#and the gas pump on his character sheet??? what were they actually planning to have us.......no sorry i dont wanna say that too shy

[pcktknife]

whyd they put boothill's gas tank thing right *there*

[d-criss-news]

Ryan Murphy’s (Kinda) True ‘Hollywood’ Story: 1940s Meets Gay Stars, Interracial Romance and (Gasp!) a Female Studio Chief

The prolific TV creator and Netflix unveil a revisionist take on the golden age of movies, showing how much (and how little) has shifted in entertainment and beyond: “'Hollywood’ can change the world.”

On an abnormally cold January evening, on the steps of Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, history was being rewritten.

Two actors, one playing Rock Hudson, the other Hudson’s African American screenwriter boyfriend, Archie, were tucked inside a teal blue Packard Club Sedan, awaiting their cue. Outside, it was Oscar night, 1948, and despite warnings of grave backlash, the pair was prepared to step out as a couple for the first time.

Archie exited first, his eyes wide with trepidation, then Rock. In matching white tuxedos, they grabbed for each other’s hands and shuffled nervously down the red carpet.

The press box erupted in hisses, then boos.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Archie whispered.

“Absolutely we are,” Rock replied.

The two exchanged smiles, exhaled and made their way into the theater. Then they stopped and did it again. And again.

Ryan Murphy, the scene’s chief architect, was a few miles east, buried in one of his dozen other projects, but his fingerprints could be detected everywhere. The reimagining — part of his new Netflix anthology series, Hollywood — offers a world in which Hudson (played by Jake Picking) walked openly as a gay man, as opposed to the real-life heartthrob who remained closeted until his death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere in Murphy’s revision of history, an African American actress, played by Laura Harrier, is cast as the star of a major studio picture, written by Hudson’s black boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), helmed by a half-Asian director (Darren Criss) and greenlit by a female studio chief (Patti LuPone) and her gay head of production (Joe Mantello).

If Pose was Murphy’s effort to champion the marginalized, Hollywood’s his shot at imagining such marginalization was undone decades ago. The series, his first without his longtime collaborators at 20th Century Fox Television, drops in its entirety May 1, with a sprawling ensemble of real and fictional characters. It was supposed to feel timely, its period backdrop a reminder of how much and how little has changed in 70-plus years; now, landing in a world grappling with a global pandemic, its 1940s setting could be the escape so many are seeking.

“I’ve always been interested in this kind of buried history, and I wanted to create a universe where these icons got the endings that they deserved,” says Murphy, 55, who’s been waiting out the virus at his home in Los Angeles, with his husband and two young sons, who now require homeschooling. “It’s this beautiful fantasy, and in these times, it could be a sort of balm in some way.”

The Netflix executives who shelled out roughly $300 million for Murphy’s services in 2018 can only hope so. Already, they’ve had to cancel influencer screenings, scrap subway ads and punt on potential plans for a premiere benefit for the now hard-hit Motion Picture Television Fund, which houses several stars of the era in its L.A. retirement facility. As for the show itself, it’s certainly not the broad-sweeping, four-quadrant fare that Netflix is widely thought to prefer. The pilot episode alone features six sex scenes — a mix of gay and straight — and nearly all involve some sort of financial transaction. By episode three, which the show’s writers have nicknamed “night of a thousand dicks,” the characters have found their way to one of director George Cukor’s infamous pool parties.

Still, Netflix head of originals Cindy Holland says that Hollywood is exactly the kind of elevated, inclusive and ultimately hopeful programming that the company wants from Murphy, and the seven-episode limited series was fast-tracked as a result. “What I love,” she says, “is that Ryan is creating a world that he wants to will into existence.”

***

Murphy’s first inkling for Hollywood came over a celebratory dinner with Criss following their fruitful awards run for the Versace installment of American Crime Story. With rosé flowing, the two began discussing a next possible collaboration. Murphy wanted to do something young and hopeful; Criss proposed 1940s Hollywood. The 33-year-old actor had been fascinated by the lore surrounding characters like Scotty Bowers, the L.A. hustler who operated out of a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, along with golden age stars like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and he was eager to explore the era with Murphy.

“There’s a blinking red light on it that says, ‘Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy,’ ” says Criss, “because it’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s glamorous, it’s dangerous and it has resonance now.”

Murphy didn’t disagree. As a student of Hollywood history, he’d already gone down the road with his FX series Feud, which centered its first season on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This would simply allow him to dig deeper on figures who’d long captured his attention, from Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, who was effectively run out of Hollywood, to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar and not be allowed to sit with her cast in the theater. “I’m always moved by these characters who weren’t fully seen or didn’t get their moment,” says Murphy in an interview on the Paramount lot earlier this year, where he was directing Meryl Streep in The Prom, another Netflix production. At one point, he’d even toyed with the idea of doing a Biography-style anthology series with an episode devoted to each.  

Not long after that dinner, Criss was at a bachelor party when his phone rang. It was Murphy. “He says, 'Do you mind if I just do my thing on this?’ ” says Criss. “And I’m like, 'You’re Ryan fucking Murphy. Do whatever you want!’ ”

So, Murphy picked a collaborator, Ian Brennan, with whom he’d worked on Glee, Scream Queens and The Politician, and the two began quietly tossing around ideas. With the help of a few researchers, they landed on a story that revolved around a Bowers-esque service station, with a staff full of actors and directors looking to be stars. “It was super fun and sexy and salacious,” says Brennan, “but it was also about the #MeToo underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, which felt very, very contemporary.”

The men found it exhilarating to depict sex so explicitly and in every possible combination. “To be able to describe exactly what is happening is really, really cool,” says Brennan. And despite the appetite for such racy content varying dramatically around the globe, Netflix brass was passionate about its inclusion — a marked difference from his and Murphy’s experience on previous shows, where they fought tooth and nail over the mere mention of sexual terms. “I hope this isn’t speaking out of school,” he adds, “but the one thing [Netflix’s vp original series] Brian Wright said to me, was, like, 'Thumbs-up on the sex. If anything, dial that up.’”

From the Pose writers room, producer Janet Mock would see Murphy and Brennan huddled in a nearby room and wonder what the latest “secret Ryan Murphy project” was all about. At one point, Mock found herself pumping intel out of a writers’ assistant, who told her, “It’s a thing called Hollywood, it’s about this gas station.” Having seen the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, she figured, “OK, there’s no place for me in that. I’ll continue with Pose.”

But that would soon change, beginning with an eye-opening discussion in the writers room about which of the ensemble’s contract players would be picked to star in the film at the center of Hollywood. The role was that of real-life actress Peg Entwistle, a blonde Brit who jumped to her death from the famed Hollywood sign. “At first, we were like, “Well, it can’t be the black girl [Harrier’s Camille], they wouldn’t have done it. …’ And then it was like, 'Well, wait a second, what if it actually was? What if Peg becomes Meg,’ ” says Brennan. One what-if led to another and then another, and before long they’d decided to go back in and start revising history — this time, with Mock as a credited writer.

Now, rather than use the series to, say, showcase the powerlessness of a studio head’s aging housewife, in this case LuPone’s Avis, they tweaked the story so that suddenly it explores what would happen if Avis gained control of her husband’s studio. It was the same for several others, including Rock Hudson, says Murphy’s co-creator. Instead of telling the tragic tale of a person forced to hide, they allowed themselves to explore what would happen if he refused to do so. “Once we began asking, 'What if?’ it became a different show,” says Brennan, with Mantello adding: “It became a fable of what could have been.”

With Netflix execs eager to get the series up on the service, Murphy began loading the cast with his usual mix of familiar names — from Jim Parsons, as Hudson’s real-life closeted agent Henry Wilson, to Rob Reiner, as the head of the fictional Ace Studios — and newer discoveries, like Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Reiner’s daughter, or Picking as Hudson and Pope as his fictional boyfriend. As with other recent ensembles, he listed all of them not in order of importance or seniority but rather alphabetically on the call sheet. The message was clear: “The star of the show is the show,” says Murphy. Still, initial hires Criss and David Corenswet, who’d made his debut on The Politician, were given executive producer credits, along with backend points on the series. (There’s already talk of a season two, which would pick up in the late 1960s, with many of the same actors in entirely new roles.)

At some point in the production process, Murphy found himself scaling back the graphic nature of the series, too — a byproduct of his own personal recalibration, he says, having spent so much of his pre-Netflix life fighting to show so much as a woman’s nipple. “When you’re finally free, you have this tendency to go full tilt boogie, but ultimately I became much more interested in the emotion of the characters, and, frankly, I became protective of them,” he explains, suggesting every episode had an X-rated version, an R-rated version and a PG version, and, to the delight of participants like Corenswet, who plays an actor-cum-sex worker, Murphy would almost always select the R one.

“I think Ryan realized as we were shooting that the best part of the sex was the romance — and that’s always great to hear as an actor, especially when it applies to your five-page sex scene with Patti LuPone,” says the 26-year-old Corenswet. LuPone, for her part, was just thrilled she was still asked to do a sex scene at age 71. “Finally!” she bellows, praising Murphy for having both the vision and the courage to take the risks he does: “Ryan’s fearless,” says the Tony winner, who also popped up in Pose, “and I’m so happy to be in his world." 

***

Long before Murphy was a household name, with a big fat Netflix deal to ostensibly take all the risks he wants, he was a frustrated former journalist fighting to change a system that wasn’t built for him. His own secret had been revealed at just 15, when his mother found a drawer full of love letters from his then-22-year-old boyfriend at their home in Indiana. Horrified, she and Murphy’s father threw their son into counseling, hoping he could be "fixed.”

A decade or two later, after his first career as an entertainment writer, Murphy carved out a place for himself in television, where he could exist comfortably as a gay man — so long as he didn’t try to write anyone like himself into scripts. “There were lots of words that they’d use to discriminate against you,” he says, “too flamboyant, too camp, too theatrical, and they were all code.”

By the mid-1990s, he’d joined forces with 10 or so other out or soon-to-be-out creatives, a group that included Nina Jacobson, Greg Berlanti and A Beautiful Mind’s Bruce Cohen. Giving themselves the name “Out There,” they’d meet in courtyards and living rooms to swap horror stories and try to plot a path forward. “We were young and didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of energy and a need to connect with and support each other as gay people working in a straight environment,” says Jacobson, who’d later collaborate with Murphy on American Crime Story and Pose. “And for a lot of us, it was, for the first time, that feeling of community.”

In time, Murphy, like the others, found a way to “monetize [his] pain.” His first creation, Popular, debuted in 1999, and other opportunities followed. Popular begat Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck begat Glee, and before he knew it, Murphy had moved from TV’s fringes to its red-hot center. As The New Yorker once wrote, “He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry.” In early 2018, he signaled that power by signing a nine-figure deal, among the most lucrative in the medium’s history.

So it is perhaps fitting that Murphy’s first project wholly for and from the service includes a scene that trumpets what he calls “the thesis statement” of his career. It begins with Criss’ character, Raymond, being regaled by the story of Anna May Wong’s awe-inspiring screen test for the lead role in the 1937 adaptation of The Good Earth, a part that ultimately went to a far less deserving Caucasian actress. Suggesting it was one of the saddest stories Raymond had ever heard, a film executive played by Mantello responds:

“What’s so sad about it? The picture was a hit. [They] were right. You can’t open a picture with a Chinese lead or a colored one, a number of theaters won’t run it.”

Raymond: “But you said she deserved the part?”

Exec: “Yes, but the hard fact is, had she gotten it, the picture is not a hit.”

Raymond: “How do you know that? You never made the movie, so how do you know it’s not a hit?”

Criss’ character continues with a monologue that is so perfectly Murphy you can almost close your eyes and picture him saying it.  

“Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made — you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

Criss himself would argue that Murphy already has. “His dial is always in extremes. So, if he’s doing Glee or Scream Queens or this, it’s at an 11, almost as a middle finger to reality,” says the actor. “It’s like he turned the dial over to say, 'This is how I’d like to see the world in my wildest dreams. Ain’t it fun?’ ”

In the past two years, since he moved his creative hub from 20th Century Fox TV, where he still maintains a considerable roster, Murphy been responsible for producing roughly 200 LGBTQ characters, many featured as leads. At least a third of his Hollywood cast is older than 70 (“Seventy is the new 40,” he teases), and nearly every project he launches is fronted by a woman — and that’s just in front of the camera. “If you see it, you can be it,” Murphy says often.

It’s a worldview that appeals to Netflix’s Holland, for whom he’s already prepped two films (Prom, The Boys in the Band), two docuseries (Circus of Books, Secret Love) and five seasons of inclusive television, including a Halston miniseries that, along with his 20th programs Pose, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, shut down care of COVID-19 in March. In the weeks since, when he isn’t toggling between Tiger King and MSNBC, Murphy’s kept busy writing two new decidedly hopeful series, each with the express purpose of providing viewers and himself an escape. “Ryan’s the rare creator who speaks to many audiences,” says Holland. “It’s not just gay people or straight people or older people or younger people, it’s really all people who are interested in the human condition.”

To date, Murphy claims he has yet to hear the word “no” from his Netflix bosses, though he’s definitely been nudged in certain directions. “They don’t want me to do small, niche things,” he says, acknowledging that not too long ago a project like Hollywood would have been deemed just that. “But they know how to market this,” he explains, noting that Netflix will push his latest series on viewers who also like love stories, young adult series and LGBTQ fare.

For those who worried the ultra-competitive producer would chafe in a system that doesn’t provide a public report card (aka ratings), he argues that that’s been liberating. Brennan backs him up, revealing how they received initial numbers for The Politician a week or two after it premiered late last summer and then another trove of data a month or so later; and though the latter could effectively game out how many people would watch the series over time, Brennan says, “We were sort of like, 'I don’t think that’s helpful.’ ”

Murphy takes it a step further, insisting he’s no longer interested in the old metrics, like how many people are watching or how many awards a series has generated. “All the things that people tell you will make you feel successful … I have those things, they don’t,” he says. What matters to him now is being able to tell stories that he wishes he or others could have seen. To that end, he can’t help but wonder what his own life would have been had he witnessed Rock Hudson walking the Oscars red carpet as an openly gay man — and though it’s too late to change his own experience, Murphy would like to be able to improve the experience of others. So, he took a chance and made a different kind of story. “Hollywood,” he says, “can change the world.”

[samwinlover-blog]

You Know I Need You

Pairing: Sam x Reader  Characters: Sam, Reader, Dean  Warnings: violence, angst, seriously if you’re squeamish don’t read:)  Word count: 1852 Summary: The Reader is stabbed by a Demon and the Winchesters rush to get her home and stitched up before it’s too late.  Tag list: @spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches @arianacullen2008 @myplaceofthingsilove @spectaculicious @bambinovak @writingthingsisdifficult @aliensdeservebetter A/N: I just got home from hanging out with a few friends, I’m tired but decided I wanted to write something for you guys. So please excuse any grammatical errors, I’ve edited it but, as I said before, I’m tired. Alright, that’s it, hope you enjoy! :) 

You, Sam and Dean had been trudging through the woods for hours now. The heavy, Louisianan heat was clinging tightly to your clothes, and moisture hung thickly in the air. Throughout the forest you heard loud chirps and buzzes of cicadas and various insects. Their hums and vibrations replaced the silence that would have ensued without them, nobody was talking. The three of you were tired, and bored, just wanting this hunt to be over. You’d been tracking a couple of demons for just under two weeks now. You’d narrowed their hunting grounds down to somewhere in the woods you were trudging through. Thickly arboraceous and bright green, the forest surrounding you seemed to gobble up the sky above and leave a leafy canvas in its place. You looked over at Sam, his hair was frizzy and damp with perspiration. You weren’t much better off: sweat had plastered your hair to the sides of your face, and made your chest slick with moisture. Demons could come from anywhere at any moment, so you were on your guard. Knife in hand, you trudged on, never loosening your grip on the hilt. 

And just as you thought you had estimated the area wrong, demons came flooding in. It wasn’t a mystery to you why they’d chosen that forest as their hunting ground. Secluded and with an endless supply of hikers and joggers, the woods around you were perfect for luring and trapping and killing. There were only about 6 that you could count, but you had no idea what was lurking behind the trees. You’d also never seen demons fight with actual weapons before, always just their fists. So when the first one took a swing at you with a machete, surprise nearly cost you your head. 

You quickly ducked and then resurfaced, catching the demon’s wrist and twisting. With a cry of pain and a swift kick from you, it dropped the knife and fell to the ground. One down, you thought. 

More and more came at you, Sam and Dean. The three of you were standing, backs towards each other, eyeing the demons encircling you. The silent tension flared and then was broken by a punch landing on one of the Winchester’s jaws, you couldn’t see which one. And with that, all hell broke loose. 

You fought off and killed about three before your knife was knocked from your hands and kicked away, too far for you to scramble for. So you decided to use your fists instead, Sam and Dean were too preoccupied to help you anyways. With a sting in your knuckles, you landed a punch to the jaw of the girl in front of you. She hissed and swung back, and you were too slow. It stunned you, hooking right below your left eye. You staggered backwards, hands thrown above your face in an attempt to block future punches. Within seconds, you had snapped out of it. Vision no longer blurred, you kicked at her knee. She twisted down with a cry of pain, and you threw her by her shoulders away from you. But more just kept coming, demon after demon, kill after kill. 

After you’d finished off your sixth one, you were panting and gasping for air. Eyeing the middle aged man in front of you, you planned out your next strike. But before you could move, you saw a flash from the corner of your eye and felt a sharp pain in your abdomen. Looking down, you saw a crudely carved hilt protruding from your stomach, the blade buried deep within. Your breaths devolved into quick, sharp, pants and you fell down to the ground with a groan. Shit, shit, shit, you thought, this wasn’t good. Your abdomen was on fire, all you wanted was the knife out of you. So, with a gasp, you wrenched it from where it was buried within. Blood instantly started pooling and spreading throughout the fabric of your shirt, and you realized you shouldn’t have pulled it out. Hot and sticky, blood flowed freely through the spaces between your fingers. Your own hands were doing nothing to slow the bleeding, and you felt yourself become very, very, weak. 

Seconds later, the fighting was over and you heard the last zap of the demon blade taking a life. Sam rushed over to you and roughly pressed his hands over the wound, earning a cry from you. He was mumbling to himself, his words somewhere between shit and it’s going to be okay. Dean was standing above him, hands running through his sweaty hair and a look of grave concern on his face. 

You all but growled from pain as the taller Winchester picked you up, hooking his arms under your shoulders and knees. He practically sprinted to get you back to the Impala. Thankfully, you were only about a mile into the forest and the three of you arrived at the car relatively quick. 

By the time Sam had laid you down in the back seat with your head on his lap, you didn’t feel the pain anymore. You knew that was a bad sign, and you desperately wanted to feel that terrible burning from before- anything to tell you you were still alive. But it had gone numb, so had the rest of your body. You didn’t even feel Sam’s fingers, which were running through your damp hair. 

“Dean, drive faster!!”, Sam all but screamed at his brother, who was already hurtling the car miles above the speed limit. But Dean just grunted in return and floored the gas pedal. With a roar of the engine, the Impala shook and you found that same pain from before returning. It started out just in your abdomen, but quickly spread itself through the rest of your body. You started gasping again, chest rapidly rising and falling. Sam’s hands were shaking and desperately trying to slow the bleeding, pressing down as hard as he could over the wound. But you could feel he was doing very little, despite his best efforts. And with every second past, every mile driven, you felt yourself slipping away. 

“Dean, how much longer until we’re at the bunker?!”, Sam’s cry anchored your grip on reality, saving you from tumbling into the blackness calling out to you. 

“Uh, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes?!”, Dean yelled back, you heard him becoming flustered and knew he would blame himself if he didn’t get you home in time. So you gritted your teeth and decided to fight like hell, pushing away that same blackness compelling you to just let go, refusing to listen. 

You heard Sam start to whisper to you, leaning down and pleading softly, “Come on, just hang on a little longer. Come on, (Y/N), I need you, you know I need you.” 

About five minutes later, the Impala roared up the driveway and to the bunker. You felt the crunch of gravel beneath its wheels and the skid as Dean violently pumped the brakes. Sam hurriedly, yet gently, picked you up and hauled you inside. All the while you felt yourself slipping away again. It had been that way the entire drive, you’d start to let go only to be yanked back to consciousness. 

The door slammed shut with a groan behind the three of you. Dean violently cleared a table for Sam to lay you down upon, and objects clattered to the floor. Their loud crashes vibrated through your already ringing ears. 

You heard Dean rush to the other room and retrieve a medical kit for Sam to stitch you up with. Dreading what was to come, you lightly winced as Sam ripped your shirt open and shoved a hand over the wound. He kept apologizing over and over, little did he know, you weren’t feeling half of it. 

Dean returned moments later, carrying as many supplied as he could and dropping them onto the table beside you. Sam wiped a cold cloth over your forehead, cleaning it from dirt and perspiration. 

“S-S-Sam…”, you gasped out just as he was about to stitch you up. 

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry”, he replied while pouring whiskey over the garish hole. It stung like nothing you’d ever felt before, a raging scream ripped from your throat and rang throughout the bunker. Sam shuddered, closing his eyes and furrowing his brows, before beginning to make small stitches. 

When you’d recovered from the sensation the whiskey had given your side, you focused on what Sam was doing. Your vision was blurred but the feeling was clear, the looping and tugging of the thread occupied your thoughts. In, out, stitch, knot. The pattern continued for minutes until, 20 stitches and a lot of swearing later, Sam was finished. You felt your body relax onto the cool metal beneath you, breaths slowing into long sighs. 

“Hey, hey, you’re good, you’re good.”, Dean said, peering down at you. Sam nodded and scooped you up again, carrying your grisly body to the bed. But before your head touched the pillow you felt yourself pass out, swallowed by that welcoming darkness from before.

When your eyes fluttered open you found Sam lying next to you, arms clutching yours tightly. Your breathing was still hollow and croaky, but better. Your previously filthy body was mostly clean and your clothes were changed to comfortable pajamas. 

“Sam,”, you rasped, voice as raw sounding as your throat felt. 

His head snapped up from the sheets; relief washed over him when he saw you conscious and he let out a long breath, “(Y/N)” 

“It hurts”, you whispered, nodding down at your stomach. 

“I know, I’m sorry”, he replied, genuinely looking as if he wished he could take your place- even though you’d never let him. 

“Where’s Dean?”, you asked, honestly surprised the older Winchester wasn’t waiting at your bedside. The expectation sounded prissy, but Dean was like an older brother to you. He was endlessly caring and even more protective, always putting you and Sam first, always worrying about the two of you instead of himself. 

“He went out to get you a bunch of painkillers and stuff”, Sam replied, sighing and leaning his face into your shoulder. 

“You scared me for a second there”, he whispered into your skin. You began absentmindedly running your fingers through his hair, noticing it was still filthy from the woods. As if he’d only taken the time to clean you up and neglected himself in the process. 

“Scared myself too”, you mused, remembering all the times you nearly gave up and welcomed death, in the form of that peaceful darkness. 

Sam let out another long breath and buried his head even further into you, you leaned down and intertwined his fingers with your own. You saw the way he was holding you, clutching tightly as if he knew he was a split second from losing you back there. As if he knew that if anything had gone differently, anything, instead of waking up to a sore abdomen, you’d be explaining to Castiel what had happened, and facing the afterlife alone.