stories) but if you're going to bring it up, don't you have to handle it well? It's not the worst but I'd say it's SO FAR from what it can be as well. That is, also what I've found pretty annoying about this work. So nothing has been covered as well as it could have been. The plot, the characters, the subject it handles, they're all left hanging there. This piece is incomplete. And if you hand in an incomplete product, it isn't even graded. It gets sent back and is required to be completed and polished again till it is, or your contract is terminated. That's the situation with this piece. I wonder what the anime team would do with the third season but the authors had to hand in a piece they could work with. They shouldn't do this to them. I'm not saying the piece is entirely bad, it's just not a finished product. And that's not fair to all the people who wished for one.

[should-know-better]

I think that Silverscreen is about that horrible interview

I've looked at the lyrics to Silverscreen over and over again, and just couldn't relate to them being about Alex or Hannah. Something just didn't feel right. For a start, when the song was written, Miles and Hannah hadn't broken up - in fact, they were together for another four months - so although the song appears to be about acting, I felt it couldn't be about her.

Then, there was consideration, that it could have been about Alex and the façade of his straight behaviour but the line 'patent boots, lipstick rouge' didn't fit (interestingly years later, Alex did have some patent boots for The Car tour).

I think that this is Miles' angry song about the RB interview in Spin Magazine (I refuse to even use her name).

Two-faced Johnny, hotel lobby A two-faced person is someone who is not sincere and says complimentary things to your face, but horrible things behind your back. 'Johnny' or 'Little Johnny' is a character often used in funny jokes or anecdotes, so Miles is creating a juxtaposition here. The interview did take place in the lobby of the Bowery Hotel in New York. In many of Miles' songs, he sets the scene in the first line.

I won't go up without you This is similar to what she reported he'd said. Growing up, Miles and Alex would have seen many British tv shows which had many double entendres in them (the Carry On films, Open All Hours, Are You Being Served to name but a few), and much of this humour is seen throughout their interviews. It's of a specific time and it's difficult for some non-UK people to fully appreciate. This is why she took the quip the wrong way. When interviewers say that Miles and Alex are talking in their own language, I feel that they don't realise that they are quoting different comedy lines to each other, to make each other laugh.

Patent boots, lipstick rouge, For the first time today, I looked up online pictures of RB and discovered that she does indeed wear bright red lipstick. There's black boots, but too difficult to say if they are patent.

hang on the edge of champagne flutes She works by writing about people who are rich and successful, literally, a hanger-on to the music industry.

Misdemeanour, gossip cleaner, She's made out that he has done something wrong, and she's created gossip. 'Cleaning up' is a phrase that means making money.

overacting table reader. Ego driver, loose-lip liar A table read is a run through of the script, done by actors just speaking the lines, i.e. there's no action. Nothing happened. She's making it out to be more than it actually was, (building up her ego) by suggesting that a rock star would try to seduce her. She's a liar.

driving my head in A colloquialism - 'doing my head in' is a phrase used in the North of the UK, meaning, it's making me so angry, I can't stop thinking about it.

I can't see silverscreens, He's saying to her, it's no good acting, this is not a film

you won't leave it alone, I don't care what you mean, I don't buy your next scene She repeatedly interpreted aspects from the interview the wrong way and he can't believe what she's written about him. Also, the repeat of 'you won't leave it alone' could refer to that it was reported that she didn't accept his apology.

Surface tension, I won't mention, liar, liar, liar ha This either refers to the tension in the interview itself, or the tension that the interview has created afterwards for Miles. She lied about it and made his comments out to be more than they were.

Dirty finger, constant linger, driving my head in A dirty finger means 'fuck you' as in when you show the middle finger to someone. Miles is still angry about this interview, months later, when he's writing the song. The interview was in March, he wrote the song in September. Perhaps the repeated phrase of 'you won't leave it alone,' also is him talking to himself. He can't get over it and he thinks about it a lot.

We know that Miles says that he is truthful in his lyrics, but in the John Kennedy interview, he says: "yes, it's a real angry one, it's like, I wanna keep a bit of the mystery there..." knowing full well that bringing this up again would do him more harm than good.

As usual, these are just my thoughts and interpretations on the lyrics and I don't mean to open up a can of worms about the RB interview again. Any comments are welcome 😊

[ooeygooeyghoul]

How to make a child model in Anam/Ktisis!

Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert in the use of these mods! I'm still very new and learning the ins and outs of them! This method worked for me, and maybe there are better ways to do it, but I'm just explaining how I created my baby Shiun. If you know of a better way, or have any tips and tricks, please feel free to comment or reblog with your advice for the sake of other gpose newbies! :D Link to Ktisis's download page | Link to Anam's download page Guide and Tips/Warnings below the cut! Hope this helps <3

Summon your partner in crime. So first off, I equipped my summoner job stone and summoned my trusty companion, Carbie.

2. Add your Carbie to your actors. Open up Anam and add your carbie to your list of actors, by clicking the plus sign at the top of the menu next to your character's name (remember that with Anam, you can only edit appearances OUTSIDE of gpose). Click on the little button labeled "Carbuncle" to add them.

3. Turn your Carbie into a person. With your Cabie selected, go to the "Import NPC" at the bottom right and pull up the list. Find an NPC that is the same race as your desired character and select it. In this example, I just chose the first au ra NPC I saw in the list. (You can also directly choose your desired race in the customize menu and start from scratch, but I just do it the Import way, lol) ⚠️As far as I've experienced, it's a 50/50 chance on whether or not you can alter the age of your character's actor directly. Every time I've tried this, it breaks the model and never works the way it should. For simplicity's sake, I've always just used my friend Carbie.

4. Change the age of your new actor. Now if you look at the top left of the Anam window, there's a series of dropdowns next to "Race."

What you want is the bottom right menu. Click it and you'll see "Old," "Normal," and "Young." Clicking "Young" will turn your carbie into the child version of the race it's currently disguised as!

5. Customize and boot up gpose! Now you can customize them to be the adorable mini version of your beloved WoL/OC!! The bones are compatible with Ktisis and should be as easy to manipulate and pose as adult models. If you use the Carbie method as I have in this explanation, you can simply hide your main model in the default Gpose menu for pictures.

Some things to keep in mind! ----

⚠️Not every race has a child model. The only races that have child models are:

au ra - male & female

hyur - male & female

elezen - male & female

miqo'te - female only

⚠️It is very likely that the models will break or look a little funky when you first spawn them. They have a very limited number of faces, and a limited number of available hairstyles. If you choose an option the game does not have, it will create some... interesting results. Most other customizations beyond skin color, hair color, and eye color will also likely not work (tail type/length, jaw type, etc.).

Left: invalid face selected --- Right: invalid hairstyle selected

Usually, faces 1 & 2 are the only viable options, and hairstyles 1-5 are okay. (Note: the pictures of the hairstyle icons will NOT match the hairstyle on the model.)

⚠️Clothing is also fairly limited! I'm not sure what dictates what child models can and cannot wear, so as far as I know, it's just a game of trial and error. You'll know immediately if an article of clothing isn't compatible lmaoo. Hats... rarely ever work...

✨Don't forget that you can save your model's data! When your model is customized to your liking, click "Export" at the bottom right of the menu to save the data to Anam. That way, you can load the appearance immediately without rebuilding it every time!

It's a mixed bag of what will and won't work on the model. My best advice is to experiment and play around with it! It took me a little bit to figure all of this out, so hopefully this silly little explanation helps out all the other new gposers out there :)

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask! I'll do my best to help! I may edit this as I go to correct things and/or add onto it!

[random-imagines-blog]

Ambulances {Robert Downey Jr x Teen!Reader Oneshot} 

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 3483 Summary: Being the youngest actor on the MCU is a dream come true - but why doesn't you feel as good as you should? Notes: Talks about depression.

This was meant to be everything that you ever wanted. The chance to work on one of the biggest franchises the world had ever seen. Appearing in a huge movie, and then getting the chance to star in a television show afterwards, all about your character. Possibly more movie appearances. Getting paid so handsomely that if you were careful, you wouldn’t ever go into debt. Rubbing elbows with some of the biggest and brightest stars in the world. Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch. And you weren’t even out of high school yet. You were supposed to be living the dream.  

Then why did it feel like it was spiraling down into one of those nights where you don’t remember your dreams? It wasn’t a nightmare. There were negatives but nothing that you didn’t expect going into the acting profession. You didn’t hate your job. You didn’t hate your character. You just - started to feel nonchalant about the whole thing. Nothing at all. It started off with not feeling as excited as you used to when you woke up in your trailer to go to set. You were tired and had to drag yourself out of bed to go to hair and make-up.  

Robert was getting his done, his iconic Tony Stark facial hair being trimmed and shaved perfectly. You muttered a good morning before taking your seat, and one of the makeup artists came to work on you. 

“Rough night, kid?” Robert asked, raising an eyebrow at you.  

“I don’t think I slept that well,” you said. “Just - couldn’t get out of bed today.” 

“That’s called being a teenager,” He chuckled.  

“Yeah, probably,” you said, forcing out a chuckle back. You would just chalk this one up to a bad day. Everyone had those. You were able to pep yourself up for your scenes, and work through them without any issues. It was good to focus on something other than yourself for once. Get into the character. Become someone else for a little while. Someone who was mighty, and strong, who got out of bed each morning without trouble - unless they were beat up, which because this was a superhero movie, happened quite often. But you declined going out for dinner with everyone else, just saying that you were tired and headed back to your trailer while they went out to enjoy themselves.  

You looked around your trailer once you were inside. It was quiet in there, save for the very faint buzzing of electricity that was powering the lights. You collapsed down on the small couch where you usually went over your lines but - you couldn’t think of what to do. You didn’t feel like doing ... anything. There was your gaming console set up by the tv, a stack of games - but you didn’t feel like playing them. There was Netflix and Amazon Prime and Disney Plus and Hulu - but you didn’t feel like watching anything. There was your laptop, but you didn’t feel like website surfing. So, you just - sat there. Doing nothing. Feeling nothing.  

Your phone went off. You could see the name on top. One of your best friends from back home. Someone that you usually loved to talk to. But you just ... didn’t feel much like talking to them. A stab of guilt made its home in your stomach once the screen went dark again, knowing that you should have answered it. There was no reason to ignore them. But you still didn’t move. Just letting this feeling of ‘you should you should you should’ take you over.  

-- 

You didn’t even remember falling asleep - and you couldn’t remember if you dreamt or not. One minute, you were sitting on your couch, staring blankly ahead of you, not even thinking of anything, and the next, you were still sitting there but there was light coming in through the curtains and your alarm was going off on your cellphone.  

You were astounded at yourself. You’d never done this before, never felt this way before. You forced yourself up and into the shower but there too, you didn’t feel like doing much of anything. It all felt so ... tedious and worthless. How many times in your life were you going to waste time, standing here in the shower, washing your hair? How many times were you going to cover your loofa in bodywash and lather yourself up? Doing it all today just to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. It felt so dull. 

And when you got out, all squeaky clean and put on a random hoodie and jeans to head out to hair and makeup, yet again, you didn’t feel as good as you usually did. Usually, a shower was just the thing that helped you start the day. You felt good when you were clean. “God, what’s wrong with me?” You muttered to yourself as you went into trailer and took your seat. 

This time it was Chris Evans that got there the same time you did, sitting in the opposite chair. “You missed a fun night,” he said, grinning at his phone. 

“Oh,” you said, looking straight ahead of you into the mirror. You forced out a laugh that didn’t feel real. “Next time, next time.” 

“I’ll hold you to it. They had some of the best tacos that I’ve ever had-” Chris said, turning into an excited puppy as he often did when he found something that he liked. Usually, it was enough to make you cheerful. But you just tuned him out, not having the attention span for this conversation. Or maybe it just wasn’t the energy. 

The makeup artists started on you, having to use a bit more concealer than they usually did. “Make sure you get all eight hours,” The artist reminded you.  

“Yeah, sorry about that,” You forced a chuckle. She covered your dark circles expertly, patting on powder to try to make it look more natural, and then you were out there to get ready for the shot of the day. You had a bit of time until you actually had to be on the set, since you were just coming in at the end of the scene, so you sat down and just ... watched. You didn’t really say anything to anyone. You weren’t in the most sociable mood. You let your mind wander, your body being present, but your mind was far away.  

“Hey kid,” A voice snapped you out of it. You blinked a couple of times and looked to see that Robert was sitting right next to you. You hadn’t noticed because you had been so busy thinking about ... you couldn’t even remember. That was more startling than Robert’s voice coming out of nowhere. You had no idea what you had been thinking about.  

“Hey,” You nodded, and then looked back out to the set, watching Chris Evans and Scarlett working together on a scene. “I didn’t know you were supposed to be on set today.” 

“‘m not, but I got bored so though I’d check it out,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him. Robert Downey Jr was intimidating, not because he was tough or scary, but because of his long career, and how he managed to recover from some pretty drastic dips. “You seem a little glum, chum.” 

“No, I’m just ... tired,” you said. It felt like a flimsy excuse, but you didn’t have one that felt better. It must have sounded weak as well, because Robert took off his sunglasses in a very Tony fashion and slipped them into his front pocket.  

“Just tired?” He asked. “You coming down with the flu or something?” 

“That could be it,” You nodded, clutching onto that idea. Maybe you had just gotten sick. Maybe there was a bug going around. There was always some kind of bug going around. It would explain your increase in listless behavior. You weren’t always the most active person, but you had been able to keep up with Marvel’s standards for their actors, but now that you were finding it harder, the flu made perfect sense. “Yeah, I think it’s just the flu. Better not get too close, huh?” 

“I’m not worried, I get my shot every year,” Robert said, casually. “You know - you could come to one of us if something is wrong, right?” 

It almost felt like an accusation of sorts. Like he could see right through you. See something that you were having trouble seeing in yourself.  

“Yeah, of course, you’re like - the best mentor ever,” You nodded, forcing on another smile. Just the flu, nothing was seriously wrong, it’s not like you could be ... depressed or anything. You didn’t have time to be depressed. You weren’t in the right business to be depressed.  

Your name was being called by the director, so you stood up quickly. “Gotta go. Good talk.” 

“Yeah, good talk,” Robert said, watching your back as you walked away. He saw something in you that he saw in himself, saw the beginning of something that he had struggled through for a lot of his adult life. And he didn’t want to see you struggle through it, at least not alone. He was going to be keeping an eye on you - two if he could spare them. 

-- 

It felt like the longest month of your life. It just dragged on, and on. There were at least four times that you had almost quit the movie. Where you brought up your manager’s number on your phone and almost pressed dial because you wanted out of your contract. It didn’t matter how much money you would owe the studio, or that you would be blackballed in Hollywood. Nothing felt like it mattered anymore. Your gaming system and laptop were collecting dust, literally, you had drawn a sad face on the system in the dust. You didn’t go out with the rest of the cast anymore, claiming other plans or that you weren’t feeling well, and spent the time in your trailer alone, with the lights off. Not because you were hiding but because you didn’t care to turn them on. You’d just be turning them off when you went to sleep so what was the point? You woke up, you dragged yourself out of bed, you went to set, and then you went back to your trailer and back into bed. You’d doom scroll through social media but not interact with anything.  

You went through the horrors of the world like you were trying to prove something. Or use it as a reason to be the way that you were being. The world was a crazy, unhappy place, so of course you were unhappy. Of course, you were falling into a depression - which was something that you could no longer deny. This wasn’t a few bad days, or the flu, or just feeling uneasy. This was full on, falling through the cracks, feeling worthless, depression.  

You didn’t deserve to be here. You weren’t putting in the work that you should be, which made you anxious about your performance, which made you feel even worse. You felt like you were just an imposter among all of these stars, you didn’t earn your place among them. It should be someone else here. A star like - Jenna Ortega, or Noah Schnapp, would fit in here better than you could. You were messing up your lines, having to have someone feed them to you through a small earpiece that couldn’t be seen on camera. You were given warnings by the director to shape up. You didn’t even cry when you were given that criticism. You didn’t get mad, you didn’t feel proud that he cared enough about you to want you to do better, you just felt numb to it, and returned to your bed like you did time and time again.  

It was after you spent an entire weekend in your bed, not showering, only eating what you could grab quickly and bring back to the bed, which was all the unhealthy stuff, not even changing your pajamas once, that you admitted that you had a problem. That you were forced to deal with the cold reality that - you weren’t coming down with the flu, but that this could seriously be depression. You couldn’t live in the denial of it anymore. 

You knew you should call your parents. Maybe your manager. Maybe even your family doctor to get a referral to a therapist or something along those lines. But there was only one person that you could think of talking to. 

You forced yourself into a shower, found some clothes that smelled relatively clean and didn’t have any stains on them, and put your shoes on for the first time in days. The sun was shining, and you had to admit that it felt kind of nice on your skin after so long. The crew were running around, getting things prepared for today’s shoot, which you didn’t have any part of. A free day, at least for now.  

You walked past a couple of the trailers, looking for the right one. A sign in the door had his name in big block letters, and you saw that he had drawn a little Iron Man underneath it. It wasn’t very well done but it was recognizable. You knocked on the door and then put your hands in your pockets, looking around to see if anyone was noticing you lingering outside. 

The door opened and Robert poked his head out. His cool expression warmed up when he saw you standing there. “What’s up kid?” 

You looked at him and you tried to think of exactly how you were going to say this. He already knew the meaning behind you coming to his door. But - he was still going to make you say it. You just had to say it. 

“I think - I have a problem, Robert,” You admitted. It was the first time that you said it out loud. Your first outside admission that something was wrong. You were putting it out into the universe because that’s the only way that you could get any sort of help.  

“I thought so,” Robert said, stepping out of his trailer. “Come with me.” 

-- 

He didn’t take you straight to a therapist or to the hospital or anything else that you had fared he was going to do. Instead, he took you to a small ice cream parlor near the studio. He bought you a sundae, loaded with all of your favorite toppings, even if you didn’t necessarily feel like eating something sweet right now. You didn’t feel like you deserved the treat. 

“Go on,” Robert urged, digging into his own with a plastic spoon. “You admitted you have a problem. That’s step number one, you deserve it.” 

It was like he could read your mind. He knew exactly what you were thinking and why you weren’t eating. So, you picked up the spoon and you dug it into the mess of ice cream and toppings and sauces and took out a large scoop and put it into your mouth. The sweetness ... actually tasted sweet. It didn’t taste like ashes on your tongue like a lot of food does these days. Eagerly, you went for a second scoop, and Robert was looking at you like you were a child of his that he was proud of.  

“I - I don’t know if it’s depression exactly. I’ve never really been depressed before,” You admitted, stirring your ice cream to make it a little softer, a little easier to eat. “As far as I know, it doesn’t run in my family. And ... it’s not like ... I feel sad or anything. I don’t cry...” 

“Depression isn’t just about feeling sad. Everyone feels sad,” Robert said, taking a bite of his own. “It sucks the life right out of you. It makes you lose your spark. Your passion. Any pleasure that you have in life, it just ... takes it away.” 

“That ... is how I’ve been feeling,” you said with a small nod. “I know it’s ridiculous, like, I’ve got my dream role and -” 

“It doesn't matter, kid,” Robert said, kindly. “You could be the happiest, richest person on the planet, and you can still get depressed. It’s not about deserving it. It’s just something that unfortunately happens.” 

You kept stirring your ice cream rather than eating it, watching the toppings drown under the melting cream. It was hard to take in that this was something that was actually happening to you. It was like a car crash in a way. It happened to other people. It was never supposed to happen to you. 

“So, what do I do?” You asked, slumping back. “Because I can’t ... I can’t be this way. It’s exhausting. I’m forgetting my lines, I can’t concentrate, I keep fucking up scenes and I feel like everyone is mad at me -” 

“No one is mad at you,” Robert said, pointing his spoon in your direction. “Everyone is worried about you. I think we all had it figured out before you did. Did you know that Evans has social anxiety? He works on it every day. He’d be another good person to talk to about all of this stuff. It’s different from depression but ... it has some of the same struggles.” 

“I’ll try to remember that” You mumbled. “So really, what do I do? How can I... get over this?” You plead. You put all of your trust in Robert here. He’d become a leading figure in your life since you joined the MCU.  

“It’s a disease,” Robert said, sadly. “It’s not something where you just take two pills and you’re done. There are medications that’ll help you out, but they take a little while work, and sometimes, you have to go through a couple of different ones to find out what works for you. Though what I’d recommend is therapy.” 

“Therapy?” You ask, eyebrows furrowed together. “I don’t even know what I’d say. I don’t have some ... deep childhood trauma that I can just point my fingers to. I don’t even ... know how to explain how I feel.” 

“You did a good enough job with me,” Robert pointed out.  

“That’s because I know you. I’m comfortable with you. And you knew what it was before I did...” 

“Why don’t I give you the name and number of the therapist I’ve been seeing for years. They’re really good,” Robert said, taking off his sunglasses and making straight up eye contact with you. “Or - they can help you find someone who fits you best. That’s important. You have to feel comfortable talking to them. There’s no shame in trying to find the one for you.” 

You groaned and put your head down on the table, the metal feeling cold against your forehead. You were hoping it was going to be easier than that. That it could just be like antibiotics, take two a day and scare the depression away. But of course, nothing was ever going to come that easy in this life. You were going to have to work for it. Just like how you worked hard for everything else that you achieved.  

“It’s going to be a trek,” Robert said, clicking his tongue, spooning up more of his ice cream. “But I think you can handle it. You took that first step, now you just have to make a phone call.” 

He took a card out of his wallet, and he slid it across the table to you. A professional business card, the name and number of a therapist. You just looked at it from your position on the table, your head turned onto its side now. “Do I have to do it right now?”  

“You don’t have to do anything,” Robert shrugged. “It’s up to you when you’re ready.” 

You sighed again. You missed the days when your parents used to make the phone calls. Used to schedule your appointments for you. Made sure that you got there on time. That was one of the annoying parts of being an adult. You had to do it yourself now. 

You raised your head and read the card again. The name of the doctor in a neat, no-nonsense font. You took another spoonful of your ice cream, took your phone out of your pocket, and started to dial the number, looking at Robert the whole time who gave you a thumbs up. It was going to be a rough road but - at least you could honestly say that you were not alone. That helped more than anyone could ever understand. 

[littlecello]

Lazarus: An Autopsy

So. I just got back home, and though I have to get up at stupid o'clock for work tomorrow morning, I am sitting down at my computer to give you all as much of a detailed write-up of the table read as I can. Please bear in mind these are my and Fern's opinions personal opinions, so if you disagree with anything said here, that's totally fine! This is all coming from the perspective of people who have been in the fandom since 2012 and 2009 respectively, and both of us love the show very dearly.

Now, without further ado - here is a summary and discussion of the table-read of the pilot episode of Lazarus. The detailed write-up is under the cut, but I want to share this shaky train-doodle I banged out on the way home to give shape to my own feelings:

Set Up

This was a dramatic table-read, meaning actors were sat on stage, taking the roles of the main and side characters, plus one narrator who read out the scene-set ups in the script. This was a complete reading of the pilot-episode as it would have aired on TV, complete with songs playing over the speakers as they appeared in the show (off the top of my head - Another Brick In The Wall, Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Ukulele Version), Life on Mars (yes they went there), Merry Christmas Everybody, and several more). It's important to note that this was not performed by the original actors; rather, they brought in a troupe of actors associated with the BFI, called the BFI Players. Unfortunately they aren't credited on the BFI website and there were no printed programme notes, so I can't tell you their names. Notably, though, Ashley Pharoah (co-writer of LoM) was present; after the table-read, there was a short-ish Q&A session.

Lazarus Pilot: A Summary

We start in 2024, with a car chase. Sam Tyler, now DCI of Internal Affairs of Greater Manchester Police, is hot on the pursuit of a Constable who we later learn has raped multiple women while on duty. Notably, Sam is driving exactly the way Gene would, ignoring regulations, nearly running over pedestrians and a cyclist. Sam apprehends the PC on the campus of Manchester University, which is filmed by the assembled students of the lecture that's been interrupted (a quote from the script: "heteronormative queer trans students") - that video subsequently goes viral as another example of police violence. It's clear that the PC is guilty of his crime, but he's let off, and most of CID pretty much turns against Sam. Sam's DI, incidentally, is biromantic and asexual, which is also turned into a joke with Sam making some acephobic remarks.

The next day, Sam finds the rapist PC dead - hanging from a lamppost as though he's died by suicide. CCTV reveals that about an hour before his death, a car idled in front of his home, and the PC had hurled abuse at said car. The driver cannot be seen. That same car is seen at a carehome in Didsbury, idling there just like it did in front of that house... and that car is also confronted, by none other than a geriatric Gene Hunt.

Here is where we start to realise that this Sam is different. It seems he never went back to 1973. He never had that accident, he never met Gene Hunt - he is, however, married to Annie Cartwright (only until half of the episode though, at which point she says they need to get a divorce). A lot of anachronisms going on here, but those will get explained a little later in the episode. Sam also starts having visions - first of a Space Hopper that keeps passing him by, later Clangers from the Planet of the Clangers appear to him. He keeps remembering lines we've heard in Life on Mars ("I never stitched anyone up who didn't deserve it", "If you can feel things you are alive, but it's when you can't feel things that you know you aren't alive", etc). Eventually, he goes to visit Gene in the care home and invites him for a drive, to see if that will jog any memories.

Gene, however, has other ideas - he eventually forces Sam to stop by the roadside, insisting "I'm going back! I'm going BACK!" The two start arguing, and then it devolves into a physical fight, which pushes them into the road... at which point, they are both his by a car. A red Audi Quattro, in fact, and just as everything fades to black, we see someone with white cowboy boots and a white leather jacket get out of the car...

1977. Sam wakes up utterly hungover in the Cortina, next to Gene who's driving. These are their 70s selves. They get to the station, where they find out that they've both been suspended due to Gene assaulting the Superintendent ("I didn't assault him, I strategically placed him... in a bin."). The department has been disbanded and taken over by none other than Derek Litton. Sam and Gene leave, with Sam driving home... to his wife Annie. On his way, he realises that he must have dreamt about 2024, and obviously doesn't understand what is going on. He talks to Annie about it, who becomes upset that he's starting to talk about all the future stuff again. It becomes clear that the case that Sam was investigating in 2024 (the dead rapist PC) is mirrored in 1977. And, crucially, near the end of the episode we realise that Gene also has memories of what we saw happen in 2024... and just at the end, when Annie is on her own, she suddenly sees the video footage mentioned at the very top (the fight at the MU) playing on the TV, and realises that Sam was telling the truth.

The Good

Let me start with the really enjoyable part of this afternoon - the actors who performed the script for us. They all did a brilliant job, especially Sam's actor. I'm pretty sure he must have studied up on John Simm's performance, because he got Sam's tone and cadence so closely to the original that I could really believe he was the character. The production was done well too, with the songs being played over the speaker system; plus, the narrator was absolutely brilliant at setting the scene, reading the descriptive bits of the script with loads of character and humour. The other actors were great too (Litton got a fantastic impression). The only one I wasn't convinced by was Gene's actor, because he gave his Manc accent a very theatric drawl that sometimes made him sound like a pirate. Definitely didn't come close to Philip Glenister's brilliant delivery of his lines.

Speaking of lines, there were some genuinely funny jokes in this. The whole scene with Litton was hilarious, and some of the modern-day jokes landed quite well too (Sam's DI pulls an "ok boomer" on him, to which he responds "that's Gen X I'll have you know").

And of course, I have to mention that it was SO LOVELY to meet a bunch of you in person!!!! It was lovely to chat, and thank you especially to @bisexualroger and friends who came and said hello, you genuinely made my day 🥹 The Bad

Sigh. Buckle up.

This table-reading really cemented for me what I've been saying for several years: The writing in Life on Mars is very mediocre. What made the show so amazing and special was the fact that the crew and actors took that material and elevated it to the heights we know and love. If you take that away... All of its shortcomings become very glaring.

This was even more obvious with Lazarus. Although we have to remember that this was a pilot, which means it was basically a sales pitch to studios and as such they tried to cram as much exciting stuff into it as possible, on the whole it just came across as very confused and embarrassingly self-referential. The characters often (but not always) came across as caricatures of themselves. The script often pointed out the race/ethnicity of characters in ways that felt very unnecessary and strange (more on that later). Most of the dialogue that took place in 2024 was incredibly stilted (again, more on that in a little bit). Most crucially, although it's clear that Lazarus was trying to bring Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes together to tie them up in a neat little bow, it just felt far too all over the place, even for a set-up episode (Lazarus as a whole was planned to be two series with 6 episodes each, like LoM). The Ugly

Basically, this show was supposed to be commentary on the present-day commentary between the public and the police... written from the perspective of two Old White Men(tm) with an unhealthy amount of nostalgia for the past who seem to think of the police as literal guardian angel, which is why they made Gene an actual angel (this is confirmed by what Ashley told us the ending of Lazarus would have been, which I will write up tomorrow because this would be too much for this post).

So, what does that mean in practice? It means that everything that was set in 2024 was an absolute shitshow. There were jokes about "wokeness" in every scene - things such as gender identities, diversity, ethnic food, vegan food, recycling, climate activism and more were only ever played for laughs, with a clear emphasis that everything was better in the "good old days". Especially all the jokes about gender and sexuality made me so angry, seeing as the fandom who has kept the show alive for the last 10 years is overwhelmingly queer.

Worse than that, this show would have been absolutely choc-full of copaganda. We already learn in the pilot that the entire philosophy is that "bad cops" are simply "rotten apples" that need to be removed from the force, which can only happen from the inside (this is Sam's role as DCI of Internal Affairs). And also, the public are just way too mean to cops, for no reason whatsoever - this is very literally shown in a scene in 2024 where a male PC touches a drunk woman's arm in sympathy and she yells at him "DON'T TOUCH ME", whereas in a mirrored scene in 1977 we see a PC giving a woman advice, who seems to be extremely grateful for it and even squeezes his hand for it. Which, if you know ANYTHING about what was going in Manchester at the time, in the wake of the Yorkshire Ripper and the associated police failings, is laughable at best, and an insult at worst.

Furthermore, during the Q&A, Ashley Pharoah unintentionally told on himself and Matthew Graham. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said that when they both realised during the watchalong on twitter back in 2021 there still were a lot of fans of the show, that's when they felt compelled to properly give Lazarus a go. It very much came across as him saying "we loved the attention and wanted more of it, oh and also we thought we had something to say about the state of affairs regarding the police". Which, as I have laid out above, frankly is a sick joke. After everything that's happened - the protests in 2020, the way police forces in the whole country handled the Sarah Everard case, the fact that the current Chief Superintendent of GMP is an old conservative guy - the fact that Matt and Ash had the audacity to shop a show like Lazarus around to be picked up for TV is... astonishing. The confidence of white men, eh?

In Conclusion

Both Fern and I are very, extremely glad that Lazarus was not, and never will be made into a TV show. We are very glad that we get to keep Sam, Gene, Annie and all the others as they are. And we are also very glad that we went to this table-read, since we can now stop wondering what could have been. It's done and dusted. And, funnily enough, this has invigorated my fandom fire for LoM. I now want to create art of the characters I've come to know and love, to reinforce who they are to me. They are our characters now, Ashley and Matt. You don't get to play with them anymore. You don't get to twist them and put them through the wringer.

Tl;Dr

[godfrey-the-chaos-duck]

this is without a doubt the weirdest thing I have ever done

SALUTATIONS, HELLAVERSE FANDOM! 

You probably don't know me, but my name is Godfrey. (Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure!) 

To be quite honest, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing here. As I type this, I'm unspeakably nervous.

"Why are you nervous, Godfrey?" I hear you ask.

Well...

I have a dream

I'm here to tell

About a fanfic I wrote for Hazbin Hotel 

(sorry)

Okay okay serious director voice from now. 

Look, this is gonna sound absolutely unhinged, but hear me out. (insane rambles under the cut, this bitch is LONG)

In April, a friend and I had a conversation about a song I wrote and how it was. Well, kinda coded to Vox and Valentino.

Then one thing led to another, and two-and-a-bit months and twelve thousand words later, I had written an absolutely sprawling shitshow of a fic (details later in the post)

Even as I was writing it, I knew the written word didn't do it justice.

Hence, this post. 

(golly, this sounds really demanding, I am so sorry)

Fuck it, my mom always says "if you don't ask you don't get", and for once I want her to be right.

This is, I suppose, a sort of... call to action, for lack of a better term.

Artists, animators and voice actors, I'd like your help to turn this fic into an animatic, or if we can manage it, an actual animation.

ONLY if we can manage it, not if it's gonna stress anyone out.

IMPORTANT NOTE

Just to get this out of the way, not that I should even need to say this but it's unfortunately 2024. If anyone even SUGGESTS using A.I. your ass is getting blocked. I don't fuck with that artificial bullshit.

On to my next point: I am unequivocally in support of artists and actors being paid for their work. 

However, I am a Broke Bitch. Unless we could somehow do crowdfunding or something, I physically would not be able to pay people. This makes me feel like a very shitty person, but unfortunately it's the truth, and I want to be upfront and honest about that.

This is why I hope to get as many people on board as possible for this project, so nobody has to do a shit-ton of work.

I understand that most of you are busy, with work, school/college, or life generally life-ing. Join the club, my life is hectic too.

This is why I really have no set deadline for this. Whether it takes a few months or a few years, as long as it's done well with a minimal amount of stress.

Well, now that that's out of the way, time to go into details a bit.

Characters in order of appearance (this is mainly for VAs)

Vox

Valentino

Velvette 

Angel Dust

Charlie

Husk

Alastor

Vaggie

Lucifer

Niffty

Sir Pentious

Asmodeus (yeah this is slightly a Helluva Boss crossover)

Frank (the egg boi)

Fizzarolli

Katie Killjoy

Tom Trench

And lastly, depending on what everyone else thinks, I have an idea for how Verosika and Zestial can be involved. 

Will there be musical numbers?

The short answer is YEAH, cause Hazbin is a musical. I cannot stress enough how much the music is My Problem. Literally, apart from people singing, I will take care of that.

My Idea Of The Process 

(please bear in mind I have little to no idea of how the animation process works so this is almost definitely wrong, please feel free to correct me about it)

Step 1. Storyboard

Step 2. Voice lines and songs get recorded

Step 3. Animatic (this could very well end up being as far as it gets and that is absolutely cool beans)

Possible Step 4. Animation

Finally, I'd be more than happy to be the one to edit all the clips together. Editing is its own kind of hell, and I'm totally willing to take one for the team.

The Vision

This is. (fffffff) this is the part that's gonna make me sound like a Draconian jerk but I promise I don't mean to come across this way.

I'm hoping to have something that's as close to the style of the show as possible. (this video kinda has the right vibes) This is so the final project will look cohesive and somewhat professional. (god that probably sounded so bad but I genuinely have no idea how else to say it)

TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. I have nothing against artists with other distinctive art styles, in fact I've come across several that I absolutely love.

Regarding The Writing

I've never directed anything before, so forgive me if this is crossing a line, but like. 

I have my vision for how I want this to go and I'm kind of. not overly flexible on that. Obviously ideas that people have to get this to work good are more than welcome, but they might not end up happening.

Not to be a dick, but I am sorta the director so I do kinda get to make the call on that stuff. (ew god that felt odd)

If this gets off the ground, I'd have to turn this 12,000 word fic into a script to make it easier for people to read it and not get bogged down by my weird old-fashioned poetic style. This would be sent out to people who express interest at some point.

Just a heads-up: If you're expecting an AO3 link I am so sorry but it's Google Docs, mainly because this thing is wildly self-indulgent and I, for one, do not fancy attracting potential haters. Most people are nice, some are very vocally not. Besides, what would be the fun if everyone knew the story in advance?

BASICALLY

If you're interested shoot me an ask and I'll answer privately (OFF anon pls, I wanna know who I'm workin' with here!) or DM me and I'll get back to you.

If you see this and know someone who'd be interested, feel free to tag them or send this post to them.

I am gonna tag @achilleanauthor (my right hand man over here) @emeraldcity1900 and @onesidedradiostatic as they're kind of the only blogs I know who are I guess. Active in the Hellaverse fandom.

If this gains enough traction and I get people on board, I'll be setting up a Discord server (another first for me). 

Watch this space, and as Alastor would say, "Stay tuned..."

[denimbex1986]

'If Peaky Blinders made the Irish actor a household name, will Christopher Nolan’s nuclear blockbuster send him into the stratosphere? He talks about extreme weight loss, hating school and why his next character won’t be a smoker.

Cillian Murphy is struggling with what he can and can’t say about his title role in Oppenheimer, the latest Christopher Nolan epic, such is the secrecy surrounding this film. Murphy is under “strict instructions” not to talk about the content. Which is awkward when you’ve flown to his home in Ireland to interview him specifically about playing the physicist who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb, later detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s not clear who issued these instructions. Nolan? The studio? The US government? All I know is that as well as Murphy being gagged by hefty NDAs, I am not allowed to see it (“bit unfortunate”, he concedes).

So, yes, here we sit in an empty upstairs room of a restaurant near his house in Monkstown, Dublin, working out how to do this. The room is dark, the sun shining through a solitary Velux lighting his features like a Géricault. The only background noise is the low hum of a wine refrigerator. Murphy loathes interviews, looks visibly tortured at points. But he relaxes when I ask if he’s pleased with Oppenheimer. “I am, yeah,” he says. “I don’t like watching myself – it’s like, ‘Oh, fucking hell’ – but it’s an extraordinary piece of work. Very provocative and powerful. It feels sometimes like a biopic, sometimes like a thriller, sometimes like a horror. It’s going to knock people out,” he adds. “What [Nolan] does with film, it fucks you up a little bit.”

Nolan wouldn’t disagree. The director recently told Wired magazine that some of those who’d seen it were left “absolutely devastated … they can’t speak”. Which sounds like a bad thing, but is related perhaps to the thought of the 214,000 Japanese people, overwhelmingly civilians, who lost their lives when the bombs were dropped. Kai Bird, the historian who co-authored American Prometheus, the 2008 biography of J Robert Oppenheimer upon which the film is based, said he was still “emotionally recovering” from seeing the film, clarifying that it was “a stunning artistic achievement”.

Murphy’s portrayal is said to be astonishing (“Oscar-worthy” is the buzz). This is not unbelievable. While Hollywood might not know him as a leading man, this quietly intense actor has long been celebrated in the UK and Ireland, most notably for his nine-year stint as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders. When he first appeared on our screens, looking like a renaissance painting of Saint Sebastian – chiselled head contrasting with translucent blue eyes – it was impossible not to be distracted. He appeared first on stage in Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs, then the screen adaptation. Then 28 Days Later; Intermission; Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Previous collaborations with Nolan include the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk, “significant milestones in my career,” he says, adding that Nolan “might be the perfect director”.

It was Nolan’s wife, the producer Emma Thomas, who called Murphy one afternoon at the home he shares with his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness, and two teenage sons. Nolan doesn’t actually have a telephone, or an email, or computer for that matter: “He’s the most analogue individual you could possibly encounter.” So, Emma said Chris would like a word and passed the receiver, then the director came on the line. “Cillian, I’d love you to play the lead in this new thing,” he said. Murphy tries to recreate his response to this news. “I was lost for words. But thrilled. Like beyond thrilled.” It is characteristic of Murphy that the modulation of his voice barely changes as he expresses this. He was so stunned, he had to sit down. “Your mind explodes.”

In the absence of the three-hour feature, I scrutinise Oppenheimer’s three-minute trailer. It’s a rush of snapshots against the crackling of a Geiger counter. There’s Murphy, short back and sides, lifting 1940s eye goggles; blue and red atoms coming at him fast; orange light; white light; blackout; silence. Massive explosion against the backdrop of space. Overlaid is Murphy’s narration, “We’re in a race against the Nazis / and I know what it means / if the Nazis have a bomb.” There’s Matt Damon looking porky as army general Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project: “They have a 12-month head start.” Murphy, pointing with cigarette: “18.”

He has put back on some of the weight he lost for the part, I’m relieved to see; his skin isn’t quite so taut over his skull and there are freckles over those eagle-wing cheekbones. He was determined to nail the scientist’s silhouette “with the porkpie hat and the pipe”, testing himself to see how little he could eat. “You become competitive with yourself a little bit which is not healthy. I don’t advise it.” He won’t say how many kilograms he lost, or what food the nutritionist told him to cut out. NDA? “Ach, no. I don’t want it to be, ‘Cillian lost x weight for the part’.”

Then again, the hurtling speed at which Nolan worked, crisscrossing the US, made it easy to skip meals. Murphy began to forget about food in the same way he began to forget about sleep. “It’s like you’re on this fucking train that’s just bombing. It’s bang, bang, bang, bang. You sleep for a few hours, get up, bang it again. I was running on crazy energy; I went over a threshold to where I was not worrying about food or anything. I was so in it, a state of hyper …” he gropes for the word, “hyper something. But it was good because the character was like that. He never ate.” Oppenheimer subsisted on little more than Chesterfield cigarettes and double-strength martinis, rims dipped in lime. “Cigarettes and pipes. He would alternate between the two. That’s what did for him in the end,” Murphy adds, a nod to the scientist’s death from cancer in 1967. “I’ve smoked so many fake cigarettes for Peaky and this. My next character will not be a smoker. They can’t be good for you. Even herbal cigarettes have health warnings now.”

I raise method acting and Murphy tilts his head and frowns. “Method acting is a sort of … No,” he says, firm but with a half smile. Oppenheimer had many defining characteristics, not least walking on the balls of his feet and a vocal tic that sounded like nim-nim-nim, but Murphy didn’t want to do an impression. Nolan was obsessed with the Brillo-texture hair, so they spent “a long time working on hair”. And the voice. The real question for Murphy was what combination – ambition, madness, delusion, deep hatred of the Nazi regime? – allowed this theoretical physicist to agree to an experiment he knew could obliterate humankind. “He was dancing between the raindrops morally. He was complex, contradictory, polymathic; incredibly attractive intellectually and charismatic, but,” he decides, “ultimately unknowable.

“Listen, it’s not like a spoiler,” he says, checking himself before he leans in, “but there are incidents in his early life that were quite worrying; very erratic.” They are in the film and the book, he steers. I suspect he is referring to Oppenheimer’s postgrad at Cambridge in 1926, when he placed a poisoned apple on the desk of a tutor towards whom he harboured complicated feelings of inadequacy and jealousy. Arguably, this was attempted murder. But Oppenheimer’s rich New York parents rushed in to bundle him into psychoanalysis. He was diagnosed with “dementia praecox”, a term describing symptoms associated with schizophrenia.

Murphy likes these complex characters; they’re his meat. People that don’t necessarily follow the – yawn – traditional transformative arc of storytelling. Not villains, exactly (although he’s played a few, including Scarecrow in Dark Knight and Jackson Rippner in Red Eye): “Villains are good if they’re well written, but if it’s one note or a trope, then they are dull.” He likes a script to stretch leisurely into all corners of the human condition, “all the shades”. At the same time, you have to understand his exceptional ability to portray interiority, physically manifesting intense human emotion without a word, radiating fierce, consuming energy. Which he does today, actually, when I stray off track.

Although Nolan is usually, shall we say, antiseptic in his approach to romance, Oppenheimer represents a significant shift. He told Wired the love story aspect “is as strong as I’ve ever done”. It features prolonged full nudity for Murphy and Florence Pugh, who plays Oppenheimer’s ex-fiancee, as well as sex, and there are complicated scenes with Emily Blunt, who plays his wife, “that were pretty heavy”. Murphy turns coy: “I’m under strict instructions not to give away anything.”

He asks if I’ve heard of chemistry tests. “They put two actors in a room to see if there’s any spark, and have all the producers and director at a table watching. I don’t know what metric they use, and it seems so outrageously silly, but sometimes you get a chemistry and nobody knows why.” This is a roundabout way of saying his scenes with Blunt and Pugh conjure this magic. His established bond with Blunt (they co-starred in A Quiet Place II) meant “the audience gets something for free”, he says. “You can be immediately vulnerable and open, and try stuff. There were moments where I remember saying, ‘I couldn’t have done that if it wasn’t with you.’”

Murphy, 47, grew up the eldest of four in Cork. His father was a civil servant, his mother a French teacher. They were a middle-class family, musical; his father “can pick up any instrument”, his brother played piano, and they regularly got stuck into “traditional Irish sessions”. Bookshelves were stuffed with literature, the radio often on, the “shitty” TV set not so much. Home life was busy but his parents taught him French and Irish, and sent him to an all-boys academic, rugby-playing private school. “I got all the education” he says, drily.

The story of how much he disliked the Presentation Brothers College, the hard-drinking masculine emphasis, how he found solace playing guitar in a band, is much rehearsed and he says today he doesn’t want “to slag the school off. I hear it’s great now.” Something about this experience seems nonetheless unsettling. He had one friend, who is still his best friend, “so I wasn’t, like, an outcast”. He played rugby for the first couple of years, but abandoned it “because everyone was all of a sudden towering over me.” Was it an unhappy time? He shifts. “It was OK. I was a bit of a messer, like I’d get in trouble and say nothing. It wasn’t the ideal school for me.”

He enrolled in and dropped out of a law degree at University College Cork, which created some friction with his parents (when I ask if his own sons will go to university in Dublin, he says, “Whatever they want”). He continued with the band, his first creative love but the one that got away. When they were offered a contract with Acid Jazz records, he turned it down for a number of reasons, he says, crucially that he didn’t feel good enough. He still writes and plays at home but, no, you won’t be hearing any of his recordings, ever, he says.

It’s a funny thing talking to Murphy. He’s at once garrulous (on the craft, or literature, or ideas) and reticent (pretty much anything else). I sense in previous interviews that he skates over issues close to his heart – such as the expression of emotion in Ireland and the need to teach empathy in schools. But when I try to drill in to these topics, get to the root, he clams shut, emitting energy like a nuclear reactor.

Later, in a different context, he will tell me a truth: “I’m stubborn and lacking in confidence, which is a terrible combination. I don’t want to put anything out that I don’t think is excellent.” But he clearly hates the pantomime of publicity, asking why I am returning to certain topics and repeating lines I’ve read elsewhere. I can almost see him at home with its views towards the Irish Sea, complaining to his wife as they tuck into supper: “Another one, asking the same fucking questions.”

If he could get out of going to Cannes, of standing on red carpets, dressed as is his habit for a funeral, hair shellacked, hands in pockets; if he could turn his back on the coloured-foam mics thrust in his face, he would. He really would. No, it dawns on him now, there’s something even worse than the red carpet; there’s the talkshow rounds. The very word “talkshow” comes out of him like a pain from his ribcage, as if the parcelling out of amuse-bouche anecdotes, offering them up to the forced laughter of that false god of show business, the studio audience, is in itself the most cheapening experience known to mankind.

“I do them because you’re contractually obliged to. I just endure them. I’ve always found it difficult. I’ve said this so many, many times.” Then there’s the double wince of realising that, yes, he’s done it again. He’s laid into the industry that feeds him. His hands raise slowly in surrender. “I want to just caveat this by saying, I’m so privileged. I’m so happy to be doing what I love. I’m really lucky. But I don’t enjoy the personality side of being an actor. I don’t understand why I should be entertaining and scintillating on a talkshow. I don’t know why all of a sudden that’s expected of me. Why?”

There’s an awkward silence. I say that he reminds me of Naomi Osaka, the tennis player who refused to talk to journalists after the French Open in 2021. He says he feels “100%” sympathy with her, “because why should she have to perform?” Then he relents. “But I get it. I get it’s a kind of ecosystem where the film feeds the publicity which feeds the talkshows which goes back and feeds the film, so, like, that’s how it works. I suppose I’m just not good at it. At interviews, at this stuff,” he gestures at me. He says after he leaves me today he’ll be going down the stairs thinking of all the things he’s said and worrying it’s come across all wrong. “Do you know what Sam Beckett said? ‘I have no views to inter.’ I love that. That should be the interview.”

We return to his art, the tension falls away and he’s back to his charming self, charged air evaporating. Since Oppenheimer, he’s also wrapped Small Things Like These, an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s brilliant novella set in 1985 in a small Irish town on the edge of which is a convent and “laundry”. Murphy is a huge fan of Keegan. He remembers reading her 2010 novel Foster on a train and having to pull his hoodie over his face because he was crying so hard. Anyway, he’d wanted to work with the Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants and they were throwing ideas around in his sitting room when Murphy’s wife suggested Small Things. “No, there’s no way,” Murphy said. “That’s going to be gone already.” But when he called the agent, he found it was available. “I went, ‘No, you’ve got to be fucking kidding.’” Murphy pitched the idea to Matt Damon, who has set up a studio with Ben Affleck. “From there it all just happened really quickly.”

Murphy plays Bill Furlong who, funnily enough, is a man of few words. Keegan’s light-touch writing is everything he loves in art – the sense that you are not being bashed over the head by an idea. That’s how he tries to act, he adds. “I’m always trying to cut lines in scenes, because I feel like you can transmit it. Like when you see a person on a train thinking, or driving a car, and you are purely observing someone and feeling the energy that is vibrating from them. That’s the sort of acting I love. In a lot of film and television, they want to cut those bits to go to the action. I like films that pose the big questions and then leave it to the audience.” Perhaps this is at the heart of his reticence in interviews? That he doesn’t feel the need to explain.

He still finds it “nuts” that the last of the Magdalene laundries closed in 1996, that it was illegal to buy condoms in Ireland until 1985, that divorce was made legal only in 1996. He remembers vividly thousands of people still going to see moving statues in Cork when he was growing up. “Crazy. But, like, how far the country has come since then, we’re so socially advanced now compared with where we were. But you must look back. And art is a better way of doing that than reading all these reports [into the laundries].” (Afterwards, he emails me: “The nation is actually dealing with an unresolved collective trauma. Who knows how long this will take to heal, but I feel strongly that art, film and literature can help with that process. It’s a kinder and gentler sort of therapy. I hope that our movie can help with that in its own little way.”)

Because he’s a nice man, because he doesn’t want me to feel bad about our encounter, and because he’s generous and hospitable, Murphy finishes by telling me some of the best places to visit in Ireland. He and his family are staying here for the summer. They’ve had it with air travel and his home town of Cork is only a couple of hours away. He supplies me with other recommendations: a great book he’s just read, Brian, by Jeremy Cooper, oh, and there’s the Francis Bacon studio exhibition I should catch on my way out.

But before I go, what has he learned from playing Oppenheimer? Foremost, he says, that scientists think differently. He knew this already from playing physicist Robert Capa in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine (2007) and hanging out in Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, for research. “I had dinner with all these geniuses. I’ll never understand quantum mechanics, but I was interested in what science does to their perspective.” He sought their opinions on subjects that matter – love, politics, our place in the universe, “infinity, or whatever the fuck. Because they have a completely different way of taking in information than we do. I remember one scientist saying, ‘I don’t believe in love. It’s a biological phenomenon, the exchange of hormones between the female and the male. That’s all. Love is a nonsense.’” Murphy taps the table with his hand. “I couldn’t go along with that, obviously.”

[satohqbanana]

Writemas Day 4: Rena's Role

Day 4 Prompts || Event by @agirlandherquill

The prompt I filled was "the sweetness of a song" and this little story features Rena, one of the main characters of Arcanium:Liberatio.

The day the Visuphonic Company arrived in Camp Roetcaerleon was the day Rena opened her world to the magic and power of song.

The troupe performed all sorts of songs and dances and plays. The adults were too busy to enjoy everything, but Rena's group attended all the shows. Her favorite act was the Song of Solace, led by the actor Petronino. It was like a lullaby to her, with its soothing melody and enchanting rhythm. The sweet sound lingered in her ears hours after the performance, and so, while the troupe was resting, Rena followed Petronino into the backstage to learn the song.

The troupe only performed for three days before they had to move onto the next camp, and Rena studied as hard as she could. She sang along with Petronino during his act, and she sang the song while her father tended his shop. When she showed Petronino the fruit of her labor, he praised her for being a dutiful student and encouraged her to help everyone restore hope in their hearts.

His words didn't make sense until the children were forced into an underground bunker.

The night was as still as the stars and the moon in the sky, with no cloud in sight. Rena was already half-asleep when chaos broke out. Shouts erupted everywhere, and the adults came running with their weapons and shields. After muttering, "Those Emeri bastards!" under his breath, Rena's father rounded all the camp youth into the shelter and forbade them from leaving until someone came for them.

The shelter had food and beds, but it gave no answers to anyone's questions. The older teens escaped but immediately returned, too scared to even tell their younger companions what they had witnessed.

Frightened, everyone huddled together, wrapping blankets around themselves and holding onto each other for comfort. It was then Rena remembered Petronino's words and the Song of Solace.

Softly at first, she began to sing. One of the older teens cried that singing didn't make things better. True, the upsetting noises and worrisome rumbling continued, and so did Rena. Singing didn't help, but it at least helped her find something to focus on and calm herself down.

After a while, her singing took effect on her companions. The sobs of the younger children became sighs and whimpers, and the older teens stopped trembling. Over and over, Rena repeated the song, and before she knew it, the bunker was only filled with silence and the ephemeral comfort that her song brought.

Clanking came from the bunker door, and everyone stiffened. Rena quieted as well, and the group released a collective cry of relief when her father appeared. While the older teens hogged him with childrens and the younger children begged to be taken back to their own families, Rena simply sought warmth from her father's wings. Her heart thumped in her ears not from the horrors she survived, but from the eagerness of the new role she found herself in.

As Camp Roetcaerleon recovered from the attacks, Rena offered the Song of Solace at the tavern, one of the only houses that survived the surprise siege. Night after night, its sweetness revived strength in the weary and its presence gave the community something to look forward to. The adults taught her how to write songs and make melodies of her own, and soon she was also singing the Song of Dawn, the Song of the Brave, and the Song of Life. Each song differed than the last, carrying varying emotions and feelings and rhythms, all welcomed by every neighbor and fellow members of the camp.

Encounters occurred every now and then, and the General of Platinum Fort ordered their eventual evacuation. All throughout, Rena kept singing, vowing to herself that she would use the power of song in the name of hope.

Arcanium Masterpost || Tag List:

Feel free to ask to be tagged or removed from the tag!

@philosophika, @amaiguri, @thecomfywriter, @wyked-ao3, @kingragnarok-writes

@seastarblue

[noramthe]

Book 7 thoughts(spoilers ofc👀)

God i finally caught up with this book i have been putting it off because lilia is one of my favorite characters I couldn’t handle seeing the implication that he’s going to die and the diasomnia family's reaction to it

But i finally recovered and steeled myself to be able to continue this chapter

God poor silver he definitely was going through it this whole book please give this man a break.

I teared up (and even cried) at all the moments he was crying on🥹 PLS NO MORE I HAVE NO MORE TEARS TO GIVE

gotta say i enjoyed knowing more about silver and sebek and how they get to know each other and how their relationship is like

They feel like such opposite but have a little of similarities? If this makes sense lol

I loved sebek's confrontation to silver when silver discovered the truth! It shows how much he cared. And honestly it was kinda funny silver crying and saying that lilia must have hated him and then sebek just goes

“…

…

BAKA MONOOOOOOOOOOO”

I was so emotional and then when sebek screamed it cracked me up LMAOO😭😭 never change sebek lol

Also someone said this and it always makes me cry that what set off malleus to overblot is when silver cried on front of him. That’s when he thought to let everyone sleep and make them dream of their ideal life. Just how much everyone in this dorm cares about each other💔💔 it hurts sm aghh

Gotta say tho diasomnia fans winning we get to know SO MUCH about them. I especially enjoyed getting all these chapters about lilia's past I’m so glad we get to see the things he went through!! The fact that he was involved in everyone's (from diasomnia) childhood and how he grew and changed his mindset on certain things🥺 i want to hug him he didn’t deserve all the hardships😔😔

I cried sm here holy shi-

I can’t. Way to break my heart💔💔

It’s so intense that this is the moment he was the most happiest after everything holy hell🫠 (don’t get me started that he gave him some of his magic AND lifespan to hatch and how malleus got pissed when he knew about it AGHH)

That reminded me when lilia screamed malleus’s name right before he overbloted. That gave me the chills god I can’t get over it. It’s the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it..💔

I’m so excited for the next part and what they’re cooking up. Seeing lilia, malleus and baby silver intreaction were so precious🥹🥹 the fact that the accessory we see in lilia's room in the beginning was amade by silver when he was young??? And how much lilia treasured it?? JDJSJJSJDSJKSDJJDSJ

Even though i cried multiple times i still enjoyed these parts of the book a lot and it showed me that there is still hope that things will get better. Looking forward for the next part(which will release this month) to see ignihyde's involvement on this book? Maybe?

Things I screenshoted

ACE AND DEUCE BEING SO CONSIDERATE AND CARING FOR YUU AGAHAHHAH I CANNOT☹️☹️ EVERY DAY MY LOVE FOR HEARTSLABYUL GROWS STRONGER

💔💔💔🥺

God please stop hurting me🥺🥺

The voice actor did a good job here i still can’t get his scream out of my mind omg

Maleanor casually makes me cry on her first appearance. Thanks queen🫠

Do i even need to talk🥺🥺🥺

Silver deserves all the hugs🫂🫂 babyy i feel so bad for him🥹

And that’s it!

I am sure I probably have more to say but forgot lol

[aragarna]

Zorro Vive

And vive bien!

So, I've finished Season 1 of the new Zorro show (available through Amazon in the US and most Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries), and I really enjoyed it!

Without spoilers, I'd say that its main qualities are that it's fun and earnest and more cosmopolite in its retailing of the old story. It doesn't take itself too seriously, there's plenty of little homages to previous adaptations. There's many interesting and well-developed characters - of all genders and ethnicities.

It's (literally) colorful, with a comic/pulp feel that suits it well. There's been a true care brought to the action scenes, and OMG the night scenes are damn well lit. It's rare enough nowadays so points for that. Generally, the show is quite beautiful.

More spoilery thoughts under the cut.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from a new show. It's always hard to bring new canon to something so established and so iconic. And even though the Disney show is *not* the original canon, for a lot of people, it is.

But as a principle, same as for book adaptations or remakes, I'm not opposed to variations or changes. As long as they're good changes.

And I have to say, the vast majority of the changes in the new Zorro show, to me, were actually good changes, or necessary improvements for today's audience.

The most obvious is giving back a real voice to the Natives and not sugarcoating the colonization aspect. There's tension there. Natives are angry. But as years passed, people born there consider themselves "true Californians". Natives aren't just background characters or peons anymore. They're a driving plot force. They're shown in their own environment, with their own rites (I don't know enough about Natives of this area to know how accurate it is, but it felt a lot more authentic and respectful to me than other versions).

I do like the idea that the Zorro character comes from the Native culture, and that it's been passed on from one person to the next. Though it also brings my one big issue with the show: Diego becoming Zorro reads a lot like "a white dude steals a Native heritage." And yes, it's symbolic, and yes the fox spirit chose him, Diego didn't pick him, but still. Given that the audience is meant to support Diego (who really is a sweet guy!), that the narrative keeps showing us that Nah-Lin is wrong and should accept it, given the colonization context of that story, it's sitting a bit wrong with me.

This aside, I do like the exploration of revenge vs. justice, violence vs. a more measured response, in the face of adversity. When a few months back, the tagline "revenge is personal, justice is for all" appeared on the first poster, I wasn't sure what to think. I don't like revenge-driven characters. It's cliché and wrong. But the fact that the show precisely explored that, both with Diego and Nah-Lin, was actually quite interesting.

Diego, as I said, is a decent guy. A sweet boy really, vaguely immature originally but having to mature really fast, as the death of his father, the business of the rancho, the Zorro thing and Lolita's wedding are all dropping on him at once. Miguel Bernardeau is a clear departure from most of the previous Zorros, who were played by older actors, giving a more "adult" vibe to the character, but given he's supposed to be fresh out of college and out of his element, Bernardeau's more juvenile features fit the character well.

Nah-Lin is a lot angrier, and while in the context of the story, she's shown to be going at it the wrong way, all that anger *is* justified, and not something that can just be brushed off. Peace can't come easy when you anger people that way.

And you know who else I really liked? That damn Capitan Monasterio! Who would have thought LOL No, but seriously. Not sure why they named him that way. He was actually more of a Sergeant Garcia (or Mendoza from the 1990 show) than a Monastario. Obviously without the comic relief and cutely incompetent side of the character, but as the character who is a decent guy stuck between a rock and a hard place, serving a tyrannic boss and chasing a heroic outlaw that he may not hate that much.

I also really liked what they did with Lolita. An opinionated young lady that throws away all the corseting conventions of her time is always very relatable to me. Also, I just love her fashion sense. I wasn't sure what they were going to do with that impossible love triangle (I thought for a long time the wedding wouldn't actually happen). I wouldn't have thought they'd have Lolita figure it out, but I'm glad she did.

I'm glad they kept Bernardo, the mute confident. And I love Mei, too. The dynamic between the three of them (with Diego) is great!

Also, it's great to finally have a Spanish-speaking production, and have the characters speaking in Spanish, instead of having American actors put on fake accents.

I may have a couple of minor complains: namely that I didn't care about Samael nor Alejandro's first love. Not sure planting so early something that they're keeping for S2 is a right move. Feels like a waste of screentime. Also, I'm not particularly found of secret societies trying to rule the world, but it seems to be mandatory to any Zorro story... And the finale episode didn't actually wrap up that many plotlines - every major villain escaped! So that kinda made it look like Zorro didn't accomplish much, apart from breaking Lolita's heart, and his. But none of this prevented me from having a good time watching the show. I just really hope there'll be a S2 cause it'd be a shame to leave things there!

How about you guys? What did you think of it?