#but after I tell him that some actors make millions for each project he tries to stab me with a quill

[imidori-ya]

I time travel back to the globe theatre in 1599 to find Mr. Willy Shakes himself and explain that in the future actors have become what essentially amounts to our modern gentry. That through the existence of magic moving pictures they have the ability to act in front of any audience at any time. Making them household names. I explain the Oscars to him in grueling detail. He strangles me to death with a pair of his gay little stockings when I tell him about the best actress awards.

[handsomelyhiddleston]

Dark Queen, Bright King - Tom Hiddleston x Emo/Alt Reader

You and Tom were different. At your core you shared many interests and values as well as your playful natures and senses of humor, but if someone were to see you walking down the street together, they might have a few questions.

“What are you going to wear on the show?” you asked your now husband. You and Tom had been married for nearly a month after dating for about two years and he had finally convinced you to let him introduce you to the world.

“I don’t know, actually.” Tom sat down on the couch next to you and pulled you into his side. “I can’t decide between wearing the most colorfully obnoxious outfit I could get away with or pulling a Ragnarok and wearing head to toe black.”

You laughed, dragging your finger up and down Tom’s thigh. “I can’t lie, the black-on-black suit does make me feel a way…”

“Of course, you pick the black suit.” Tom teased, pulling you into a heated kiss as your fingers trailed dangerously close to his manhood.

You turned to straddle Tom’s lap, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. His hands couldn’t stay still, moving from your legs to your ass to your waist. “I didn’t pick the black suit.” You said, leaning forward to press kisses across his jaw and down his neck. “I think you should wear one of your stunning bright suits.”

“But you said…” Tom tried to reply, already having a hard time staying on topic.

“I said it makes me feel a way.” You pushed Tom’s shirt down his arms and ran your hands slowly up his torso.  “What you’re forgetting…” you pulled your shirt over your head to reveal a black lace bra, “is that you’re always making me fall further and more in love with you just by being you.”

Tom pulled you tighter to him, pressing sloppy kisses to your breasts. “God, I love you.”

The two of you could never keep your hands off of each other. This was the second time TODAY you’d made love. Slowly. Lazily. Just happy to be in each other’s embrace.

As you laid against his chest, still on the couch, and let your breathing slow back to normal you looked up at your husband. “I fell in love with you exactly as you are.” You traced invisible patterns softly into Tom’s chest with your fingertip. “I love how bold and bright and charismatic you are. I love that you like classical music and how excited you get when people ask you questions about Shakespeare and that you’re always the most polite person in the room. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

You could feel a laugh rumble in Tom’s chest. He pulled your hand to his lips and gently kissed it. “I’m ever grateful for that.” Tom twirled a piece of your hair between his fingers as he spoke. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you, either. I can’t wait to tell the world how much I love you.”

“How are you going to break the news that the actor behind everyone’s favorite trickster has finally settled down?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.” Tom smirked.

The two of you had met on a Broadway show set. You were in charge of make-up and costume design, and you’d hit it off with Tom straight away.

At first, he found you intriguing. Your style spectrum went from absolute tomboy to fitted dresses, but the color black was the common denominator. You had various tattoos sprawled across your skin and there really was no way to know what color hair you’d show up with the following day. He loved how sure of yourself you were and how little you worried over what those around you may or may not be thinking.

Little did he know, you thought the same of him. First, he was the most attractive person in the room whether he was wearing a ten-thousand-dollar suit or a pair of black joggers and a t-shirt. He always commanded the room with his bright disposition and you’d never once seen him have a diva moment. He was intelligent…not only with information, but emotionally.

One day after a show, while you were gently removing his stage make-up, he kept smiling up at you.

“What’s got you so happy?” you asked.

“Well, we’ve got a week break. First real break we’ve had since the show started.” His answer made sense, but you noticed his cheeks were blushing.

“You get a whole week without having to deal with me smearing things all over your face” you teased, throwing the make-up remover wipes away.

Tom cleared his throat. “I was actually hoping we could make plans?” He reached out and grabbed one of your hands in both of his.

It took you a second to realize he was being serious. “Is Mr. polite and proper asking me on a date?”

Tom laughed, ducking his head. “That depends on whether or not Ms. dark and spooky is willing to give Mr. polite and proper a chance.”

The two of you ended up spending the entire week together. You talked about film scores and music. Horror movie classics and period pieces. Your favorite projects that you’ve worked on. Friends and family. Even though the two of you looked so different, you fit perfectly into each other’s lives. That brought you to this moment, with your husband about to tell the world about your existence.

The Graham Norton show is filmed on a Thursday and aired on a Friday. You were surprised that no one had leaked the news between filming and airing.

“Welcome to the show TOM HIDDLESTON!” The audience, as usual, went wild. Graham always loved teasing Tom and making him blush, so when Tom reached out to let Graham know he wanted to announce something important and that he wanted to do it on the show, Graham booked it immediately.

“Welcome back, Tom.”

“Thanks for having me” Tom answered, greeting everyone else on the couch with him including Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh.

They talked for a minute about Tom’s latest projects and such.

“So, Tom. I hear you’ve had a lot of big things happen this year?” Graham was genuinely curious what Tom was going to announce.

“That I have.” Tom replied, looking to be thinking about them. “I mean, one…I bought a house outside of London.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. What else?” Graham continued.

“Oh, I also experienced my first mosh pit” he said so casually.

“You did what, dear?” Kenneth interjected.

“Why wasn’t I invited to this?” Eddie asked, laughing at everyone’s reaction. Eddie obviously already knew what Tom was going to announce as him and Tom had been friends since they were teenagers. Eddie was at the wedding, even.

“Hold up! Hold up.” Graham said, waving his arms. “How on God’s green earth did you end up in a mosh pit?”

“Well, thankfully I didn’t end up IN it. For my first go, I just stood very very close to it.” Tom explained, making the room laugh.

Kenneth turned to Tom. “Why were you anywhere near it?”

“Well, my wife had been asking me to go to one of…” Tom started explaining.

Graham did a dramatic double take before reaching out and grabbing Tom’s arm, interrupting his story. “Did you say your wife?”

“Yes, my wife y/n. She loves this band Bring Me The Horizon, and her friend couldn’t make it to the show so she asked me if I would go with her.” Tom had the biggest smile on his face, finally being able to talk about you.

“Screw the mosh pit and the house near London, I want to hear about your wife!” Graham pushed.

“Well, I guess the biggest thing that happened this year was that I married the love of my life.” Tom blushed, looking back at the screen. He had given the production team a few photos to show.

On screen first was a photo from your wedding. You were in a beautiful, gothy, black, long-sleeve, plunge neckline, lace dress and Tom was in an amazing dark red suit with a black shirt.

“You two look incredible.” Graham complimented, watching the photo change.

“Thank you, she’s a million times cooler than I am.” Tom laughed. “But for some reason she agreed to spend the rest of her life with me.”

The second photo was a candid photo from the greenroom where you met. You were concentrating on getting Tom’s stage make-up perfect and he was just staring at you, adoration clear on his face.

“As you can see, I was smitten.” Tom pointed out.

“Is that how you met?” Graham asked. Tom told the story and explained how long the two of you had been dating, then engaged, and then married.

“I’m surprised you were able to keep it private for so long” Graham commented.

As the final photo came up, Tom started explaining. “This is a photo of Y/n at one of my family gatherings.” It was a photo of you on the living room floor with his nieces and nephews. You were laying on your stomach and painting all of the kid’s nails. “We had only been together for a little over a month I believe. We had just concluded the show where we met, and I asked her to come to London with me. She was so nervous.”

“Well, it looks like she had no reason to worry.” Graham said.

“Not at all. The kids never left her side.” Tom replied, smiling as he looked at the photo. ���Everyone loved her. Everyone that meets her loves her, to be honest.”

“Well, when she’s ready you’ll have to bring her on the show.” Graham suggested.

“I think having you two in a room together would be dangerous.” Tom laughed.

“Whatever could you mean?” Graham tried to act innocent, and Tom just raised his eyebrows and gave him a *you know what you did* look. “Fine, no fanfiction involved. Honest to God.”

Everyone laughed and the show moved onto Kenneth after Tom received many congratulations.

[suddenlysackler]

Limelight

Adam Sackler x Reader

TW: N/A (maybe a lil smidge of angst but nothing major)

A/N: This has been on the back burner for quite a bit and it’s a tad messy but I wanted to put it out for you all because I miss you and I miss my goblin bf and, ya know, Cannes 2021. Thank you for reading, I’m hopeful that I’ll be back more frequently in the coming weeks!

...

Adam Sackler had ascertained very quickly that he did not care for red carpets in the slightest. 

Given what he had found himself struggling through his late teens and seemingly all of his twenties, the relief of finally, finally, finally achieving some sort of steady stream of work and establishing himself as a serious actor provided relief that he could not be more grateful for. 

He liked being able to turn down the $800 a month from his grandmother and moving out of his apartment for good this time, trading up for some swanky new town house in upper Manhattan. He liked being able to afford to be choosy about what jobs he took and he liked that he was able to split his time between stage and screen. Hell, he’d even tried his hand at directing some dumb indie film that landed him right smack dab in the middle of Sundance.

Which is when he found out he hated red carpets.

He absolutely hated the insincerity of all of it — the rushed interviews, the posing for what seemed like hours on end for photographs that he’d probably never even see and he wasn’t allowed to smile for exactly like he’d want to. He hated answering the same questions over and over again and rubbing elbows with reporters from tabloids asking about off screen romances and making it blatantly clear to him that they weren’t interested in the art he had just helped create.

Along the way, maybe five red carpet events into his career, he met you. To his surprise, he didn’t meet you through a mutual friend or at a party or by yelling at you to stop taking food from open containers in the store he was working in. He met you because he accidentally took your coffee on a Wednesday morning before you could grab it and you promptly chased him down 45th street and cussed him out by using every single insult you could manage.

And that’s when things just clicked for him.

Everything fell into place after you came into his life and suddenly he felt even more fulfilled than he originally figured was even possible. He liked coming home to you after long days on set or at the theater. He liked bringing you to see different projects he was working on during production or bringing you to advanced screenings or dress rehearsals. Whenever he got a script, you were the first one he talked to about whether or not to even try for the role. He never wanted to object you to the horror that was a red carpet.

Not until now, anyway.

It was the first time that you had happened to be available for one and, yeah, he had invited you to all of the ones he had been to since you had been together but he didn’t necessarily want to take you. Of all of the things in his world that he wanted to show you, premiere events were the one thing he wanted to shelter you from. You knew about the drinking, the philandering of his early to mid twenties, the string of psycho ex girlfriends who he swore might show up at your shared doorstep at any given time to rip him a new one. Despite all of that shit, you’d some how managed to still like him, love him even. He didn’t want to chase you away with the bullshit that came with his career.

Maybe this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back?

You’d said yes without hesitation and his stomach dropped. He knew you never turned down an excuse to dress up, to impress him and make him feel proud of the fact that you were his girl, just his. So, on the night of the Tony Awards, he sat in the hotel room his manager had reserved for the two of you to get ready with the help of a team of aestheticians and hair dressers and tailors watching you twirl in what was probably the most expensive ball gown you would ever wear in childlike delight. Music of your choice played softly on someone’s phone and you could hardly stay still enough for the finishing touches that were being pushed into your face. You looked and felt like a million bucks and Adam knew that, but how was he supposed to enjoy it? He was too preoccupied with figuring out what he would do if you freaked out on him, threatened to leave him or some shit, after the circus act you were about to parade through in order to get to your final destination of the night.

“You look handsome.” You called from the chair you had been forced into, eyes opened wide for quick swipes of mascara.

Adam was so far gone, lost in his thoughts and strapped with worry. He didn’t hear you compliment him. He didn’t see you get up and he felt as though the force of you slotting yourself between his slightly parted legs was a ghost of a touch. “Hey, doll.” He mumbled when he finally did notice you.

One of your eyebrows quirked up. “You good, Adam?” 

He sensed some wavering in your voices, maybe some concern. Maybe some doubt? “I’m okay, just hate this shit.”

The other eyebrow followed the first. “What do you mean you hate this shit?” You ask as his publicist swept into the room and began to shoo the two of you out the door and down to stand for pictures and questions. 

He held your hand tightly as you weaved down the hall and into the elevator. “I just don’t like this part.” He shrugged and you squeeze his hand as you listen. “Worried it’ll bug you as much as it bugs me.”

“I mean, I’d walk over hot coals to see you in a tux.” You teased, eyes bright. When he doesn’t shoot back with a response characteristic of his normally playful bravado, some of that brightness leaves your expression. “You know I’m just happy to be with you, right? I’m proud of you.”

Adam hummed in response and squeezed your hand back. “I know.”

You weren’t having his clipped answers. “I don’t care that there are going to be pictures or tons of people watching. You know that shit won’t make me think differently of you.”

He remained quiet after giving you another shrug, still completely scared out of his mind that your words were just that, words. That you’d hit the ground running and never look back as soon as you realized just what supporting him at these things entailed.

The silence lasted for the rest of the elevator ride, through the lobby, and in the limousine and in the little holding room they put you in that is riddled with all of the snacks he would tease you for indulging in had the circumstances been different. He was tense, his muscles tight, tight, tight from his jaw to his calves, knee bouncing and free hand clenching and unclenching right until the moment his name was called. 

The moment wasn’t awful to begin with. It’s mostly pausing and stopping a lot of times for Adam to take pictures while you watch from the sidelines and, every so often, he pulls you in for a few. He doesn’t tell you that, in the moments he doesn’t have his arm around you, that isn’t kissing your cheek chastely and holding your hand, that he feels like he’s drowning. 

It didn’t phase you as you listened to reporters hound him about his female costar and whether or not they were seeing each other. It really didn’t even phase you when one man asked you to “step aside” and referred to you as Adam’s friend, despite his tight grip on your waist and the tender glances his stole every twenty seconds or so. And honestly, you didn’t really care that you might have gotten jostled up a little bit by photographers and other reporters as you stepped aside, more than happy to speed up the process for Adam.

But Adam would not have that, not at all.

“We’re fuckin’ done.” Adam growled, his eyes locking on your face as soon as he noticed you stumble a bit. He left without another word to any of the reporters and looked for his publicist, who was beyond livid at the fact that Adam was blowing off his responsibilities without much of an explanation. Before he went up to him, he grabbed your hand and dragged you along with him, not saying another word.

After a hushed but tense back and forth between the two men, the three of you stepped out of the view of the public and quickly found one of the many green rooms for invited guests to cool down and touch up hair and make up before heading into the venue. 

He paced and paced and paced for a long moment, leaving you to sit on the couch and watch with bated breath, praying that his older destructive tendencies didn’t suddenly find their way back to the surface of his psyche. 

After a long while, you finally spoke. “Can you come here?” You whispered, eyes round and, to be frank, a bit desperate. 

Adam came to you without a moment’s hesitation and knelt in front of you, placing his head in your lap and putting your hands in his hair. “Are you going to leave me tonight?” He mumbled into the tulle of your dress.

A soft smile crossed your lips and you shook your head, then moved to cup his cheeks and lift his face up to look at your own. “Now why would I even consider doing that?” You hummed. 

“After that shit show? Any sane person would leave.”

“Whoever said I was sane? Isn’t that why you like me?” 

He chuckled at that and nodded, biting back a comment about how anyone would have to be insane to want to stay with him for as long as you had. “That was just some totally bullshit and you know it, doll.”

You shrugged and shook your head once more. “Nothing I can’t handle, I’ve had my fair share of total bullshit with old haunts showing up on our doorstep, huh?” You made sure to keep your tone teasing, not wanting him to feel as though he needed to shoulder any of the blame for the situation.

Adam laughed again and relaxed visibly for the first time all night. “Do you want to even stay?” He asked, his own voice a bit more reassured. 

“Of course I want to stay, you’re up for an award, dummy.” You giggle, letting your head fall back as he moved up to pepper your exposed neck with kisses and playful bites. “And there’s the after party — I heard there’s going to be some damn good desserts and music.”

He flashed you a smirk when he pulled back and stood, then offered his hand to you. “What is it you always say when I ask to eat out on the way home from shit?” He proposed.

You stood and took his hand, intertwining your fingers and squeezing before walking toward the door. “What do you mean?” You asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Adam’s smirk only widened as he held the door open for you and smacked your ass before letting you go. “We have dessert at home.”

[noona-clock]

What’s Your Sign?: Sagittarius

Genre: Celebrity!AU

Pairing: Choi Minho x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Words: 5,534

Author’s Note: Since I’m so fascinated by astrology, I decided to do a Zodiac series! I will be writing a one-shot fic for each sign featuring different members from different groups (and even an actor!). Each story will be posted on the 5th of the month during that sign’s season. Please reblog, comment, or send in an ask with your feedback! Thank you for your support 💜

Ever since you’d seen him in his first ever role on a television series about five years ago, you’d fallen in love with Minho.

Choi Minho, probably the most attractive man you’d ever seen. Through a screen, at least. You hadn’t yet been lucky enough to see him in person.

And since you’d fallen in love with him after watching his very first episode of that television series, you’d done nothing but support him for the last several years.

You saw every one of his movies the day it released in theatres. You watched every single episode of every single television show he appeared in -- even if he was just a guest star.

His popularity from his first role had soared pretty quickly, which was really a win/win scenario. Minho, who presumably had been a struggling actor previously, was now flush with offers from directors. And you, an immediate superfan, got to spend a lot of virtual time with your new favorite actor -- because, not only did he act in a very large handful of projects every year, he was also interviewed on talk shows, featured in magazines, walking the red carpet of premieres and award shows. He didn’t have a social media presence for some extremely odd reason, but you still felt like you knew him.

From everything you’d seen and read about him, Minho was outgoing, friendly, and charismatic. He was confident, straight-forward, and optimistic. He basically always had some version of a smile on his lips, and based on many posts in the Choi Minho subreddit, he never turned down an opportunity to meet a fan out in public.

He... was basically perfect.

And you couldn’t stop yourself from daydreaming about one day meeting him, falling in love, getting married, and having about ten children together in the most beautiful house in the universe.

But, to be fair, your daydream wasn’t entirely impossible!

You were a bit of a celebrity, yourself!

Kind of.

On the Internet.

You had started a YouTube Channel six years ago, and at first, you hadn’t really had a clear vision for your videos. An absolutely rookie mistake, of course, but there’s nothing you could do about it now.

You’d started off with makeup tutorials because that had been the hottest YouTube trend at the time. But... you quickly discovered you weren’t as good at makeup as one should be to post a tutorial online in good conscience. You also weren’t quite good enough at doing your nails, cooking, or sewing to do videos about those.

For at least a few months, you’d been stumped. You knew you wanted your own YouTube channel -- you had a pretty fitting personality for it -- you just didn’t have any one marketable skill.

Until, one day, you stumbled upon a video of a guy watching a K-Pop music video for the first time and reacting to it. That was literally it. The whole video had been just him watching and talking about it.

And you were very good at that. You loved watching things on a screen -- YouTube videos, television shows, movies, you name it! And you always had thoughts running through your head while you watched something. In fact, you frequently wished one of your friends had exactly the same taste in music, shows, and movies as you so you could voice those thoughts aloud to someone who actually wanted to listen.

So, how had you never thought of doing that on your YouTube channel?! There was obviously a market for it -- the guy you’d watched had a few hundred thousand subscribers, and since it was something you genuinely enjoyed doing, you weren’t afraid of running out of content inspiration or motivation any time soon.

It was literally the perfect idea.

The next day, you had set up your camera, pulled up the first episode of your favorite television show of all time, and got to work. When you posted the video a few hours later (Re-watching my FAVORITE show of all time), something about it just felt right. Like the stars had aligned. No matter if you got five views or five thousand, you knew you were on the right path -- when it came to YouTube, at least.

Every day after that, you chose something else to watch -- a nostalgic movie, a viral YouTube video, the really cheesy musical episode of a television show. You tried to pick things from all along the spectrum, and you also tried to wait a few days in-between continuing on with your re-watch of your favorite show, simply for variety’s sake.

Little by little, your channel began to grow. After work, you would film, edit, and post -- every single day. On the weekends, you would film two different videos in case you ever needed to take a day off. Or in case you just felt like posting two videos!

Your first sponsorship offer email had come about six months after you’d posted your first video, and your eyes had nearly fell out of your head when you’d seen how much they’d offered you. (Looking back, your first paying YouTube gig really hadn’t been that much money -- compared to what you could make now, at least -- but it had still been incredibly thrilling.) And, really, that had been the catalyst of your YouTube career and popularity. It seemed just the one sponsorship had been all you’d needed to catch the attention of other brands who wanted to work with you, and when you got to the point where you could actually afford to quit your job and turn down sponsorship offers you weren’t wild about? That’s when you knew you’d made it.

Okay, but really, you knew you’d made it when one of your videos hit one million views for the first time (a video of you watching a particularly cringe-worthy teen movie from about ten years ago).

And now, six years later, you had almost four million subscribers, and your most viewed video had almost twenty million views. Sometimes, you still couldn’t believe it!

The highlight of your time on YouTube so far -- at least, in your eyes -- had been when you’d seen Choi Minho for the first time about a year after starting your channel. You’d still had less then one-hundred thousand subscribers back then, so if anyone ever left on a comment on a video mentioning how long you’d been a Minho fangirl or remembering when you first discovered him, you knew they were an OG subscriber. But ever since that video, you did absolutely nothing to hide your affinity for him, both as an actor and as a person. You watched and reacted to every single one of his movies and every single television show episode -- you even sometimes reacted to interviews or videos other fans had made about him.

Even when your channel hit some pretty big milestones -- five-hundred thousand subscribers, one million, two million, three million subscribers -- you never played it cool when it came to Choi Minho. You switched up your content and your editing style here and there, but one constant on your YouTube channel was the fact you let your inner fangirl shine for all the world to see.

In fact, just last month, the trailer for his new movie dropped, and you were able to upload your reaction to it within two hours. Since then, you’d read and watched every interview you could find, favorited every tweet about the upcoming film, and liked every post on the #ChoiMinho hashtag on Instagram. Since he had no social media, you had to be satisfied with other people’s content rather than his own.

You were scrolling through his hashtag on Instagram right now, actually, as you procrastinated getting out of bed to go set up for another day of filming.

Now that you had almost four million subscribers and were approached by more than several companies for sponsorships every single day, you were able to focus on your channel full-time. You definitely got cabin fever from time to time, but it was worlds better than filming after work and on weekends. Now, you could actually take a day off whenever you wanted! It was glorious!

But you still procrastinated working. You were still human, after all.

After you caught up on his hashtag and liked just about every picture you could, you navigated to your inbox to look through your DMs. Over the years, it had gotten pretty easy to skip past the spam and sugar daddy requests (which were plentiful, unfortunately), so you no longer dreaded checking the unread messages. You could usually tell which ones to delete straight away from the profile picture and first few words alone.

To be quite honest, you really only opened ones where you either could tell someone was genuinely reaching out to say hi or thank you for posting your videos or... messages with Minho’s name visible in the preview. Shameless, but oh well!

After deleting a few messages at the top which were clearly spam, the next one you came to was actually one of those messages -- you saw ‘Minho’ in the preview. It was the very first word, even! And in all caps.

You pressed on it as quickly as you could.

And when your eyes took in the rest of the message... your heart stopped.

MINHO WATCHED ONE OF YOUR VIDEOS!

...This had to be a prank, right?

But right after the message in all capital letters was a link to a YouTube video, and the preview for the video was right below the message.

It was one of those videos put out by a big fashion magazine where celebrities watch videos about them and react to it. Usually, musicians and singers would react to covers of their songs by fans, but every once in a while, actors would read tweets or watch fanmade videos about them.

And when you clicked on the link this person had sent, the video opened in your YouTube app to show the title “Choi Minho Watches Fan Videos on YouTube,” and your eyes widened.

If what the Instagram message said was true... Minho had watched not only a fan video... but your fan video. And since his movie was premiering in just a couple of days, he had most likely watched your reaction to the trailer.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Since the video had started automatically after clicking the link, you took a deep breath and concentrated all of your focus on your phone screen. You were not going to miss the part where he watched your video.

But, of course, after not even thirty seconds, you found you had already gotten distracted by how handsome he looked.

You quickly shook your head a bit, widening your eyes briefly before narrowing them to focus on your screen again. “Come on, Y/N,” you muttered to yourself. “You can watch it again right after this to admire him.”

It was only a fifteen-minute video, so it’s not like you had to wait forever to get to the part where he watched you!

Still, though, as the minutes ticked by, you felt your heart begin to race in anticipation.

What would he say about you? Would he find your obsession with him creepy? I mean, it had to be a little creepy watching someone squeal and profess their love for you -- someone you’d never met!

But, then... when you got really mushy comments... most of the time, it didn’t feel creepy. It just felt sweet, and you were incredibly grateful that a lot of your subscribers and viewers were so supportive.

Ugh! You were getting off track again!

You shook your head once more and set your gaze back onto your phone screen.

Finally, when the clip of Minho watching a fanmade music video transitioned into the clip of him watching your video, your breath caught in your throat.

Were you going to survive this?

Outcome is unclear.

“Oh, yeah, I know her,” Minho said as your trailer reaction video began to play in the corner. “She’s the reaction girl, right?”

Your jaw dropped.

................Excuse me?!

Minho knew you?!

As you watched Minho watching you with the most adorable soft grin on his lips, your hand slowly crept up to cover your mouth in shock.

And, then, when you in the video paused the trailer to bring up another one of his movies that this trailer had reminded you of, his grin widened and he looked very pleased. “She knows her stuff, huh?”

You heard someone behind the camera murmuring something, and subtitles appeared on the screen. “She’s a known superfan, actually.”

Minho’s brow furrowed and he leaned toward the camera. “She’s what?”

“A superfan,” the person repeated, a little bit louder. “She’s known to her viewers for watching all of your movies and shows. There are always comments about you on all of her videos.”

Minho’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Really? All of them? Comments about me?” He leaned back and nodded slowly after, apparently, receiving a positive answer. “I had no idea. I’ve just seen her videos about, like, the cheesy teen movies we watched as kids.”

You truly almost dropped your phone.

So... he knew who you were, but he hadn’t known that you fangirled over him on a regular basis?

First of all, how was that possible?

Second of all, did it really matter?! He knew who you were!

He knew who you were!

You didn’t expect that he regularly watched your videos, but still.

HE KNEW WHO YOU WERE!

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you watched him finish up watching your reaction video. The look on his face was one of delight, and even though you knew he was a good actor, it sure didn’t seem like he was simply pretending not to be creeped out.

“She’s so fun,” he smiled as your video ended, his gaze shifting back to the person he had spoken with earlier. “She has more? Like, for my movies?”

The person mumbled something back, and this time, there were no subtitles on the bottom of the video. But Minho’s eyebrows shot up immediately.

“All of my movies?” he asked. And then he let out a joyous chuckle and added, “No way.”

He quickly turned to the computer and clicked on your channel name.

But the video transitioned into another clip of someone else’s video, so you didn’t get to see if he actually watched any other ones.

Even if he hadn’t, you were still overjoyed -- to say the least -- that he had watched just one!

He knew who you were! He had actually known who you were before this which was probably the most surprising thing you’d ever heard in your entire life. (Besides the fact that Minho was currently single. That was definitely more surprising than anything.)

After sitting in your bed for a few minutes, staring blankly at your screen as the video finished up, your gaze unfocused and blurry, you finally came to when you realized the video had ended.

And then you proceeded to freak out.

You squealed and shrieked and kicked your legs and rolled around and scrambled to your feet to jump up and down on your bed with glee.

Was this the best day of your life?

Quite possibly!

Once you’d calmed down just a tad, you plopped back into a sitting position, crossing your legs into a pretzel as you navigated back to Instagram.

You sent a reply to the person who’d sent you the video (”OH MY GOD THANK YOU HE KNOWS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) and then refreshed your inbox.

As expected, a whole new slew of messages came through and literally every single one seemed to be about the video.

Your lips split into a huge grin, and just before you clicked on a random one to read and reply to it... you noticed that one message had a blue check by the sender.

Pausing, you shifted your gaze to that message.

And your heart jumped up into your throat when you recognized the name of the account.

Obviously, it wasn’t Minho himself because he didn’t have one.

But it was the next best thing.

His management company.

You followed them, of course, and liked every single picture about him or with him. Of course!

But you had never gathered up the courage to message them. You’d had no reason to! What would you have said?

And now they were messaging you.

The several days following the video of Minho watching your video had been... a blur. To say the least.

You still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

I mean, you knew you were here because Minho’s management company had direct messaged you on Instagram inviting you to the premiere of his movie and you had accepted without one millisecond of hesitation and then you’d gotten on a plane a couple of days later and then checked into a super nice hotel and had a stylist and makeup artist sent to your room and after many hours you now looked better than you ever had in your entire life.

That’s how you got here.

But you still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

A rather large stroke of luck?

Good karma?

Hard work to grow your YouTube channel into something that would make you more easily recognizable by actual celebrities and their management companies?

Or a combination of the three?

Either way, you were overwhelmed with gratitude, and you knew you would never be able to forget this experience -- even if you, for some odd reason, wanted to.

I mean, you were currently in a really nice car, and the driver (yes, you had a driver!) was taking you to the red carpet.

The red carpet!

An actual movie premiere! With an actual red carpet!

And the movie was Minho’s movie.

You were at the premiere of Minho’s movie.

Oh my god, what if you saw him?!

As the car rolled to a stop in front of a crowded theatre, your heart and stomach dropped down to your very expensive and gorgeous shoes.

You’d gone to somewhat fancy events before -- it came with the job of being a YouTuber -- but never anything like this. Never an actual movie premiere. Never the chance of seeing your favorite actor in the history of time. And, obviously, never walking a red carpet.

Your door magically opened just as the car stopped moving, and a hand popped out of nowhere to assist you in exiting the vehicle. As gracefully as you could, you slipped your fingers into the mysterious palm, allowing it to gently pull you up and out of your seat and onto the sidewalk.

Almost immediately, camera clicks, light bulb flashes, and inquiring voices filled the air.

Cameras and lights in your face, you were used to. It was your everyday life, in fact!

But... all these people? Looking at you? Watching you? Taking pictures of you?

I mean, yeah, a few million people watched your videos. But it was absolutely not the same as a hundred or so reporters and photographers standing right in front of you.

Thankfully, some short but very powerful woman guided you onto the red carpet, muttering to you that all you had to do was stand in front of the backdrop, pose and smile for the cameras, and then move on to the next mark. Some reporters from news and entertainment channels would be waiting along the way to interview you (which didn’t scare you quite so much as you’d been interviewed a few times before), and all in all, it would take about an hour.

But it took you way less than an hour to discover that walking a red carpet is not as glamorous as it looks on television.

Walking like your shoes were covered in almost-frozen molasses so every photo taken was a good one. Switching back and forth between facial expressions so every photo taken wasn’t the same one. And do you know how many good places there are to put your hands when posing for a picture? Exactly two. One was on your hip and the other at your side. That was it. Definitely not clasped in front of or behind you, and definitely not tucking your hair behind your ear.

And just when you were sort of getting used to the constant posing for pictures, another short but powerful woman gently grabbed your arms and led you to a reporter from the most-watched entertainment news channel in the country.

“Hello, hello!” the perky reporter chirped as you approached her. “Come on over here!”

“Hi,” you greeted awkwardly as you made your way to the small mark on the ground next to her, holding up your skirt with one hand so you wouldn’t trip.

“Y/N! Good evening, good evening, how are you doing?” she asked before sticking the microphone in your face.

You had to quickly get over the shock of her knowing your name since you didn’t want to look like a fool on live television, so you forced a grin on your lips and answered, “I’m pretty overwhelmed, actually!” you chuckled.

“Is this your first time at a red carpet?”

“It is, yes,” you confirmed with a slight nod. “And I’m so used to being alone in my house, talking to myself in front of a camera, so this is all new territory for me.”

The reporter laughed with delight before asking which designer you were wearing. You answered her with ease since your stylist had drilled it into your brain before you’d left the hotel.

Then, after she asked you to tell the folks at home what you’re known for, she said, “It’s a pretty fun story of how you got here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is,” you answered, your lips pulling into a shy but excited grin. “I woke up one morning to a message on Instagram, and someone had sent me --”

The reporter interrupted you then, and you noticed her gaze was directed over your shoulder. You turned to look, and --

Well, the next few moments happened so quickly, you really had no idea how you reacted.

“Y/N!” Minho called out, smiling widely and waving before reaching out and sliding his hands over your shoulders. He stood next to you, squeezing you once before letting his arms drop down to his side. “I’m so sorry for interrupting --”

“No, we were just talking about why she’s here at your premiere!”

Minho’s smile brightened even more, and he continued on with the story you’d been telling.

Meanwhile, you were standing there. Mute. Staring at him.

Because oh my god.

How was it actually possible that Minho was more handsome in real life?

But also, how was it actually possible that Minho was standing next to you in real life?

But also also, how was it actually possible that Minho was real?

That’s the real question, isn’t it?

You came to when you heard him say, “Yes, this is our first time meeting,” before turning to you and holding out his hand for a handshake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

You took his hand, shaking it weakly, and said the first thing that came to your mind: “Oh my god, hi.”

The reporter giggled, but Minho, instead of acting embarrassed for you, simply let go of your hand and moved to pull you into a hug.

Holy cannoli, Minho was hugging you.

Choi Minho. Was hugging. You.

Hugging!

You!

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” he repeated with a grin after pulling away, though he was still incredibly close to you and gazing at you with those sparkling, dreamy eyes of his.

“You, too,” you managed to reply shakily.

The reporter then went on to interview Minho, asking him who had designed his suit, what his character in this new movie was like, and if he was working on any new projects.

“I’m in the early stages of something, yes,” he answered. “I don’t think I can say too much more, but in the meantime, I think I’d really like to film some videos with Y/N, branch out onto social media.”

Your heart stopped, and you knew your facial expression was doing nothing to hide your surprise.

Minho then turned to you with an adorably guilty look on his face. “I mean, if it’s alright with you, of course.”

“Yes, absolutely!” you burst out immediately, and the reporter giggled once again.

“Well, there you have it, guys,” she said after turning to face the camera. “You heard it here first -- a brand new collaboration in the works, so keep an eye out.”

She turned to you then and asked you to remind the viewers of the name of your YouTube channel. You leaned into the microphone and silently praised the lord you were able to remember it.

“Thanks so much, you two,” the reporter said with a very peppy grin. “Have a wonderful evening!”

“You, as well,” Minho answered before putting a hand in-between your shoulder blades and guiding you back to the red carpet.

Wait, he was guiding you back to the red carpet? He wasn’t... leaving?

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured in your ear, his breath causing the most delicious tingle down your spine. “I swear I wasn’t trying to be rude, I just wanted to meet you --”

“No,” you shook your head slightly. “It’s -- it’s totally fine. It wasn’t rude at all. I’m -- I just -- I’m a little overwhelmed. In a good way!”

“Totally understand. I remember my first movie premiere like it was yesterday, I know exactly how you’re feeling.”

You simply let out a nervous chuckle, but then Minho did something to make you even more nervous (which you hadn’t even been sure was possible).

He bent his arm and held out the crook of his elbow toward you.

“Shall we?”

Okay, you were now convinced this was a dream. This was all a wonderful, perfect, heavenly dream.

There was just no way that any of this could happen in real life! Being invited to Minho’s movie premiere was one thing, but him interrupting your interview on the red carpet and mentioning he wanted to film a YouTube video with you? Him offering to actually walk the red carpet with you on his arm?!

Nope. Definitely not real.

So, since this was absolutely a dream, you figured you’d just go with it!

“We shall,” you replied as a soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

You slid your hand into the crook of Minho’s elbow, and the two of you slowly made your way down the red carpet. Together.

It didn’t take long for you to be awed by his professionalism. When the cameras began to flash, he posed like a natural. It seemed so easy for him, but you figured it probably was easy after going through this so many times. 

He murmured helpful hints and reassuring words to you as you struggled through, and he even insisted on doing his interviews with you by his side.

(Of course, before the two of you approached each reporter, he asked you quietly if you would rather have the spotlight all to yourself. He didn’t want to usurp your first experience on the red carpet and would gladly step away so you could finish the process on your own. You declined every single time.)

When you finally reached the entrance to the theatre about an hour later, you figured Minho would say it had been nice to meet you and be on his way.

But you should’ve remembered that this was a dream!

“Do you want to come inside? We can sit together during the movie if you want. I mean, you’re pretty much my unofficial date already, but you can absolutely say ‘no’ if you don’t --”

“I would love to,” you interrupted, your voice more sure and firm than it had been all evening.

But hearing your favorite actor and biggest crush of all time declare that you were his date for the night would do that to you. Plus, Minho literally exuded confidence and warmth -- you’d always thought so while watching him on a screen, and it was both relieving and exciting to learn he was exactly the same in real life.

Minho smiled at you and then led you into the theatre, your heart now basically in a constant state of flips and somersaults.

Once the two of you took your seats in front of the screen, Minho turned slightly toward you.

“I have to admit, I’ve been watching your videos a lot since I filmed the reaction for the magazine,” he said with the most attractive half-smile you’d ever seen in your life. “Seriously, thank you so much for being so supportive.”

“Oh my god, no, thank you,” you replied breathlessly. “I can’t believe you watched my videos.”

“They’re kind of addicting,” he chuckled. “I don’t know what it is, but I definitely understand why you have so many subscribers. I actually created my own YouTube account just so I could subscribe to you.”

Your eyes widened, and your heart actually stopped somersaulting because it stopped beating altogether.

“Are you serious?” you asked.

“You’re so entertaining! It feels like watching those movies and shows with a friend. And I like how you’re really honest but still nice about it. You don’t seem to have a cruel bone in your body.”

“Uh, no, I think you’re getting me mixed up with yourself,” you replied with a somewhat awkward laugh.

Minho simply grinned at you, and the somersaults started back up inside your chest.

“I was serious about wanting to film with you, though,” he said, eyebrows raised earnestly. “I would love to collab --”

“Yes, absolutely,” you reassured him as fervently as you could. “Literally whenever. Please. Yes.”

“Okay, good,” Minho chuckled before reaching into his pocket and sliding out his phone. “Here, give me your number so I can let you know when I’m free next.”

You hesitated before accepting his phone because...

What?!

Minho was giving you his phone. His actual phone. So you could put in your number? Your number?

This night just kept getting more and more unbelievable.

But you were never in a million years going to pass up the opportunity to give Choi Minho your phone number, so you took his phone and quickly added yourself as a contact.

“Perfect,” Minho murmured, almost to himself, when you handed his phone back to him. He looked at the screen for a few moments, and you noticed a soft grin pulling at his lips. And then he shifted his gaze over to you and said, “I can’t wait.”

And... as your eyes locked on his...

You had a moment.

A moment.

One of those moments you will never, ever forget as long as you lived.

One of those moments where your future basically flashed before your eyes.

Minho arriving at your house to film a video with you, a friendship forming, late night texts and phone conversations, going out to restaurants whenever he was in town... a more than friendship forming.

And you truly could’ve sworn this was not just your heart wishing, but... you honestly felt like you were going to marry this man.

“I can’t either,” you replied softly just before the lights went down.

The first thing you did when you got home was set up your camera and film a video relaying everything about your experience at Minho’s movie premiere.

Of course, you didn’t mention The Moment -- y’know, the moment you had when you realized you were most probably going to marry him? And you could just feel that it wasn’t wishful thinking? You figured it was probably best to keep that to yourself for now.

But everything else you shared with your subscribers, and you did nothing to hide how wonderful and magical it had all been -- and it had really been Minho which had made it so perfect.

“And you guys, he is truly exactly the same in person as he seems in, like, interviews and stuff. He’s so nice and so friendly and so warm and so gracious and --”

But you were interrupted by a text message.

Most of the time, you left your phone on silent as you filmed, but you’d been too excited to get all of your thoughts out that you’d forgotten to switch the sound off before turning the camera on.

“Whoops,” you murmured as you reached for your phone on your desk in front of you.

Instead of simply turning your phone on silent, though, the actual text message you’d received caught your eye and was too intriguing to ignore.

It was from a number you didn’t have saved, but your instinct to read the first few words of a message from an unknown sender took over... and you were incredibly glad it did.

Because the message was:

Hey, it’s Minho 😁 Are you free next week?

OTHER SIGNS: ARIES, TAURUS, GEMINI, CANCER, LEO, VIRGO, LIBRA, SCORPIO, CAPRICORN, AQUARIUS, PISCES

[cuquitalocita]

all you do is pine- percabeth

AN: i didn’t really like the ending to this one but i wrote something finally! also i just love modern percabeth can’t you tell? 

~~

“Uh… five?” Annabeth throws her pencil down in frustration, the sound echoing around the almost silent library. Across from her, Rachel bites her lip to keep from laughing and the look Annabeth sends her has the girl pulling Annabeth’s paper to her side of the table. 

“Ah, I see what you did. That’s a six A, not a nine.” Annabeth glares at the red ink now covering her paper and curses her dyslexia for making college so much more difficult than it should be. Annabeth had handled high school just fine, moving across the country a few times, but other than that, no issues. But freshman year of college was kicking her ass. 

“How am I supposed to pass this class if I can’t even read the problem correctly, to begin with?” Annabeth complains. The heads of her friends at the tables around her turned to her, offering sympathetic glances saying they understood how awful their dyslexia could be. 

“Maybe you can just light Professor Brunner’s classroom on fire,” Leo supplies from where he sits next to Calypso doing physics homework. His girlfriend slaps the back of his head.

“That’s arson, Leo,” she reminds him. 

“So what?”

“So it’s illegal, genius.” The voice of her best friend has Annabeth sitting straighter and Percy drops into the seat next to her, looking perfect as ever with his messy black hair and green eyes. “Last I checked you can’t vandalize a classroom.”

“How would you know Jackson?” Annabeth pipes up. “If I remember correctly, senior year of high school you vandalized Mrs. Dodd’s room.” Percy grinned at her, the memory flashing through his eyes, and the two burst into laughter. 

If there was anything that made college easier, it was having her best friend next to her to suffer through it all with her. She and Percy had grown up together, living in the same neighborhood since middle school and being best friends ever since. Annabeth couldn’t be more grateful that they both managed to get into the same college.

She just wishes she wasn’t in love with him.

Never in a million years could Annabeth have predicted she would fall for her annoying, clueless neighbor. Yet here she was- hopeless. 

Annabeth turns, sticking her nose back into her math textbook to keep him from seeing the red that now dots her cheeks. She catches Piper’s eye from the table next to her and the girl raises a brow. Annabeth shoots her a warning look and Piper sighs audibly.

“Well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m over this. I’ve gotta meet Jace for date night- so see you around losers.” Piper leaves Annabeth with a knowing pinch of her shoulder and she grips her pencil tighter.

“We’re out too,” Leo and Calypso say grabbing their bags and standing up. “Date night waits for no one.” The library quiets down until it’s just Rachel, Percy, and Annabeth. Annabeth glances up to see Rachel and Percy looking at each other, a meaningful look in both of their eyes as if silently speaking to each other, just like she and Percy often did themselves. 

Annabeth bites down on her jealousy. 

“Oh gods,” Rachel mutters. “I’m late to tutor Octavian.” All three of them visibly grimace at the mention of the blonde idiot and Rachel scurries out of the library.

“Well,” Percy sighs. “Looks like it’s just us again Wise Girl.”

“What’s changed?” She smiles down at her paper. At that moment a text appears on her phone from Hazel.

>> Hey, can’t make movie night tonight, Frank just surprised me with dinner and a movie!!

>> Aw, that’s so sweet :) No issues, next time for sure

Annabeth groans and places her phone down. Percy shoots her a questioning look from behind his laptop screen. 

“There go my plans for tonight. Hazel’s out.” Annabeth glances at the clock, figuring it was time to return to the apartment she shared with Piper to finish up some homework. 

“Hey, why don’t we do something?” Percy’s voice is awkward when he asks and Annabeth can’t help but think how he sounds just like he did when he was twelve. She turned to him, her curls bouncing in her ponytail behind her. “We haven’t had a movie night since this semester started. Everyone’s out on date’s so let’s have a friend’s date. We can even order takeout.” Percy levels her with a kind smile and Annabeth tried not to melt on the spot. 

“I’d love to Percy, I really would. But this project is kicking my ass and-”

“Come on, Annabeth,” he whined. “Pleeeeeeeeease? I’ll even fight the spiders in your apartment for you.” Annabeth’s resolve had cracked at please but she smiled anyway. 

She rolls her eyes affectionately, hoping this wasn’t a mistake.

“Come over at six, Seaweed Brain. And don’t even think about coming without food.”

~~

Percy shows up late, unsurprisingly, and Annabeth is in front of the TV with a physics textbook in her lap when he walks in sporting the key to her apartment she had given him months ago. 

Annabeth opens her mouth with a quick insult but Percy cuts her off.

“Before you say anything about me being late- I brought you pretzels.” A box of chocolate-covered pretzels falls into her lap a moment later and Percy collapses onto the couch next to her soon after. Annabeth tries her hardest not to lean into him or inhale his scent. It’s easy to think that seawater would smell disgusting. Like seaweed and dead fish. But Percy’s always made it smell good.

“So what are we watching?” Percy asks as Annabeth flips her page. Before she can grab her pencil again, Percy’s hand is over hers, ripping it away and chucking it across the room. Annabeth gapes at him.

“What the hell, Percy? I was using that.” Percy shrugs, opening a bag of popcorn he brought and shoving some in his mouth. 

“Not anymore you’re not. Movie night, Wise Girl. Remember?” Annabeth arches a brow and a slice of satisfaction courses through her as he turns a slight shade of gray in nervousness.

“You do realize I’m a forensic science major right?” That as well as architecture. “I could kill you and hide the evidence. No one would ever find the body.” Percy grins, visibly relieved that she’s joking, and relaxes his shoulders. He grabs her textbook from her lap and places it on the ground, grabbing her hand that held the pencil and lacing his fingers through hers instead.

Annabeth shoots him a questioning look and pushes down the blush that’s threatening to pour over her cheeks. 

“Gotta make sure you don’t grab that pencil again.” Percy shrugs, putting their hands on his lap as he turns his attention back to the television. At this point, Annabeth is trying her hardest not to combust. So instead she rolls her eyes and puts on Finding Nemo, Percy’s favorite movie. With as much as Annabeth claims to hate it, the way Percy voices each of the characters every time he watches it makes her laugh. 

Percy doesn’t say anything as the movie starts, not even to ask why she’s playing a movie she doesn’t like, and the two friends drift into a comfortable silence. 

Halfway through the movie, Annabeth is itching to get off the couch. Percy has started playing with her fingers instead of just holding them now, and Annabeth doesn’t think she can handle this much longer. So as Percy is voicing Squirt’s voice cuter than even the original actor can, Annabeth stands up, taking her hand away from Percy’s and ignoring his frown, and grabs her phone, pretending someone’s calling. 

“It’s uh… Luke,” she stutters out. Annabeth runs out of the room before she can register the look that flashes over Percy’s face at the mention of the boy from her physics class. The door to her room is slammed shut before she hears Percy’s response and Annabeth hangs her head in her hands. 

“Gods, Annabeth! What’s wrong with you? This is Percy!” 

Yeah, the Percy that you’re in love with. 

So Annabeth pulls herself together. She walks over to her bathroom and splashes a bucketful of freezing water over her face.

“Pull yourself together, Chase.” 

When Annabeth walks back out of the room, Percy is on the phone talking to someone. Annabeth realizes he hasn’t heard her door open and she can’t help but lean against her door frame to watch him for a moment.

He really is handsome, she can’t help but notice. He had gone from a cute kid to a handsome guy, and it was starting to keep her up at night.

“I don’t know Rach,” he was saying, and Annabeth fought down the swell of jealousy in her chest. She liked Rachel- she really did. What she didn’t like was how interested she seemed in Percy. The looks Rachel would shoot her when she was talking to Percy didn’t help either. “I just-”

“Percy, I swear to all the gods. If you don’t make a move soon-”

“I can’t just make a move Rachel. She doesn’t feel the same way and I’ve ruined years of friendship.” Rachel sighs from across the line and Annabeth doesn’t think she’s breathing. When Rachel speaks again, she’s clearly frustrated.

“Percy, Annabeth is hot. You have to have noticed that by now.” She states it as a fact and Annabeth holds back a snort. And then she realizes that the conversation is about her. Percy and Rachel are talking about his feelings for her. Annabeth thinks she’s going to faint. 

“Yes, Rach. I know she’s hot.” The statement sends a blush to her cheeks and Annabeth fights to stay silent as she watches her best friend squirm. 

“Right, and sooner or later, other people are gonna start noticing too. If you don’t say something soon, she’s going to move on, and you’ll really lose your chance.”

“She’s already gone,” he sighs defeated. “I think she’s into that guy Luke from her physics class.” Annabeth wanted to scream. Did he really think she liked Luke? What a Seaweed Brain. 

“God Percy, you really are an idiot, aren’t you? All you do is pine over this girl, and if you haven’t realized she’s pining just as hard for you, I don’t know what to tell you.” 

“Rachel, she’s my best friend. She would never-”

“Like you back?” Annabeth’s voice shocks him so much that he hangs up the phone and drops it on the ground. “Think again, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth tilts the corner of her mouth into a small smile and comes to sit next to him on the couch. 

“A-Annabeth!” he stutters and Annabeth loves the blush that appears on his cheeks. “You- I- when did you- wait what?”

“You’re not seriously saying you didn’t know I’m in love with you.” Annabeth thinks she might be blushing, but she really doesn’t care anymore. Her best friend likes her back. 

“You’re what? But I’m in love with you.” Her heart stutters in her chest.

Annabeth’s laugh brings a grin to Percy’s face and she can’t help but brush a kiss to his cheek.

“Funny how that works, huh?”

~~

“Person A and Person B are friends and neither of them have a date for Valentine’s Day, so they decide to order takeout and watch a movie together. At some point, hidden feelings are revealed.”

~~

yeah i love them... 

[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10.  WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius.  Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall).  As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible.  This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did).  This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics.  Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9.  THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen.  One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime.  So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen?  Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling.  It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers.  Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction.  Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return.  Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed.  But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun.  Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects).  Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim.  Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes.  Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8.  ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away.  The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside.  So what’s the catch?  Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke.  Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right?  Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG.  The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters.  I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES.  Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development.  I’m certainly up for more …

7.  BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming.  The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow.  Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself?  Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords.  Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination.  The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front.  Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service).  The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future).  In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now.  It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6.  WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start.  Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure.  This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other.  The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future.  Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for.  After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half.  In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood.  This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch.  Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5.  FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention.  Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends.  Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills.  The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings.  Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition.  Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure.  Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”.  As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall.  Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1.  This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication.  The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects.  This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening.  Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4.  THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens.  This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”.  Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys!  Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of.  With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3.  GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS.  Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob.  The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process.  Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years.  The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers.  Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions.  Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father.  There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity.  I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2.  THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016.  That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely.  Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date.  Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls.  Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup.  Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned.  Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling.  Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history).  Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT.  By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1.  A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending.  Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain.  Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother.  Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror.  The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat.  The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again.  This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow.  I definitely can’t wait.

[introvertguide]

Bonnie and Clyde (1967); AFI #42

The next film that we covered for the group was the period true- crime drama, Bonnie and Clyde (1967). It is the story of the notorious Barrow gang, led by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, during the American Great Depression. This film features a cavalcade of some of Hollywood's biggest actors including Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Gene Hackman. It is supposedly quite accurate because some of the witnesses and even a couple of the gang members of the actual crimes were still alive during the production of the film. Actress Estelle Parsons won Best Supporting Actress for he portrayal of Blanche Barrow, which I would like to comment on. I also want to speak a little to the accuracy of the story, but first I want to spoil the plot of the film.

SPOILER WARNING!!!! I AM GOING TO REVEAL THE WHOLE MOVIE SO I CAN COMPARE TO WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT THE ACTUAL HISTORY!!! THE MOVIE AND THE REAL LIFE STORY WILL BE SPOILED COMPLETELY!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

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In the middle of the Great Depression, Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) of Texas meet when Clyde tries to steal the car belonging to Bonnie's mother. Clyde had spotted Bonnie hanging out in her room naked from the heat, and she spotted him watching her and was intrigued by the danger. Bonnie is bored by her job as a waitress, which Clyde correctly guesses, and decides to take up with him and become his partner in crime. They pull off some weak crimes including a bank heist at a location that has been hit by the depression and there is no money. Clyde actually makes the teller come out to the escape car and tell Bonnie what the deal is and she just laughs at the situation.

The pair find an extra man in a worldly ignorant but mechanically inclined gas station attendant named C.W. Moss (Michael Pollard). Clyde apparently has a way with words because people just join him for no real reason besides being bored. Clyde's older brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons), a preacher's daughter, also join them. The two women dislike each other at first sight because Bonnie thinks that Blanche will ruin their fun (she does) and Blanche believes that Bonnie is evil and wants to get rid of her (she does). Keep in mind while watching this that Estelle Parsons won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this portrayal.

Bonnie and Clyde turn from pulling small-time heists to robbing banks since they now have a full gang. Their exploits also become more violent when C.W. comically botches a bank robbery when he sees an open parking spot and decides to parallel park. He can't get out of the space quickly and he delays their escape, forcing Clyde to shoot the bank manager in the face when he jumps onto the slow-moving car's running board. The gang is pursued by law enforcement, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle), whom they capture and humiliate by taking his photo and setting afloat on a little dingy on a nearby river.

The group likes to switch out cars because they treat the getaway vehicles very rough. When they are seen stealing a car by its owner, a young man named Eugene Grizzard (Gene Wilder) and his girlfriend Velma Davis (Evans Evans), the robbed couple attempt to follow the stolen car. The gang stops and takes the couple hostage in the chase car and even pull over to get some burgers. They let the couple go when they find out they are in their 30s (too old apparently) and find a roadside stop. A raid later that night catches the outlaws off guard, mortally wounding Buck with a shot to his head and injuring Blanche so she can't see. Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W. barely escape alive. With Blanche sightless and in police custody, Hamer tricks her into revealing C.W.'s name, which they use to find any safe places where the remaining gang might go (until then, C.W. was only an "unidentified suspect").

Hamer locates Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W. hiding at the house of C.W.'s father Ivan (Dub Taylor), who thinks the couple have corrupted his son (as evidenced by an ornate tattoo that Bonnie convinced C.W. to get). The elder Moss strikes a bargain with Hamer: in exchange for leniency for the boy, he helps set a trap for the outlaws. When Bonnie and Clyde stop on the side of the road to help Mr. Moss fix a flat tire, the police in the bushes open fire and riddle them with bullets. Hamer and his posse come out of hiding and look pensively at the couple's bodies as a nearby flock of swallows fly away.

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This film stood out as it was a comical version of the super violent gangster films that were popular in the 30s. Storywriters David Newman and Robert Benton wanted to punch up the violence with a romantic undertone so they sent the script to French New Wave director Francois Truffaut for contributions. Warren Beatty was visiting Paris and heard about the project then decided he wanted to produce the picture. He was going to have his sister, Shirley MacLaine, play the roll of Bonnie until he decided that he was going to play the part of Clyde. That would have been really awkward, so he tried find a lead actress that he could have a romantic scene with. Many actresses were approached and Faye Dunaway was eventually chosen for the part.

Beatty decided that they needed an American director and offered that job to a plethora of established directors in Hollywood and finally landed on Arthur Penn even after he turned down the position multiple times. What it all comes down to is that not a lot of people wanted to be part of this production. It was considered somewhat of a risky art film at the time because of the questionable sexuality of Clyde and the heavy violence.

So what was so risky? Looking at films that were made only a few later, this seems rather tame. This film came out just a little before the MPAA was established and the writers had been influenced by the French films that didn't have the same restrictive film rules that were present in the United States. It was originally proposed that Clyde be played as bisexual, but the script eventually called for him to be more asexual. The real Clyde Barrow had been sexually assaulted in prison so he would have been scarred by that experience and might not have been interested in Bonnie in that way. This depth into a character's sexuality had generally been avoided in American cinema before this film and there was concern about audience reactions. They shouldn't have worried because the movie was a sleeper hit, eventually making $75 million on a $2.5 million budget.

The number of graphic murders actually shown on screen (especially when Clyde shot a guy in the face who jumped on the car during a get away) was unprecedented at the time. There was also some dismay by critics about the portrayal of Bonnie as sleazy and the whole gang as somewhat stupid. These were a bunch of uneducated folks that grew up in a time when it was more important to find a job. They were smart enough to avoid capture for years, which is shown in the movie, so they had to have some sort of intelligence.

There is a little bit of an elephant in the room with this movie and it involves the historical accuracy. The dates and crimes are well documented and a lot was known about the characters when the movie was produced. However, a major part of the movie was speculation and fabrication about the personalities in the gang. The characters that were based on living people at the time were actually the least accurate as C.W. Moss was a fictional person based on two different gang members (one who was still alive) and the actions of Blanche Barrow were based on a different member of the gang. The real Blanche Barrow lived until the 1980s and famously complained that Parsons's portrayal "made [her] look like a screaming horse's ass!" Parsons is the one the went on to win Best Supporting Actress.

This film was much more enjoyable for me on second watch. The first viewing left me hating the character of Blanche and I wondered if there was some sort of conspiracy to get that actress an Oscar. On second view, I realize that she was necessary to be a foil to the gang. There had to be a weak link in the chain and the audience knew that she would be the downfall of the group. Her presence made the police encounters all the more intense because there was this crazy wild card that could ruin everything at any time. It really adds a touch of comedy along with a bigger element of suspense. She is annoying, but enjoyable, and the people around her react to her behavior in a realistic way, so I appreciate what the character brings to the table.

I would highly suggest looking into the real life of Bonnie and Clyde along with the whole Barrow Gang because they took major advantage of the Great Depression banks, but not so much the suffering people. To some, the members of the Barrow gang were considered celebrities or even heroes because they were getting back at the banks that had mishandled so many people's money. I started my search off with this nice article on the Encyclopedia Britannica site and dug deeper to find out more about the connections between the real people and the film:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bonnie-and-Clyde-American-criminals

So does this film belong on the AFI top 100? I absolutely think so. It has some connections to French New Wave, but it is American directed with American actors and it tells the story of some of the most notorious criminals in American history. It is also a very good film that won Oscars and was a box office success. Bonnie and Clyde are part of Americana and were almost the equivalent of a Robin Hood character to many at the time. Would I recommend this film? I would. Keep an eye out for the Blanche character because she can be annoying, but know she serves a purpose and the movie is not all about her. The connection between Bonnie and Clyde is epic and has influenced a lot of American films, so enjoy it for the cinematic quality, the history in film, and the history of the United States.

[bumbershots]

A CERTAIN ROMANCE

CHAPTER ONE: JUEVES

Author’s note: Hello! I’ve decided to give it a go, this is my first chaptered fic in this website. This story just occurred to me a while ago and I’ve tried my best to make some sense out of the concept which honestly is forever changing on my mind. I hope you don’t find many grammar mistakes, if you do please let me know. Enjoy! (:

Story masterlist ** Word count: 2.3K ** 

It's been years since Harry last had to use the tube, but it's not as hard as he thinks, buying the ticket was fairly simple and soon enough he was sitting on the train comfortably. The northern line wasn't too busy, no delays were announced through the speakers, his journey to Ladbroke Grove station was going to last around thirty six minutes. He suddenly can't remember how long the ride would be on a car. Maybe it's time to start using the London Underground a bit more, contributing to saving the planet, lessen his carbon footprint. With all the aeroplanes he takes a year, he should use it from now onto the rest of his life, he thinks with a bit of guilt.

He changes to the Hammersmith and city line with ease, passing by lots of people, no one truly pays attention to him. The school girls that would usually come up to him and ask for a picture are too busy gossiping among themselves, the grown up adults that are more fond of his solo work are too immersed into their own thoughts about annoying bosses. Harry likes to blend into the crowd that's gathered now at the station and awaits for the train. In the eyes of the others, he's just another guy patiently waiting for the train to hop on and get to his destination. Even though he was on his way to meet with the team that will take care of his house renovation, a property valued approximately on £4.175 million.

The train arrives and he follows the multitude that pile into the wagon, he isn't lucky to find a seat this time but doesn't mind as he finds a good spot to lean against, the doors close just as he skips the ABBA song he doesn't feel like listening at the moment and settles for Hanson instead. He bops his head along the tune before slipping back the mobile in his pocket, eyes traveling along the passengers' faces, trying to guess what they're up to.

A group of lads wearing the Tottenham jersey discuss the latest game, one of them praising Kane's goal and regretting him missing the next match. Harry knows a thing or two about football, he even plays it regularly with his friends not so far away from his home, but he doesn't keep up with Manchester United, perhaps he can do that from now on he thinks before letting his gaze fall upon the pack getting down on Baker Street and the few ones hopping on. Most of them are tourists chatting about the Sherlock Holmes museum, the singer smiles, remembering the first time he visited it with his family, many years ago. Sometimes he longs for those days to be back, so he can do the typical touristy things with the people he loves the most once in a while or have a date without a good amount of lenses focused on his every move.

Not that he regrets being a well known musician, actor, model. It comes with a lot of perks. But he's just moving on from a breakup that might have been his fault. He's a workaholic for sure, even though he's supposed to be taking it easy, his mind can't help but keep throwing song ideas for the next album. That is why Jeff suggested the home renovation, knowing that the project will keep him busy for about three months, maybe more if the contractors up sell their ideas.

Harry makes his way out of the station in one piece and without being spotted, he checks the address again on his phone, confirming the place where the meeting will be held is within walking distance and makes his way before choosing a Pink Floyd song for the six minute walk. He pulls his coat tighter around him, relishing in the forever changing weather of the city, this time he will stay and enjoy it in full, maybe even delight in the autumn too, have his mum over for a couple of weeks, maybe he'll even stay longer and take her to the ice rink.

Just as Harry plots on where to go when his favourite person pays him a visit, he reaches the private front garden off a beautiful car-free garden square. He remembers to text Jack, who doesn't take long to appear in the distance and unlock the gate for his friend.

"You're impossibly early mate," the man greets with an amused chuckle.

"Sorry, had to take the tube because of what you said about car-free development, probably miscalculated the time." Harry admits sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck as Jack leads the way through the garden. "Is this where they filmed Notting Hill?" He wonders with another look around.

"Couple of scenes that didn't make the cut, our neighbour Mrs. Black will tell you all about it, if you happen to run into her around Hugh Grant's birthday." Harry laughs as they reach a private entrance with a well-maintained front garden adorning the forepart of the property, he follows Jack inside the home where a strong coffee scent greets them both.

The musician quickly scans the large open plan kitchen/reception room with large glass sliding patio doors to a delightful independent garden where a round table is surrounded by four mismatching chairs. He doesn't remember Jack's old place, but it certainly didn't look as the dream home they're standing in right now.

"Thanks for agreeing to do the meeting here mate," Harry's words are sincere his companion can tell, he tries to shove it off as if it's nothing, handing him the mug with coffee while he pours another one for himself, "I know it can be a handful, the NDAs too." Now he's almost blushing.

"We should be thanking you H, work from home for the next couple of months, my dream come true." Jack manages to make him laugh and feel at ease again, just before the steps of a third party come from the stairs and grow closer towards them. "Just in time, Harry this is Fernando Gonzalez, my housemate and architect of the team." He introduces the tall man to his friend and watches them shake each other's hand, "Fernando this is our client, Harry Styles."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Styles," his voice is soft and melodic, like an aerophone instrument.

"Please call me H, all my friends do," the musician knows this is business, but he wants to have fun too, like Jeff suggested. And the guy looks way too young to be calling him Mister Styles.

"I warned you Fer, he likes to keep it easy, breezy." Jack says motioning both of them to follow his lead and sit down in their dining table that is covered with house design magazines, floor plans of Harry's home and a couple of what the pop star assumes are sketch notebooks. "Alright, tell us about your vision for this project." In all honesty, Harry doesn't know how to answer that.

He fights the urge to say that he had purchased the property knowing that not much is needed to be done to the décor. The style and the flow of the house is already lovely. After a quick glance at the plan he thinks that maybe, more room is needed and, most importantly, a new kitchen-dining-living space that would be grand enough to entertain in, but cosy enough to be the central 'hub' of his home.

"The windows, for starters, have to be replaced." He begins with a tone so confident that the pair before him don't suspect he's improvising the whole thing. "New bathrooms, perhaps from Lusso Stone, demolish an existing rear extension from the top and design and build an entirely new expansive ultra-modern one, like the one at Lou's home." Jack nods understanding what he means, "I also want a kitchen diner extension, pink granite worktops, if possible." Harry finishes before grabbing one of the magazines and starts flipping pages just to look busy.

The whole project can take six months, they let him know, through the summer and autumn. He's elated at achieving double the time he hoped for in the beginning.

"We'll send the paperwork to your team and see you next week to sign it once they approve it," Jack concludes the meeting as they all finish their coffee. "Are you busy on the nineteenth?" His friend's voice is warmer now that he's not on business mode, it makes Harry smile.

"I don't think I am, why?"

"It's Freddie's birthday, you should come, catch up with the lads," Harry nods while thinking about it, a bit unsure because it has been a while since he's seen the rest of the pack, he's not sure they'll welcome him just like that. "They're always asking about you, could be like old times, lads doing laddy stuff," the green eyed musician chuckles at that, not sure if he wants to go back to those activities of their youth.

"Sure I'll go, text me the address a few days before," his friend nods in approval to his request, "I better get going, I have to pick up my sister for dinner, see you both next week." The youngest nods and shakes Harry's hand before Jack leads the way out the house and square. The sun is setting now and the sky is a mix of pink and purple hues just as the two men bid their goodbyes until they meet again in a week's time.

Harry scolds himself for buying a one way ticket earlier instead of sorting out an Oyster card, he'll do that next time, he thinks before stepping into the train and finding a seat in the middle section of it. Led Zeppelin is a good soundtrack for his journey back home, for some reason he is craving the powerful, noisy, speedy rebellion that came with the band's songs, he loved to get so lost in the music that whatever activity he did came in second, every single time. Which is why he almost didn't get off at the King's cross stop, he hurried out of the vehicle, laughing to himself for being so immersed into the music.

The way back to the northern line was now familiar, but not as busy, he decided not to walk too fast after confirming that he had enough time to go home and take a shower before going over to Gemma's. Waiting at the platform he decides to change his playlist, again. Just as he's about to settle for Wings, out of the corner of his eye he spies what the person next to him is listening to and he stops from hitting play on his own device.

The who.

It's been ages since he heard them, three years if he is being honest. The train arrives and the girl next to him puts her phone in her coat pocket as she prepares to board the wagon, Harry does the same, but instead of training his eyes on the descending passengers, he lets them focus on her. She's wearing a nice burgundy coat, a black newsboy cap, high-waisted jeans with a blue polka dot blouse tucked underneath them. She's much shorter than he is, probably about Helene's height, he thinks as they make their way inside.

Without meaning to, he follows her and leans on the wall, across from her. She doesn't seem to notice how his stare is burning holes into her face, he's itching to ask her where did she buy the red boots she's wearing. Harry knows the moment he speaks to her, it will all go to shit. Some of the school girls sitting nearby might recognise his voice, his dimple could pop out to play and give him away too. She might also think he's a creep and kick him in the shin, leaving a nasty bruise that would heal in about a week, unlike the invisible one in his ego.

"Are you telling me, you developed a ten feet tall crush on someone you saw on the tube?" Gemma asks later that night, her fork full of linguine was stopped mid-air, making her brother roll his eyes but nod bashfully. "I'm speechless." The fork resumes its trajectory and she chews her pasta slowly.

"It happens to everyone, only because you both know that there's almost no chance to see each other again." Harry shrugs and bites a piece of bread, still feeling weird about the situation.

"Did she make eyes at you?"

"What?" He's completely taken off guard by his sister's question, his northern accent coming out and making him drop the 't' at the end.

"Yes, did you flirt with each other making eyes," Gemma's eyelashes flutter as if she was a Disney princess meeting her love interest for the first time, Harry shakes his head in denial, "what was it then?"

"I don't know! It was weird, couldn't take my eyes off of her but... she didn't even notice, I sound like a dirty man," he does, his sister agrees but the pink spots on his cheekbones tell a different story.

"I once had a crush like that, with a cashier at Waitrose," she remembers before sipping her wine, "he was nice to look at, one day he wasn't there anymore, just like that." Gemma sighed and took her younger sibling's hand on hers before adding. "If our lives were a Nicholas Sparks novel, perhaps we would be getting ready to have a date with those lovely people but..." Harry laughed and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"How's the sunnies collaboration going?" He asked before taking the last of his gnocchi. Listening to his sister talk about things that she enjoyed was the highlight of his days, he managed to push his silly underground crush to the back of his mind.

But there was the truth of what Harry couldn't see, or say. He'd probably like to have a shot with a girl like that and if Gemma could only see her, she would agree. Agree that there might be a story around there.

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Next chapter

[gyll-yee-haw]

Lost on you

Reader x Sebastian Stan / Reader x Jake Gyllenhaal smut/angst

Hey, guess who’s back! (Hope y’all won’t hate me for this...) Buuut I had this idea and I really liked how it turned out, so I decided to share!

Prompt: You’re Jake’s girl, but you’re slowly falling in love with your co-star Sebastian. ALSO: this was inspired by “Lost on you” by Lewis Capaldi! Warnings: Little mention of age gap, smut in the end, but mentions of it in other parts too... and maybe a little sadness? Maybe a lot... Like 5k words... hope from the bottom of my heart that you like it, I’m kinda anxious lol

---

Everyday I'm a slave to the heartache And you're wasting away every night I don't wanna leave you lonely But I've run out of love this time You know that I adore you Though I couldn't give enough Hope you'll be safe in the arms of another 'Cause I can't take the weight of your love

We said goodbye with a cold kiss. He said "good luck", but he didn't say "I love you". His mistake was assuming that I knew he did. Now I was in a taxi in L.A. and Jake was in our apartment in New York. The taxi stopped in front of the studio and I took a deep breath. I always got so nervous before starting a new project. Now I was about to meet the cast for the new movie I'm starring. It was a romcom, shouldn't take too long to finish, and soon I'd be able to go back to New York and start working on another project... but not professional this time. Jake and I have been together for four years. Three wonderful ones. But the last one was based on fights and the two of us getting more and more distant. But God only knows how hard I fought to be with that man, and I'm not going to give up on him like that. That's why the plan is to be away for a while, shooting this movie until we miss each other so much and realise we're acting stupid... and the moment I step in New York again, we're going to make this work. We have to make this work. "Y/N!" I heard the director walking in my direction. "I'm happy you're here. How was your flight?" "Hi, nice to see you gain, Susan." I greeted the woman I had worked with a few times with a hug. "The flight was okay, I even had time to leave my bags at the hotel before coming." We had a nice conversation, but nothing really important was said. After a few minutes, she took me to meet the set and the part of the crew that was already there. Then she left me there talking to them and excused herself to go meet the ones who were still arriving. I was still a bit tired because of the travel, so I wasn't paying much attention to what was happening around me. Suddenly, I feel someone touch my arm and I turn around, imagining it was Susan. But no, it was another familiar face. "Hey." The man smiled at me and offered a polite, but kinda awkward hug, since he caught me off guard. "Susan told me you were already here. I believe we were on the same plane from New York, but I got stuck on the traffic..." "Oh... Yeah, L.A..." I rolled my eyes and smiled back at him. "Sorry, I didn't see you on the plane, we could have met before. I'm Y/N, by the way..." "Yes, I know your work, it's a pleasure to be able to work with you now." He said. "I'm Sebastian." "I know that too." I left out a little laugh. "I'm a huge Marvel nerd. I also loved your performance in I, Tonya, the Oscars really slept on you..." He got all flushed and left out a word you couldn't really understand. "What?" I mocked him. "You gotta learn how to take a compliment." He raised his eyebrows at me, but before he could say anything, Susan interrupted everyone's conversations by asking if we were ready to start. In the movie, Sebastian and I were best friends slowly falling in love. The classic: my character had a finacé, played by Richard Madden in this movie, and Sebatian's was running out of time to make mine change her mind about the wedding... that same movie we've seen a million times, but always makes us cry, even though we all know how it ends. The last scene we had to shoot today included a big kiss scene between Richard and I. I definitely wasn't mentally prepared for this on the very first day, but it was my job. "Alright, this is the last one, before we all can go home." Susan sat back on her chair and announced as Richard and I were trying to concentrate. "Ready, guys?" I gave her a quick nod. I looked beside her and saw Sebastian paying close attention to the scene as well. "Okay, then, action!" I turned to face Richard and we started to say our lines. It was all flowing perfectly, we were absolutely focused on what we were doing. When the time came, he looked me deep in the eyes and wrapped his arms around my waist, bringing me close, and brought his hand to my face, caressing my cheek a few times before we both closed our eyes and started to kiss each other hungrily. I'm not sure how long it lasted. But only when I heard Susan scream "cut" for the second time I realised I lost control a little bit... I mean... when was the last time Jake had kissed me like that? I was so needy, and all I got these days were cold, emotionless kisses. "Sorry, was that a bit too much?" I whispered to Richard, a little embarassed. "No, don't worry." He laughed. "It has to look real, right?" I nodded and gave him a smile before walked towards Susan, in desperate need to be excused. "I'm so excited." She announced before I could say anything. "Everyone did a great job today, I feel like this movie will be so beautiful..." She didn't even look at me and walked away to check the cameras after that last scenes. I was left alone with Sebastian. "That was really convincing." He said, noticing there was something bothering me. "Thanks..." I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. "But I... I don't think so, it was just... you know?" "Are you okay?" He asked. "I'm telling you, you did a great job, don't worry about it." I looked him in the eyes and saw that he was being honest. He was really worried about me. But he had no idea of the kind of problem I was dealing with, and it had nothing to do with my acting. "Thank you." I looked at the floor. I needed love and reassurance so bad that the fact that Sebastian was that nice to me almost made me cry. --- Back to my hotel, I kept walking in circles with my phone in my hands. I should call Jake and let him know I got here safely. But, at the same time, part of me was telling myself "You left several hours ago and didn't get a single text from him asking if you were okay". But you know what? I would feel a lot worse if I got a lovely text from my boyfriend after kissing my co-star like he was the love of my life. I just need to hear his voice... A little wave of courage hit me and I called him before it could disapper. "Y/N?" He replied quickly. Maybe he was waiting for me to call? That thought brought a smile to my face. "Hey." I said, trying to control myself to not sound like a fan meeting their idol, even though that's how it felt. "Just wanted to let you know I'm fine. I'm in my hotel... we already shot a few stuff..." "It's great to hear from you." He said in a sweet voice and I melted. "How is the cast like?" We spent half an hour talking about my day and it filled my heart with hope. He also told me about his play, that would debut in Brodway in a few months. I was excited for him as well. "Alright..." I said, a bit sad. "Listen, I gotta go now... it's getting late and we'll shoot really early tomorrow." "Okay. Call me again when you can." He told me. "Goodnight!" "Goodnight!" I replied. "I love y-" Before I could finish the phrase, he wasn't there anymore. I tried to convince myself that I shouldn't let that last minute ruin the good conversation we had... but would it hurt to tell me he loves me?

---

I was waiting for my taxi in front of the hotel, when I heard someone talking to me. "Come here often?" The man said. I was ready to turn around and kick him in the balls, when I realised it was Sebastian. We both laughed. "Be careful how you approach me. I'm warning you." I tried to sound serious. "You gave me one look and my life flashed before my eyes." He told me. "Trust me, I won't do it again." "Good." I smiled triumphantly. "But, answering your question... Yeah, I'm staying here." "In this hotel?" He looked at me confused. "Me too. How were we on the same plane and now at the same hotel and we never see each other? Are you some kind of spy?" "You just suck at following me." I shrugged. "But, luckily, always end up at the same place, right?" "Luckily?" "You gotta learn how to take a compliment." He repeated my phrase from the day before. "I-" I felt my cheeks burning. Alright, that looked like a fun game to play. "Well, you gotta learn how to compliment me first. That hardly counted as one." "Why are you blushing then?" He smirked. "I hope you know that I have a boyfriend." I decided to cut him before things went too far. "Of course, you're always on the news." He replied with the same smile on his face he had before. He wasn't being serious at all, and that relaxed me. "He's one of the greatests actors I've ever seen, by the way." It was true, Jake and I were always on the news. But not usually for good reasons. We met about 10 years ago and I fell in love straight away. The problem is that we have a (kinda big) age gap... and he obviously didn't take me serious 10 years ago, when I was barely 18. But I've been obsessed with that man all those years. Until 4 years ago, when we were cast on the same movie, I finally showed him I am a big girl and I know what I want. The problem is that the media just doesn't understand that and they just keep making up the most disgusting theories about our relationship. They know nothing about us. Sebastian and I shared the taxi to the studio, and decided it would be a nice thing to do everyday, since we were going to the same place, anyway. And so we did. Day after day we started to grow very close as friends. And we continued that stupid joke, flirting with each other every chance we got. But one day, I noticed Seb was a little different during our ride to the studio. A bit quiet, didn't really reply to my flirts. I thought he was just not in the mood that day, and I should respect that. I wasn't given the script for that day's scene until I got to the studio. Then I sat there to read and Richard sat beside me. "Are you ready?" He smirked. "For..?" I asked, still focused on the pages in my hands. "You'll record a sex scene with Sebastian today." He replied calmly, but it felt like a punch in the stomach. So is that why he was so weird? Was he nervous? "No big deal, we're professionals." I didn't know if I was trying to fool him or myself. Sebastian was such a good friend during these hard times... some nights I tried to call Jake and he didn't reply or was too cold on the phone, and I knew I could simply knock on Seb's door, or somedays it felt like he could read my mind, and he would knock on mine first, so we both went to the hotel's bar or just sat in each other's bedroom and talked for hours. Laughed for hours. He told me everything about his childhood, moving from country to country, and I, after drinking a little too much, told him all about my situation with Jake. God, he was so good for me. And I didn't want things to get weird like they got when I kissed Richard... without Seb, I would have gone crazy alone in this city. I felt like my heart was going to explode as I watched the crew prepare the scene. Seb was standing beside the couch of the fake living room as Susan explained to him how things would work. He looked as nervous as me and I hated it. "Y/N?" Susan called. "Can we start now?" I stood up like I was going to a funeral. I just hoped it wasn't our friendship's funeral. After hearing a few instructions as well, I sat down beside Seb and gave him a little smile, and he gave me a even weaker one in return. Sebastian's hand landed on my thigh and he added preassure very slow and gently. My eyes were on his fingers until he moved his body a little closer to mine on the couch. Then my eyes met his blue ones, deeper than I've ever seen them before. "You should be with someone who never makes you feel alone." He whispered as his lips got closer to mine. "Not even when he's not around." Maybe my head was really fucked up, but he didn't seem to be talking about our characters. I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, so I felt Seb's lips on mine for the first time... and I swear, it tasted like heaven when his tongue rolled agaisnt mine. His hands went to my skirt, bringing it up a bit, then worked on unzipping his pants. For a moment, I forgot his underwear wasn't coming off too. But that was only when I felt him grinding against me, and he was so deliciously hard that we both moaned at the same time. That would look as realistic as if he had actually entered me on the movie... cause that's why we are doing this for, anyway... When the director said "cut", Sebastian lips were on my neck and I heard him mutter the most frustrated "fuck" ever. I was so wet that I was terrified that I would leave a mark on the couch for everyone to see how extremely much I needed Seb. The whole studio was dead silent. I wanted to vanish in the air. Took Sebastian a moment to get away from me. The atmosphere was terrible, everyone was uncomfortable. But maybe it was just the way I was feeling and, in my imagination, everyone felt the same. --- I didn't even look Seb in the eyes until the next morning, in the taxi. I thanked God he was such a good actor... we both simply pretended none of that happened, no word about that was spoken. Maybe I was overreacting and nothing really happened to our friendship. --- The weeks seemed to fly and we finished shooting. Next step was doing a bunch of interviews to promote the movie. I don't remember having all that fun in a while... all Seb and I did was joke around and run away from the questions during the interviews. The critics loved the movie and there were entire essays about our sex scene online. People just couldn't believe two actors had all that chemistry. Well... we were a great team, me and him. That's all. We just had to ignore the fans shipping us and ignoring the fact that I had a boyfriend. When it was finally time to go back to New York, I thought I would be a lot happier than I actually was. I had a great time and didn't want it to end so soon... everything was so tense back at home... "At least Seb and I live in the same city." As soon as that idea crossed my mind, I felt absolutely terrible. I was actually sad about going back to my man, and what made me feel better was that I'd have Seb to come back to when I needed? It wasn't fair. Not for me. Not for Jake. Not for Sebastian. That's why I had to solve this situation as soon as I got home. --- But I only knew how fucked up I was on the moment I opened the door at our house. Jake was there and he smiled at me.   And I had no idea what I wanted anymore. Half of me was so happy because he was there. Half of me wished he wasn't and I had an excuse to walk away. His hug wasn't as cold as I expected, but it was far from being as warm as I needed. We went to the bedroom kissing each other and bumping into everything that was on the way. But when he laid on top of me, I didn't see the same fire in his eyes. Neither did I feel it between my legs. And it didn't matter at all how big he was, when he entered me I felt so empty. At heart. We were completely out of love and both of us knew that. He fucked me so hard, like he was trying to feel something that wasn't there anymore. --- Seb tried to contact me several times, but I kept ignoring him. And God only knows it hurted me more than him. But I didn't want to give up on Jake. Even though the situation was getting worse everyday. Now I was sitting in our bedroom, doing my make up to go watch the first night of Jake's play on Broadway. Preparing myself to act like we were in love in front of the cameras. --- When we finally got rid of all the empty questions and the flashes, Jake took me backstage, where he received a few special guests. Tom Hiddleston was there. Maggie too. I spotted a few other familiar faces, until a special one made you freeze. "What are you doing here?" I walked til where Sebastian were. "Hi. It's nice to see you again too." He said seriously. "Well, Jake invited me. Didn't he tell you he's producing a movie I'll be in?" "He doesn't tell me much." I shrugged. The play had started. All the guests went somewhere else to watch it, but I stood there in the backstage with Seb. "Why did you disappear like that?" He asked as soon as we were alone. "Because I wanted this to work. Me and him." I admitted. "And what does it have to do with me?" He said angrily. "I never did absolutely anything to tear you two apart. I accepted your choice from the start." "There's no choice, Sebastian." I defended myself. "Of course there is." He rolled his eyes. "You chose to keep things the way they are because you're scared of changes. You think it's comfortable to stay in a place that doesn't make you happy, because it once did, and if you move on, you may break your heart again." "Why do you think you know me so well?" I was shocked at how he just threw all the truth I was hiding right on my face. "Because we spent months opening up to each other. Every single night. I don't know about you, but I told you things nobody else ever knew about me." He admitted. "And I have no idea why I trusted you so easily, but I surely wasn't ready for you to just walk out of my life like that." "Seb..." I felt tears starting to come. "I'm so in love with you,Y/N." As soon as those words left his lips, a bunch of people started to appear out of nowhere and fill the backstage. I realised the play was over. I spotted Jake coming in my direction and quickly dried my eyes. --- It was a big night. I tried my best to be proud of Jake, but I couldn't focus on that. That made me feel so selfish... I just couldn't be here to support him anymore, so what am I even doing here? Jake was laying in bed, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I sat beside him and told him: "We need to talk." "We do." He agreed. "We probably should have done this before, right?" "Since you stopped telling me you love me." I felt the tears coming back. "Hey." He sat back and used his finger to wipe my tears away. "You know I'll always love you. Just... not like this anymore. I thought we should give it another try, but..." "I'll always love you too." I gave him a little sad smile. "I'm so happy for the times we had." He added. "But we don't wanna ruin it waiting for someone to cheat or be unhappy forever." "Jake... I think I'm in love with someone else." I admitted. Both for him and for myself for the first time. "It's not that hard to tell." He chuckled. "I saw the interviews. I've met someone too. I'm not sure if it's love. But I know that you and Sebastian..." "I swear we never, ever, had anything before this conversation." I interrupted him. "And I don't think I will now. He's really hurt." "Go after him." He encouraged me, making my heart stop for a moment. "What?" --- It was cold in New York. Nearly 1am and I absolutely couldn't believe I was sitting in my car, parked in an empty street. I grabbed my phone and didn't think twice. "Hello?" Sebastian answered and I knew there was no turning back now. "Seb?" I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" "No, it's fine, I couldn't sleep..." He sighed. "Listen, Y/N, I'm so sorry about the way I spoke to you earlier, you owe me absolutely nothing and I..." "I was stupid and ended up making the three of us suffer." I cut him. "But now I'm in front of your house, and if you don't forgive me, I have nowhere to spend the night." "Wait..." He said, confused. "You're in front of my house?" None of us said another word. When I saw the front door open, I got out of my car and we looked at each other for a moment. Suddently, I wasn't thinking anymore. I ran to his arms and he pulled me inside the house, closing the door behind us. His lips were pressed against mine and his hands were absolutely all over me. And, God, it was better than before, because now it was us. Just us. And we didn't have to stop anymore. He guided me towards the living room and sat down on the couch, pulling me with him, so I fell on his lap. Without breaking the kiss for a second, I adjusted, keeping one leg on each side of him. His hands went straight to my ass, squeezing it hard. My hands went to his abdomen and he helped me remove his shirt. I didn't even wait for him to do the same with mine. His eyes landed on my breasts as my bra fell on his lap. He grabbed my waist and broght me closer to him, burying his face and my chest and spreading open mouthed kisses on my breasts. I began to moan and grind my hips against his lap, feeling him getting hard under me. I remembered the last time I felt this and how frustrating it was... "Y/N..." He called. "Please, don't stop." I begged. "I just have to be sure you really want this." He smirked. "But I don't think I have to ask, do I?" I shook my head and helped him remove my pants, quickly sitting on his lap again. His fingers slowly trailed my underwear, until he decided to slide them inside it, caressing my folds very gently. "But what if I want to hear it?" He teased. "Do you think it's that easy? You ignore me for weeks, but then you just knock on my door and I give you what you want?" He slid one finger inside me and I left another moan escape. "Look at how wet you are." He slid another finger in, but didn't move. "If you were my girl, I'd do something about it... but you know very well I don't play with what is not mine." "Seb... please..." I tried to move my hips, but he hold my waist with the other hand so strongly, I would see a mark there tomorrow. "Fuck... if you were my girl, I'd treat you right." He removed his fingers from me and used them to pull down his pants and palm his hard cock over his underwear. "I'll be your girl. I came here to be your girl. Your good girl." I promised, feeling my mouth water just from seeing how big he looked. "I've been yours, and only yours, since the day we kissed for the first time, I know you felt that too..." "You have no idea how long I waited to hear that." He told me, returning his hands to my underwear, to take it off and throw it somewhere else in the room. "And you have no idea how long I waited to tell you that." I bit my lip as I watched him pull his underwear down, and seeing his hard cock already leaking. The look on his eyes gave me the permission I needed before his lips could. I raised my hips and he pulled me close and entered me, guiding my hips up and down with no time to adjust, cause we needed each other that much. I always imagined Seb as a gentle lover, but right now we just needed to fuck. Hard. Fast. Loud. We just had to let all our frustrations out. I came first, falling on his chest, seeing stars. He slowed down his pace a little, but didn't stop until he came inside me. And none of us really cared about that at the moment. I was there, laying on his chest while he ran his fingers through my spine in silence. And that was the first time in months I felt completety in peace. "Do you mean what you said?" He asked calmly. "Every single word." I smiled and snuggled closer to him.

Lately I'm getting lost on you You got me doing things I never thought I'd do Never spent so long on a losing battle But lately giving up don't seem to matter

[movienotesbyzawmer]

April 26: Rocky V

(previous notes: Rocky IV)

A fifth Rocky movie if you can believe it! I saw this in the theater when it came out in 1990. My movie appreciation had become exponentially more sophisticated since the previous movie, but I remember thinking that they were going for something less formulaic when they came out with this. They even brought back the Oscar-winning director of the original Rocky, John Avildson. And surely this character was way too old to still be able to win fights against professional boxers, right? I must say, I don't remember what the story of this movie is.

The intro does a brief throwback to the original name-scroll-plus-fanfare, but now we're showing a recap of the previous movie's final fight during the credits, which promise an appearance by no less than Burgess Meredith.

Do you think there was a conversation where Sylvester Stallone condescendingly told Avildson, "hey, trust me, start the movie with three and a half minutes that is just the end of the last picture, easy money baby, cha-ching ya know?"

The story begins immediately after the Battle of Cold War Symbolism, and we see that he is experiencing physical trauma as a result of Soviet Boxing Technology.

Then we see that they had the idea to introduce a Don King-type character, a really irritating boxing promoter blindsiding him in public to get on his case about a new challenger. Do you think the promoter character will have a nuanced arc.

After a chill father-son catch-up chat, there's an awkwardly-blocked expository scene about how Paulie made some stupid mistake and got tricked into signing away millions of Rocky dollars to a sinister accountant. And then he goes to the doctor who tells him he has irreversible punch damage and can't fight any more. Conflict is looking dire. Do you think Robot Character will arrive soon to cheer us all up.

After selling all of their possessions at an auction, Rocky goes to his old hangouts. He leaves the corner bar looking defeated. They don't show how he was defeated in the bar, but that bar clearly humiliated him.

Then he goes to the old gym, and here's where we have a flashback scene of Burgess Meredith giving him a pep talk. It's kinda nice. But it still feels like we're at the point in the story right before the tide turns and suddenly Rocky is inspired to become supernaturally good at boxing once again. But that's not gonna happen; we're just twenty minutes into the movie.

Rocky has to move back into his old neighborhood. It's dirty and run down, and people gawk.

0:32:00 - For the third time in this movie, Rocky tries to charm his family with a LOOK WHAT I PULLED OUT OF YOUR EAR gag. The characters are barely charmed by this gag. We, the audience, are way way way less charmed.

Fake Don King is buzzing around a lot. He is a dick and he is annoying to every single person alive. It's effective at driving the conflict because he is so persistent at needling Rocky into maybe fighting. But the acting is cringey. Kinda the point, though, right?

Just like that, the old gym where we saw the flashback, which was abandoned and run down, is open for business and full of people. How did that happen?

0:43:30 - Okay now it is me - Zawmer! - who is about to be an unappealing bad guy because I must now report how little tolerance I have for this scene with two child actors. Rocky's son, who got bullied at school earlier, is having his first maybe-we-fancy-each-other conversation with a girl. The dialogue has no chemistry with these kid actors.

I should mention that there is a character named Tommy Gunn. He is a spirited young boxer who has found Rocky and wants Rocky to help him. He is bemulleted and earnest and good-punch-y.

Rocky is going to manage Tommy, but his son wants some attention. Feels like an artificially manufactured conflict. Plus the dumb bullies at school beat him up again. It is hard being the newly-poor child of Rocky Balboa.

0:53:25 - I probably wouldn't have caught this if I hadn't watched the first movie kind of recently, but we cut to a fight, Tommy is fighting someone and it's in the same church that started the first movie. He wins that fight and it becomes a montage of Tommy becoming increasingly successful under Rocky's coaching, plus there is evidence that Rocky's son is trying to get his dad's attention by using some of the gym equipment.

It does seem like it would be fun to make boxing-improvement montages.

Oh, the kid learning boxing was so he could get back at the bullies. Mission accomplished but he clearly thinks his dad was supposed to be even nicer about that, even though he was kind of nice. But he was in the middle of something with Tommy, I mean, come on!

Ooh, and that was just a brief interruption in the boxing-improvement montage, it keeps going. This movie is pretty generous with fun montages.

The falling out scene between Rocky and Kid is not better than a similar scene in an after school special. And it's way worse than that one anti-drugs commercial we all remember, "I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU"

Oh, but then Kid runs away and starts hanging out with Ivan Drago! Drago starts teaching him how to beat up his dad, and says something about "If he die, he die". No. No he doesn't. That doesn't happen. I was just getting a little bored there. What's true here, what's actually true, is that Kid's increasingly rebellious personality has yielded a very, very stupid looking ear chain. It is an earring… with a chain hanging off it at the exact perfect length for no human being to think it looks good. The length of that chain is the chain-length equivalent of the amount of time that Talia Shire closes her eyes that one time.

A new conflict emerges where Tommy is going to sign with Fake Don King. It turns out Rocky had no interest in making any money. You can't blame him really. Rocky's all "don't sell out". But. Dude.

Okay so Tommy Gunn, having divorced Rocky and married Fake Don King, wins the title fight and becomes the new champion. The crowd boos, and they also cheer "Rocky". Rocky is not there. Rocky is watching the fight on TV in the basement and also punching a thing because he can't help it, but the crowd at the fight is like "Rocky" and "boo". I don't quite get it.

This press conference is kind of clearing it up, see, no one thinks it was a legitimate fight, it seemed fakey. There is pandemonium and insultation! It is clearly building to some silly insistence that he, Tommy, should fight Rocky.

Tommy shows up at the bar and he's hopping mad because he ain't nobody's robot and will you accept my challenge Rocky! Fake Don King thought this would turn into an actual arena event, but it's turning into just a back-alley fight like in that Fight-y movie about that Club.

It escalates thusly. As Rocky endures cinematically beautiful flashbacks to fights from earlier movies, they punch each other beneath rumbling trains. I sound mocking but some of it is pretty visually interesting.

Interesting enough to serve as an abstract explanation for how, once again, Rocky is supernaturally good at punch-game. It may be a street brawl this time, and we may have to do without Adrian closing her eyes Just So, but once again the Rocky movie ends with him winning the fight and everyone being very very excited about that. He punches Fake Don King because of how smarmy he is, and even the priest is delighted.

There is a denouement of Rocky and Kid bonding genially by the famous steps, and then the credits roll in front of touching stills from all five movies, and an Elton John song that didn't have as much cultural impact as some other songs we've heard recently.

I guess I like the montages and the quick cinematic choices that are to be found here and there in these movies, but mostly when I think back on them it seems like they are arrangements of familiar modules. In this one, the modules were held together with more flimsy material. I was wrong to think that this movie would be less formulaic. Soon I am done with this project. Soon. SOON.

[angelkurenai]

Imagine having the ‘Wired Autocomplete Interview’ with Jake and seeing all the things people have googled about him and you, only to find more ways to flirt with him and tease him.

“Hello, I'm Jake Gyllenhaal.” the man smiled at the camera for the intro.

“And I'm (Y/n) (Y/l/n).” you introduced yourself the same way with a smile while adding “And we're doing a wired-”

“Autocomplete.” Jake added without you even having to look at him.

“Interview.” you ended, your smile getting even bigger when you heard Jake chuckle next to you, already knowing what was on his mind “This is like the perfect intro for us. You wouldn't even need to tell us, we complete each other's sentences on a daily basis like some-”

“Some old married couple. As Ryan says.” Jake completed your sentence once more with a nod of his head.

“Well, at least one of us is old enough, so-” you only shrugged, looking completely serious at the camera and without even having to glance at the blue-eyed man next to you, you knew he was giving you a look so in the end you burst in laughter.

“Ouch!” he placed a hand over his heart “My heart, no, my heart is bleeding! Ah they were not wrong when they said that love hurts.”

“Alright you drama queen, stop hanging out with Ryan and you'll be just fine.” you chuckled at his small act and he grinned as well “Now time for the interview!”

“We'd like you to answer this one question first, before you get the cards.” the person in charge said behind the camera and you nodded your head a bit “Have you ever googled your own name?”

“Googled your own name?” Jake pursed his lips nodding his head with a thoughtful look on his face “I think everybody has at some point, right?” he turned to look at you, comfortable in his chair as you still thought about it.

“Googled my own name. No.” you shook your head looking back at the camera “No I don't think I have googled my own name. Goggled Jake's name? Hell yeah! You bet!” you said so casually your made the blue-eyed man laugh in surprise “I spend hours upon hours googling this dude. So a warning: Half of the questions will be things I searched!”

“I'm-” he still couldn't even breathe properly because of all the laughter “I don't know if I want to ask whether you're joking or not.”

“Do I look like I'm joking, Gyllenhaal?” you raised an eyebrow at him smirking “What you don't want to know is the things I've googled.” you laughed “No, I'm kidding. I have googled your, I won't lie about that, but I think it was back when I was first getting started and I stumbled upon a movie of yours.”

“Oh, makes sense, yes.” he nodded his head “I'd admit I've done it too and it's how I became a huge fan but this will be out on the internet and Ryan won't let me hear the end of it, so... yeah.”

“Alright, we're good. We can get started now, here's the first card.”

“Oh you've played this game before, right? You were with Ryan too, weren't you?” you asked your co-star, taking hold of the first card.

“Yes, yes we have. You've seen it? How were we? I think I've completely forgotten.”

“Oh you-” you shrugged “You sucked.” you looked him seriously in the eyes “Just kidding. Kidding.” you chuckled “Alright... maybe I'm not. But hey, that's a good thing. How much worse can it be this time? Plus, I'm not Ryan and that makes everything 100 times better.”

“I guess it did show our- how do you say it? Our energy.”

“Yeah. That's for sure, I agree: 100% chaotic.” you shrugged, grinning casually while he looked hopelessly at the camera “Alright, onto the actual interview now cause this will get out of hand real soon.” you looked at the card “Oh I see it has your name. So I'll do yours and you do mine, yeah?”

“Sounds about good enough.” he nodded his head before you both looked at the card.

“Is Jake Gyllenhaal-” you pealed the first sticker “In the MCU?” you both nodded your heads as you spoke “Pretty easy. Yes, yes he is. He is Quentin Beck or better known as Mysterio or better known as that little shit in the new Spider-man movie you don't know if you want to love or hate.” you said matter-of-fact with a smirk, glancing at Jake when he laughed “Yeah I suppose you know what character I mean by now. Anyway, I remember I had to drag him to audition for the movie. I said either he auditions or he sleeps on the couch for the rest of the month.He complained like a little kid at first but really what other choice did he have? I could torture him even worse if I wanted to and he knows it. In the end he definitely enjoyed it, though. Don't deny it, Gyllenhaal.”

“I won't, really I won't.” he said when he recovered from his laughter “It was uhm a unique experience that you won't get to live every day, let me tell you, and the character himself is one that in many ways is similar to the kind of characters I want to portray and chose to portray. He is definitely a character to remember and one I will remember for a long time. Plus, we had so much fun on set that it made it all ten times more worth it.”

“Would you say you liked it that much as to play Quentin again?” you asked, leaning back in your chair.

“Oh yeah, yeah absolutely.  I had such a great time, I think doing a Marvel movie as Quentin again would be lots of fun!”

“And then he got to be Quentin in a movie with Deadpool.” you looked at the camera with a grin “And regretted everything he said that day.”

“Don't give them any ideas! Don't!” he said with wide eyes, unable to hold back his laughter though.

“Ryan will be visiting Kevin very soon I predict.” you giggled “Oh that's a movie I'd pay millions to see. But since I can't have it now yet, let's see the next one. Is- Oh this one's tricky. Is-” you pealed the sticker “Oh (Y/n) (Y/l/n) the reason why Jake Gyllenhaal auditioned for 'Light between oceans'? Oh alright-” you laughed “First, how did you google such a thing? This is a whole sentence. And second, I want to hear it from you Gyllenhaal, this is an interesting one. Am I?” you smirked, looking back at Jake.

“Alright, so there's actually a story about this.” his laugh was less nervous than you expected “I did admit I had been a fan for years and of course Ryan knew it and he wouldn't miss a chance to try to point it out. So uhm the promotional tour for the movie 'Life' which I did with him around the same time was no more than a month right after our movie and as you might expect he had to mention it every time we had an interview. One time a question came up about 'Light between oceans' and, well, leave it to Ryan to say that I auditioned for it because I knew you'd be my costar. Which-” he laughed a bit “I have to admit it was true, but I didn't give him the satisfaction back then by saying that yes I wanted to work with you on project that much. And after that it sort of became a big thing, I think, hence the google search.”

“How come I haven't heard of that before? I mean what the hell, I could have used that to my advantage!” you grinned even though Jake shook his head next to you “I think I should keep up with the net more.”

“What about you? Why did you audition for the movie? I don't think we ever talked about that.”

“Oh for me it was even easier. I saw 'making out' and 'Jake Gyllenhaal' in one sentence and I was immediately like-” you snapped your fingers “I'm in!” you shrugged innocently, only to make Jake double in laughter “It was that easy for me. I didn't even care to find out about the plot. I think I remembered to read it about a day before filming started. Let's be honest, I'm just in it to make out with Jake, don't thin I even remember any of my lines now. I only went in to be able to kiss this guy and let me tell you I didn't regret it one bit.”

“That's-” Jake started but pressed his lips as he tried to fight his laughter, or even a smile, but much as he tried he was failing miserably “An interesting reason, I must admit. Certainly good to know.” he glanced at you from the corner of his eyes and you giggled shaking your head.

“Much as I'd like to ask-” you cleared your throat, looking back at the board “I think we're going to get a lot out of this interview so the next one: Is Jake Gyllenhaal... real?” you both snorted “Wow now this! This is something I've googled. You know what?” you glanced at Jake before looking straight at the camera “I don't even know. I keep asking myself the same thing all the time, still no answer. Some would argue, namely Ryan, but-”

“We all know what Ryan would say, so let's just skip that part.” Jake completed your sentence.

“Yes, let's.” you agreed “Ok the next one. Is Jake Gyllenhaal... an actor?” you snickered while Jake made a funny face “Wow someone out there is having some serious doubts about your entire existence buddy.”

“What's up with that? Why am I getting all these weird questions?” he looked at the camera, his voice coming out slightly high pitched “Yes, yes I am an actor... I think. Or at least I try to be, for five minutes. Once a week.”

You laughed as he snickered “Come on! Yes-” you turned to the camera “Yes he is, and an incredible one at that. Whatever Ryan Reynolds tells you after this is a lie because he is jealous and on the occasion a mean little shit. Let me tell you that all jokes aside and I'm 100% serious when I say Jake might as well be one of the best if not the best actor I've had the pleasure to work with in my entire life.”

“Wow, I think I'm going to cry.” he said a bit jokingly but you could also tell there was sincerity in his words “Nobody has ever been that nice to me since I was a baby.” but of course his words were still funny so you couldn't hold back a laugh.

“Alright let's move onto the next one because we've got so many cards left. Ok the last one: Is Jake Gyllenhaal... single? Wow straight to the point huh? Now this-”

“Did you- Did you google this?” he grinned and you laughed.

“Wouldn't you like to know huh?” you winked at him “No, see, I didn't need to. You guys out there though-” you smirked at the camera “You really wanna know huh?”

“I'd like to see you answer this one.” he eased back in his seat.

“Easy.” you shrugged casually before looking back at the camera “No. He's mine. Sorry.” your smile was far from innocent, especially as Jake burst into laughter next to you.

“Have something to say, Gyllenhaal?” you raised an eyebrow at him and he raised his arms in surrender.

“No, no I definitely don't. If you say so, who am I to say no?”

“Gad to hear that. So there you have it.” you grinned at the camera before getting rid of the first card “Onto the next one!”

“Oh it's going to be a long interview!”

[lousimusician]

Trying To Adjust (Part 2)

Pairing: Frat!Tom Holland x Reader

Summary: Tom deals with the aftermath of your breakup

Word Count: 1.9k

Warnings: none

——————————————

Ever since the party, Tom had been having a rough time with what had happened.

And he was finding it harder to get along with his friends, now that he realized that most of them, other than Harrison, were assholes.

Tom really liked you, like really liked you.

The two of you had met during one of your projects. The school was holding a film festival and you were going to be directing your own film and since Tom was an acting major, he turned up at the audition.

You absolutely loved his performance and immediately said yes.

And naturally, since you and Tom would be working so closely, he flirted with you for a bit, and you flirted back, but once he asked you out, you turned him down.

It had been a huge hit to his ego, and from there he had been pretty determined to take you out. But after you had first turned him down, all of his following advancements were ignored.

After a month he had given up. And he was glad he did because once he started focusing more on the film and work, he had realized just how passionate you were about film.

And he admired it greatly.

He loved how determined you were about directing and writing, that after a certain day of shooting he looked up all of your past projects he found on your YouTube channel and watched them all. And not only that he ended up practically stalking you on every social media website you had.

And from there he was completely head over heels for you.

It was something he had never felt before. He had no desire to be in a serious relationship until you came along.

He stopped sleeping with girls because he honestly didn’t care about them anymore and he went back to trying to ask you out, but in a more easygoing way as to not come off strong anymore.

And at the end of the month, you agreed to go out with him.

If only Tom hadn’t been so clueless to the concept of dating, then you wouldn’t have broken up in the messy way you had.

And now with every passing day, Tom was missing you more and more.

The only problem was that he had no idea how to talk to you again after what happened.

Which is why complaining to Harrison all day and night was what he resorted to—

“Do you think she misses me?” Tom asked, staring up at the ceiling.

”Nope.” Harrison said, popping the ‘p’.

At this point Harrison had just started saying anything he wanted to since Tom was refusing to listen anyway. But as long as he could finish this damn paper by tonight, he didn’t really care too much about Tom’s woes.

”You know I blew her off 8 times? I even stood her up on two of those occasions.” He sighed.

”Uh-huh— you were an awful boyfriend,” he said typing away.

”God, what’s wrong with me,” he said, sitting up and looking to Harrison.

He looked up from his laptop, “What? Like you want a list or something?”

”C’mon Haz! I’m serious!”

Harrison rolled his eyes, “You were too consumed with what everyone thought of you. That, and you never had the attention span to focus on one girl for long periods of time anyway.” He said, going back to typing.

Tom fell back onto his bed, exasperated. “She probably hates me.”

And we were back to not taking Harrison’s actual criticisms.

”Not probably— she most definitely hates you.”

”I wonder how she’s doing.”

”Probably a lot better since the breakup.”

”What should I do?”

”Nothing, suck it up and fuck her roommate.”

”How could I have messed up so bad— my first ever relationship!”

”Because you self-sabotage and you’re destined to be alone forever.”

”Ugh, what am I gonna do?”

”Already told you, move on and fuck her roommate.”

”What?”

Harrison looked over his laptop and at Tom who was staring back at him, “What, finally decided to listen to me?”

”I’m serious!”

”Fine. You know what you should do? You should go find her, apologize and beg on your knees for her to take you back. Promise her you’ll be a better boyfriend and follow through on that promise. That is what you should do.”

”I can’t, it’ll never work,” he groaned.

Harrison sighed and shook his head, turning back to his paper.

————

“So Victoria told me she was interested in being apart of your next film,” Elizabeth told you, as she sat watching something on her laptop on top of her bed.

”Really? That’s awesome, she’s a business major right?” You asked, in the middle of some writing homework.

”Yeah, said she has a passion for acting, but her parents forced her to go the business route.

You hummed, “Well tell her I’m holding auditions next week.”

She nodded, “Of course.”

The two of you groaned upon hearing someone knock at the door, “Not it.” You quickly said, making Elizabeth have to go up and answer it.

”Whatever,” she grumbled, hopping off the bed and going to answer the door.

She swung it open to see Harrison standing in front of her, but you couldn’t see who it was, “Yes?” She asked.

”(Y/N) here?”

She promptly turned to you, “It’s for you,” she said before going back to her bed.

You sighed, throwing your laptop to the side and climbing off the bed, “Yea- oh hi Harrison,” you greeted upon seeing him, “How’d you get up here?”

He shook his head, “Got a friend to sign me in- look-“

”Is this about next week’s auditions?” You asked, cutting him off. Harrison was a usual in the audition room, and he had made it into a couple of your projects, “Because everything is posted in Webson Hall-“

”No, this is about Tom,” he rushed out, over you.

”Tom?” You pouted, “Then I’m not interested, see ya,” you were about to close the door when Harrison stopped it, “Whaaaat?” You groaned.

“The two of you need to talk, he’s been nothing but whining and complaining for the last week and I’m starting to lose patience with him.”

You rolled your eyes, “Why? I thought and I quote ‘I was overbearing and bitchy’.”

He scoffed, “He was obviously talking out of his ass. He’s crazy about you.”

”Not crazy enough apparently.”

”(Y/N) I’m serious. Just talk to him, you’ll see how much he misses you.”

”And if I don’t?” You quirked an eyebrow.

”Then I’ll,” he paused, “I’ll um-“

You laughed, “You’ve got nothing. See you at auditions,” you waved, before shutting the door on him.

Harrison sighed and leaned his head against your door.

And then suddenly and idea struck him.

”That’s it.”

With that, he was running down the hall back to his frat house.

~~~~~~~

You stretched in your seat. Audition day had finally showed up.

Honestly you were never a huge fan of watching a million auditions every time (your work had been getting more and more popular around campus, so auditions tended to be a pretty big turn out). A lot of the time they were mentally exhausting, you’d be surprised by the amount of actors that chose dramatic monologues over comedic.

But now you were already 15 auditions in with 5 more to go, and you were pretty sure you already had your cast now but you still needed to see the others.

“Alright, send them in!” Alyssa shouted, to Eric who had been letting in the actors.

Alyssa and Eric were always crew members on your projects and usually helped you decide cast members.

You had been scribbling something down when the next actor stood by the chair that was provided for each audition in front of you two.

”Go ahead,” Alyssa said, and you finally looked up.

Your eyes widened.

What the fuck?

“Tom, what the hell are you doing here?” You asked in annoyance, shaking your head.

He stared at you like a deer in the headlights, “Um... auditioning?”

”Did Harrison put you up to this?”

”...Maybe?”

You rolled your eyes again, “Whatever, you can leave.”

”No,” he stated more firmly, “I want to audition.”

You looked over at Alyssa who just shrugged her shoulders.

”Fine,” you said with a wave of your hand, “Go ahead.”

He cleared his voice, “My name is Tom Holland and I will be performing a monologue that I wrote. I will be reading for the character uh- Tim who is apologizing to his ex-girlfriend for something stupid he did.”

”Oh my god,” you hissed, sinking into your seat, already cringing.

He cleared his throat again, “Okay look, you know I’m bad with words so I’m just gonna come out and say it. I fucked up... but you already know that. For years I’ve been living in this bubble where I had my own views on dating and now I realize how warped they really are. I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend— and there’s a really good chance I’ll have trouble figuring it out, but.... what I do know, is that if you decide to take me back I will try my fucking hardest to be the best goddamn boyfriend you will ever have, even if that means I have to drop my asshole friends— who really were never that great so I don’t know why I ever chose them over you. But I like you so fucking much and that’s something that has never ever happened for me, so it kills me every single day knowing I screwed up a relationship with the only girl I ever really liked. You are one of the most talented and passionate people I have ever met, and I think you are absolutely gorgeous inside and out. So it would mean the world to me if you even as much as considered taking me back, and if you do, I promise I will do everything I can to make you happy. And if it means anything, I wasn’t lying when I said I never cheated on you and even after we broke up I couldn’t even think about another girl, also...... I don’t think you’re overbearing or bitchy.”

Silence filled the room before you spoke, “Y’know, with these auditions you’re usually expected to act.”

”Yeah I was wondering if you were gonna catch that,” he tried to joke, but kept bouncing on the balls of his feet, showing how nervous he was.

You ran a hand through your hair and sighed.

You figured if he was this willing to do something as silly as this, that maybe he really was willing to change.

You placed your clipboard aside and stood up. You walked over to him until you stood right in front of him.

”You gonna start answering my texts?”

His eyes immediately lit up, “Yes! Yes, of course.”

”You really gonna stop hanging out with those jerks? Except for Harrison, he’s the only one I like.”

”Yeah, he’s honestly the only one I like too.”

You nodded, “Then, can we go to that movie we planned a couple weeks ago?”

He grinned so big, you were sure it probably hurt, but you weren’t able to fight the smile off your face either.

Tom suddenly pulled you into him, wrapping his arms around you, “Of course darling, anything for you.”

You hugged him back tightly, “Good. Then stay here for the rest of the auditions.”

”Alright,” he agreed, pulling back. “By the way... did you really sleep with Aaron?”

You shook your head, “Nah, I paid him to hide in his room for a half hour to make everyone think I did.”

“Sneaky,” He laughed, shaking his head at you, “But thank god, because from here on out, you’re mine.”

——————————————

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[waitedforgarridebs]

Radio (1994): Merrison & Williams

The 3GAR adaptation that’ll shatter your heart into a million pieces

Clive Merrison and Michael Williams were the first pair of actors to play Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson who got to dramatise every single story of the entire canon – all four novels and 56 short stories.

In 1987, Bert Coules pitched a screenplay of HOUN to the BBC, which was greenlit and produced for radio with Roger Rees and Crawford Logan as the two lead actors. As this show ended up being a great success, Coules suggested to keep the series going, and the BBC agreed – however, they insisted on recasting. Eventually, the popularity of the show led to the decision to adapt literally every single canon story, and for the first time they actually managed to successfully achieve this feat over the course of the next 9 years. The Merrison-Williams-series ran on BBC Radio 4 from 1989 until 1998.

As Williams unfortunately died way too young in 2001, he could not continue his part as Dr Watson for the series of original stories written by Coules, “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. This sequel still got commissioned during his lifetime, and while the production team set everything on hold to wait until Williams got better, sadly this never happened. He eventually was replaced by Andrew Sachs for the last 15 stories of this series.

While Coules remained as lead writer of the show, he was supported by various other writers for this quite massive project. The adaptations of the stories are in their core quite true to the books: The characters’ lines were updated to a more modern sounding language, and filler scenes were written to expand especially the shorter, less dense cases to the runtime of 45 minutes per episode.

For Coules and his team, the Holmes stories are not primarily detective stories. They are stories about a detective – and, more than that: They are stories about a detective and his only friend. Watson isn’t considered to be a bumbling sidekick, but an actual co-lead.

(And yes, I am basically quoting Coules himself from an interview done for the “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere” podcast, so I do not know if Moftiss nicked that pitch from him or vice versa.)

In order to stay true to every story’s essence, the writers were “imaginatively faithful” to the original cases. They would, for example, sketch out the backstory and all the inciting incidents leading up to a client’s inquiry at 221b, and dramatise a bit of the story Doyle only mentioned in passing, but never actually wrote down. Or they would invent new scenes, sometimes even new endings, whenever they thought the original version wasn’t as effective as it could have been.

The reason I am putting all of this over the cut is to make you aware of the fact that the changes in the story were all done with a purpose – in this case, to amplify its emotional impact.

Because, without this background knowledge, their changes to 3GAR appear to be absolutely devastating. Cruel, even.

Can I just start by saying that I love Merrison’s Holmes and Williams’ Watson?

Their chemistry is incredible. They breathe so much life into these two characters! They banter, they laugh, they at times even mock a particularly annoying client when said client can’t hear them – and sometimes even when they can *coughs* Killer Evans – and I regret not having listened to their entire work as of yet. 

(But that’s a good resolution for the new year if there ever was one!)

And, one thing I can say for certain: This Holmes is 100% in love with his Watson.

It is the “desperately unspoken” dynamic of TPLoSH all over again, but maybe a little less repressed. Also, Watson – again – has his three-continent-reputation to defend. They are stupid idiot boys, they don’t fucking TALK to each other, and it’s driving me up the wall, but at least they do very much consider each other family, and that is a really great step into the right direction.

That being said, do not listen to this version of 3GAR if you don’t have the time to be emotionally compromised after finishing it.

This adaptation first aired on October 26, 1994.

As mentioned earlier, the writers – in this case David Ashton – did add a bit of backstory as well as some filler scenes to stretch the episode over the entire runtime: the introduction shows how Evans shot Prescott, featuring seemingly indifferent, almost John-Mulaney-esque barkeepers, who are so very chill about the entire murder-thing happening in front of their eyes. “Oh, what is it about Friday nights, ey?”

Ashton not only gives characters like Saunders lines, but writes whole scenes just for them, and even paces longer exposition bits quite nicely by, for example, having the American John Garrideb start the explanation about the search for the third Garrideb in Baker Street, and Nathan Garrideb finish it by excitedly rambling about his impending fortune at the exasperated Saunders.

Not only pleasant filler scenes like these were added, however.

You see, there is a running theme throughout this episode: At the beginning, Holmes is quite his usual self, and mocks the concept of love, human connection, and relationships. He and Watson see a young couple in the park, the bloke teasing the girl and playfully stealing ... her ... hat ... *muffled screaching noises* ... and Holmes compares the couple to pidgeons: “The male puffs out his chest and the female runs around in circles.” Watson, as ever, doesn’t seem too opposed to the idea of having a woman in his life, and Holmes simply ends up pointing out that the couple is having their date quite close to where the gallows used to be. Charming as ever.

Throughout the episode, Holmes is confronted with the idea of love and companionship again and again, in very different scenarios, and gradually warms up to it. Which, looking at where the episode is headed – Watson realising that there is a heart behind the cold mask – is actually a beautiful thing to do, and certainly does make sense.

However, one morning Watson has business of his own to attend to. And that’s where the heartbreak sets in: In an added scene, they show Watson ring-shopping. 

(Not for Holmes, obviously. He seems to have met someone and plans on getting engaged, again. Very rude.)

So, while Holmes keeps realising that being alone all the time is not good for him, that he actually wants someone in his life, the only person who could fill this void runs around with a little box hidden in his coat pocket.

But, it gets worse.

Remember when I teased in the post about the Hobbs-Shelley-adaptation (x) that there is yet another way to include Watson’s internal realisation after getting shot? As in, neither putting it as a summary at the beginning nor at the end of the episode?

I was talking about this one.

Merrison’s Holmes, in my opinion, has the most emotional reaction to Watson getting shot. He literally panics. 

(And the fact that there are a couple of seconds of complete and utter silence after he rushes to Watson’s side really does not help!)

HOLMES: Watson, you’re not hurt! For god’s sake, say you’re not hurt! WATSON, in pain: Ugh... oh... almost worth it.  HOLMES: ... what!? WATSON: The pain. To see that look on your face. A great heart... as well as a great mind. HOLMES: Nonsense... I was merely worried about the surgeon’s bills. WATSON, bellows out a single laugh. HOLMES, tenderly: Here. L-l-let me look. WATSON: Oh no, it’s nothing Holmes. I should know it. It’s just a scratch. EVANS, groans in the background. WATSON: Did you shoot the fellow? HOLMES: No. The second shot was his also. But I laid my revolver along the side of his head. Wild West, indeed. – Watson, you are certain? WATSON: It’s just a scratch, Holmes. Honestly.

Then, Holmes first turns into the Hulk and then towards Evans, and if I ever heard a man speak through gritted teeth, then this is it.

And that following exchange features, honestly, the best non-canonical line of dialogue in Holmesian history:

EVANS: Say, what did you hit me with? HOLMES, not missing a single beat: JUSTICE!

But... it gets worse.

Evans gets arrested, and we get to see Watson and Holmes in Baker Street after the incident, where Holmes dresses Watson’s wounds – or at least he tries to, until Watson insists on doing it on his own, because Holmes is rubbish at it. Holmes then starts pacing around in the living room like an expectant father, “But is there nothing I can do??”

Watson tells him that he’d very much like to smoke a cigar, which leads to Holmes rummaging in the pockets of Watson’s coat.

And you’ve guessed it: Of course he finds The Box.

Cue: awkward moment where Watson tells him, for the first time, about his plans to get re-married.

And Holmes starts sulking, because Watson is about to leave him alone. Again.

But, it gets worse!

Suddenly, Lestrade calls. Holmes at first thinks this is about a case mentioned in passing earlier in the episode, but it is actually news about Nathan Garrideb: As you know, he didn’t take it too well that he never found a third Garrideb in Birmingham, and Lestrade now informs Holmes that Nathan got sent to a mental asylum. 

And... Holmes and Watson visit him there!

They happen to meet Saunders in Nathan’s room, who sadly ponders about the fact that Nathan was always so lonely during his lifetime, and that this isn’t healthy, and that this certainly contributed to the fact that his mind now snapped. 

Nathan eventually has a moment of clarity and recognises Holmes. After gifting his collection of bees to Holmes (...), he hopefully asks if Holmes came to tell him that he found the third Garrideb after all. Holmes, of course, has to decline, but he promises Nathan to find the man, if he exists.

But how, Nathan then exclaims in despair, can Holmes not know this! Holmes must know! He must know everything!!

So, the episode where Watson realises that Holmes does, in fact, love him, ends with an emotionally crushed and forsaken Holmes pondering about his retirement and keeping bees.

And that, my friends, is the most heart-breaking adaptation of 3GAR I have ever listened to.

[dazeandhaze]

What is the kagerou project?

This post is for those who are interested in interacting with my muses Kido, Kano, and Konoha, but maybe don’t know enough about the series to really know where to start plotting wise. I’ll be linking this post to their abouts (when I make them) and I welcome any questions you might have on it!

First off, the Kagerou project is originally a set of vocaloid songs / videos that later got translated to a manga, novels, and an anime. It’s a story told achronlogically, meaning pretty much out of order and not straight forward at all - another reason I wanted to make this post so newcomers don’t feel confused.  That and all the mediums help tell the full story - so unless you’ve taken in all of them it’s hard to piece together the story from start to finish, and there is still a lot of details we don’t know. The kagerou project isn’t perfect but it’s a good story overall.

The actual story / character info will be below the cut cause this is gonna be a super long post.

Also if you get weirded out by snakes it’s probably not the best idea to read this - there’s no pictures but the word ‘snake’ comes up ALOT. Also please don’t read this if Suicide is a trigger for you, as that is something that I will be mentioning a few times aswell.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

First off I’ll introduce the characters / what their powers are and then explain the songs then the story and how the powers are significant and how the characters play into the story as a whole.

Azami - the medusa. Creator of the abilities.

The Mekakushi Dan - the ‘blindfold’ gang. It started as a childhood fantasy but Kido, Kano, and Seto kept the group name after Ayano’s death. Kano was the one that came up with the name.

 Ayano Takeyama - Number 0, Foster older sister to Kido, Kano, and Seto. Has the snake of favoring eyes. She is able to project her feelings and memories onto others.

Tsubomi Kido - Number 1, technically the leader. Has the snake of Concealing eyes. She can make herself effectively invisible and unable to be perceived by others as long as she doesn’t touch anyone. She can use this ability on other people, and any sound they make while the ability is active is unheard of by others.

Kousuke Seto - Number 2. Has the snake of Stealing eyes. He can read people’s minds and when used to its full potential, he can read a person's memories.This ability also lets him understand the thoughts of animals, though they can still not understand him.

Shuuya Kano - Number 3. Has the snake of Deceiving eyes. It allows him to change what people perceive him as. He can change his appearance to impersonate other people and even animals. He can only use this ability on himself and not others.

Marry Kozakura - Number 4. Has two ‘eye’ abilities technically, Locking Eyes and Combining eyes. Locking eyes she inherited from her mother Shion and her grandmother Azami. It allows her to temporarily stop the movement of whoever meets her gaze. She is not able to turn people into stone, but it can paralyze them for a short amount of time. The Snake of Combining Eyes can combine and therefore control all snakes. It was directly given to her by Azami when she died and entered the Kagerou Daze. This ability causes her to automatically obtain a snake after its owner has died and also allows her to take a snake directly from them.Combining Eyes also passively causes the other snakes (and thus their owners) to be drawn towards its owner.

Momo Kisaragi - Number 5. She has the snake of Drawing Eyes. This ability can draw peoples' attention to herself regardless of their preferences in tastes or interests. She is also able to tell where a person's attention is drawn to.

Ene / Takene Enomoto - Number 6. She has the Snake of opening eyes. This allows her to to split her consciousness from her body, which then can reside in electronic devices (such as a cellphone) as a cyber-being. After regaining her body as Takane, she is still able to send herself to other electronic devices as Ene, but doing so causes her body to lose consciousness.

Shintaro Kisaragi - Number 7. Has the snake of Retaining eyes. This allows him to remember everything he sees. When his ability is fully activated, he is able to remember the events of past routes and speak with the Snake of Retaining Eyes.

Hibiya Amamiya - Number 8. Has the snake of Focusing Eyes.This has the power to perceive objects and details that are far away from an aerial view.

Konoha / Haurka Kokonose - Number 9. Has the snake of Awakening Eyes. This gives him the power to remake his body into one that he finds to be his "ideal" - as Haruka was physically weak and sickly, this meant for him to become supernaturally strong. He can also heal from even fatal injuries with this ability, which looks like multiple black snakes wrapping around his body when activated.

Hiyori Asahina - Number 10. Depending on the route she will have the snake of Focusing Eyes instead of Hibiya. 9/10 times though it is Hibiya. Just mentioning this fact for technicalities sake.

The Snake of Clearing eyes - the story’s main antagonist. This ability can interfere with and stop the use of other eye abilities completely. It normally possesses either Ayano’s father or Hibiya depending on the route. In every route it will always possess Konoha towards the end - as he is the strongest member and none of the others in the Dan can stand a chance against him. (if you see me reblog a black haired konoha, it’s him being possessed by this ability)

SONGS

As mentioned before, this started off as a set of vocaloid songs. So I will list SOME of the songs below - there’s over 33 songs related to the kagerou project but these are ones with MVs (or at least fan made ones) that have the main characters as the focus.

Shinigami Record - Azami Song

Jinzou Enemy - Ene and Shintaro song

Mekakushi Code - Kido’s song

Headphone Actor - Takene song

Imagination Forest - Mary song

Kagerou Daze / Heat Haze Days - Hiyori and Hibuya song

Konoha’s state of the world - Konoha song ft Hiyori and Hibuya

Yobanashi Deceive - Kano song

Shouen Brave - Seto song

Kisaragi Attention - Momo Song

Ayano’s theory of Happiness - Ayano song

Yuukei Yesterday - Takene and Haruka song

Children Record - everyone is here lmao serves more like an opening if anything

Moon Viewing Recital - Momo and Hibuya song

Outer Science - Clearing eyes song / The Bad ending

Lost time memory - Shintaro song

Summer time record - everyone is here but there is a focus on Haruka / the good ending

Additional memory - Ayano in the daze song

Never lost world - kido post story song

THE STORY

the first thing to know about the kagerou project story is that it is a time loop story. Each medium contains its own loop (or in the manga’s case, multiple), which is why someone has to consume all the mediums to really get the full story. Some character details or interactions only happen in one route / loop.  I’ll be going over what people are most likely to find out through google searches / the easiest medium (the music or anime) but will mention other routes here and there for context. Generally most routes we know of follow most of the same story beats but some differ dramatically - and I don’t want to confuse people.

For the overall story though - it starts with Azami. She is the medusa, but not in the traditional greek myth sense. It is just what humans started referring to her as thanks to her snake-like features. Truthfully she doesn’t know entirely what she is, she was born at the beginning, and lasted through the ages with not even a physical form until she met two beings - humans and a snake. The humans tried to kill her on first sight while the snake was kind and explained what the humans were to Azami. Her physical form ended up being a mix of these two species, hence humans calling her a medusa. (pictured below is azami from the novels)

Overtime she tried to interact with humans but they always shunned her and tried to kill her until one day she met an albino man named Tsukihiko. I will skip over the specifics but she ends up falling in love with him and building a family with him. They were both considered ‘monsters’ by society and thus made a perfect pair. They even had a daughter, Shion.

Now it’s important to note that during this time she made her abilities. considered ‘eye’ abilities or ‘snakes’, Azami had the ability to create almost sentient forces within her to help her solve problems. For example, the ‘favoring eyes’ ability was created so she could properly show her emotions to her infant daughter, pass on all the love that she had onto Shion in a way she would understand even as a baby.

However after Shion was born, after creating these abilities, she realized that both Tsukihiko and Shion were going to out live her and die. She had lived thousands, maybe even millions, of years by now and hadn’t aged a day - but her husband obviously had. In this fear a new power was born, the snake of clearing eyes. It offered a solution to Azami, for them to create an entirely new world where death and time didn’t exist, where she could simply be happy with her family. She does this, and tells her husband and child they would leave the world together. They agree, but Tsukihiko wants to officially marry Azami before they leave the world. She allows him to go back to his old home to get wedding rings and someone to marry them officially, but doesn’t return. What does return are humans, out to kill Azami and her daughter. Azami defeats the men with ease but believes now her husband is all but dead. In her grief, she escapes to the world she made - the Kagerou Daze - and leaves her child behind.Tsukihiko manages to return, escaping from the confinement the other humans had put him in, and knows once he finds his daughter alone that his wife left the world. They are not upset with her, and continue to live out their days in their home in the forest.

Tsukihiko eventually dies of old age and Shion grows up. Shion has her own daughter called Mary, who is a quarter medusa. Shion is extremely protective of her daughter after the events of her own childhood, and tells Mary never to leave the house. However being the fun loving child she was, Mary disobeyed her mother once. It wasn’t long after she was found by humans who were proceeding to beat her to death when her mother found her. They were both about to die at the hands of these humans when Azami decided to intervene.

She wasn’t gone completely, she had been watching over her daughter and grandaughter from the Daze. Knowing what was about to happen to her family, she issued a command to the world to take in the two people dying and bring them up into the world. The date? August 15th.When the two arrived in the world they were dead. The world brought them back to life but they couldn’t leave back to the ‘real’ world without a new lifeforce. Azami, wanting her daughter to live, gave her the core of her power - the snake of combining eyes, also known as the ‘queen snake’. But Shion wanted her own daughter to live, and passed it onto Mary. Mary was able to return to the real world, but had no memory of the Daze or what her mother and grandmother had done for her - she was now alone.

The combining eyes was the core of Azami’s power, and without it she could no longer control the Kagerou Daze. She couldn’t tell the world to stop bringing people into it, to stop giving them powers,and to stop returning people to the real world. This was the mistake that costs the main character’s so much grief.

Each of the members of the mekakushi dan (besides Shintaro) died on the day of August 15th. The Kagerou Daze, still fulfilling its order, took them and whoever they were with at the time up into the world, and if they resonated with one of Azami’s abilities, gave them the snake before putting them back out into the real world - the snake/ eye ability being their new life force and the reason they’re alive.

Kido died in a fire with her sister, and got the snake of concealing eyes. Seto drowned with his dog and got the snake of stealing eyes. Kano died in a robbery with his mother and got the snake of Decieving eyes. Momo also drowned and got the drawing eyes ability. Takene was poisoned and got the opening eyes ability. Haruka had a heart attack and got the awakening eyes ability. Hibuya and Hiyori were in a traffic accident and depending on the route - one of them gets the Focusing eyes. As stated above, 9/10 times it’s Hibuya, Hiyori only gets it in the manga route/loop.

Ayano is a special case. She committed suicide with the goal in mind to go to the Kagerou Daze. She stays in the daze with her eye ability for a reason which I’ll get to later.

Now Shintaro does have an eye ability of his own, however it was NOT one of Azami’s abilities. I will also get to this later.

Kido, Kano, and Seto all end up being orphaned around the same time and ended up in the same orphanage. Forced into the same room together as they were the ‘strange’ kids. They were all adopted by the Tateyama family, Ayano’s family, who were researching the Medusa aka Azami. they took these kids in for their research but also genuinely cared about them. With the help of Ayano - the three children come to be not so scared of their abilities and learn to like humanity again. The hoodies the three wear were gifts from their foster parents and Ayano to hide their eyes - as when their abilities were being used / went out of control, their eyes turned red.

One August 15th, Ayano’s parents were involved in a mudslide. They went to the Daze, and her father returned with the snake of clearing eyes. This wasn’t apparent to Ayano or any of the children at first, but Ayano soon found out that her father planned to kill her two friends at school (Haruka and Takene, who have pre existing health conditions and were in his ‘special education’ class) on August 15th so that they would go to the daze and get more snakes.

She found the clearing eyes wanted all the snakes in the real world for some reason, and thus on August 15th, she committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school building, going into the daze and holding one of the eye abilities hostage by never returning from the daze. The clearing eyes still continued with his plan, Takene and Haruka died that day as well and got their respective powers. Haruka and Takene were strange cases though, they didn’t die with another person. Instead the clearing eyes tricked the world of the Kagerou Daze, getting it to recognize the mind and body as two different entities. So Takene’s body was left in the Daze while her mind returned to the real world as ‘Ene’, and could only exist within cyberspace. Haruka’s mind was left in the Daze and the perfect, healthy, body that he wanted returned to the real world as Konoha, who had no memories and seemingly little personality.

 But left the only one of their friend group, Shintaro, alive with all of his friends having died on the same day. He became a shut in, and for two years did not leave his home. The story officially ‘starts’ with Shintaro and Ene. Ene pretending she did not know Shintaro at all, found his computer during the two year timespan and proceeded to make his life hell, but also give him company within those two lonely years.

It’s important to note that Ene is crucial to Shintaro’s overall development. In some loops, her presence wasn’t enough and he ends up committing suicide out of grief. But emotions and lessons learned are kept throughout the loops, and eventually Ene came to realize that she had to help Shintaro no matter what.

Anyways, in a series of unfortunate events, Shintaro ends up needing to leave his house to go shopping as August 14th is a part of the obon holiday in Japan and he couldn’t survive one day without his precious computer being operational. On his one outing in two years - he ends up being wrapped into a robbery / terrorist attack on a shopping center and meets the rest of the Mekakushi dan (at this moment, only Kido, Seto, Kano, Mary, and Shintaro’s sister Momo). They help diffuse the situation at the shopping center and Shintaro ends up passing out (just due to nerves or he actually gets grazed by a bullet, depends on the loop), and brought back to the Mekakushi Dan hideout aka their apartment. It’s here he learns about the eye abilities, how his sister has one, and the exact events after this differ from loop to loop. Either way Shintaro becomes a sort of ‘unofficial’ member of the Dan and spends time with them over the next few days as he tries to wrap his head around the mysterious powers of the Dan and what they mean.

How the Dan ends up recruiting Hibuya and Konoha differs as well, but generally the group comes across the traffic accident that Hibiya and Hiyori were involved in and Konoha being there as well. Sometimes Ene will ask Shintaro to chase after Konoha, recognizing him as Haruka, and then they end up at the hospital and wait for Hibuya to be released / able to have visitors so they can talk to him. At this point in some of the loops, the Dan knows that August 15th is an important day to them, they’re just not sure why.

Hibuya leaves the hospital, determined to find Hiyori - not quite sure what has happened to her but knows she might be dead or lost or looking for him. Momo manages to get Hibuya to calm down and control his new eye ability, just in time for the Dan to be put into trouble.

It should be noted that technically, Azami had only 10 powers. And now with the exception of the power now taken by Ayano, all of those powers are in the real world. Which means it was time for the Clearing eyes to make its move. In the Novel and Anime route, the Dan ends up taking the fight to the Clearing eyes. (Possibly in the manga route aswell, I haven’t finished it).

Regardless, the Clearing eyes objective becomes clear rather quickly - it plans to kill every member of the Mekakushi Dan except for Shintaro (who doesn’t have one of Azami’s powers, but he still dies in some routes just for getting in the way) and Mary (who has the queen snake / snake of combining eyes, which clearing eyes wants). With each member of the Mekakushi Dan that dies, Mary gains their ability and grows closer to a full medusa. When she has five snakes - she can control the Kagerou Daze itself. The Clearing Eyes plans to kill the Mekakushi Dan, possess Mary, and become immortal + have control over the Daze and all of Azami’s abilities.

This is how most routes end. As soon as Mary has five snakes (four or more of her friends die), she has the power to control the Kagerou Daze and she has the world take in the Clearing eyes and thus trapping it there forever. After this she uses her new found powers to rewind time to sometime after her mother’s death but before everything else happened. This is how most routes start.

In the manga route specifically, the only ones alive after Mary has trapped the Clearing Eyes is Ayano (as she didn’t stay in the Daze in this route), Shintaro, and Mary. Everyone else is dead and gone and Mary is about to rewind time. Before she does though, she has Mary do something - give Shintaro an eye ability. Ayano gives up her life so that Mary may make her life force into an ability - the snake of retaining eyes. It is so that Shintaro ‘will never forget the tragedy that occurred here’. Shintaro has the ability to retain everything he sees, even across timelines. This route happens early on in the number of routes, but it’s never told to the audience when exactly it happens.

But, the problem with this is that he doesn’t remember he has an ability, it has to be triggered somehow. But it’s because of this that Shintaro killing himself out of grief in some timelines is so detrimental to the overall story - if Shintaro dies then he can’t activate his power and he can’t help save everyone. So for the story to truly be realized and head towards a good ending, Shintaro can’t die until after he remembers his ability.

In the novel route, only Seto, Mary, and Hibiya are alive after the confrontation with the Clearing eyes, and they live out their lives for almost two years before Mary decides to rewind time. Hibiya is able to contact the people who died and are now stuck in the Kagerous daze (death doesn’t exist there, so people are ‘alive’ there but trapped forever) and they all collectively make the decision to turn back time. Shintaro even comments that they’ve probably done this dozens, or maybe even hundreds or thousands of times by that point.

In the Anime route is when Shintaro remembers his ability. He remembers this due to something he knows but he shouldn’t have known. While he was friends with Ayano in school, he never knew that her siblings that she spoke about were Kido, Kano, and Seto. Yet while at the Mekakushi Dan apartment, he finds a picture with them all in it - and somehow knows that it’s the truth despite being surprised to find it out. This one event was enough for him to get things rolling and eventually remember his ability. He ends up killing himself and going to the Daze to see Ayano.

This is also shown in Route 1 of the lost time memory music video. He gets shot trying to protect Konoha (who was getting possessed by the clearing eyes, and thus tried to kill himself so that he wouldn’t hurt his friends), and he appears in the Daze to speak to Ayano and bring her back to the real world. The combination of Shintaro’s Retaining eyes, and Ayano’s favoring eyes, is enough to help get Mary to calm down. Ayano’s ability also lets her put the memories of others into other people, so she helps Shintaro show Mary that everything will be fine and that no matter what happened in every other route, they all love and care for her. This was enough to get her to calm down and for her to take everyone up into the Kagerou Daze, not just the clearing eyes.

Once trapped there, the Clearing eyes had nowhere to go and also was tricked by Konoha and Haruka into becoming the new snake / life force for Hiyori so that she could come back to life. I should note here that it is possible for those with snakes to sort of come and go from the Kagerou Daze as they please - people in the daze just can’t leave without a snake, so Mary also returns the snakes to those who had died up until this point so that they could leave the kagerou daze afterwards. Haruka is able to get back into his body after Konoha willingly gives it over, Takene gets her body back, and they are all able to have a few moments with those that they had died with to get some closure.

They then leave the daze together, and are able to continue on with their lives. (also shown in sumertime record)

Again, I skipped over ALOT here. But this is overall the major plot points of the kagerou project.

The Kagerou project is about dealing with loss, about looking forward to the future, about learning that you don’t have to deal with everything alone - there is always someone willing to help you. It’s about overcoming fear and despair, and learning to take a step forward. There is a lot of death and sadness in this story but there’s also a lot of goofy fun moments too - to remind us that even dark moments have a little light in them.

[gra-sonas]

Down to Earth With Tyler Blackburn

I‘ve never met Tyler Blackburn before—except that I have. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve met versions of Tyler Blackburn. I’ve spent time with the actor on multiple occasions while covering his TV series Pretty Little Liars, the soapy teen-centered murder mystery that regularly generated more than a million tweets throughout its seven-season run. Just two weeks ago I reconnected with him in a lush meadow of flowering mustard outside Angeles National Forest, the site of his PLAYBOY photo shoot. But the Tyler Blackburn I’m meeting today at his home in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles is in many ways an entirely different man.

When he greets me at the front door, Blackburn is relaxed, barefoot and still wearing what appears to be bed head. His disposition is unmistakably freer—lighter—than it’s been during our previous encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Six days earlier the 32-year-old actor came out publicly as bisexual in an online interview with The Advocate.

The announcement is clearly at the forefront of his mind as we sit down at his dining room table.

Almost immediately he starts to gush about the positive, and at times overwhelming, feedback he has received over the past few days. Within minutes he’s in tears. He tries to lighten the mood with a self-effacing quip, but now I’m in tears too. Then he tells me he can’t remember my question.

I haven’t even asked one yet, I reply.

“It just makes me feel, Wow, the world’s a little bit safer than I thought it was,” Blackburn says.

The most affecting response he’s received thus far has been from his father, whom Blackburn didn’t meet until he was five years old. Although he avoids offering any more details about that early chapter, he says, “Feeling like I’m a little bit different always made me wonder if he likes me, approves of me, loves me. He called, and it was just every single thing you would want to hear from your dad: ‘That was a bold move. I’m so proud of you.’ It was wild.”

Blackburn can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was bisexual but says he was curious from the age of 16. It wasn’t until two years ago, though, that he decided to approach his publicity team about coming out publicly. At that point, Pretty Little Liars had wrapped, and the actor was without a job. So Blackburn and his team agreed they needed to hold off on making an announcement until his career was stable again. The lack of resolution weighed on him. “A year ago I was in a very bad place,” he says, adding that he has struggled with depression and anxiety. “I didn’t know what my career was going to be or where it was going. My personal life—my relationship with myself—was in a really bad place.” His casting on the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, adapted from the same Melinda Metz book series as the WB’s 1999 cult favorite Roswell, seems to have come at the right time. Blackburn portrays Alex, a gay Army veteran whose relationship with Michael, a bisexual alien, has attracted legions of “Malex” devotees since the show’s January debut. Roswell, New Mexico has already been renewed for a second season—a feat for any series in this era of streaming, let alone one involving gay exophilia. Playing a character whose queerness has been so widely embraced by fans no doubt nudged Blackburn closer to revealing his truth for the first time since becoming an actor 15 years ago. (As he told The Advocate, “I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to…feel okay with experiencing love and experiencing self-love.”) Still, he was somewhat reluctant. His hesitation was rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to control what came next: the social pressures that often come with being one of the first—in his case, one of the first openly bisexual male actors to lead a prime-time television series. “If you stand for this thing, and you say it publicly, there’s suddenly the expectation of ‘Now your job is this,’ ” he says. “Even if someone’s like, ‘Now you’re going to go be the spokesperson’—well, no. If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. And that doesn’t mean I’m a half-assed queer.” Full disclosure: I previously wrote for a Pretty Little Liars fan site. In 2012 I published a listicle that ranked the show’s hottest male characters. Blackburn cracks up when I tell him this and wants to know whether he bested Ian Harding, his former co-star. After I inform him that his character (hacker with a heart of gold Caleb Rivers) finished second behind Harding’s (Ezra Fitz, a student-dating teacher) I promise to organize a recount. The always-modest Blackburn concedes that Harding is the rightful winner. (If anyone ever compiles a BuzzFeed article titled “Most Embarrassing Moments for Former Bloggers,” I’ll be offended if I’m not in the mix.)

Blackburn makes it clear that he has not always been comfortable with his status as a teen heartthrob. Knowing he was queer made it “hard to embrace it and enjoy it.” Growing up, he was bullied for being perceived as effeminate and was frequently subjected to slurs and homophobic jokes. He describes himself as a late bloomer who took longer than usual to shed his baby fat. He didn’t have many friends, nor did he date much in high school. A lifelong fan of musical theater and the performing arts, Blackburn signed with a Hollywood management company at the age of 17. His team at the time warned him that projecting femininity would hinder his success. An especially painful moment came after he’d auditioned for a role as a soldier and the producers wrote back that Blackburn had seemed “a little gay.” “Those two managers were so twisted in their advice to me,” Blackburn says. “They just said, ‘We don’t care if you are, but no one can know. You can’t walk into these rooms and seem gay. It’s not gonna work.’ I remember the shame, because I’ve been dealing with the feeling that I’m not a normal boy for my entire life.” After landing a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2010, Blackburn scored his big break when he appeared midway through the first season of Pretty Little Liars. “I was in Tyler’s first scene, so I got to be one of the first to work with him,” Shay Mitchell, who starred opposite Blackburn, tells PLAYBOY. “Right away, I knew he was special. Since the day I met him, Tyler always struck me as very authentic and very true to himself.” Fans instantly adored his on-screen love affair with Hanna Marin, played by Ashley Benson. The pair became known as “Haleb,” and Blackburn went on to win three Teen Choice Awards—surfboard trophies that solidify one’s status as a teen idol—in categories including Choice TV: Chemistry.

According to Blackburn, during the show’s seven years on the air, he and Benson bonded over their mutual distaste for the tabloid stardom that comes with headlining a TV phenomenon lapped up by teens. Today he fondly reflects on their on-camera chemistry. “It felt good,” he says. “It felt real.” Of course, rumors swirled that the pair’s romance was actually quite real. “We never officially dated,” he tells me. “In navigating our relationship—as co-workers but also as friends—sometimes the lines blurred a little. We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we’re good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh. But then sometimes we’d be like, ‘Did someone see us hugging the other night?’ She was a huge part of a huge change in my life, so I’ll always hold her dear.” Blackburn also shares a unique connection with Mitchell outside their friendship. Similar to what Blackburn is now experiencing with Roswell, Mitchell was embraced by the LGBTQ community for playing a lesbian character, Emily Fields, whose same-sex romances on Pretty Little Liars were among the first on ABC Family (the former name of the Freeform network). Over the years, Blackburn had come out to select members of the Pretty Little Liars cast and crew, including creator I. Marlene King. But as the show approached its swan song, he started to recognize how hiding a part of himself was negatively affecting his life. He entered his first serious relationship with a man while filming the show’s final season. Not knowing how to tell co-workers—or whether to, say, invite his boyfriend to an afterparty—caused him to “go into a little bit of a shell” on the set.

“My boyfriend was hanging out with me at a Pretty Little Liars convention, and some of the fans were like, ‘Are you Tyler’s brother?’ ” Blackburn says. “He was very patient, but then afterward he was like, ‘That kind of hurt me.’ It was a big part of why we didn’t work out, just because he was at a different place than I was. Unfortunately, we don’t really talk anymore, but if he reads this, I hope he knows that he helped me so much in so many ways.” At that, Blackburn tearfully excuses himself and takes a private moment to regain his composure. “I never remember a time when I didn’t enjoy being with him,” says Harding, Blackburn’s former co-star. He says he saw the actor “start to become the person he is now when we worked together” but believes Blackburn needed to first come to terms with the idea that he could become “the face” of bisexuality. “Tyler’s discovering a way to bring real meaning with his presence in the world,” Harding says, “as an actor and as a whole human.”

Once the teenage Blackburn realized he was attracted to guys, he began “experimenting” with men while taking care not to become too emotionally attached. “I just didn’t feel I had the inner strength or the certainty that it was okay,” he says. It wasn’t until a decade later, at the age of 26, that he began to “actively embrace my bisexuality and start dating men, or at least open myself up to the idea.” He says he’s been in love with two women and had great relationships with both, but he “just knew that wasn’t the whole story.” 

He was able to enjoy being single in his 20s in part because he wasn’t confident enough in his identity to commit to any one person in a relationship. “I had to really be patient with myself—and more so with men,” he says. “Certain things are much easier with women, just anatomically, and there’s a freedom in that.” He came out of that period with an appreciation for romance and intimacy. Sex without an emotional component, he discovered, didn’t have much appeal. “As I got older, I realized good sex is when you really have something between the two of you,” says Blackburn, who’s now dating an “amazing” guy. “It’s not just a body. The more I’ve realized that, the more able I am to be settled in my sexuality. I’m freer in my sexuality now. I’m very sexual; it’s a beautiful aspect of life.” Blackburn has, however, felt resistance from the LGBTQ community, particularly when bisexual women have questioned his orientation. “Once I decided to date men, I was like, Please just let me be gay and be okay with that, because it would be a lot fucking easier. At times, bisexuality feels like a big gray zone,” he says. (For example, Blackburn knows his sexuality may complicate how he becomes a father.) “I’ve had to check myself and say, I know how I felt when I was in love with women and when I slept with women. That was true and real. Don’t discredit that, because you’re feeding into what other people think about bisexuality.” He clearly isn't the first rising star who's had to deal with outside opinions of how to handle his Hollywood coming-out. I spoke to Brianna Hildebrand just before the release of 2018's smash hit Deadpool 2, and she explained that she had previously met with publicists who had offered to keep her sexuality under wraps, even though the actress herself had never suggested this. Meanwhile, ahead of the launch of last fall's Fantastic Beasts sequel, Ezra Miller told me that he's "been in audition situations where sexuality was totally being leveraged."

Fortunately for Blackburn, his recent experiences with colleagues have largely been supportive ones. He came out to Roswell, New Mexico showrunner Carina Adly Mackenzie when he first arrived in N.M. to shoot the pilot but after he had earned the role of Alex, which for him was the ideal sequence. "I think he takes the responsibility of being queer in the public eye very seriously, and waiting to come out was just about waiting until he was ready to share a private matter—not about being dishonest to his fans," Mackenzie tells PLAYBOY. "I have always known how important Alex is to Tyler, and I know that Tyler trusts me to do right by him, ultimately, and that’s really special." Blackburn finds it funny that he’s known for young-skewing TV shows; the question is, What might define him next? He’s grateful for his career, but he grew up wanting to make edgy dramas like the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He also cites an admiration for Miller, the queer actor who plays the Flash. “I most definitely want to be a fucking superhero one day,” Blackburn says a bit wistfully. His path to cape wearing does look more tenable. The day before his Advocate interview was posted, he booked a lead role in a fact-based disaster-survival film opposite Josh Duhamel. Blackburn jokes that his movie career was previously nonexistent, though his résumé features such thoughtful indie fare as 2017’s vignette-driven Hello Again. There, he plays a love interest to T.R. Knight, who tells PLAYBOY that Blackburn “embraces the challenge to stretch and not choose the easy path.” For now, Blackburn’s path appears to be just where he needs it to be. “I may never want to be a spokesperson in a huge way, but honestly, being truthful and authentic sets a great example,” he says. “To continue on a path of fulfillment and happiness is going to make people feel like they too can have that and it doesn’t need to be some spectacle.” As it turns out, he may already be a superhero.

- Playboy

[davidthetraveler]

Hey, for the October Prompt List: Maybe Moon?

One Small Step

Characters:  Logan, Roman, Patton, Virgil, Dr. Emile Picani, Thomas Sanders, Joan Stokes, Talyn

Pairings:  Logicality, Prinxiety

Trigger Warnings:  Homophobia Mention

Squick Warnings:  Giant/Tiny Content, Fantastic Racism

Word Count:  1923

Read it on AO3

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If you’d like, you can send me one of @hiddendreamer67‘s October Giant/Tiny prompts, and I’ll write a fic for it.  Or, if you’d prefer, you can also send me two sentences and I’ll continue them like they’re a fic.

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With a muffled hiss, the hatch of the capsule opened.  For a moment, nothing happened.  Then a figure in a suit, bulky and white, began to awkwardly make its way out.  Slowly, it maneuvered its laden form through the opening and onto the ladder to begin its descent.

Carefully, it made its way down the ladder, pausing only twice in its otherwise slow yet deliberate movements.  Once, to remove the covering of the plaque set into the ladder, meant to be left behind to commemorate this moment.  And once more, just before finally stepping down onto the dusty surface.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The astronaut slowly lowered himself all the way down onto the surface, turning to begin exploring the surface of this distant sphere as the narration continued overhead.

“Though many have continued to debate this quote, both in its heard and scripted versions, the truth of its message is without question:  that this achievement, only made possible by the collaboration and cooperation of people of all walks of life, was a celebration of humanity at its greatest.  For with this single act, we proved that nothing could be beyond our reach, so long as we worked together for the betterment of all.

“And while it may have been the first, we truly hope that will not be our species’ last great first.”

Logan concluded his narration, closing the binder with the speech as he did so.  There was a pause, and then the classroom erupted in exuberant cheers.  As they continued to applaud, Patton came up between Logan and the desk, just as Virgil stepped out from behind the diorama to join Roman, who had since removed his helmet.  The four boys, two normal sized humans, and two tiny humanoids, bowed to their classmates as the teacher came forward, clapping his own hands in appreciation.

“Well done, boys,” Dr. Picani announced, continuing to applaud.  “A truly well planned and excellently designed presentation.  I know I still need to do a final scoring for your grade, but I don’t think any of us doubt that you will have earned a most excellent mark for this assignment.”

The four boys exchanged proud smiles, Patton going so far as to wrap Logan in a hug as Roman side armed Virgil and kissed his forehead, much to the smaller boy’s good-humored frustration.  Finally, they settled down enough to head back to their desks, Logan carrying the diorama and Patton following with their two tiny project partners held on his open palm.

“Now, considering how much time we have left in class, I believe we’ll stop there and pick up with the presentations tomorrow.  Feel free to talk amongst yourselves until the bell rings.”  With that, Dr. Picani returned to his desk to begin grading the written reports for that day’s batch of presentations, and the students all began to chat loudly as they packed up their bags for the final bell to release them to go home.

“You did so good on that, Lo-lo,” Patton squealed, giving his boyfriend another hug after setting Virgil and Roman down on the double desk the four of them shared.

Logan rolled his eyes at Patton’s embrace, but the blush on his cheeks betrayed how much he was actually enjoying it.  “Perhaps, but had you not helped me by providing some of the more...emotional phrasings, I do not feel my report would have had the same impact on our audience as it did.  And that’s not even mentioning the most exceptional work you did on the diorama.”

“Well, I had a little help on that from Virgil.  He really has quite the eye for detail.  I mean, just look at the amazing job he did with the space suit.”

Now it was Virgil’s turn to blush.  “It wasn’t anything special.  And it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t have the best actor in the school to play our astronaut.”

“What can I say?  I was inspired by your excellent design sense, My Chemically Imbalanced Romance.”  Roman bowed toward Virgil with a flourish, causing the other boy to snort and shake his head.  But the coy smiles the two were exchanging betrayed the real love behind the banter.

“In any case,” Logan injected, “I would be truly surprised if we failed to receive at least an A on this project.  And now that it is complete, we can focus on other matters.”

“Like what we’re doing this weekend!” Patton exclaimed.  “We are still on to go see the new Spider-Man movie, right?”

“As long as we’re going to the theater on Main Street,” Roman pointed out, working himself out of the suit with a little help from Virgil.  “On our last date night, Virgil and I went to one on Beta Avenue, and their tiny section was an absolute nightmare.  Bad sound, horrible view, and the snacks were stale at best.”

“I told you we shouldn’t have gone to an older theater,” Virgil chided him.  “It’s obvious they had to retrofit that section in, and they only did the minimum needed to comply with the anti-discrimination laws.”

“Why didn’t you report the situation to the management?” Logan asked.

“We did.  The owner didn’t even bother to try sounding sincere when he apologized for the conditions.  Stupid bigoted baby boomer.”

The thought of the generation that had fully embraced the idea of the “Pet Tiny”, to the detriment of the entire tiny race, spurred the group into silence as they packed up their supplies.

Soon enough, the bell rang to dismiss them for the day.  Around them, their classmates made their way out, with the humans heading for the door and the tinies boarding the in-school tram to head to their special locker area.  But Roman and Virgil made no attempt to catch the tram.  Instead, they each clambered onto one of their deskmate’s hands.  And with that, the four of them headed out.

With the buzz of excitement at the end of another school day, even if it was still just Thursday, Patton and Logan had a hard time keeping their hands steady enough for their companions to ride smoothly.  But they managed to keep them secure as they waded through the crowds of students clogging the hallways.  And soon enough, they were out the front door and heading for the parking lot.

Just before they reached Logan’s car, they heard someone calling for them from behind.  The pair turned, and the four of them waved and called out to their friend Thomas as he rushed to catch up, his hands full with his own pair of tiny friends.

“Hey, did the presentation go well?” he panted, trying to catch his breath.

“Indeed,” Logan replied.  “I believe it went over quite well.”

“We were fantastic,” Roman added.  “Especially me.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Virgil quipped, smirking at Roman’s indignant reaction.

“I just wish you could have seen it,” Patton pouted.  “It’s too bad you couldn’t have had the same history class with us this year.”

“Yeah, but you know they only give AP Chemistry first period, which means if I’m going to be in Theatre, my only other option’s last period.”

“Which makes so much sense,” muttered the beanie-wearing tiny in Thomas’ right hand.

“They do have a point,” the other tiny with the multicolored hair in his other hand added on.

“Well, at least you three are still together for that class,” Roman conceded.  “Virgil and I are really missing you in first period.”

“Yeah, the other techies have nothing on you two,” Virgil commented, causing Joan and Talyn to blush at the compliment.

“Well, we’ve got to get going,” Thomas interjected.  “We’ve still got to finish our own presentation on the Million Tiny March.”

“You’re not finished?” Logan queried, eyebrows quirked in obvious exasperation.  Thomas shrugged in embarrassment as Joan cackled and Talyn frowned over at their datemate.

Logan rubbed his eyes in frustration, but before he could start lecturing them about proper time management, Thomas suddenly blurted out, “Well, gotta go, great to see you all, see you tomorrow!”  And quick as a flash, he and his partners escaped to his car and were gone.

“Relax, Lo-lo,” Patton cooed, rubbing Logan’s back to calm him down.  “You know they’ll get it done in time.  They always do.”

Logan sighed, but nodded in resignation at Patton’s words and turned to unlock his car.  Once inside, Logan and Patton placed Virgil and Roman down on the dashboard next to the tiny seats Logan had had installed for them.  And with the four securely buckled in, they set off for home.

As they passed through the various separated and integrated neighborhoods.  The four couldn’t help thinking about the implications of their project’s message, especially in regards to their own personal experiences with prejudice and bigotry.  Thomas’ mentioning of the March had reminded them of their struggles.  Logan and Patton’s relationship hadn’t exactly been seen as a very positive thing when they’d come out to their parents, though the two couples had eventually come around.  And there had certainly been a few bullies who tried to drum up homophobia around the two, though to very little success.

But that was nothing compared to Roman and Virgil’s own experiences.  The Equal Rights for Tinies movement had only barely succeeded in getting its Equal Rights Act passed before the two of them were born.  Virgil had almost been born in captivity in the testing lab with his mother, his father having been killed months earlier at the National Mall Riots.  Roman’s own parents had only been free because their owners had been swayed to support the movement, and they had been released into a tiny relocation program.

But even now, almost two decades after the passage of the act, there was still so much bigotry toward tinies.  So many older people still saw them as lesser beings, and even those who accepted them into society still treated them as second class citizens.  It was just not fair.

“Do you think they’ll ever really accept us as equals?”

Roman’s question caught them all off guard, especially Roman, who hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud at first.  There was an awkward silence as he and Virgil exchanged worried, tired looks, and Patton opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of something to say.  Finally, Logan spoke up.

“I think they will.”

The other three turned to him.  He wasn’t smiling, but his neutral expression seemed to radiate a determined confidence in what he was saying.

“I believe that they will accept you as equals.  Perhaps not the older generations, though there are many examples of those who have embraced the idea of Equality.  But I believe that we the younger generations have.  And even if they might be in power now, they are inexorably the past, and we are the future.  And as far as I am concerned, that future looks pretty bright.”

Patton beamed at his boyfriend, and reached over to hold his hand, which Logan reciprocated with a small smile.  Roman and Virgil smiled at him before turning to each other to share a hopeful kiss.

“Thanks for that, Logan,” Roman called back after breaking the kiss, still staring lovingly into Virgil’s eyes as the other stared back.

Logan nodded in reply as the cabin lapsed back into silence.  But this time, it wasn’t brooding or tense, but filled with a hope for the future that no amount of bigotry could extinguish.