#can’t sleep (odette has insomnia

[nursc]

Me, looking at the dash properly for the first time this week, second post is from @antarcticadown, immediate emotional whiplash from the url.

[whotfelsewantedtobelynnyx]

So I’ve seen a couple posts about the DELIGHTFUL possibility of Zestial/Carmilla/Rosie and although it’s not the most realistic ship I’ve ever seen in this show…something about it just makes my brain go

So have some headcanons!

TW: Some mild implied sexual content and mentions of alcohol. It is Hazbin Hotel 🤷‍♀️

- Zestial and Rosie are both enamored with Carmilla’s hair. Rosie is constantly trying to convince her lover to wear her hair down more often, while Carmilla insists she wears it up because Rosie CANNOT resist playing with it (and really, she can’t). Zestial, on the other hand, just likes being allowed to help her brush and style it. He claims he enjoys the intimacy of the act. Rosie argues that he just ALSO enjoys playing with Carmilla’s hair.

Zestial, gently running a brush through Carmilla’s hair: Mine dearest, what, pray tell, befell thee to put thy locks in such a state?

Carmilla, leaning back in his lap with her eyes closed: Rosie.

Zestial, subtly smacking something away with the brush: Ah.

Rosie, who had been sneakily winding a piece around her finger: >:(

- Her impressively long hair is also why Carmilla has banned showering together in her home (“If you want it so badly, you can pay the water bill.”) It already takes her the better part of an hour to wash, condition, and then restyle it without any…distractions.

- Cannibal Town is significantly further away from Zestial and Carmilla’s territories than either are from each other. Rosie keeps a little box of knickknacks stashed in her vanity (handwritten letters from Zestial, a bottle of Carmilla's perfume, and various jewelry that she's stolen from them both) for when she can't make it to see her lovers for too long.

- Carmilla sleeps in the middle when they share a bed. This isn’t necessarily out of preference (in fact, she’s really not a big cuddler and would probably sleep on her own mattress at least some of the time if given the chance) but because both her partners are INCREDIBLY cold bodied and insist on being curled around her much warmer self when they sleep.

- Carmilla is also CONSTANTLY sleep deprived. It’s mostly her own fault (she takes the phrase “working yourself to death” to a whole new level), but every once in a while she suffers from a bout of actual insomnia, which leaves her miserable to be around the next day. Zestial usually gets sent in at that point to convince her to take a break (and a nap), because she’s least likely to snap at him.

- Zestial is partially nocturnal due to his somewhat spidery traits. He still enjoys staying in the same bed as his partners, but spends at least part of the night simply just watching them sleep. Carmilla took awhile to be comfortable with it (though she warmed up to it eventually) but Rosie found it sweet.

- Rosie and Zestial often bond over classic literature, like a weird little two-demon book club. They’ve tried to include Carmilla in it in the past, but she shuts it down every time (she loves them both, she does, but what little she understands she finds either dull, depressing, or both). She will, however, drop by with a cup of tea and a kiss for each before leaving them to their own devices.

- Both Carmilla’s partners have a good relationship with her daughters. However, Zestial is more like to a second parent to them, whereas Rosie is closer to a fun aunt/godmother (which gets her in trouble sometimes)

Clara: Rosie, will you take us downtown tonight?

Rosie: Hmm. What’d your mama say?

Odette: She said no.

Rosie: Then why’re ya asking me?

Clara: Because she’s not the boss of you.

Rosie: Huh. Well-

Zestial, interjecting with a pointed look at Rosie: In fact, I do believe she is. Of us both, dear one.

Rosie: …yeah, that’s probably right.

(Side note- 90% of the time, Carmilla absolutely is the boss of them both. In more ways than one 😉)

- Zestial is the only person Carmilla will let see her cry.

- Both C and Z have some chronic pains from throughout their lives/afterlives (Carmilla gets horrible migraines, while Zestial has some old wounds in his back and shoulders that never healed properly, as well as some joint pain in his wings that flares up when he sleeps on them awkwardly). When it gets too bad, the other will usually take over their work for the day so that they can go to Rosie’s and rest.

- Rosie, for her part, enjoys fussing over her partners a little too much- while Zestial sort of enjoys the attention, it can be a bit much for Carmilla when her head’s already killing her. She can’t stay too mad though, especially when being cradled in Rosie’s arms like that is so soothing and she can tell Rosie left off her usual perfume and hairspray out of consideration to her headache.

- Rosie has a pretty high alcohol tolerance and can usually function fairly well when she’s been drinking. The only exception is when she goes out with Alastor. Carmilla hates these nights because she then has to go and haul them BOTH home.

[fuckyeahfightlock]

My holiday viewing today was No Sleep ‘til Christmas, a rom-com starring a pair of real-life married actors, Odette Annable and whatever the husband’s name is. This was a TV movie made by Freeform, owned by ABC. Both these actors were on ABC series at one point or another, so this was probably made when that was going on, to promote both shows. I honestly chose it because No Sleep ‘til Christmas is my motto every December as I prepare to host family for the holiday festivities.

Lizzie is engaged to a handsome, kind, GORGEOUS surgeon named Josh. She’s an event planner BUT--oh, the irony!--she is struggling to keep up with her future mother-in-law’s wedding planning demands because. . .she can’t sleep. Insomnia all night, exhausted all day.

She decides to go for a late-night drive. Wearing sunglasses. And in a potentially tragic meet-cute situation, she runs over late-night insomniac jogger, bartender in a hoodie, Billy.

She drives him to the hospital, and they both fall asleep in the car in the parking lot--and sleep all night. So what else is there for it, but to start meeting up in secret to sleep together?

The writing is snappy and naturally the chemistry is great between the two leads. I could easily have seen this movie as a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan joint, back in the day.

There’s some fake relationship, only-one-bed, and enemies-to-friends-to-lovers stuff here that’s fun. Each has a funny best friend, both of whom are likable. There are Black and queer side characters--adding nothing to the plot but it’s always nice to have diversity in a cast that could easily have been all white straighties. Sheryl Lee Ralph is great as the dragon-lady mother-in-law.

There’s an absolutely cringe-inducing karaoke scene where the two duet on A Fairytale of New York (surely they changed the line “you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot,” but I FF’d through it so I wouldn’t die of secondhand embarrassment so I don’t know what they changed it to). She’s quite pretty--reminds me SO MUCH of Mandy Moore--but he’s barely handsome, and I don’t know that he’s actually so charming that I believe he’d win her away from her successful, kind, did I mention GORGEOUS? fiance, but hey. We know what we’re here for.

Very satisfying runaway bride sequence as our Grand Gesture (I just love a scene of woman running away in a $20,000 wedding dress; it’s so dramatic even if you’ve seen it a thousand times before). Didn’t actually feel bad for the left-behind groom; somehow the film does end up selling this objectively gross premise (leaving a no-fault spouse at the altar in front of all the guests for someone you honestly barely know) in a way that makes it feel like he will be OK.

A fun start to Christmas rom-com season. On Hulu.

[sleepykittypaws]

No Sleep ‘Til Christmas

Original Air Date: December 10, 2018 (Freeform) Where to Watch?: Freeform will air it several times this season, and it’s also available to watch on their app (cable login required) or on Hulu

I really liked Freeform’s first movie of the season, The Truth About Christmas, and my family watched the original Life-Size in November and was looking forward to the Christmas-themed sequel, but after 20 minutes of the off-putting, unfunny and boring Life-Size 2 we bailed and moved on to No Sleep ’Til Christmas and, while it was somewhat better than Life-Size 2, in that we watched the whole thing, that’s a pretty low bar.

The cast here is great, which accounts for why we stuck it out. Real-life husband and wife Dave and Odette Annabelle have, not surprisingly, great chemistry and the rest of players, including Sheryl Lee Ralph, were all really good, and doing their very best to be funny. But, the problem is that while they were valiantly trying to make this weird story a fun, fizzy, frolic it’s…Not. At all.

So much here is played for laughs that’s just not even a little bit humorous, and while Odette in real life is probably lovely, her character was just a truly terrible and thoughtless human being and all of her awfulness was played as a silly lark, as if we were supposed to be charmed by her complete and total selfishness. 

For instance, she meets fellow insomniac Billy, played by her husband, by hitting him with her car while driving around in the wee hours wearing sunglasses…As some sort of sleep aid? Not only is the (likely actually horrific and totally her fault) accident played for laughs, but it becomes a running gag in the movie that she blames him, the pedestrian, for the crash. Attempted manslaughter…What a gas. They so commit to this bit that it’s also actually the ending, and we’re supposed to think it’s sweet when she (spoiler alert) runs him down again, this time in a car she stole when abandoning her own wedding. Uhhhhhh…Nope.

The idea that these two can sleep only when (platonically) next to each other, even mere minutes after meeting, is never, ever explored. Nor is that he likely has a head injury because HE WAS HIT BY A CAR. Like, I get that the idea is they are destined for one another, but the movie itself doesn’t even seem to want to show us that. It’s not like they talk or bond or anything; it’s just car accident + weird brief banter = sleep. It’s really sold almost as if it’s some sort of magic, not love, that’s bonding these two.

We’re supposed to think her mother-in-law is a monster stressing her out but, really, while overbearing about wedding details, she seems happy to welcome Odette into her family and extends many an olive branch, all while Odette grows ever more hysterical. Despite the movie’s best attempts, I was #TeamMom all the way. 

I was also, you know, #TeamFiance. A hunky, adoring and considerate surgeon, who not only still wants to marry her after finding she’s been sleeping (literal sleep) with another man, he’s not even mad when she ditches him at the alter in front of hundreds of their friends in perhaps the worst, ‘I don’t,’ run-out-of-a-wedding scene, ever. 

Not that those are ever good, because, in case this needs to be said…It is never, ever romantic to ditch your nuptials for another fella. I mean, congrats: You’re a monster. But this chick? Wow. She really takes the terribleness cake.

She fell asleep during their vows, then dumped him at the alter, then stopped to chat to her Maid of Honor about her sex life, then, walking back down the aisle, stopped to ask where the guy she really loved went. All still in front of her now, never-to-be husband’s family and friends. And, as a capper, she steals a car and once again runs over the “lucky” guy she really loves. This is all played for laughs and we are, I’m pretty sure, supposed to be rooting for her. (Seriously, though, this is a happy ending for the fiance, who dodged a real bullet here.)

To really cap the hate-fest, they then cut to a “One Year Later” epilogue scene where she and Billy are just getting ready for bed, happy together and just as they close their eyes, a baby cries in the distance. Ha, ha, ha! Get it? Now they can’t sleep cause they’re parents.

Did anyone do the math on this? Because what this means is that, within weeks of running out of her wedding, stealing a car and running over her supposed true love, for the second time, Billy knocks her up, and they’re parents within the year?!?!? That's not a rom-com; it’s a horror story about two of the worst people in the world, and now you’ve brought a kid into it.

There are other, similarly, rude/condescending moments played for laughs, like when she confronts Billy’s best friends, who she met mere minutes before, about not being married and says, in front of the couple's daughter, ‘You don’t need a certificate to have the s-e-x.’ What the hell, lady? (This is also about two minutes before she pretends not to know them while they’re gamely trying to bolster her web of lies.) Like, I could care if people are married or not. My Aunt and Uncle have two grown boys and have been “shacking up,” as they call it, for almost 40 years now. Their marital status is occasionally joked about in the family, but never once has anyone commented about it in reference to their sex life—because we are not HORRIBLE MONSTER GARBAGE PEOPLE, unlike this awful character.

I actually really love the aggressively un-Hallmark-like diversity. People in Freeform movies don’t have to be married, or straight, or white, and all of that is incredibly refreshing and welcome, but it would also be great if those folks weren’t presented so badly. Maybe, as in real life, they could just be people living their lives, like we all are?

There are plenty of other uh-what’s-that-again moments, like how Billy rented a space and opened a bar in under two weeks. (Not a thing.) Or how someone working as an event planner somehow has enough scratch to fully fund such an enterprise, which would take half a million dollars, at the bare minimum. And how he’s “earning” that money by sleeping, platonically, alongside her at all hours of the day and night in a swanky hotel room, but she’s also worried about the minibar tab he might rack up? Or when she totally reneges on their deal, to placate her rightfully angry fiance, taking away the one good thing Billy has in his life, his new miracle bar, without a single hesitation. Or, hey, how about that casually tossed out, and then totally ignored, plot line where Billy is a raging alcoholic, and that’s probably what’s fueling his insomnia? Ha, ha…What a hoot.

Basically, NOTHING in this movie makes even a lick of sense. Rarely have actors so affable gathered together to play people so awful, and not seem to even realize it. They think they’re the story’s heroes, but they’re really villains and, sure, that can be interesting as a choice in a certain type of film, but not in what is supposed to be a light, fun Christmas movie. 

It’s not the crazy plot I object to, at all, as I truly love a completely crazy Christmas romp (Holiday in Handcuffs and Holiday Switch are among my favorite made-for-TV Christmas movies ever), but I think the key here isn’t the story’s weirdness, it’s that the characters never realize that they’re acting awfully. There was never that turn where they saw how terrible they were being. And the stuff with the alocholism thrown out there as a quite serious moment and then never brought up again? Wow. Yeah. No. Even if it makes total realistic and logical sense from what we’ve seen, you can’t go there in a movie like this. That is…A very, very different type of film indeed.

The truly unfortunate part is that Freeform’s movies have infinitely better casts and production budgets than either Lifetime or Hallmark, and I bet this one movie cost more than all of UP TV’s and ION’s put together, but, geez, what a tremendous waste of a talented cast and a not totally terrible concept (at least they took a shot at something different, which I absolutely appreciate), but the sensibility here could not be more wrong.

Final Judgement: 1Paw Up for its huge potential and great cast, and no paws at all for this story’s actual execution.