#but like…..Classic Hollywood monsters

[thelocalmoth]

MINOR BLOOD WARNING !

Vampire Jack :0

Eyyyy, I don’t think I’ve made anything with vamp Jack, so here he be. I have something along the lines of a monster au, so maybe I’ll play with that more as Halloween slowly comes into view, but for now I started simple with our favorite lyricist but with fangs and slightly redder eyes ;3c <33

[buck-yyyy]

anyways if you try to tell me that crimson peak is a bad horror movie, i'm just going to assume that you watched the movie wrong

[physalian]

What No one Tells You about Writing Fantasy, #2!

I did this list about 7 annoyances about fantasy, but I write in this genre for a reason! Fantasy knows no bounds, it can encompass all other genres within it. You can write a fantastical murder mystery, fantasy horror, fantasy romance, political drama, slice-of-life, comedy, whatever you’d like!

Whether it’s urban or high fantasy, supernatural or scientific, here’s seven great benefits of writing in this genre:

1. No modern means of communication

Unless you’re writing a world with phones or phone-adjacent devices. Phones and instant communication seriously inhibits the plausibility of dramatic irony and tension when you have to keep coming up with reasons to keep your characters from calling or texting each other everything they know. It’s exhausting, I tell you, and such a relief when phones aren’t a factor.

With that said, without phones, you have complete freedom to design your own magical channels of supernatural FaceTime, as weird and zany as you want. But without instant connections? Your character who knew too much can’t pass on the intel before they die. Your hero team can’t call for backup in their darkest hour. Otherwise easily preventable tragedies and deadly miscommunications are now very real.

2. The Monster Allegory

Fantasy and sci-fi tend to overlap more than they’re set apart, and in that overlap sits the monster allegory. Everything from werewolves to vampires to witches, reapers, demons, angels, goblins, trolls, wraiths, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, to Eldritch horrors and your classic Hollywood cast of mummies, creatures from the black lagoon, and Frankenstein.

Most of the time, the monsters aren’t just monsters, they represent a monstrous aspect of society the author wants to challenge and caricaturize in a fun and entertaining way. Or, the monsters are the good guys and the humans are the real terrors. Or, you’ve got two kinds of monsters to allegory two human sides. Sometimes they represent metaphorical demons, like vampires often representing addiction and werewolves repressed identities.

What all of this boils down to is the hyperbolic nature of science fantasy that allows you to go over-the-top with your metaphor and allegory in a way that a book grounded in reality just can’t.

3. Magic Systems!

Do you love world building? Do you love filling pages upon pages with your cool and unique set of superpowers you want your characters to have? Do you dream about your fight scenes and dramatic slow-mo shots?

Then Fantasy is for you!

There are zero limits to how you want to define your magic system. You can go classic with the familiar archetypes of elemental magic, wizards, sorcerers, and witches. Or you can step off the beaten path and design a whole new funky system of power sets. Best part? Your readers will have an awesome time imagining themselves with those powers, and debating endlessly about how it works.

4. Real-World Politics, who?

Amazon’s Rings of Power was twice-doomed when they only got the rights to adapt the appendices of The Silmarillion and when they decided to inject current political problems into a timeless story written purposefully to be divorced from those politics. You *can* write about human politics, but in fantasy, you don’t have to. You *can* interpret Lord of the Rings to be an allegory about the World Wars, but no matter how hard you argue, it wasn’t written with that intent.

Which means: Even if your story is set in the reality-adjacent fantasy version of 1543, you are free from the following: Racism, homophobia, sexism, religious bigotry, mental health bigotry, gender norms, anti-feminism, toxic masculinity, and more. “But that’s how it was-”

Nope. This is fantasy. You built this world, you decided to keep in the discrimination. Or… You can fill your fantasy world with a rainbow of gays, POCs in power, women in power, men unafraid to be compassionate and caring, a religion that doesn’t foster hate and division, the list goes on. You. Are. Free.

5. Nothing is too “unrealistic”

Both that you will always have people whining about how X would never happen so write the book you want to read, but also because fantasy is fake. Fairies aren’t real. Mermaids aren’t real. There are no rules for how they must be written and that’s how we have so much variety with so much room for interpretation by so many creators. Twilight made how much money writing about vampires that sparkle like diamonds in sunlight and crack like marble?

This is fantasy, it’s supposed to be unrealistic. Yes, your plot should make sense, but don’t be afraid to get weird. Write at least some of your story dependant on those fantasy elements. Write a story that can’t just be told in the real world minus the spectacle. Don’t be afraid to be sincerely fantastical and weird. People love weird. People love loving weird.

6. You are in complete control

But you do still need to research, unfortunately. Unless this is urban fantasy that depends at least a little on the human world, yours is completely your own to govern like a god tweezing weeds from their garden. You get to design your own geography and weather patterns and seasons. Your own countries and kingdoms and politicians. Your epic pre-canon fantasy war and the stakes that it was fought over. Your species, races, and ethnicities.

It’s a shame that a movie like Avatar (2009) set out to be this wholly unique take on aliens with music completely divorced from earthly bonds, new languages and a visually and culturally distinct alien species… and ended up a largely generic blue Pocahontas in space. It forgot that it was fantasy and didn’t go weird enough. They have horses, monkeys, wolves, rhinos, and deer just re-skinned with some extra limbs and colors. It’s pretty but it’s so, so shallow.

It could have become a cult classic like many a positively *weird* 80s off-beat fantasies, and now it just… exists. It makes a whole lot of money but its impact on the cultural zeitgeist is negligible. I’m the only person I know that can name every major character in the movie, and I’m no Avatar obsessor. They had complete creative control, and this is what they did with it. Don’t be Avatar. Take your creative freedom and run.

7. Even if it has been done before, do it again

You can say this about any genre, particularly romance, but fantasy and sci-fi, by the gatekeep-y nature of their fans, can be a lot less forgiving when it comes to claims of “unoriginality”. No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Fans of these genres can get… concerningly attached to their favorite stories (mostly because the people who like them had only their fictional heroes to protect them from very real bullies).

But Game of Thrones exists because the author likes Lord of the Rings and went “yes, but what if it was an R-rated parade of misery?” Dungeons and Dragons exists because people wanted to roleplay in an LotR-esque world. Legolas and Gimli single-handedly defined what a badass elf and dwarf looks like in high fantasy. And people still gobble up media ripping shamelessly, or even good-naturedly, from this one story.

So on my other list, I argued that the sum of your parts is still original, even if the components aren’t. On this list, I implore you this: It’s not stealing or appropriating to write another Legolas if you love Legolas. Everyone loves Legolas. How many generic buff action heroes do we have and love? How many Hallmark romances tread the same predictable path? Who gives a damn if it’s unoriginal? Just make it entertaining and have something fresh to say in the end (or don’t, that’s fine too), and people will read it.

And when people say “Oh, you mean like Legolas”, take it as a compliment, not an insult. Yes, exactly like Legolas. Here’s my new elf because I adore this other book, now watch him go on a new adventure that I wrote for him.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Heather Angel (The Informer, The Undying Monster)—no propaganda submitted

Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen)—This woman. I have been obsessed with her for years. I know the urban legend is a popular one at this point of her walking around set in her underwear when her pants were stolen and she was left with only a skirt, but the pants thing is honestly enough for her to be the hottest in the room in my book. She refused to wear anything else at a time when the public in general and especially the studios did not like that. She was independent, stubborn, and so so very capable. Competency kink anyone? Also, if you want one final way that Katharine's entire life was saying "fuck you" to the establishment, it started young! Her mother took her to suffrage events, and she never got rid of that attitude of justice. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of all the ways she was such a badass that I'm turning into a rambling mess instead.

This is round 1 of the bracket. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Heather Angel propaganda:

Katharine Hepburn propaganda:

I'm sure one million people will submit her as an iconic Hollywood star but that iconicness might lead people to forget just how insanely hot she was like she had it ALL she was skilled she was funny she was smart she was beautiful AND she was likely bisexual

The single word I would use to explain Katherine Hepburn's appeal is *range*. In her acting career, that meant covering all the ground between lush period dramas and the comedies she did with Carey Grant and Spencer Tracey. In terms of hotness, it meant an uncanny ability to bring anything from a Dietrich-esque androgyny to some of the best Classic Hollywood Glamour you will ever see.

Katharine hep was so cool. The VIBES, the INDEPENDENCE,,, living life on her own terms.

she just had this.... bearing to her, this power. she could be funny, even silly (like in bringing up baby) but also so regal and elegant. she was nobody's fool and dear GOD that's so hot

Fancam link

She’s not only stunningly gorgeous (those eyes that pierce your soul! a jawline you could cut glass with!) but her delivery and physical presence in roles gives off confidence and authority in such a sexy way (truly the biggest dick energy of Old Hollywood). Her fiery energy in The Philadelphia Story? Unmatched.

God she's. She's so hot y'all. She has the range!!!!! Funny and dramatic and lovely

She IS the transatlantic accent. Classically gorgeous and such a strong personality.

She's literally one of the funniest women to ever live! She goes shot for shot with Cary Grant in Philadelphia Story and we damn well love her for it! She's the most annoying creature to ever live in Bringing Up Baby but she's so insane and funny that we simply cannot help but fall in love with her (and root for her to give Grant an aneurysm!)

i know she's accounted for but i really want to be sure someone has submitted the scene in bringing up baby where she's pretending to be a gangster

She simply stuns onscreen; you cannot do anything but be captivated by her presence. Also a non-gender-conforming icon and mild tumblr celebrity by virtue of that one picture from The Warrior's Husband (stage play).

Katharine Hepburn was out here casually changing the lives of young butch lesbians with her gender swag! She wore pants even when people said she shouldn’t, she refused to marry or have kids, and she wore menswear in at LEAST one movie!

Someone's got to mention it, but she's won the most Oscars out of any performer and is largely considered one of the greatest actresses ever. She's got an incredible voice, an incredible presence, and she absolutely steals every scene she's in. She was private person and deemed standoffish and unapproachable, but she was also profoundly concerned for people's rights and was an outspoken supporter of abortion access. Finally, the Katharine Hepburn slacks look is just iconic. I mean look at her.

If I start thinking about her face for too long I will cry she is so so hot. Katherine is so charismatic and charming in everything she appears in - watch her adopt a leopard and fall in love with her. Also she has the biggest dick energy ever (she and her pal Lauren Bacall share that accolade). Also had an incredibly long and varied career from screw ball comedies to serious dramas - she’s a queen of the screen and I adore her.

(I hope someone else submits real propaganda but just in case they don't:) Cries. Screams. Wails. The woman who singlehandedly made me realize I was bi. A real "do i want to look like her. be her. or be with her.' crisis, where the answer was all three. Holy shit please all three.

[thatsbelievable]

I was probably the only kid in my first grade class who could tell you that Boris Karloff wasn’t his real name. From a very young age, I was drawn to Karloff and the monsters he portrayed in the classic Universal Monster movies. He, along with Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney (Sr. and Jr.), and so many more, made my childhood spooky fun. They helped inspire THE MONSTROUS ADVENTURES OF MUMMY MAN AND WAFFLES, the new middle-grade book written by me and illustrated by Robb Mommaerts.

This picture was taken at Boris Karloff’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—a mummy sharing my book with the original Mummy!

Hope you like the pic, and if you’re looking for a way to support me so I can keep doing That’s Believable and write more MUMMY MAN books, please check out the links below—or request MUMMY MAN from your local library.

Thank you very much!

Get MUMMY MAN here!

Get a signed copy from Books of Wonder here!

[see-arcane]

Friends, bookworms, bitter lovers of classic literature’s greatest and most greatly cheated horrors, I have a request to make of you:

Send me the absolute worst film and TV series you know of when it comes to adapting—read: ruining, rewriting, and/or bastardizing beyond the point of recognition—the books of classic horror we know and love.

Give me your fanfictions of a fanfiction-level headaches. Your reincarnated wife plots. Your no-homo’d friends and/or siblings. Your heroes made into sudden assholes, your grating girlbosses full of contemporary wink-at-the-camera edginess, your dull damsels sanded down into corseted props, your monsters alternately stripped of their proper menace or their intelligence in order to fit the Universal Classics mold.

Give me the worst of your slop.

Plague me with your anti-recommendations in their dozens and hundreds.

Why do I make this request? So I can form a list. Ideally with cited sources, though I think we’re all aware that the easiest way to form said list is to just link to Wikipedia. I am at a loss for any known work that faithfully does right by our dusty old monsters and their foes.*

*Incidentally, if anyone has anything they would sincerely recommend to take the edge off, pass those my way too with your review. No need to suggest the Substacks or @re-dracula. They are my sole refuge as-is.

The reason for the list is that I would like to have it as reference material for what I hope can be a decently public-facing open letter to Hollywood as a plea, a curse, and a general shaming for the industry that has refused to actually read, comprehend, and acknowledge the books they continue to harvest for content without ever doing right by the stories, casts, or themes. Their notion of ‘adaptation’ has dissolved entirely into a game of Telephone with the last half a dozen filmmakers who barely skimmed, let alone liked, the books in question.

That said, I have some specific books in mind already, starting with Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray. You know why. But others on the roster include Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Carmilla, and The Phantom of the Opera. Let me have the worst of the worst of their movie and television counterparts; that goes double for the ones that have made you full-body cringe at their popularity.*

*It goes without saying that Francis’ fanfiction is at the top of the list. No need to rub more salt in that wound.

My inbox is ready for your worst, friends. Hand over the bile.

[sorchathered]

Can’t fight this feeling

A/N- well what started as a long forgotten blurb morphed into a full blown one shot in less than an hour, you guys seemed to love it so hopefully I do the rest of the story justice!

Pairing- Robert “Bob” Floyd x reader

Warnings- language, drinking.

“Damnit Rooster!!” You shriek as you slam your hand over his idiot mouth and the 6’1” monster of a man has the audacity to giggle. Giggle!

Ok, ok so maybe the two of you had gone a little too hard at the bar tonight, celebrating a super stressful mission ending, and maybe just maybe you had opened your mouth and let your best friend in on your big secret all but shouting at him to keep his mouth shut knowing full well he wasn’t capable of it.

You were disgustingly, overwhelmingly in love with one of your fellow lieutenants, and you had just blurted it out in the middle of the Hard Deck to the one person you KNOW can’t keep a secret.

Moving your hand and whispering close to your ear “Ok! I hear you bubs I just… Bob fucking Floyd? You’re telling me you’ve been harboring an 80s teen movie level crush for Baby Bob Floyd?!”

Just when the moment couldn’t be more awkward, you looked up and there he was. Bright blue eyes wide and mouth gaping. He definitely heard.

You were so fucking screwed.

To say you were embarrassed was an understatement, not only had you let Rooster blab about your big secret, you’d also turned tail and ran, dodging a flabbergasted Bob as you successfully made it to your car and home, shutting off your phone and then leaving it on do not disturb for the rest of the weekend. Was it childish? Oh absolutely, but you’d never really been good with feelings like this, your last serious boyfriend had been in college and you weren’t a one night stand kind of girl. So when you got stationed with your best friend from all the way back to basic training and then promptly introduced to the squad he flew with you were shocked at the butterflies that threatened to explode in your chest the moment you laid eyes on Robert Floyd. He was beautiful, bright blue eyes and a smile that lit up his entire countenance, classically handsome in that old Hollywood sort of way, but that wasn’t what kept you pining months later, it was his heart that drew you in. He was incredibly kind, always up to help any of his friends or even a stranger, he had a dry sarcastic wit that kept you in stitches, come on! who could possibly spend time with him and not fall for him? Certainly not you, everything about him drew you in and made it almost impossible to not get flustered, how he hadn’t noticed already was truly remarkable.

When Monday morning came and Rooster knocked on your door to pick you up you groaned at the thought that you might have to interact with Bob. You weren’t an aviator, the ability to avoid him across the flight line in the control tower was a welcome distraction, but you knew inevitably you’d run into him. Bradley had been apologizing all morning, he knew you liked to keep things close to the chest but he also knew that keeping everything bottled up was never good for anyone, so when he made his way into the classroom that morning he let it slip to Bob that you were holed up in your office.

He bounded down the hall to your office a little faster than he should have, skidding to a stop at your door as he tried to calm his breathing. He’d had all weekend to mull it over, too much time really when he knew exactly what he wanted to say to you and had for months. Honestly he’d been head over heels as long as you had, but he’d convinced himself that you were out of his league; too pretty, too popular for a quiet wallflower like him. When Rooster had loudly declared you had feelings too it had been like all the air left the room, he couldn’t gather his thoughts fast enough before he knew it you had already left, and when he’d called it had gone to voicemail. Natasha suggested to give it a few days which had been nearly impossible, but now standing at the door to your office he couldn’t bring himself to knock. He didn’t have a boom box blasting at your window, or some big dance number as a grand gesture to express his feelings like they showed in the movies but he knew what he wanted and that was you. Luckily, as if you’d sensed his presence the door swung open, shock crossing your face as you nearly stepped backwards to hide again, but that wouldn’t do; so he did the most logical thing he could think of and closed the gap, pulling you by the waist to press against him. It was out of character to be sure, but in his line of work life was too short and he’d wasted months of time getting to this point.

“I-ah Bob. Hi. Um I’m so sorry about Friday night”

He ran his thumb across your jawline and watched as your eyes widened and pupils dilated, you were flustered and it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. “I feel the same way you know” he said as he continued to stroke your jaw and you melted into his embrace, surging forward to press your lips to his. It didn’t need to be like the movies, it just needed to be him.

Later that week you were again surprised by Robert visiting your office, only this time he had a to go box from your favorite lunch spot in his hands, sadly it was eaten cold and in a rush as you spent the hour wrapped up in your new boyfriend instead.

Tagging people who were interested/might be-

@attapullman @bobgasm @floydsglasses @roosterforme @nerdgirljen @sweetwhispersofchaos @topnerd03

[aquaticlime]

MET GALA THEMES

I tried to come up with good names for these but some were just too hard. Go ahead and use any of these for your DR, I’d love to see what you do with these ideas as well. I’ll probably make another post detailing which of these I’ve scripted into my Dr to attend and what I wear so stay tuned.

The Lost City of Atlantis

I think this would be so cool! Some people would draw from the Disney movie I’m sure, but imagine everyone’s interpretation of the classic myth.

The Animal Kingdom

A Night of Beastly Beauty. For this I would like to see good use of ethically sourced furs and animal prints. Someone’s gotta be a dinosaur, like please pick unique animals. However if I see someone like Jared Leto dressed in a mascot or furry costume I’m done.

The Dark Side of the Grimm

A Night of Grim Fairy-Tale Villains in Couture. Time for the villains of fairytales to shine. I hope some people would dress as the hero’s if they were turned evil.

The Seven Deadly Sins

This one is the perfect amount of specificity while still being broad enough to let peoples creativity shine through. Inevitably some men are still going to come in a plain black suit but what can you do.

A Night at the Museum

A Timeless Journey Through Fashion and Art. How cool would it be if someone came inspired by Starry night or Monets garden. So many art pieces to choose. There are other types of museums and art to like sculptures or someone could dress like a wax figure. Personally I would like to see the Winged Victory or the Caryatid statues.

Jungle Fever

Another one that deals with animals a bit. Again people better get creative and pick some unique animals. I wanna see a someone (bonus points if it’s a woman) do a Tarzan inspired look though.

Desert Oasis

I don’t know with this one. I guess someone could do an Aladdin look, we already had Tyla do her sands of time dress so I don’t know what else you could do for this one.

Down the Rabbit Hole

A Wonderland Fantasy of Fashion. I just love Alice in wonderland. I would love to see everyone’s outfits. There is so much you could do with this! Zendaya and Lady Gaga would have to be in attendance at this one.

The Literary-Inspired Gala

From Pages to Runway. Another good broad one. It woukd be cool to see everyone’s favorite books, some fairytales some sci fi and maybe even Harry Potter. I could see someone doing a literal book outfit too.

The Neon Nights

Nobody uses bright fun colors anymore, imagine all the black lights and fun glow in the dark paint you could use. Maybe the carpet would be from a bowling alley or mini golf course.

A Carnival of Curiosities

How cool would a carnival or circus Met Gala be!? This is another good one to bring out peoples creativity. Some fun clown inspired looks and the boring people can be a ring leader.

Space Travelers

Galactic Fashion! None of these looks are going to make sense. I have a feeling Doja Cat would be either pretty good for this or just paint herself snot green.

The Wild West

A Night of Cowgirl Chic and Frontier Flair. Pretty self explanatory and quite broad. Someone’s coming as a cactus for sure, and some couple is gonna do Bonnie and Clyde.

The Great Gatsby

Roaring Twenties themed or it could be based off the book as well. People would have to get pretty creative with this one in order to stand out. Give me a man in a flapper inspired outfit.

The Magic of Hollywood

A Tribute to Cinematic Glitz and Glam! Simple enough, you could take inspiration from directors or film companies. Imagine someone going a the Twentieth Century Fox logo or a red carpet.

Creature Feature

Classic Horror film themed! I’m talking Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Nosferatu. I would go as one of the monsters and have my date be the female protagonist of the story.

Terror Awakens

This one is horror themed as well but much broader than classic horror films. You could do books, any movies or simple scary concepts. Please don’t do anything about modern day murderers, I just don’t think that’s tasteful.

˗ˏˋReturn to masterlist ✦ main masterlist´ˎ˗

[pagannatural]

2.18 Hollywood Babylon

- Sam walks so closely next to and slightly behind Dean that they are often touching, and then touches his arm as if to get his attention or emphasize a point (even though he’s already walking so closely behind him that they are touching. They would be farther apart if they just held hands).

Dean pointed out that he thought Sam may want to take a break after what happened with Madison, and Sam said working helps keep his mind off of things. By “working” he means “following Dean around and touching him and watching him and getting his attention.” He’s being very clingy and little brother.

- Dean likes being a PA because he likes to feel like he’s a part of something. He likes feeling useful. He’s also just very smart and I think learning something new is fun for him. He learns within a matter of hours how to be good at a job that can’t be easy, even learning about acting techniques. He quickly understands the relationships between the cast and crew members and is clearly in their confidences. He even uses his real feelings of admiration and nervousness to get information out of the actress witness. This is the same man afraid of losing his humanity, the same man who fears all he’s really suited for is killing, acting as a weapon.

Sam notices Dean fitting so seamlessly into this role with surprise and some confusion. He wants Dean to stop acting like his PA job is real and just focus on the case. It’s funny how Dean gets so much shit on this website for taking Sam away from his life and his friends and anyone outside of the two of them in the Impala, but Sam does the exact same thing. They both struggle with the isolation of their lifestyle.

- Dean loves horror movies and uses his knowledge of movies and horror lore throughout the episode. He’s such a nerd. His image of his father probably came in large part from the heroes of these movies, and in them he can still find what made monster-hunting so fun—because it is, also, fun for these two. Not all the time, but it’s what they want to be doing. Dean wants to hunt bad guys and be a part of something intriguing and badass and dangerous. He wants to feel like his actions matter, and he wants to help people.

- Sam doesn’t really even appear to have a fake PA job, but everyone thinks he’s cool because Dean is cool. This dynamic must have recurred throughout their childhood.

-Sam is visibly upset to see Dean emerge from the actress’s trailer

- Earlier this season Sam was still slightly amused by Dean’s promiscuity. Now he just seems like he’s not even trying to hide his jealousy or hurt feelings. I think he’s slowly been getting more and more possessive of Dean, because Dean still isn’t giving Sam the kind of love that he really needs and wants, and his need for Dean is only growing.

-Sam and Dean exit the episode walking off into the sunset together in the rain. Classic romance.

[positivexcellence]

Is there garlic on this pizza? An oral history of Supernatural's 'Monster Movie' episode

THE BEGINNING

What started as a simple enough idea — a black-and-white episode — was then put into the hands of writer Ben Edlund, who’d already crafted some of the show’s more creative hours, including “Hollywood Babylon,” which marked one of the series’ first meta episodes, and “Ghostfacers,” which was shot like a cheesy ghost-hunting reality show using handheld cameras. Alongside Edlund was director Robert Singer, an executive producer on the series and a massive movie fan himself.

ERIC KRIPKE (Creator): I was an obsessive fan of The X-Files and in their prime, they got really bold and adventurous with their format, and they had a black-and-white episode. I was always hoping that we could start taking those same kinds of swings. I remember saying, “I want to do a black-and-white episode where Sam and Dean are up against the classic movie monsters.” But I think Ben came up with the shapeshifter. We were trying to figure out: How do you get a mummy and a werewolf and a Frankenstein and a Dracula in the same episode? That makes no f---ing sense. So this idea of a shapeshifter who loved those movies and was ultimately just a fanboy was the secret to cracking that one open. 

ROBERT SINGER (Director): I think that script was Ben at his best. I was really happy that I was in line to direct because I really loved those old movies, so it was fortuitous that I got to do it. 

JENSEN ACKLES (Dean Winchester): It’s all just paying homage to the old-school ways of doing things, which having Bob at the helm, he’s seen all those movies time and time again, so he was the perfect guy to direct this episode. 

KRIPKE: Bob has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies, especially older films. He’s a classicist and his directing style is a lot of that kind of beautiful, elegant Hollywood style, and I think he just really relished it.

SINGER: I shot generally with wider lenses than I would normally do with Supernatural to try to give it some of that old-time feel. I really took pains to make it look as old fashioned as I possibly could. I’m a big fan of James Whale, who had done Frankenstein, and there are a lot of great crane shots in those movies, so I did a lot of crane work in this. We did a lot of shadow play. 

JARED PADALECKI (Sam Winchester): You put Ben Edlund on writing and Bob Singer on directing and magic is bound to happen.

But there was another piece of the puzzle that needed to come together for the magic to truly work: Who would play the shapeshifter (and therefore spend the episode doing their best Dracula)? The answer was Todd Stashwick.

TODD STASHWICK (Dracula): They wanted a full-on replication of Bela Lugosi’s performance. I had the DVD of the 1930’s Dracula, so I was watching that just to get the mannerisms and vocal intonation down so that I wasn’t doing a Xerox carbon copy but rather actually trying to get that Hungarian dialect that he has. I went in [to the audition] and just swung for the rafters.

SINGER: We had him do one of the Dracula scenes and then do the speech where he’s telling her how he became the way he became and Todd just killed it. That was an easy call to cast him.

STASHWICK: They wanted to know that you were going to be able to bring both sides to it, the full-on studied Dracula performance and then to let that mask drop and see the wounded man that is the monster. 

KRIPKE: We needed someone who could stick the landing on the Dracula part and that’s really hard. It’s hard to do it and have it not come off like a bit. Todd is a remarkable mimic of Bela Lugosi and brings humanity and soulfulness and depth to it. There’s something in his eyes that made it deeper and sadder than had you cast someone who was just going for an impersonation.

PADALECKI: That episode belongs to Todd Stashwick. He’s so damn good. 

Alongside Stashwick was Melinda Sward, whose character Jamie, a local waitress, caught Dean's eye and marked a first for the show. 

KRIPKE: At the time, there was a young female fan named Jamie. She and her mother would write us letters and they were super fans, and we were still early enough that we’re like, “I can’t believe there’s fans.” Jamie had medical issues, so when the season was coming up, I wrote her a response and said, “If you concentrate on getting better, we’ll name a character after you.” And she responded and said, “That’s amazing, but can you just do me a favor? Can you make sure it’s a character that doesn’t die?” So the female lead in this one we named Jamie. That was one of the only times we ever named a character after a real person and a fan. The happy ending is she was thrilled and she grew up healthy and now tours around with a replica of the Impala. 

ACKLES: Jamie was one of my favorite Dean Girls. Melinda was so good and so fun.

From the instant the episode began, fans knew they were in for something special as the old black-and-white WB logo kicked off a very old-school credits sequence.

SINGER: Right from the opening of the Warner Brothers shield, you know where you’re going. It set the tone perfectly.

KRIPKE: That and “Changing Channels” are the only two episodes where I’ll sit down and just watch the credit sequence. The font, the way you list every crew member, and it just goes on forever. And [composer Christopher] Lennertz wrote real orchestral music for it. I just love the opening of that episode and the way we did that title sequence. But changing subjects, what that reminds me of is the singular genius of Ben Edlund to set this episode during Oktoberfest. Suddenly everyone looks like European villagers and everything becomes a real monster movie.

SINGER: And that location was a party site, but it worked perfect for us. 

PADALECKI: It was like an amusement park in the outskirts of Vancouver that we rented out. It ended up unfortunately getting torn down and turned into condos or something.

THE MIDDLE

With the setting and the cast locked, the brothers set out on their hunt, arriving at Oktoberfest to help solve a murder. And when the investigation made Dean late to his first date with Jamie, he found himself face-to-face with Dracula. So naturally, Dean punched the shapeshifter in the face. A fight ensued, one that ended with Dean holding an ear and Dracula ... riding a vespa?

ACKLES: I believe one of the many reasons this show lasted as long as it did is because it can be scary but then at the same time, you throw something like the scooter in and it layers in comedy with horror, with drama, with romance. It touches it all. Bob said it early on and it became a mantra of ours: “No joke is too cheap.” 

STASHWICK: That’s the infamous assault scene. I’m in full crazy mode and I’m supposed to clock Jensen in his beautiful face with my elbow, and for whatever reason in that moment — I perhaps leaned in, he perhaps leaned in — we closed that gap and I clocked him. So what you see on the DVD extras is me being all Dracula and then me being mortified that I just hit their billion dollar baby in the face.

ACKLES: He caught me with an elbow but he probably thought he hit me harder than he did. It was a mix between a good shot and a graze, but he immediately broke character. He was like, “Are you good?” And I was like, “Yeah, that one woke me up.” [Laughs]

Dean made it through that fight, but the shapeshifter had already planned its next move: While Sam checked out an eccentric local that they thought was the killer, Dean and Jamie shared a drink back at the bar where she worked. Her friend Lucy (Holly Elissa) then showed up just in time to spike their drinks. By the time Dean woke up, he was wearing Lederhosen while strapped to a table in a dungeon.

SINGER: Jensen was like, “Oh god do I have to wear this?” So to make him feel better, I put on the Lederhosen top. I didn’t go with the full shorts but I did direct that day in the Lederhosen top to take the edge off it a little bit for him.

ACKLES: I remember that! He directed in that shirt. [Laughs] Those were authentic leather Lederhosen from Bavaria. Only the best for Dean.

PADALECKI: When Jensen’s first getting strapped to the table, cause he’s a big guy, I remember them talking about how for the visual's sake, they wanted it to be like he’s a quote-unquote damsel in distress, so if they used a normal-sized platform, it would’ve looked comical, but not in a good way. So they had to make it a little bigger cause he’s kind of big.

Dean wasn’t in the dungeon long before Dracula left him to go answer the doorbell. It seemed the shapeshifter ordered a pizza … and he had a coupon.

KRIPKE: I just love how there’s the monster lab in the basement but then you go upstairs and it’s this mid-century ranch house. That’s almost a direct ripoff of the Steve Martin movie The Man with Two Brains.

SINGER: [Set designer] Jerry [Wanek] did a great job in building the dungeon set, and then when the doorbell rings, you realize it’s in the bottom of a suburban house with a pizza guy showing up at the door. 

KRIPKE: When Ben wrote the script, we talked about that scene more than any other scene in the episode. We were so specific about how we wanted the Dracula shapeshifter to react to the pizza guy and the way he’s scared when he says, “Is there garlic on the pizza?” And then the way the pizza guy’s so bored and over it: “Did you order garlic?” And then he says, “No!” It’s the way that he’s so bored of this Dracula at the door.

PADALECKI: I think Jensen and I must’ve watched this episode together in 2008 because I remember us looking at each other and going like, ”Oh my god, [the pizza guy] is way better than he needs to be!”

ACKLES: That line, because of the way that Todd delivered it, we used that line on set many, many times. Whenever somebody asked a question that had an obvious “no” to it, it’d be like, “Hey, did you want the big light on in the distance?” And Bob would be like, “Is there garlic on it?” So that became a little ism on set.

STASHWICK: I’m a Second City guy, so “yes, and” is drilled into my head and yet the two memes I’m most known for, I’m saying the word “no,” and that is Supernatural and Star Trek. I have the no's that are heard around the world. 

In the end, the brothers came out victorious and another monster was dead, but not before this one made you feel a little something (and gave one heck of a final monologue quoting King Kong). 

KRIPKE: Ben gets all the credit, and rightfully so, for writing the crazy episodes, but where I don’t think he gets enough credit is what a disciplined screenwriter he is in terms of character consistency and rule consistency and just the emotion and pathos he brings to every single story he does. No matter how crazy, he always has such a talent for capturing humanity. I wasn’t counting on the shapeshifter to have pathos but when he gives that speech at the end, it’s so sad. I give him all the credit in the world for that.

SINGER: Eric used to say, “Every villain is a hero of his own story,” so we always tried, as best we could, to give the villains something to do and learn more about them and give them full characters. So even with all this fun, we managed to give him something a little more to do. 

PADALECKI: He becomes an almost sympathetic character — I stress almost because he did kill a couple people — but what a great character arc all inside of one episode.

STASHWICK: Because this character wasn’t just a cartoon Dracula and he had that human moment, I think it made him stick in people’s minds more. This monster just really loved the movies. He was the ultimate cosplayer. It might be the thing I’m most known for outside of Star Trek, that one episode of TV.

THE END...?

Although Dracula didn’t make it out alive, the episode seemed to breathe new life into the series, marking perhaps its biggest risk yet, though not the biggest risk the show would ever take. 

SINGER: It kind of laid a template for other big swings that we took that were out of the ordinary, whether it was “Changing Channels” or “The French Mistake.” This was the first of our big swings of being totally different than what the show was generally week to week.

KRIPKE: I remember it getting a positive reception. I think people appreciated the swings we were starting to take. I just love that this small little supernatural show that’s arguably a Buffy ripoff on The CW got so experimental. I am really proud that we were doing legit avant-garde stuff, really experimental filmmaking, of which this was one, and then we just kept pushing it. 

PADALECKI: It’s such a great episode of television and I think we have a few in our 15 years that could stand alone as something fun to watch and out of the box, and it's certainly easy to argue "Monster Movie" is at the top.

ACKLES: This was really when we were hitting our stride. We were in the pocket with these characters, with the storytelling, with the writing. The first year was really finding our feet, the second was like, "Okay we somehow survived a network merge, let’s not mess this up." And then third season we started playing a little bit. So by the fourth season, we’re like, "Now we know where we need to be." This was the perfect time to do one of these outside-the-box episodes. This is definitely one of my top 10.

SINGER: I directed 48 episodes and if somebody asked me which is my favorite, I would probably say this one. I just had the best time doing it. 

Entertainment Weekly

[tallybearofnurgle]

Fantasy Casting the Active Primarchs

Brad Pitt as Roboute Guilleman

Bear with me here—Dark Imperium describes the reawakened Guilleman as a classically handsome blond man who is showing his age (Rob's a few hundred thousand years old after all) while still looking like a statue of perfection. So yeah, pretty much Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Liam Cunningham as Lion El-Jonson

Cunningham is only two years older than Pitt, but people age differently(to the Lion's frustration). Beyond his stately looks, Cunningham can bring exactly the vibe of the tired knight whose righteous fury has been quieted by the years.

Richard Brake as Mortarion

First of all yes, this is me casting my favorite character actor as the Primarch of my own faction. But with his sunken looks, bright eyes, and ability to go from sympathetic to terrifying at no notice, Brake will make a fantastic pale king.

Dave Bautista as Magnus the Red

Magnus is a huge muscular guy, but then you realize his whole thing is being a total nerd: a book-loving D&D wizard who never stops thinking about the Warp. Bautista is the perfect actor for that dichotomy.

Derek Mears as Angron

You could say that any great big guy could play a berserker monster like Angron, but Mears is a a great big guy who's particularly great at playing monsters. And Angron's had a rough go of it, so he should have the best.

Tilda Swinton as Fulgrim

Even setting aside the inevitable Slaaneshi androgyny, the serpentine Fulgrim should present a different archetype of strength from his brothers, and a hissing, slithering Swinton is just the level of weirdness required.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Hey I know you’ve probably said or before. But what’re some of the playable Supernatural folk in ANIM.

Firstly, just to be clear, A.N.I.M. is the design team, while Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the TTRPG currently in its final week of crowdfunding (ends 2:00 PM CST on Friday May 10th)

As for the supernatural folk, even though most PCs in Eureka end up being mundane, there’s quite a lot of options for supernatural characters, which we have talked about before, but we never miss a chance to talk about them again!

This will be a brief overview that will barely even scratch the surface of the depth and nuance we’ve written in to most of these abilities. If you’re interested in learning more, why don’t you just download the fully playable, free prerelease version of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook available on our website and our itch.io page, and go to Chapter 8!

There are ten of what we call “Mage traits.” A “mage” in Eureka is something you could think of as kind of like an X-man. They are otherwise normal people except for one single inexplicable power. Some of these include pyrokinesis, telekinesis, lightning powers, supernatural speed, supernatural beauty, and even the option to play a “psychic detective” who can receive clairvoyant revelations based on clues.

These powers tend to come with few if any downsides, besides the fact that the character can only have at-most one of them. There is also a slight investigation point penalty.

Then, there’s the playable monsters, of which there are five, each of which is fleshed out to the point that they are entirely unique gameplay experiences.

First up is the vampire.

Playing a vampire is a unique challenge because of their rather large list of weaknesses they must contend with in everyday life. The sun, while not instantly lethal like in Hollywood vampire movies, does strip them of all their powers, and they must contend with a compulsion to count large numbers of small objects, an unwillingness to enter private residences uninvited, difficulty crossing bodies of running water, an aversion to garlic, and more! They must of course also drink human blood to keep their Composure up, as they do not gain Composure from eating or sleeping.

These weaknesses are more than made up for by incredible stealth, combat, and mobility options. They can move nearly silently, travel through shadows as if by teleportation, are superhumanly strong, nearly unkillable, can walk effortlessly on sheer surfaces and ceilings, and can “remanifest” into a variety of forms, such as the classic bat, a wolf, an enormous monstrous bat form, and even mist! There’s also a religious angle with them but that is too complicated to get into with just a brief overview.

Next up, the wolfman.

The wolfman is like a Hollywood werewolf. They can transform from a mundane human to an anthropomorphic wolf(however you choose to interpret that) or a very large regular wolf. In either wolf form, they can only be permanently killed by decapitation or by silver weaponry.

My favorite thing about them is the fact that they transform involuntarily on the night of the full moon, or when they hit 0 Composure. In this state, they will rampage uncontrollably, attempting to devour just about anything that moves for a period of time. The fact that it can come out at the worst of times is so awesome it makes me super excited to hear about in future sessions.

Then there is the witch.

The witch is actually a regular human and has no supernatural weaknesses except for the fact that their powerful witchcraft takes more of a toll on their body than the supernatural powers of other playable monsters.

The first thing a witch can do is place a variety of terrible curses on people, a few examples of which include turning them to stone, putting them in a supernatural slumber, or turning them into animals.

The other thing witches can do is cycle throughout all the different Mage traits. They can only have one at a time, but if a Mage trait exists in the rulebook, they can have that trait when they need it, which basically represents their ability to cast a wide variety of different spells in addition to those curses.

My actual favorite thing about the witch though is their ability to enchant certain objects to make them fly, which is not limited to just broomsticks, although broomsticks are of course a classic.

Then there is the fairy.

The fairy was a tough one to translate into Eureka because of the sheer number of different things attributed to fairies in historical folklore. We had to come up with a sort of “generic fairy” that gets the gist of fairies across while leaving room for a player to get way more specific if they are so inclined.

The fairy shares the witch’s ability to place curses on people and cast a variety of different spells, but also can take pieces of people’s identity, such as their names, and/or spirit them away to the fairy world, from which they may never return.

This is offset by the fact that they cannot lie, as well as a few other folkloric fairy weaknesses.

Finally, one of the fan favorites, the thing from beyond.

(Fanart by @umbraldame)

The thing from beyond is kinda like if you wanted to play as something inspired by The Blob and The Thing.

Imagine a color-changing “blanket” of flesh and teeth that can fold itself up into the shape of a human, change colors to mimic the right colors including clothing, and mimic human speech. It wants to be your friend, and eat you, which, to it are not mutually exclusive.

The thing from beyond can do anything a thin blanket of flesh could do when unfolded, such as squeeze under doors or camouflage themselves against surfaces, and also fold themselves up to mimic just about anything, including specific humans. They tend to have a default human persona, but can get very specific with their mimicry if they want, which gets easier the more of that specific person they have ingested. A small sample of blood or hair could give a bonus, but eating the entire person makes mimicking them effortless.

Eating a person also allows them to absorb bits of their memories, which means they can get to know bits of what their meal knows, which is represented in mechanics by them getting bonus investigation points for the duration that they are digesting their latest victim. If the victim knew anything about the current case they are investigating, that means even more investigation points.

Here’s a fan comic about that, if you’d like to see it in action.

And here’s a post about the themes of monstrousness in Eureka if you’re interested.

You can play as all of these things and more in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, which is in its final week of kickstarting right now! Crowdfunding closes at 2:00 PM CST on Friday May 10th, so lock in your copy now while you still can!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[actually-a-fish]

the best supernatural episodes

according to an autistic person with a special interest and the ability to make a list.

if youre really serious about supernatural spoilers then maybe stay away :)

None of the season one episodes made in on the list but I will give an honorable mention to S1 E2 Wendigo.

S2 E11 Playthings - A classic, creepy girls in a creepy hotel. Special call out to Sam getting SLOPPY

S2 E16 Roadkill - There's a ghost haunting the highway. the Boys help the spirit move on. This is an early example of monster empathy

S2 E18 Hollywood Babylon - Dean loves hollywood. I love dean. this episode makes me kick my feet like a little girl and i will not defend myself.

S2 EP 20 What Was Shall Never Be - all I have in my notes for this one is "Dean Djinn Dream" which was enough for me to remember the episode and get misty eyes. This is SEASON 2 my son will never know peace.

S3 E5 Bedtime Stories -I had to check the wiki on this one, I think i liked it cause it referenced classic fairytales

S3 Ep11 Mystery Spot - "HEAT OF THE MOMENT" RISE AND SHINE SAMMY!

S3 E13 Ghostfacers! - Im a Facer through and through

S3 E16 No Rest for the Wicked - S3 finale and the Boys are facing consequences! Classic Dean, Sam and Bobby episode.

S4 E1 Lazerus Rising - First Cas Episode. That handprint makes me feel things.

S4 E6 Yellow Fever - What if Dean had anxiety (The Eye of the Tiger blooper is also at the end of the episode which gives it bonus points.

S4 E17 Wishful Thinking - Make a wish? was it for your teddy bear to be diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder? Well thats what youre getting!

S4 E17 It's a Terrible Life - Sam ~ the sales rep. Dean ~ middle management.

S4 E18 The Monster at the End of the Book - There are books about Sam and Dean?! Written by this guy who loves self insert character? Surely the entire show isn't about to take a tone shift?

S5 E3 Free to be You and Me - Sam and Dean are fighting again, but this time Dean has a new heavenly boy toy to play with instead. (Cas has no rizz yet it's actually a little painful to watch)

S5 E5 Fallen Idol - Okay the Wax People episode is on here for one reason and one reason only. Paris Hilton.

S5 E7 The Curious Case of Dean Winchester - Old man Dean and old man Bobby. This is also the episode for HH Husk kinnies.

S5 E8 Changing Channels - Dr Sexy MD is that you?!

S5 E9 The Real Ghostbuster - *in a grizzly voice* "I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam. Have you experienced anything strange?" "Dude that was so good! Now we can go solve the puzzle" "Man you're breaking the immersion!"

S5 E10 Abandon All Hope - This is here for Crowley's first appearance and not because the end will make you cry.

S5 E12 Swap Meat - "uh... its Audi Nos". Freaky Friday starring Sam Winchester! An angsty teen and April Kepner from Grey/Sloan Memorial Hospital.

S5 E16 Dark Side of the Moon - The Boys lives flash before their eyes. Dean is pissed forever about Sams.

S5 E19 Hammer of the Gods - this is for all my pagans out there!

S6 E4 A Weekend at Bobby's - What do you think this episodes about idjit.

S6 E15 The French Mistake -  “For whatever reason, our life is a TV show.” “Why?” “I don't know.” “No, seriously. Why? Why would anybody want to watch our lives?” 

S7 E4 Defending your Life - consequences? for fucking people over? how about you stand trial.

S7 E20 The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo - The self insert character made for us :) Luv u 4ever Charlie XD

S8 E4 Bitten - found footage will always scare. this one reminds me that this show started as a psuedo horror.

S8 E8 hunteri heroci - Cas tries his hand at being a hunter

S8 E12 As Time Goes By - FINALLY THEY ARE CARVING TRAPS INTO BULLETS

S8 E17 Goodbye Stranger - verbatim here are my notes for this episode "Cas chooses Dean, but the way he handles Meg... Fuck Naomi"

S8 E18 Clip Show - If you only want to watch just one episode of Supernatural this should be it. It's not actually a clip show, theres a broment, bonding time with favorite characters and crazy plots that only supernatural could get away with.

S9 E5 Dog Dean Afternoon - Dean is finally a dog person

S9 E11 First Born - Another bro fight leads to shipping <3 SamxCas + DeanxCrowley <3

S9 E15 #thinman - the slender episode feat. GHOSTFACERS. You come away from this episode thinking "supernatural is so fucking gay why wont the boys kiss"

S9 E21 King of the Damned - my favorite crowley era change my mind. Also the way the Boys interrogate an angel is so funny

S10 E5 Fan Fiction - I would unironically fuck w a supernatural musical and if helluva/hazbin taught me anything the rest of you would too

S10 E6 Ask Jeeves - The Clue episode. (Pay attention to the improvised weapons Dean chooses. It brings me joy)

S10 E9 The Things we Left Behind - Cas is suffering a midlife crisis and his besties are there to help him repair his relationship with his daughter. Funnily enough, Crowley is also getting some family bonding in.

Okay, I'm all caught up on my list. Should I have stayed up late transcribing this with an 8am class tommarow?

Probably not but it did bring me great joy. Tell me your favorite episode! I'll continue to add to my list as I continue my rewatch :)

[chronically-ghosted]

you got your claws in me honey, like a tiger in love

rating: E for Explicit! 18+

word count: 8K

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

summary: you arrive at your estranged uncle's door. what else is there to do but catch up over grilled cheese? well, if you have anything to say about it, you might end up doing a bit more.

warnings: dbf!dieter, grilled cheese as a way to guilt trip your dad's best friend/uncle into fucking you, drug use (weed), raising arizona that comes with its own warning, flirting with someone twice your age, no smut — that’s what part 2 is for, reminiscing, a cliffhanger? 👀

a/n: the original fic came out MONTHS before the mcu rumors, so either i have precognition, or the apocalypse is becoming predicable. happy valentine's day you filthy animals because nothing says romance like porking your dad's best friend

🤍AO3 Link

🤍Series Masterlist | Next

🤍Masterlist

From the voicemail of Mr. Paul Landeau, official Hollywood talent manager and agent to one Mr. Dieter Bravo . . .

Tuesday, 6:43PM

No, I’m not doing it. I’m not. 

There has to be something else out there. Look, I know Fire Monsters: A Cliff Beasts story didn’t do as well as we hoped, but Reddit says it could be a cult classic so why don’t you focus on making that happen, okay? Instead of giving me shit roles like this. I’m not doing it. 

– the sound of a door opening and the phone being shuffled – – a zipper rips –  – liquid pouring –

We fucking talked about this, man. I told you I needed something different, something new. Tiktok is just reels of me screaming and dying – it’s fucking bullshit – 

– more liquid –

I’m done playing the fucking bad guy. I’m not signing any more headless action figures for those little snot-nosed, little fuckers in line. I’m not asking to sign their moms’ tits, either – okay, maybe – but Jesus Christ, Paul, what you sent over is, like, the opposite of where I need to be. It’s for little teeny boppers with one or two B horror movies under their belt to finally break out into the mainstream – or where actors over forty go to cash in an easy paycheck. And yes, I fucking know we need something, but fuck – is this really all there is?

– liquid stops pouring – – zipper rips – – the sound of a toilet flushing –

Don’t fucking call me back, Paul, unless you’ve got something. Something real.

Tuesday, 8:23PM

OW! Motherf–

– a skillet clattering – 

Okay – fuck, that hurts – okay, Paul, what about this? It came to me in the bathroom. Remember Jack from the Christmas party at the studio’s place? So, he’s got those two Sundance films, right, but they’re in Spanish, so not appealing to an American audience. Nicki told me that he’s thinking about doing another project, one with a wider appeal, and I’m thinking I should totally give him a call. I think we could vibe. I really liked his stuff – reminded me of my old small town, fucking around with the neighbor kids, you know? Kinda hometown hero sort of thing. 

– sharp inhale then a cough – 

It’s not my usual thing, but I think we should give it a try. Gimme a call. 

Oh, do you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich? Been craving one but I think I might burn down my house if I try again and UberEats doesn’t reach the good places further south. Oh, fuck, wait – 

Hey Google, how do you make a fucking excellent grilled cheese?

Tuesday, 9:21PM

No, fucking– 

Siri – how.do.you.treat.a.burn? 

Calling. . . Burger King . . .

No! Fuck!

Tuesday, 10:49PM

Paul-y! Baby! Paul-ito!

Don’t worry. I got an idea that’s going to make us a million dollars. 

A shop that makes only grilled cheese. But like – fancy grilled cheese. What do the kids fucking call it, ah – boogie – yeah, boogie grilled cheese. Like gouda and white cheddar, and butter churned by blind nuns or some shit. Tomato soups that have been blessed by the Dalai Lama. 

Big sign out front that says, Vegans Can Eat Shit. 

They’ll eat it up. 

Fuck yeah, they will. 

– silence for three minutes and sixteen seconds –

Fuck acting, man. Fuck this place. 

And fuck this fucking cheese that keeps burning – goddamn it!

Tuesday, 11:52PM

Paul, why don’t we hang out anymore?

When I got started, we hung out all the time, man. 

Hot dogs on the Santa Monica pier. Beer in the Pacific Ocean. 

You showed me all the cool spots that no one else in LA knew about. You got me my first bump and my first stripper. God, that was fucking wild, man, you remember? I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up. Did I ever tell you that before? Coke probably didn’t help a kid from a small town in South Cali, but – fuck, it made me feel better. Like I could get my shit together if I really tried.  

What, are you too good for me now – is that it? Am I not good enough for you, huh? 

Look, I’ve got Raising Arizona on right now, so why don’t you come over with a six pack – 

Oh, shit, that’s right. You got a fucking family now. 

Not a good influence, ol’ Dee. 

Not a good –

 

Wednesday, 1:05AM

Fine, Paul. Fine. 

I’ll play Mr. Fantastic in the Fantastic Four reboot. 

Dieter’s thumb brushes the red End Call button and tosses his phone onto the kitchen island with a growl. He can feel himself coming down from the bump earlier – a thing he absolutely did not want to happen – and he shoves his palms into his eye sockets. 

There is more coke upstairs, but that would require him to walk through his very long hallways to get there. Very long, and dark, and empty hallways. 

He should have asked Maria to stay once she was done with the laundry. He would have done it right too – big bowl of popcorn, fully dressed, with a sign around his neck that said, I promise I’m not trying to sleep with you. 

He is becoming increasingly aware of how many erratic voicemails he just left for his agent, aware that behavior like that was libel to get him a sit down in Paul’s office with all the blinds and windows closed, Paul’s narrow face serious and using Concerned Emotion #5, as he asks, “do we need to go back to rehab, Dieter?”

We. 

There once was a “we”, now there was just “he” – in a house with seven bedrooms and a pool that could fit a sixteen wheeler in it. 

And TWO kitchens – why the fuck did he think he needed two kitchens – 

Well, he knew he didn’t need two, but it would have been cool to show them off to someone – If there was anyone to show them off to . . .

Fuck this downer mood.

Dieter snatches up his phone again, and the movement brings up his latest apps. UberEats is the second one. He taps in a few keywords, blatantly ignoring his latest call list. 

Goddamn Burger King . . . 

The front doorbell rings. 

Dieter frowns, pulling the screen closer under his big nose. Now, he knows he is high and he knows he should be wearing his glasses when reading but there’s no fucking way . . .

He goes out of the kitchen, the room still smelling of burnt cheese with the cast iron skillet in the sink and a black husk sticking to its bottom. He goes left, then right, his robe tightly wrapped around him as if he is some huffy housewife, then down a hall and across the marble entrance way – fuming – why is this house so goddamn huge – who thought this was a good idea?

And so he wrenches open the front door – to a girl, not holding a Burger King bag. No, she’s got a roller suitcase behind her, bright blue, and she and the case are dripping wet. Like, just sprayed with a hose kind of wet and her big bottom lip is trembling. Behind her, the sky pukes buckets of rain, groaning with thunder. 

Now, he likes his call girls (he always thought it was classier to call them that) a little more . . . vampy than this, but hell, he had been turned on by much less than this— than her with her big eyes, fat droplets rolling off her lashes, flushed cheeks – and oh, shit, her shirt is totally see-through – is that purple, he feels the back of his mouth flush with spit – wow, is this Paul’s way of apology because – 

“Uncle Dee?” 

And he’s mentally shoving himself back into his pants because no one in years has called him that and that was a very different time in place, when he was a completely different person and if this girl is the person he thinks it is, then – Jesus Christ, he’s bound and gagged straight for hell – 

He squeaks out your name and you smile, sort of grimace, at him and wave. 

“Yep, it’s me. Been awhile, right?” You finally give into the mortification of your stupid plan and you scrunch up your face, your hand wrapped around your elbow. “Look, I’m so sorry, this is too weird. I don’t have your number, but I panicked when my flight got canceled and my phone’s dead and you’re the only person I know in LA and –,” 

“No, no – you’re fine – sorry–,” Dieter blinks before stepping back and letting you through. You sigh in relief and yank your baby blue suitcase over the threshold as you walk in, dripping water everywhere. “Sorry, it’s been a weird night and for, like, two seconds, I thought . . . nevermind . . .”

I thought you were a fucking ghost.

You bite the corner of your lip, glancing at him, knowing it was probably unwise to piss off your one chance at not sleeping on the ground tonight — or if what you were about to say would piss him off in the first place. 

“Yeah, well, it’s been eleven years since we last saw you, Uncle Dee.” 

Early on in his career, he wanted to build up rep as not only an actor but a real tough guy, so he asked if he could do some stunts for an old cop show. For all his bravado, he ended up getting a real round-house kick to the face and it sent him reeling.

This feels a little bit like that.

“No way, it can’t have been that long. Besides, I know I left my number with your dad or your grandma before I left and —,” 

His throat closes up when very old guilt washes over him. It’s intensified when you give him an uncomfortable look.

“So your dad didn’t give you my number then.”

It’s not a question. You shake your head. You don’t tell him that your dad tried to call years ago and got a busy tone for the first few, and then a few years after that, was brusquely informed the line had been disconnected. 

He chews on his lip. 

You try to smile at him again but then another shiver takes hold of you and Dieter grimaces. “Shit, sorry, one second. I think this closet down here has towels.” 

He all but sprint-walks down one of the many halls branching off from the entrance, the ends of his robes flapping. You hear the creak of doors, several, as he digs around in the walls. 

“Why do I have so many fucking linens?” You hear him grumble and you smile to yourself. You feel like you need to wring your hair out but wouldn’t dare move from the spot where he left you.

After a thump and more grumbling, he comes back, rubbing the back of his head, but holding out a giant lime green towel. In the light, you can see the dark circles under his eyes when you take the towel and immediately go to stop your hair from dripping on the marble.

His brain is waffling, ping ponging, between his memories and what is standing right in front of him. This? This is the little girl, not his literal blood relative, but she’s Enrico’s kid – Enrico, a slugger and one hell of a outfielder since he was eight years old, whose mom made enchiladas like nobody else in the goddamn world – Enrico, whose house became like a second home, Ricky's family a better family than his own – this is the same girl who hoarded Skittles like a fiend, the same one who he took to the pool on the weekends in the summer, and the zoo during Thanksgiving break? This little girl – 

– is the same girl who is all legs under damp denim, eyes that could make Cleopatra fly into a jealous rage, and a fucking rockstar smile? 

And, holy shit, those tits –  

Dude, you cannot be checking her out. Dig deep and fight your fucking caveman brain. You’ve fucked up a lot in your life and you cannot do that right now. You cannot do that to Enrico. 

You cannot do that to her.

You notice him grimace as he squints into the light of the chandelier above you both. “So, uh, not that I mind, but, uh, what are you doing here? I mean –,” 

You laugh and it seems to echo in the empty house. “No, that’s a fair question. I was on a flight back from looking at colleges out east and my flight got grounded in LAX because of the storm. I absolutely don’t have enough money to stay in a hotel or rent a car and drive back home, so I needed a place to crash and call my sister to send me some money. And my stupid driver didn’t want to get flagged for harassing a celebrity, so he dropped me off at the corner, hence . . .”

You wave at yourself and inside his slippers, his toes curl, respectfully not looking at your damp legs and a definitely purple bra visible through your shirt. 

Your mouth suddenly capsizes. “Shit, is that okay, if I stay here for a night? I didn’t even think - I - I’m not . . . interrupting anything, am I?” 

Dieter chuckles, your expression undeniably cute, and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his robe. 

“Nah. Not unless you call making the worst grilled cheese imaginable a party.” 

At that moment, your stomach chooses to make the most aggressive growl in your entire life and you flush deeper than the cold outside. 

“Apparently someone thinks that’s a good idea,” you chuckle weakly, horrified that your body is actively trying to sabotage a normal conversation. 

Did it matter that you had posters of him in your bedroom when you were thirteen? That you went to midnight releases of every one of his movies? 

No. Not at all. 

“I got some food, mostly leftovers.” He worries at his lip as he realizes the only thing by way of something green in his fridge is the jar of olives he got for martinis. Even then, he has a sneaking suspicion he replaced the olive juice with vodka, but the memory of that night is entirely butchered. “But, uh, I’m sure we can find something.”

You smile at him. “Actually, grilled cheese sounds great.” 

“Only if you do it.” He smiles, honestly, when you laugh. “What? Don’t laugh — I’m serious. I can’t make a sandwich to save my fucking life.” 

“Pretty sure I can manage two slices of bread and cheese.” 

His eyebrows jump as his lips press themselves together and you watch the thumb-sized bare spot on his beard twitch.

“Yeah, that’s what you think and then your goddamn kitchen is on fire.” 

“Lemme change, do some rocket surgery and brain science, and then I’ll attempt to crack this grilled cheese thing.” 

“Okay, but remember we do have Chinese leftovers and I can definitely crush a microwave. This way.” 

You follow him through the halls, his shoulders loosening underneath the off-green fuzz, and you try and not to stare at the immaculately beautiful walls and expansive, clean floors, so your eyes wander, and then you’re trying not to stare at the immaculately beautiful man in front of you. 

You push away the thought that this house looks nothing like you’d expect someone like Dieter to have, as he leads you to the kitchen — all black and chrome and steel, like what a Norwegian serial killer would have — and nods to a door towards the opposite wall. He’s digging around for the last slices of white bread when he says,

“Bathroom’s down there. I’ll get it all ready, but I’m leaving it up to you. Can’t afford to lose another pan.” 

Your eyes finally drift down from the bare walls, unsure if you should be offended that nothing of the family back home is here, or accept that there was just nothing personal anywhere. You smile gently at him and nod in thanks. 

He watches you go, that bright blue suitcase flashing as loud as a tornado siren, and he shakes his head. God, he needs a drink but drinking also makes him horny and he needs every mental facility available to him if he wis going to make it through this night with his sanity still intact. 

Had it really been eleven years? He always meant to call up Enrico and the old neighborhood gang. He probably forgot about that last fight anyway – even if Dieter hadn’t – even if it wasn’t more than a decade ago. Mama Gonzales always said there’d be a place for him, even after his own father said acting was for maricos and drag queens. It always hurt more when the postcards from the Gonzales family stopped coming than when Mom stopped calling. And he always meant to send back a proper return address when he moved out of that crappy loft after his first real movie premiere but that was the 90s, and much of the 90s was spent between working shit jobs and drooling on the floors of rave warehouses. It wasn’t them specifically he didn’t want to see him like that, but anyone. Anyone who knew him before Dieter Bravo. 

Certainly not anyone who called him Uncle Dee —

Something flashes in the corner of his eye and he realizes he’s always fucking hated the fact that the a) the back of his house is just one big window and b) he never bothered to put in curtains. Because, the thing with windows is they reflect things — things like his pseudo-niece taking her top off in his guest bathroom. Reflected and in full color right across his kitchen island like the sexiest hologram that will haunt his fucking wet dreams until the day hell freezes over. 

Yep, that’s definitely your hips, your ribs, and okay—

Nope. Absolutely not. 

Dieter’s knees give out and he crouches (more like slumps) to the floor behind the island, his palms so far in his eye sockets he can only see stars.

Yeah, only stars. Focus on the stars, not the image of the curve of your gorgeous tits that’s running around his brain like a child with scissors and a Thanatos instinct off the fucking charts. 

Fuck, and he just wanted to get high and watch Nicholas Cage in a mullet. 

“Hey, I’m done. Dee, you still here?”

He stifles a groan and stands up. You smile at him, the wet jeans and agonizing white tank top gone, only to be replaced by a black Fleetwood Mac tshirt and — fuck, where are your pants?

You lower the handle to your suitcase and go to stow by the bathroom door. And that’s when he realizes you are actually wearing pants, black shorts that are practically hidden by the oversized t-shirt and are comically, hilariously, painfully small. He can’t actually see the curve of your ass as you walk around the side of the island but he is absolutely not going to let his gaze linger long enough to confirm. 

He clears his throat as you come to stand beside him. He gestures to the four pieces of white bread and a stack of Crafts American cheese. 

“H-h-have —,” he clears his throat again and his forebearers groan collectively in embarrassment. “Have at it.” 

You smile and tuck your hair over your ear before picking up the knife. 

“D’you have mayonnaise? Butter?”  

No amount of irredeemable hotness can distract him from that. “What? What do you need mayonnaise for? It’s grilled cheese.”

You cluck your tongue, an eyebrow raised. “Brain science and rocket surgery, remember? Don’t question the master.”

He can’t help but chuckle as he goes to his steel monolith of a fridge. 

“Jeez, sorry, I asked,” he grumbles playfully.

He comes back with an (thankfully) unexpired jar and tub of butter and you get to work. Silence stretches a bit too long, something Dieter has never been good with, especially with beautiful women. He loves running his mouth and sometimes he's found that the women liked it too. He resigns himself to sit across from you at the island, watching you spread mayonnaise on both sides of the bread. 

“So, uh, how are the folks? How’s your, uh, dad?”

You nod slowly and even though he hasn’t been around in eleven years to pick up on all your tells, he swears your hackles go up.

“Fine. All good. Dad’s still at the car repair shop — owns it now, actually. Makes decent money, I guess.” 

“You guess?” He hadn’t made it his life’s work to mimic the human condition to not recognize cagey language. 

You glance at him briefly before flipping over the last piece of bread and dropping a dollop of mayonnaise on top. 

“Yeah. I — uh, we haven’t — I actually haven’t talked to them in a while. Though if I had, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.” You sneak another glance, this one ladened with a smile that had a secret curled up in its corners. “Serves me right, probably.”

“Yeah. Probably.” 

He can’t help but return the smile, one of a familiarity he hasn’t earned yet. You were smiling at him as if you two had years of secrets together, memories and inside jokes that were for the pair of you alone. For the life of him and all the water in his ridiculous pool, he couldn’t fathom why you were being so nice to him. Letting him off the hook. It had been eleven fucking years after all. There are a lot of things he takes guilt free from the world. Your fucking star-eyed smile is not one of them. 

So, he lets you off the hook. He doesn’t push it. If you don’t want to talk about your folks, he is happy to chatter aimlessly about something else. But, his brain winds up, what happened that caused you to fall out with your parents? Enrico, even back then, had been a hard ass, with you and your brothers. Always made sure to walk the straight and narrow. Detested drugs, always shined his shoes, thought tattoos were the devil, never kissed a girl on the first date — 

And here you are, making fucking mooneyes at his daughter. 

Well, one thing was for sure, he muses, something warm spreading in his gut, you are nothing like your daddy. 

The hiss of the bread hitting the hot butter in a pan (you didn’t even need to ask where another pan was, you just helped yourself to his cabinets and he couldn’t have been more proud) jerks him out of his daze and he realizes that annoying silence has set in again. 

“So, colleges, huh? Anything in particular spark interest?” 

You nod excitedly as he found a topic that made you glow. Clearly, no one had asked about your interests in a long time.

“Yeah, actually. Emerson in Boston was amazing. I loved the city, but not sure I’d survive the winter. Swarthmore sounds good, Amherst too, but again, cold.” You grin sheepishly and flip the sandwiches, pressing the spatula (he didn’t even know he owned one of those) into the bread, making the butter sizzle and the air fill with a smell that can only be described as mouth-watering. 

“It’ll be a nightmare, taking out loans for those places, but fuck, I think I’d be really happy there.” 

He leans against the counter, facing you with crossed arms. He smiles a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes.

“What, your folks wouldn’t pay for it? Or at least help out?”

Something sharp flashes in your eyes, like a rabbit catching the scent of a predator, before you shrug your shoulders flippantly. A well-worn deflection, he notes, right next to the place where he’s got all the places you mentioned are about as far away from California as possible. If you had mentioned somewhere in Europe, he wouldn’t have been surprised. 

“Nah. I wouldn’t let them. Don’t want them thinking they get input into my life because they hold the purse strings over my head.” You turn off the stove and he moves to get the plates out from the cabinets – something to contribute as you made him a better meal than he’s had in ages. 

“So, uh, we eat in there?” You glance down the hall to the eerily clean dining room, a place he’s pretty sure he’s never once set foot in after three years of living in this goddamn mansion. 

He chuckles and shakes his head. “C’mon, I already have a movie picked out.” 

You follow him, plates hot, down carpeted stairs to clearly the only room in the house that Dieter actually lives in. The lights down here are low, much more bearable than the white spotlights of the kitchen. Against one wall, there’s a fully stocked bar, with most of the alcohol halfway empty and costing a fortune. Across from the stairs is a massive record collection, going up to the ceiling, next to a gorgeous old record player — all wood and black vinyl — with big, plushy earphones curled up on a black leather recliner. 

But the star of the show is the wall-to-ceiling television, with a brown, mouse-soft leather sofa that wraps like a giddy, up-turned grin in front of it. 

And of course, in between the superstar television and the cozy couch, is a low glass table where he had snorted lines of coke more times he could count and where a virgin joint sits, unsmoked and tempting. 

Dieter flushes as though he’d been caught by his parents with his pants down around his ankles. 

“Fuck, sorry–,” he rushes over, the plate clattering with the glass, and he reaches for the joint, ready to squish it into his pocket when– 

You laugh. “Relax, Dee, I know what a joint is. In fact, we are very well acquainted.”

You fold yourself into the couch, legs crossed, grinning at him as you bite into your sandwich. 

He swallows, unclenching slightly as he sits down next to you. He watches you eat for a moment, trying to think of something cool to say.

“Sounds like I’ve missed my calling as the fun uncle, getting you high for the first time and all that.” 

You snort and swallow your mouthful. “Yeah, by like two fucking years.” 

“Oh, what a fucking lifetime. You poor thing,” he says, pouting dramatically and you giggle again, bumping into his shoulder. It sends his sanity knocking around in his brain. 

You don’t notice, though, your eyes falling to the joint in the small ceramic bowl. The smile slides from your face. 

“Well, you might have missed my first joint, but I’d be more than happy to take this one as my next.”

His eyebrows practically bounce off his forehead. “You’re serious?” 

Your eyes slide away from the joint to his, something distractingly dark hiding there. “I mean, if the parties on your Instagram are anything to go by . . . And, well, when in Rome . . .”

You trail off, smirking, gesturing around you as if you had any idea the levels of debauchery that were obtained in this very room. Come to think of it, he halfway considers picking you up off the couch and putting a towel down underneath your perfect ass. 

This is how it went sometimes, with the slower hook ups. No wet clothes, or grilled cheese, or bringing up family trauma — but initial touches, curling smiles, and then drugs. Always drugs. As if there needed to be another hand that tore off the cap of the pressurized, fizzy soda bottle. He’d play music then, for them, to show off his vinyl collection and have a plausible reason to rub his dick between their ass cheeks while dancing slowly to something croon-y from the seventies. 

Not that any of that would be happening with you. 

He wasn’t a complete monster after all. 

With a playful grin that he had mastered over many press junkets, he snatches up the joint and lighter, and presents both to you in the flat of his hand. 

“First hit goes to you, since you were so kind to make dinner for an old fuck like me.” 

You snort and put your plate onto the table, wiping your hands free of crumbs on your black shirt. 

“Such a gentleman.” 

With deft and practiced hands, you take the joint between your index finger and your thumb, and sparking the lighter, brought the flame to your lips. 

Just for one second, one goddamn second, he swears he saw The Look reflected in your eyes. He glances away, his cock fluttering awake like goddamn Lassy hearing the calls of another well-begotten child. He picks up his own plate.

“Hardly. It was all a ploy to get you to admit you follow me on Instagram.”

You burst out coughing, smoke chugging from your nose and mouth. “Dieter!”

He cackles, his tongue between his teeth, as you shove him away from you — do not think about her fingers clenched around your bicep —  try to sit up and inhale again. You hang your head and groan. 

“Fuck, I can’t believe I said that.” 

“Yeah, and for that, I get two puffs,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, the rest of it full of the most perfectly cooked grilled cheese sandwich he’d ever had. He finishes chewing and swallows. “Hand it over, princess.” 

You hand over the lighter and the joint, the paper slightly greasy from your fingers, leaning back dramatically into one of the many plushy cup holder seats spread out along the very long couch. 

He chuckles devilishly again, far too satisfied, as he lights up and leans back into the cushions. 

“And, as gesture of goodwill, I’ll admit that’s a good fucking grilled cheese.” 

Your eyes snap open and a wide grin splits your face. “Hell yes! Mayonnaise on both sides, butter on the side with cheese. Best family recipe. Mwah!”

“Fuck, even I know that’s too much cholesterol for me,” he grunts and digs into the cushions, feeling around for the remote. 

“Well, that’s not enough cholesterol for me,” you wink as you take the joint from the hand on his thigh, eyes daring you to do something about it. Nowhere near high enough to take the bait, he just narrows his eyes at you as he clicks the button and the entertainment system comes to life with a primordial hum. 

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, eyes wide, as the speakers roar and the lights dim further and the screen glows, “it’s like I’m in a fucking movie theater . . . in space.”

“It’s great, right?” Dieter moans like a loving father over his first child. This thing is his pride and joy, the only thing he could stomach in this goddamn house.

The DVD buffer for Raising Arizona begins and you squeal quietly, sliding onto your back, the joint dangling between your lips. 

“No fucking way, I love this movie.” 

Dieter stilled. “Really? You do?” 

The few times he felt nostalgic for his old life — his old, old life when he was still a kid from nowhere, a nobody, you couldn’t pick him out of a line up of his sweaty, grubby cousins when they were all cobbled together like crooked teeth in front of Abuela Josefina’s television that still had knobs and bunny ears to watch movie after movie of Nicholas Cage reruns. Even with knees in his back, elbows in his ears, Dieter could quote every single line, his heart swelling.

That’s gonna be me some day. 

“This movie is from, like, another century,” he mutters as he watches you settle in, something sickening like adoration clawing up in his chest. 

“Yeah and it’s great,” you say eagerly, ignoring the way he plucks the joint out of your fingers. “Put it on!” 

He resolutely ignores the pinch in his low stomach at your almost whine and presseS the play button with a little more force than necessary. Then, balancing the joint on the ceramic bowl, he sticks his fingers into his robe, pulls out his glasses, and puts them on without a second thought – just as he always did when watching movies. 

It is only when he realizes he doesn’t hear you breathing that he realizes what he has done. Slowly he pulls the square glasses off his face and looks at them, feeling as disgusted as the day his doctor put them in his hands. 

Near-sighted. Very common. Happens when people as they age.

“Got ‘em–,” his throat closes again, “got ‘em a few years ago. Only have to wear ‘em to see things up close and, uh . . . Well, I think they make me look old as shit.” 

He can’t quite look at you, unsure what he’ll see on your face and knowing for sure that he couldn’t stand it if it wasn’t the way you look at him before. If you just would tease him about it, then —

“No,” you say, your voice very soft and small. His heart nearly punches out his throat, his neck nearly snapping in half as his head whips up to look at you. You sit up on your elbows, the darkness of the room cushioning your soft cheeks and muting the glaze in your eyes as you watch him over the bend of your knees. 

“Nah,” you say, your nose scrunching, the weight of the high clearly settling into your skin, “they make you look . . . Uh, they’re cute.” 

Dieter sucks in the side of his cheek, nodding slowly and sliding the glasses back over his nose. Cute, he could work with that. 

“Jeez, would you start the movie already?” You poke his side with your toe. He doesn’t need to look at you to hear the faint blush in your voice. 

He turns the volume up and crosses his arms, smiling faintly. You’re warm next to him, he thinks vaguely, his own high finally starting to sink into his bones. 

Cute. Definitely not a word he’s going to obsess over. 

The movie goes on. 

Nicholas Cage is Nicholas Cage with a mullet.

Your laugh is the clattering of bells in his ears and he can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard his sides hurt. 

He’s coming up from bent over, knees almost to his chest, laughter nearly popping his ribs, when he realizes your feet are in his lap. The arches of your soles, the delicate bones of your ankles, the long smooth planes that run up to your gorgeous calves— 

They are there, in his lap, and you don’t seem to mind. Head turned towards the screen, face bright from laughing, your arm arched back over your head, pressing your chest up —  it’s like you meant for them to be there. 

It’s just one hand, right? Two at the most. Just putting his hands down where he had them a moment ago. Up and — down. 

You don't flinch. His palm is on the arched top of your foot, the other just above your other ankle. 

You do smile, but that might have been because of Nicholas Cage raging again. 

And then, during another bout of giggles, he clutches your shin bone, wraps his fingers around your heel, and laughs and laughs and laughs. 

You wipe the tears away from your eyes, the end credits rolling.

“Fuck, that’s a such a good movie.” 

He swallows, swiping quickly under his glasses before taking them off and chucking them onto the table in front. 

“You’re fucking right it is,” he says hoarsely, leaning forward and plucking up the last of the joint. He inhales, letting the smoke ease stifle the tears in the corner of his eyes, gulping down a breath before offering it to you.

You take it, distracted, eyes on the credits, the light from the screen glowing on your cheeks. 

He presses up under your ankle with his middle finger. “What? You knew what was gonna happen, you’d said you’d seen it before.”  

You nodded, still not looking at him. 

He goes for a more direct approach. He pinches your calf, and you scowl, the light back in your eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, a bit sharply. He’s not nearly done having fun with you, not nearly. You take another sip of smoke before setting the joint back on the table. 

You huff, settling onto your back, pinching at your nails. 

“Just . . . Nothing, it’s stupid.”

Dieter hums. He knows when to let him come to you. He taps the arch of your foot.

“How are you feeling?” His gaze nudges the joint on the table. 

You grin. “Really good. Tingly. Warm. Like everything else is a million miles away.” 

Just the two of us. 

“Enough to tell ol’ Uncle Dee what’s on your mind?”

You roll your eyes and sit up a bit, yanking a pillow behind you. 

“Just thinkin’ about the old days, I guess.” You glance up at him from under your eyes. “Not in a bad way. At all. I just . . .”

“What?” If you gave him hell for the last eleven years, then fuck it, he deserved it. He pulls at your ankle. “What?” 

With a big sigh, you lean back, something finally breaking and, with it, comes a great big smile. 

“Okay, remember when you’d put on those plays with the rest of us kids during those super lame family reunions o-o-or Christmas? Marissa would have everything written out, all the cousins cast and you’d beg her to let you play – fucking – Bear Number 5 or something ridiculous – and she’d fight you on it but she’d relent, always putting on a show of her own – as if a ten year old could be put out like that.” You giggled, biting on your thumb, a sparkling in your eyes that made something in his chest burn. 

Yes, he remembers the incredibly stupid fuzzy ears and the bear claw mittens. The fake roaring. TMZ would have a fucking stroke if those pictures of him, baby-faced, were to ever surface online. He smiles at you and basks in the warmth of those memories, his high making them brighter. 

“I think it would have crushed her little heart if you didn’t ask,” you said, heavy-lidded eyes on you again. “I know it broke her when you stopped showing up at all.” 

His heart actually pinches at that. He knows you’re not scolding him but fuck, maybe he’d feel better if you did. What a fucking idiot he was, for leaving all of that for empty mansions and meals from UberEats and all this fucking gunked up shit in his veins that made him feel older and older every year. Like he was chasing something that was never real in the first place. 

“Look, honey,” the pet name is out of his mouth before he can stop it. He’s twisting towards you, both hands under your calves now. “I should have called. Should have made sure that at least you knew where to find me, even if things between your dad and I were fucked.”

“Oh, God, Dee, no. I don’t blame you. I don’t even blame my dad, sometimes. You just were very different people. He’s fine living his life in the same small ass town in the middle of nowhere. But you weren’t. And, fuck . . . I’m not either.”

He frowns. You bite your lip and continue.

“You know, I thought about following you out to Hollywood. Because of those plays. I had the best fucking time doing them and Hollywood didn’t seem so scary . . . with Uncle Dee out here. But, uh, I dunno. I grew up, I guess. Figured I was better at telling stories than performing them. I just knew I didn’t want to end up like my dad. Dying where I lived. Unremembered.” 

His gut doubles in on itself. Please don’t say you gave up your dreams because I stopped calling. 

“Do you still think about acting?” He asks quietly, trying to fight the faint ringing in his ears. 

“Oh God, no,” you wave your hands, dusting away his near-panic that he’d somehow ruined your life. “I really do prefer writing stories, even if they exist only within the pages of a book. Or a really bad pamphlet, once or twice. I tried to continue the plays at home for a few years, after you left and Marissa took up cheerleading and thought she was too old to play with her little cousins anymore. But it just wasn’t the same without her. Or you.” 

He realizes all too late that he can feel your pulse under your ankle. Strong. Pounding. Pounding, hard. Like you’re nervous. So struck by the notion that he can feel something so personal of yours, the smoke trapped in his brain lifts only slightly when he catches your eyes looking somewhere you absolutely should not be. 

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, he knows that look. You blink at him, then your gaze slowly slides down, down to his crotch, as smoothly you can beneath the weight of the smoke in your brain and he battles between the desire to throw your legs off him or pull you underneath him.

It’s The Look. 

Men, women, it didn’t matter. The look was the same.

When the possibility of sex first enters their mind, when that first bloom of lust rushes down their spine and the memory of the physical exertion of fucking – all the panting and the heavy breathing, aching muscles and sweat – comes back, as real as a song stuck in your head. When that spark of imagination threatens to sway from the hypothetical to the actual, it’s a look he knows so fucking well, he might as well be able to carve it from clay, blind-folded. 

And you’re giving it to him, right now. 

You haven’t really thought about seducing him yet, no, that part hasn’t crossed your mind yet. But you definitely are imagining what his cock would feel like inside you, and you and your imagination and your wide-eyed gaze at his lap all whole-heartedly agreed: that would be a great fucking thing. 

You, on your elbows, your heel dangerously close to his half-hard cock, the glaze in your eyes having something to do with what you were so shamelessly picturing, and your short breath having everything to do with what you were so shamelessly picturing.

He was quite sure you were completely unaware of the expression your face was making. Eyes hooded, mouth parted, breath short. Masking your emotions and filthy thoughts is a skill set mastered later in life and perhaps the last time you looked at someone like that, they simply bent you over the nearest surface and railed you till your knees buckled. 

What a fucking excellent idea, his libido trilled. Now get off the couch and do something about it. I’m foaming at the fucking mouth here, man. 

Dieter silences his inner horny monster, unintentionally squeezing his hand, the one that happens to be wrapped around your calf. 

The movement seems to break you out of your dizzying spiral and you blink up at him.

He swallows. With a half smirk on the edge of your lips that you try to not let him see, you take your feet out of his lap, then reach forward, your palm alarmingly high on his thigh as you take the joint from his fingers. Your eyes flash like warning signs.

DANGER. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. DANGER.

“So, you gonna give me a tour of this place or what?”

End of Part 1 | Next

[bogleech]

AND ANOTHER THING about Krakens!!!!! The third pirates movie was just infamously a production mess where scenes were being filmed before there was even a finished script and all this other dumbass disney shit but what really bothered me was that a major subplot was about finding and rescuing jack sparrow who had, at the end of the previous film, been swallowed by the kraken.

Getting swallowed by a sea monster is already a classic nautical fantasy trope! Like with Monstro the whale! There could have been a whole amazing sub-adventure inside a fucking KRAKEN, there could have been weird ass sea creatures in there or the ghosts of past victims, all kinds of unforgettable and creative stuff you could do, but no, instead the Kraken actually dies off-screen between films and we see its pitiful beached carcass and Jack has apparently actually died so they go all the way to his afterlife to retrieve and the biggest insult is that THIS IS BORING TOO. They took this franchise to the literal realm of the dead and it was an empty desert with some crabs. I can’t think of a more successful Hollywood trilogy that was handled creatively worse and yes I’m including every Star Wars trilogy.

[youryurigoddess]

A. Z. Fell & Co. bookshop and its statues, part 2

Welcome to the second part of my insane deep dive into Aziraphale’s world of slightly outdated decor, golden-colored trinkets, and their ostentatiously Greek (especially for a representative of an originally Judeo-Christian mythology) symbolism. As a short recap, the last installment covered six pieces in the northern and central sections of the bookshop plus a plot-important medal previously displayed on one of them, but currently left with the other bibelots on the bookseller’s desk. We’ll start right there, where we previously left off.

While a lot of the bookshop action plays out in the circle between the formerly discussed statues, its office part is especially close to Aziraphale himself. As the titular Guardian of the Eastern Gate, the angel consciously spends most of his time in this small space in the Eastern part of the bookshop, confined to his desk or reading stand. This means that the decorations of this area have more personal significance and are most probably used as daily reminders for him to keep his thoughts and priorities on track as much as provide pleasant distraction from the weary eyes.

The two windowsill figures of the Art Deco dancers from S1 were replaced by a somewhat similar set of twin statues by Ernest Rancoulet called Retour des Bois (Return from the Woods). Depicting a young woman accompanied by a putto, Aphrodite and Eros, frolicking in a dance through the woods and meadows. This bucolic fantasy with Aphrodite makes some sense when we consider how Aziraphale’s personal love story started (and will presumably end) in a garden, but let’s deep deeper into its protagonists. Or protagonist, actually, because what else can be told about Love itself?

Eros as the god of Desire is usually presented in art as a handsome young man, though in some appearances he is a boy full of mischief, ever in the company of his mother. It is usually under the guidance of Aphrodite when he employs his signature bow and arrows to make mortals and immortals alike to fall in love. His role in myths is mostly complementary, as a catalyst for other mythological figures and their stories, with the notable exception being the myth of Eros and Psyche, the story of how he met and fell in love with his wife.

In short, they are the original star-crossed lovers from entirely separate worlds who meet and fall in love by divine happenstance, only to be separated by Psyche’s family. Convinced by her sisters that her husband is, in fact, a vile winged serpent, Psyche breaks his one rule and the attempt to kill the monster leads her to falling in passionate love with him. Eros flees and Psyche wanders the Earth searching for him and succumbing to a series of impossible tasks reminding of those from the Scarborough Fair ballad or the more modern fairytale about Cinderella. She ultimately fails, but is saved by the healed Eros, granted immortality and the status of his equal, after which they can properly marry with a huge wedding banquet, a real feast of the gods.

In the Christian Middle Ages, the union of Eros and Psyche started to symbolize the temptation and fall of the human soul, driven by the sexual curiosity and lust from the Love’s domain, mirroring the original sin and the expulsion from Eden.

Oh, and their Latin names? Cupid and Anima. C+A.

We’ll get back to them in a minute.

According to unnecessary but extensive research, the two mid-century table lamps standing over the desk were most probably produced in France after another unspecified 19th century sculptor like the example above, although this particular putti design can be also found in the so called Hollywood regency style of the same time period. The putto is holding onto a cornucopia, a classical antiquity symbol of plenty, which then continues to the bulb section.

The cornucopia is an easily recognizable symbol of abundance, fertility and, to lesser extant, peace and good fortune. Since the horn is phallic-shaped, but hollow at the same time, it combines intimate imagery of both male and female character at the same time, which further ties into notions of fertility. In its role as a fertility symbol, the cornucopia is also usually associated with Demeter, whose small statue is also standing on the bookshop’s counter. Which seems like a recurring theme.

I saw multiple theories about Aziraphale’s centerpiece, but somehow the truth proved to be much less significant than previously thought. This roman soldier, possibly a centurion, driving his two horses in a highly decorated chariot is made from a marble powder resin composite and takes the most visible place in the Eastern part of the bookshop even though it’s seemingly one of the newest additions to Aziraphale’s collection — its author, Lorenzo Toni, was born in 1938 and became a sculpture master by the 1970s. 

At first glance, the parallel to the Marly Horses seems obvious and we could leave it basically at what was written recently on Crowley and Aziraphale’s dynamics. But here is where instead of commenting on the antique sculpture that seems to be the inspiration behind this piece or the many intricacies of Roman chariot racing I’ll do something completely unhinged — i.e., play my Greek philosophy card.

In the dialogue "Phaedrus ”, Plato presents the allegory of the chariot to explain the tripartite nature of the human soul or — you guessed it — psyche. The charioteer is the man’s Reason, the rational part that loves truth and knowledge, which should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of logic. One of the horses, the white one, is man’s Spirit, a motivated part which seeks glory, honor, recognition and victory. The second horse, the black one, represents man’s Appetite — an ever so hungry part which desires food, drink, material wealth and physical intimacy.

And the fun part? This triad is established to analyze the madness of love. In a classical Greek context, that is not between a man and a woman, but erastes and eromenos:

The charioteer is filled with warmth and desire as he gazes into the eyes of the one he loves. The good horse is controlled by its sense of shame, but the bad horse, overcome with desire, does everything it can to go up to the boy and suggest to it the pleasures of sex. The bad horse eventually wears out its charioteer and partner, and drags them towards the boy; yet when the charioteer looks into the boy's face, his memory is carried back to the sight of the forms of beauty and self-control he had with the gods, and pulls back violently on the reins. As this occurs over and over, the bad horse eventually becomes obedient and finally dies of fright when seeing the boy's face, allowing the lover's soul to follow the boy in reverence and awe. The lover now pursues the boy. As he gets closer to his quarry, and the love is reciprocated, the opportunity for sexual contact again presents itself. If the lover and beloved surpass this desire they have won the "true Olympic Contests"; it is the perfect combination of human self-control and divine madness, and after death, their souls return to heaven.

And such a perfect combination of the motifs already introduced to us by the two Eros statues and the Head of the Victorious Athlete.

Aziraphale might be a titular Companion to Owls (or, to be precise, the companion to one particular Nite Owl), but he had also made sure to have at least one owl keeping him company. And of course, the owl of Athena (who was interestingly both a bird and a snake goddess) is an absolutely conclusion here as the universal symbol of wisdom and knowledge in the Western culture, but it can’t be that easy, right?

In the Bible, you'll find that owls often symbolize something unclean and forbidden, as well as desolation, loneliness, and destruction. This symbolic significance is pointed out in Leviticus 11:16-17 and Deuteronomy 14:11-17 where owls are mentioned among the birds not to be eaten. Owls were considered unclean most likely because they are predatory creatures who eat raw flesh with the blood still in it, and that was an even bigger food safety concern for the biblical nomads than to us today.

Owls are also among the wild predators that have long dwelled in the desert lands and abandoned ruins of Egypt and the Holy Land. Both Isaiah and Zephaniah speak of owls nesting in ruined wastelands to paint symbolic images of barrenness, emptiness, and utter desolation. In Psalm 102:3–6, the owl symbolizes the loneliness of the psalmist’s tortured heart:

For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. In my distress I groan aloud and am reduced to skin and bones. I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse. For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears because of your great wrath, for you have taken me up and thrown me aside. My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.

It’s a devastating, but still beautiful piece that deals with the feeling of utter rejection, the ultimate bad breakup of the relationship between a human and their God. And this… simply didn’t happen between God and Aziraphale, not even during his Job job. The angel had always considered Her love and ineffability as a given, even when the whole Heavenly Host was against him during the Non-Apocalypse. His allegiance stayed with God, not necessarily Her angels. Which brings us yet again to the motion of Crowley as the owl.

The angel and the demon are the companions to each other's loneliness, but Aziraphale’s needs seem significantly bigger than their Arrangement that he even considered a wooden substitute protectively hovering over him 24/7. He seems to be the one who is the loneliest and most rejected.

Oh, and if you think that putting a small bronze statue of a putto with a bronze putto-shaped candleholder right behind it (visible on the filing cabinet in the bottom right corner) is already a stretch, let me show you what’s on the other side of that wall.

Just like before the bookshop fire, the famous sink in the small backroom is adorned with a perfectly kitschy white plaster sculpture of The Two Cherubs, a small part of a larger painting by Raphael (the painter, not the Archangel) titled Sistine Madonna. In the painting the Madonna, holding Christ Child and flanked by Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara, stands on clouds before dozens of obscured putti, while two distinctive winged putti rest on their elbows beneath her. with bombastic side eyes and clearly unspoken, but very controversial thoughts about the whole scene and their role in it.

With an attitude like that, there’s no wonder that the putti have inspired some legends. According to one, the original cherubs were children of one of his models they would come in to watch. Struck by their posture, he added them to the painting exactly as he saw them. Another story says that Raphael was inspired by two street urchins looking wistfully into the window of a baker's shop.

The Germans implicitly tied this painting into a legend of their own, "Raphael's Dream." Arising in the last decades of the 18th century, the legend — which made its way into a number of stories and even a play — presents Raphael as receiving a heavenly vision that enabled him to present his divine Madonna. It is claimed the painting has stirred many viewers, and that at the sight of the canvas some were transfixed to a state of religious ecstasy akin to Stendhal Syndrome (including one of Freud's patients).

Their big, seemingly cherubic companion doesn’t seem to have a specific provenance, but what’s left of his limbs might suggest that it could be an infant Jesus as well as another putto. But honestly who knows at this point.

On the other side of the same room, right at the door leading to the big backroom, there are two lamps with Auguste Moreau’s Young Lovers, a bronze sculpture depicting a courting couple on the verge of a physical embrace, holding garlands of roses and hiding under some old vines. Which aligns perfectly with the beloved romcom trope of a rain shelter leading to sudden love realizations, as well as Crowley choosing this part of the bookshop to have a word with his angel in private and then offering his advice on anything related to human love. No wonder that the angel looked at him like that.

This statue carries with it more than one allegorical interpretation, intentional or not. Arguably the most obvious one is the myth of Eros and Psyche, one we already covered in this post. But similarly to his earlier sculpture, Eros also serves here as an allegory for nature and the return to the natural state itself. Like Adam in Eden, he's unclothed and symbolically crowned as a ruler of his domain. Psyche, enamored with his confidence, is about to take her own leap of faith as her fabric restraints fall away. One could say that she's tempted to follow him into nature, deep into the garden of love.

And with that exact thought I will leave you today, dear reader. Through this analysis we learnt many things, among them two significant facts about Aziraphale: firstly, he’s an utter and incorrigible romantic, and secondly, a hoarder. Forget Crowley’s souvenirs — the amount of this angel’s statues is something else. And it isn’t even his hyperfixation!