#destruction los angeles

[eroticlamb]

Izzy Stradlin performing at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, USA, photographed December 28, 1987. Photo credit: David Plastik

[rocketqueen1989x]

hug me

kiss me

eat me

hug me

kiss me

eat me

[traderrock]

Guns N' Roses at the Troubador flyer, July 11, 1986.

Via Reckless Road by Marc Canter.

[news4dzhozhar]

CONT'D 2 of 2

[heathermasonnum1fan]

OH MY GOOOD I ALMOST FORGOT HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO ONE OF THE BEST DEBUTS OF ALL TIME!

Appetite for Destruction, released on July 21st 1987, is what I would personally consider a perfect debut for a band such as GNR. From the lifechanging opening of Welcome to the Jungle to the concluding chord of Rocket Queen, this album is EXACTLY what it wants to be: it’s mean, it’s dirty, it’s unpredictable, and it’s completely unapologetic. While I personally don’t think any of their other material is interesting enough to dissect, I find Appetite to be engaging enough to literally grab you by the balls and keep you listening, singing, dancing, screaming, and doing whatever else this monster of an album pushes you to do. While the musical side of this record is obviously quite primitive and doesn’t reach for any new or groundbreaking heights, it’s still effective as fuck (seriously though, try to put on It’s So Easy and stay in one place). The energy it brings is unlike any other, it’s so beautifully and uniquely messy that I struggle to find the words to describe how much I love it. I wish I had a vocabulary wide enough to explain what I find so bewitching about the 80s-LA-SexDrugsAndRockNRoll vibe it creates but oh well. Happy birthday/anniversary Appetite!!

[ososperezosos]

September 19, 2023.

[giftedeath]

verses/about under the cut ! spoilers will be rampant ! but its been twenty years my loves <3

give me back my girlhood / it was mine first › los angeles.

pre - sunnydale buffy. living in la, attending hemery high school. she's popular, she's a cheerleader, she's everything she has always wanted to be. she is the quintessential valley girl. her parents are together, even if they do argue all the time. this is the time in her life that she will constantly refer back to seasons and seasons later ... her girlhood, the thing that is torn from her. her innocence.

she then becomes the vampire slayer.

in every generation there is a chosen one. she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. she is the slayer.

this verse will be broken up into two parts.

part i - as innocence; the period before becoming the slayer part ii - as the reckoning; she is told one day on the steps of hemery high that she is the chosen one - that she must defeat vampires; slay them ! this is her destiny. she is instilled with what can only be explained as superpowers ! she's faster and stronger than normal girls. her nights of studying long gone as she takes up nights of slaying vampires in cemeteries. school stops mattering, friends turn away from her, and then one day, there is an incident. she accidentally burns down hemery high's gym and is expelled. her and her mother, joyce summers, move to sunnydale california. the beginning of the end

i'm sixteen years old / i don't wanna die › season one.

after her expulsion from hemery high, buffy thinks this will be her chance to get away. no more slayer responsibilities. her move to sunnydale is a blessing in disguise. until she meets sunnydale high's librarian - rupert giles; who also just so happens to be her watcher and it is solidified that not only is she the vampire slayer, but she is now in a town full of vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness. things which she is responsible to take care of, for the better of society. a girl of sixteen !

key events for this verse

she meets the core of the scooby gang; willow rosenberg, and xander harris who become and stay her best friends until the end of the show. as well as other important characters, such as cordelia chase, who becomes a very significant figure in her life.

the relationship with her watcher giles begins. their relationship can be described as very father/daughter-esque but also has tumultuous ups and downs; especially in later seasons ( but also in early seasons tbh )

she meets angel ! the vampire who is cursed with a soul ( formerly known as angelus ! ) and she develops a crush on him which eventually turns into her very first serious relationship <3

she learns that sunnydale is situated atop of a 'hellmouth'; she faces multiple different vampires, including a member of the fanged four and angelus' sire - darla !! who is also his former lover. ( he does eventually kill darla during this season )

the major threat of the season however, is the master, who is an ancient and especially threatening vampire, who is trapped underground in the middle of the hellmouth. buffy defeats him with the help of the scoobies, but not without officially dying first. ( she is drowned by the master, and does die for like two minutes before xander harris is able to give her mouth to mouth and save her ! yay xander )

verse. you only get a few more candles › season two.

season two is where things really start to get fun and buffy, as a show, starts to understand what it is really about. buffy is seventeen, now and a junior at sunnydale high. she's deep in her relationship with angel. she passes time by trying to do her best in school, training with giles, as well as going to the bronze for a bit of r&r every now and again ( a lot ! ) all while fighting the forces of evil!

key events for this verse

iconic vampire couple spike <3 & drusilla <3 enter and begin to wreak havoc in sunnydale! they are established as the 'big bads' of the season.

due to buffy's brief death in season one, a new slayer named kendra is introduced ! we love kendra so much

xander and cordelia start dating which causes cordelia to become one of the scoobies, thus growing closer to buffy by association.

oz osbourne is introduced, a senior and later revealed as a werewolf. he begins dating willow and becomes a scooby !!

willow begins to dabble in magic !

jenny calendar, the computer teacher at sunnydale, starts a romantic relationship with giles & we learn that actually ( lots of retconning goes on ) jenny is romani, her true identity is janna of the kalderash, the same people who cursed angelus and gave him his soul back - making him angel ( and if you choose to watch btvs just know that there are a lot of racist elements in this, and slurs are used very frequently, and it's disgusting. )

in s2ep14 'innocence' buffy and angel have just had sex ! yeehaw, buffy loses her virginity. but alas, angel experiences a true moment of happiness ( yeah. ejaculation jdfkjdkf ) and the curse is lifted, he becomes angelus once more; the notorious, blood sucking, evil vampire. which sucks for buffy bc he then starts to treat her like shit !!! it's all a very weird joss whedon metaphor for men pretending they like you so that they can sleep with you, and then change completely right afterwards. blah blah blah. it is deeply traumatizing for buffy!

angelus joins spike and drusilla to destroy the world ! the fanged four is 3/4ths reunited and hell is unleashed upon everyone. angelus kills lots of innocents, including jenny calendar. drusilla kills kendra. ( TRAGIC AND I HATE IT !! btvs stop killing off woc challenge ) and buffy, in the end, teams up with the scoobies + spike ( yes SPIKE ! the big bad ! ) and sends angelus / angel, the man she is in love with ! into a hell dimension, never to be seen again. very traumaizing again, for buffy.

buffy also comes out to her mother this season as a vampire slayer, and joyce doesn't take it well. ( yes more metaphors ) so ... buffy leaves sunnydale.

verse. a begging to be believed › season three.

terrible awful things happened to buffy in season two like what the hell. so she disappears to la for the summer, bc isolation is how she deals with trauma hello ! eventually she does go back to sunnydale and back to the scoobies and is now eighteen, and a senior. yay ! graduation time !!

key events for this verse !

due to deplorable writing choices, kendra's tragic and unjust death means a new slayer is in town. enter faith lehane !!! buffy's shadow, a girl just a bit younger than her, a very important part of buffy, someone who makes her ... her <3 initially, buffy can't help but be a little bit jealous over faith. her friends love her instantly, she's cool and calm and wears a lot of leather, and she's kind of hot ? oops. ... but yeah, she's in sunnydale !! and they start another very tumultuous friendship .. one that starts off on jealousy, later buffy warms up to her and they have some good Bad Girl times ! until faith kills a man ! and suddenly buffy has to think about what it means to be a slayer, slayers aren't killers, am i bad too ? etc.

angel mysteriously comes back from the hell dimension lmao !!! but he's fucked in the head a bit, ok sorry wait. angel is not the same angel that she knew when she fell in love with him i guess ? bc he suffered for who knows how long in the hell dimension that she was forced to send him to. but now he's back, and she helps him regain his sanity and strength. they kind of start their relationship back up again, but by the end of the season, they break up and go their separate ways.

anyanka the vengeance demon enters ! we love her we love herrrr. she loses her vengeance demon powers tho very quickly and becomes a normal girl ! and goes to the prom with xander

buffy turns eighteen and the watcher's council basically has giles perform this ritual called tento di cruciamentum and it's the beginning of buffy and giles' decline. :( giles is fired from the watcher's council & is replaced by new watcher wesley wyndam pryce !!! oh dear wes <3 also buffy decides fuck the watcher's council and stops caring about them ! good for her !

enter big bad of the season, the mayor !! who is on a mission to ascension or becoming a "pure demon" and with faith on his side, he kind of does it ! but buffy and the scoobies and also the sunnydale class of '99 stop him ! yay ! oh the high school gets blown up lol

buffy stabs faith and puts her into a coma eek

angel and cordelia officially leave sunnydale to go start their spinoff show in los angeles ! good for them :) <3 wesley even joins them a lil bit later ! and angel the series ensues. we'll see angel again tho

verse. she is as destructive as a coriolis storm › season four.

it's the college season! buffy and willow both are attending UC sunnydale yay ! buffy's still kind of cut up about her breakup with angel, but its ok and she's healing <3 she meets some cool people. she loses her soul once ! phew. oh and there's this whole thing called the initiative which kind of sucks :/ but lets get into it

buffy's a freshman, nineteen, she likes psychology with professor walsh and her TA riley finn. she's good at it too ! actually, given the opportunity - she's pretty good at school. which is a cool realization that she has.

anya and xander start officially ? dating. willow and oz break up and oz leaves :( but that's okay bc willow's a lesbian and she meets tara who is also a witch !!! and more scoobies are added to the roster!

spike comes back lmaoooo. and uh, a chip is implanted in his head, and it prevents him from harming humans by giving him big bad migraines. but do not fear ! because he can still harm demons! which causes him to join the scoobies! yay !

oh and its put there by "the initiative" which is ( wikipedia ) "a top-secret military installation based beneath the uc sunnydale campus" they experiment on/kill demons idk. riley finn is like the main bunker boy and professor walsh also runs the shit too. the big bad this season is a guy/demon - man made The Creature from frankenstein like thing named adam and he's very smart or whtvr. it's a very uninteresting season overall lol

buffy and riley start dating and its um .. interesting. she definitely learns and realizes things

buffy and her friends defeat adam and the initiative is shut down and buffy starts thinking about the lineage of slayers, a perfect transition into season 5

verse. death is close / but so is life › season five.

DEATH IS YOUR GIFT ! or probably the best season of buffy.

your gaslit into believing that buffy has had a sister named dawn for four seasons. and you believe it too, for like a second. we love dawnie <3 dawn is the most important person ever, actually.

big bad of the season "glory" enters. she's pretty, she has cute outfits, she's also a god ! and she shares a body with this guy named Ben. he's a nurse ! but again, glory is a god ... and she's searching for a key so that she can open a portal to her hell dimension. the problem is, if she gets the key and opens the portal, it essentially blurs the line between hell and earth and it will unleash hell onto earth ! so she really can't get the key

oh and the key is dawn. dawn is the key. she's energy that was made out of buffy and formed into her teenage sister. so yeah, she wasn't buffy's sister for her whole life, she's actually just existed for a few months ! and the fake memories the key makers planted into all of their brains, makes it kind of feel like she's been there forever. buffy loves her. dawn is her. they are the best sister duo relationship i have ever seen. i am very fond of them.

joyce ( buffy's mom ) dies of a brain aneurysm. it is ............... heartbreaking. it changes buffy's life. it changes buffy.

riley and buffy break up. spike realizes he is IN LOVEEEE with buffy. it's kind of iconic but im a little biased ngl. he also really ups the ante by protecting dawn and joyce a lot and buffy really is relying on him to protect her loved ones this season. also .. he kind of becomes one of her loved ones this season as well :')

glory kidnaps dawn and despite the scoobies efforts, dawn's blood opens up the portal, unleashing hell on earth. buffy sacrifices herself and dies and the portal closes. and buffy dies for the second and final time. ugh god. THE GIFT ! DEATH IS HER GIFT !

verse. life is pain / and life is suffering but my god / you're alive › season six.

my favorite season. season six u will always be famous

buffy's dead but not to worry, the scoobies (willow, xander, anya, and tara) are going to bring her back from whatever hell dimension she's in! don't worry! willow knows what she's doing and she won't come back wrong

they do it! but oops they think that they didn't do it and so buffy is forced to claw herself out of her grave. traumatizing

buffy is alive again, she's back and she's .. not wrong, but also .. she's not the buffy that the scoobies have known and loved all these years. ( to them ) and buffy's actually extremely depressed, empty, and feels very very wrong, ultimately; is suicidal. she was pulled out of heaven ! she has bills to pay, she needs to get a job, her mother is still dead, the soulless vampire is still in love with her, there's a very iconic musical episode where she almost basically attempts to off herself but spike is there to tell her that life is worth living, you have to keep on living SO ONE OF US IS LIVINNNNGGG!!!

giles leaves this season bc he thinks that buffy relies on him too much ? weird but ok.

buffy and spike start a 'sexual' relationship... i guess

their relationship is .... it's an incredibly interesting dynamic which explores the theme of the jungian shadow in depth. it's mutually toxic, but it also stands to represent a lot about buffy and spike's characters. there will be tons and tons of metas written about this whole relationship bc it literally is so......... it's just, it makes sense why it happens. but from a basic perspective, it's not something i support or condone. but it serves a very critical narrative purpose and it is pivotal to buffy's character and the way that i write her. also if u have zero basic media literacy, then it's just a toxic relationship. but it stands for so much more. spike is consistently there, someone who she confides in throughout the season. he is her anchor in a lot of ways. she starts having sex with him because she knows that he is in love with her, she feels safe around him, but she is also disgusted with herself bc that is her shadow. he has no soul and it reflects her emptiness and the void that she has felt since being brought back to life. like i said, very interesting dynamic that changes buffy as a character and honestly, helps in her journey to healing !!!

there is a spike and buffy scene in season 6 ep19 'seeing red' which i largely ignore. actually ! yeah .. i don't feel that it is canon. in fact, spike already knew that he wanted to get his soul back prior to /that/ interaction, and so for my portrayal, i look at it as ... he feels he's not a man and not a demon, he's not the man that he needs to be, for her, to be hers, and so based on their relationship throughout s6, he comes to the conclusion that he always had: he goes and he gets his soul back!

oh yeah ... and there's this trio of incels warren, jonothan, and andrew. they try to fuck up buffy's life in "comical" and silly ways. warren gets tired of being beat by buffy so he decides to shoot her. he also manages to kill tara, and this sets willow off and dark willow is unleashed !!!! but don't worry bc xander saves the day and buffy lives because tara dies. it's tragic and terrible

verse. i owe myself an apology › season seven.

bc buffy got resurrected last season, it caused an imbalance between good and evil and something called 'the first evil,' is the big bad of the season

it's killing potential slayers and plans to raise a huge army of these ancient vampires that are practically unkillable

the watcher's council is destroyed ! everybody clap

buffy keeps a whole group of potential slayers in her house to train and protect them. oh and she's working at the high school now as a guidance counselor

spike has his soul back which means buffy can heal and be okay, because he's not empty anymore and neither is she. lots of good moments this season for them. they're married actually.

everyone in sunnydale evacuates bc the hellmouth gets worse!

faith comes back to help buffy's cause <3

there's a preacher called caleb and he's a misogynist. he's safe guarding this weapon - it's a scythe. buffy gets it and kills him with it !

angel comes to sunnydale and gives buffy an amulet that is to be worn by a 'champion' meaning vampire with a soul. so she gives it to spike.

they go down into the hellmouth to fight the ancient vampires as a unit. willow does a spell and it unleashes the potential slayers powers. now there are lots and lots of slayers, and buffy is no longer the only one! she is not alone! she is free!

spike's amulet harnesses the power of the sun and it unleashes onto the vampires, saving the world but also sacrificing himself in the end. also - buffy tells him she loves him and for the first time since angel, she means it :') and then he dies haha !

from wikipedia : in the end "dawn asks, "what are we going to do now?" buffy slowly begins to enigmatically smile as she contemplates the future ahead of her, ending the series on a hopeful note." SHE IS FREEEEEEEEE

verse. meanwhile / the world goes on › goodbye sunnydale.

basically everything after sunnydale. i don't follow the comics bc i haven't read them. i like to think that buffy rests. she has a big giant rest. i'll flesh this out later !

marvel verse: verse. it’s open season on all suckheads › the mcu.

verse. the strange and unexplained › xfiles.

[gianlucacrugnola]

Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction

E’ proprio vero che il primo amore non si scorda mai e Appetite For Destruction è la passione intramontabile. Anche a distanza di anni basta un’attimo, il disco gira sputando i primi incendiari riff di Slash, la batteria lancia Welcome To The Jungle e il tempo sembra essersi fermato alla prima volta con lui sul piatto. Bastano pochi secondi, poche note e mi rivedo nella mia camera, ragazzo pieno…

[da-ill-spot]

Tonight, January 14 ~ Myka9 55th Birthday Celebration ~ The Offbeat ~ Highland Park ~ $9

[th0rns-n-r0ses]

look at the silly boy dance!!

(im breathing funny gooooddd)

[goshredconfidentialg]

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[delicatefury]

Look. I have literally no horse in this race when it comes to the WGA/SAG Hollywood strike. I do not watch enough TV or movies to be affected and I’m not a part of the industry. I really haven’t cared.

As a lawyer and orchardist, however, I am now utterly entranced by the fact that some Universal Studios exec thought it was a good idea to cut down city-owned trees in the middle of summer.

There is no way to get around the absolute clusterfuck they have brought down upon themselves.

First, the ownership question. These trees are not owned by Universal. They’re the City of Los Angeles’ trees. That means the responsibility, and the right, to maintain them belongs to the city government. If you want to touch city property like that, you better have their permission. If not, you’re looking at anything from fines, to replacement/maintenance costs, to jail time.

Now, I don’t know LA, and I’m not licensed in California, but a lot of cities also require permits for any massive trimming like that that can affect public property (like the roads and sidewalks).

Second, they have zero excuses that can even remotely minimize the trouble they’re in. Anything that justifies that kind of pruning at this time of year would have likely required the full removal and destruction of the trees.

Because that level of pruning? You don’t do that in summer. You absolutely do not do that in summer unless the trees are dying or infested with something. Why? Because summer is healthy growth time. Summer is when your trees need all the energy they can get so they can grow and strengthen their branches and roots.

It’s also when they’re susceptible to diseases. Various bacteria, fungi, and insects strike during the summer and can cause severe damage. By trimming those trees so severely, not only are there a ton of gapping wounds for diseases to enter the tree, they’re now stressed by trying to replace that lost growth, which makes it even harder for them to survive any further damage.

Basically, Universal Studios might end up accidentally killing the trees. Which will make everything so much worse.

So, yeah. Now I’m invested.

[fans4wga]

26 July update from WGA's Chris Keyser

From the WGA: With SAG-AFTRA now on strike and new levels of solidarity across all Hollywood unions, we are witnessing the spectacular failure of the AMPTP’s negotiating strategy. In this video, WGA Negotiating Committee Co-Chair Chris Keyser lays out what this moment means and how we move forward. To learn more about the WGA strike, visit https://www.wgastrike.org.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Fellow members of the WGA East and West. It's been a while since our last video and quite a bit has happened in the meantime. So on behalf of the negotiating committee and leadership, I wanted to give you an update on where we are and what the near future at least is likely to bring.

We've been walking side by side on picket lines in New York and Los Angeles for a little over 12 weeks now. Only now we're joined by thousands upon thousands of members of SAG-AFTRA who, like us, have finally had enough.

This is the endpoint and the fruit of the AMPTP’s game plan. For 11 weeks, they negotiated with everyone but us. They claimed it was just practicality, that they could only do one thing at a time, which is not normally a point of pride. But events have made clear what we knew from the start: that not only was it a strategy, it was their only strategy. Negotiate a deal with a single guild and impose that deal on every other guild and union in Hollywood, whether it addresses the needs of those unions or not, all with the implicit threat: if you want more, strike for it.

Wow. It’s their 2007-8 playbook applied to 2023 as if nothing has changed, as if the accumulation of economic insults and injuries inflicted on us over the past decade would be borne in perpetual silence, as if the giant of labor had not awakened. But it has. And you only need to look as far as the front gates of every studio in LA and New York to see the evidence.

Two unions on strike willing to exercise their power, despite the pain, to ensure their members get the contract they deserve. For us, that means addressing the relentless mistreatment of screenwriters, which has only been exacerbated by the move to streaming; the continued denial of full MBA protection to comedy variety and other appendix A writers when they work in streaming; and the self-destructive unsustainable dismantling of the process by which episodic television is made and episodic television writers are paid.

It means addressing the existential threat of AI and the insufficiency of streaming residual formulas, including the need for transparency and a success-based component. All of these will need to be addressed for there to be a deal because in this strike it is our power and not their pattern that matters, not their strategy. Their strategy has failed them. Now they're in the midst of a streaming war with each other, an admittedly difficult transition. And as they face the future, their interests and business models could not be more different from Disney to Sony to Netflix to Amazon.

We root for their success, all of them. They root for each other's failure. We are the creative ammunition through which they will succeed. They are each other's apex predators. And yet, in a singular shared dedication to denying labor, they have shackled themselves together in what increasingly seems like a mutual suicide pact, as the 2023-24 broadcast season and the 2024-25 movie schedule and its streaming shows disappear, melt away week by week.

So what does this mean? What does it mean going forward? How do you play chess against an opponent who insists on screaming checkmate at every move regardless of how the board looks and the game is going?

You stay firm, you stay resolved, because our cause is no less existential than when we started and our leverage is increasing every day. Alone we withheld our labor with the support of our union siblings and the Teamsters and IATSE and the Crafts, we were able to delay the vast majority of production. Now with SAG-AFTRA on strike, those few studio projects that remained have also shut down. And it's not just the obvious delays. If this strike drags on, it's the actors with conflicting obligations and the directors and the double-booked studio facilities and release date chaos that the companies must now also contend with. Some of their most valuable product could well be delayed for years.

Add to that, no promotion of movies or television shows and famous faces on the picket lines and social media speaking directly to their customers. For the tech companies and the mega corporations, that should be their nightmare scenario: WGA and SAG-AFTRA side by side. Our bargaining agenda may not be identical, but our cause is the same. Our army of labor, defending labor has increased 17-fold in the past two weeks alone.

Even so, even with all this wind at our backs this negotiation won't happen overnight. It's not because the negotiations themselves are so complex. Once the companies fully engage, it could go very quickly, but because their strategy of many decades has just fallen apart and they didn't see it coming, and it's going to take them a minute to regroup, 'cause the companies have things to work out internally, and saying no to labor in unison is a lot easier than saying yes. So either together or separately, as their divergent interests might suggest, they will come back to us, despite their understandable concern about how they've navigated this transition to streaming, which is on their heads and not ours; and their worries about costs and their worries about Wall Street; despite this being a season of doom and gloom, none of them are walking away from the riches of this business, and certainly not over the equitable minimum compensation to writers.

They didn't get the deal they wanted; that's fine, it happens all the time. They're not taking their ball and going home over it. And since we know they come from union families themselves, and since they've denied that “even-in-Hollywood-you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me” ugliness of threatening to starve us out and leave us homeless (which we assume they understand also means making our children homeless,) they will come back to us. Although I will say they took a long time to deny that statement, longer than I would have had it been ascribed to me.

But what does it matter? You can starve a labor force slowly or quickly. The effect is the same. It's not like day rates for comedy variety writers and endless free drafts for screenwriters in exchange for a single paid one in four-week mini-rooms isn't cruelty. It's just cruelty written in contract language instead of a press quote.

So what can we expect from the companies as all of this plays itself out? They will try to convince Wall Street that taking a strike, prolonging it unnecessarily, losing their content stream in the process—that all of that is just smart business and no reason for investor concern. We will be talking to Wall Street too, and reminding them that for all these companies, all of 'em including Netflix, the bill, the price for making nothing, will eventually come due. And Wall Street is listening already. Here's Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush on Yahoo Finance the other day: “I think the studios are completely wrong on this one. Content is their lifeblood. They're feeling really foolish about this."

Wall Street isn't the only one listening. We've been talking to union pension funds too about the risks the companies are taking. We talked to CalPERS, the largest public pension plan in the country, talked about the loss of programming and the cost to the industry, and we heard strong support from its board for our struggle and the promise that the companies will be hearing from them, from CalPERS, and demanding answers on behalf of its 2 million members.

To us, of course, they will continue to plead temporary poverty, but we know the drill. These companies support billions into the streaming wars and taken short-term losses these past three years, because they know that to the winner will go the spoils. We're patient, will they share that with us when the time comes? What are the chances?

Since 2017, the last time the studios negotiated with us outside of COVID, the big six companies alone have made $150 billion in profits off our work, while they slashed our pay and degraded our working conditions. Maybe if they had shared a tiny piece of that then, made $1 billion or so less, this year wouldn't seem so costly. As it is, there is no iron law that these companies are entitled to record profits every year, and it isn't some great travesty if their shareholders or their CEOs get a slightly smaller slice of the massive profits we helped create if some balance is restored.

Look, no one denies that corporations exist to make a profit and no one wants our employers to be profitable more than we do, but the singular pursuit of corporate profits to the exclusion of their social and human cost is a real problem in this country—it’s a real problem. A corporation's bottom line is not the same as the world’s, and there is nothing in our studio's bottom lines today that accounts for the quality of our lives or for our dignity, for the comfort of our retirement or the security of our families. Their numbers have no conscience, but the people who report them as victories ought to.

In their refusal to recognize that, these companies have also extracted an awful price, which is laid at their feet and for which they are responsible. Losses to the economies of New York and Los Angeles and everywhere that film and television are made, terrible losses that mount every day, thousands of people out of work; not just us, all the crews, the crafts, the janitors, the drivers, the businesses that thrive when Hollywood thrives, the restaurants, the stores—for what? For nothing. So they could avoid coming to the table to negotiate the deal they will one day give us. Measured today that is the painfully mixed legacy of our employers, weighed against every beautiful piece of work we have made with them.

And if history is a guide, they have only temporary stewardship over a kind of national trust, which is Hollywood. Our story, our sometimes conscience, our public conversation, our diversion of the worst and best of times, our greatest export, the repository of our imagination. They have some obligation to more than just their shareholders to behave accordingly.

Unfortunately, it seems big tech, mega corporations, and some of the people who run them, as the saying goes know the price of everything and the value of nothing. So they have built a business model that no longer works for human beings who cannot be paid minimum for 10 to 20 weeks a year and make a career out of that, be paid for one draft of a screenplay that demands a year of labor, be paid a few episodic fees for a show about which to take years to decide be paid a daily rate.

And now we have a first glimpse of what they offered our actor colleagues. We are not 170,000 Willy Lomans to be used and then discarded. We know what the companies believe they have the power to do. We know what they think machines can do and do without any of us. Oh yeah, we've seen the writing on the wall and it's plagiarized.

The thing is this: the difference between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do is the greatest single difference in the world. Knowing that is the only real protection we have against a dystopian future. And if the companies sometimes forget that, writers will do it for them.

I can't know exactly how long it will take this revolutionary moment, and you've heard again and again what is happening today has not happened in 63 years, but I know that's not always how it feels, revolutionary and defining, even though we celebrate that on picket lines together, which is the right thing to do. That's not always how it feels when you go home at night. I know how tough this is: to strike, to hold the line. I know it gets tougher every day even with SAG-AFTRA marching beside us, how hard it is to face the uncertainty of when it will end, when we'll get back to work, how we'll pay the bills. I know it's hardest for those who've just gotten started, for those for whom the world opens doors more reluctantly, battled their whole life just to get here; but hard too for those struggling to maintain their long careers, who find work tougher and tougher to come by, or those with families with children or parents to take care of.

These companies understand the cruelty of what they're doing. It's their plan to starve us just a little, to exact as much pain as they can so that we wish more for the pain to end than for the better life we dreamed up. That we're more afraid of the uncertainty of the present than the certain devastation of the future. It's societally acceptable economic torture inflicted by management on labor every day, then blamed on labor for daring to fight back, for refusing to be complicit in its own mistreatment.

Here's how I know that's not going to work. Not with us, not with the writers, because we haven't come all this way, fought to have these careers in the first place, all the adversity, and marched together for all these months, only to let it slip away on our watch—because there is no point in rushing back to jobs that may not be there in a year or two anyway. Because the business, as the companies have twisted it, is now untenable, unsurvivable for so many of us, because even success is not enough to keep going, because this guild is younger than it's ever been and more diverse. And this young diverse membership knows from hard personal experience the system is broken and that it will not be fixed unless they fix it. And those of us who came before them will not let them down, because we and the writer's guild are the beneficiaries of all those who came before us who gave up everything for us.

Like the writers of 1960, the year I was born, who struck for 22 weeks and who gave away all the TV residuals for all the movies they had ever written so that we could have a health insurance and pension plan and residuals from that date forward. $15 billion flowed to writers and their benefit plans because of that sacrifice. Because writers are brave, because now it's our turn.

So what's our job? Even as we welcome SAG-AFTRA to our side, we are still responsible for our own deal, and so we must remain focused and diligent. We must continue to march, picket signs in hand. But we should also remember this and with pride, that before there was SAG-AFTRA, before even the Teamsters and IATSE and the laborers and the electrical workers and the musicians and the plasterers came to our side, there was the writers. Alone then, we looked at the blank page and began to imagine the future. With no net but each other we typed the words, what if?

And then we took a step into the darkness and found that it was light. And then we were joined by the crews and the drivers and the actors. The actors got a bit more fanfare when they showed up, but that's okay, we wrote the script. The WGA, still small, not alone anymore after all these decades. Hollywood labor has finally linked arms and found its voice, and that voice says enough. There is no road to longterm prosperity that burns a path through your own workforce. We are not your enemies. We are not merely a cost to be borne. We are your partners and your greatest asset. And we are, as you acknowledge yourselves, irreplaceable, but by accident or design and it doesn't really matter anymore, the business you are running no longer works for those who work for you.

What is the point in continuing to deny that? Why deny it when everyone else in the business to a person tells you it's true? Do you think it's a coincidence that two unions are on strike against you for the first time since Eisenhower was president? You can't exactly accuse us of being quick on the trigger. The effect has a cause, it has a cause. And there is no profit in insisting on the answers to the past for the questions of the future.

But if you want instead to invest in something that will reap you fortunes, I have a tip. And if you are visionaries, envision a solution, not a stalemate. Because this isn't a war we're in, it's a negotiation, it's just a negotiation. There is no face-saving here for either side, because there is no winner or loser. It's just a deal. And when you come to remember that again we will be here as we have been here all along.

And at this point with 170,000 writers and actors aligned against your intransigence, that is as generous as I can be, as close to an olive branch as I can offer. But if you insist instead on the same threatening rhetoric, on saying you would rather starve us than pay us, I would remind you of this: You are fighting for a dollar, we are fighting for survival. We are fighting for our home: writing is where we live, and we will defend that home with a bravery and stamina and ferocity that you will come to understand someday, which is why you cannot break us. You cannot outlast us, you cannot.

And not just because we have the will, because we have power. Nothing in this business happens until we start to write. And we will not start to write until we are paid.

Union now. Union forever.

[elliottkay]

You ever miss your hometown so much during a pandemic that you wrote a whole novel about it with magic and car chases and sexy immortal mercenaries and a sketchy secret FBI task force and adorable cats and the sweetest monster-chomping ghost dog ever? Or is it just me?

GRAND THEFT SORCERY is out now! You can read chapter one for free on my website!

The vampire lord of Los Angeles is dead, plunging the nightlife into chaos. His subjects fight over his title and his missing treasure hoard. The conflict brings werewolves, sorcerers, and djinn close to open war.

Repo man Evan Murphy knows nothing of the supernatural. He only wants a roof over his head and food for his cats. When a risky job lands him in the dungeon of a Hollywood Hills necromancer, a forgotten god offers him the power to escape—making him the target of a beautiful immortal mercenary and every monster within a hundred miles. Evan’s new magic may save the city from its shadows, but only if he can save himself.

WARNING: Grand Theft Sorcery contains explicit sex, explicit violence, explicit criticism of American law enforcement, bilingual profanity, a meet-cute that ends in homicide, conspicuous consumption, Los Angeles, demons, monsters, cops, vampires, talent agents, tautologies, street racing, attempted murder, successful murder, axe murder, motorcycle helmet murder, matching basketball hoodies, carjacking, kidnapping, brief torture, discovery of animal abuse (past/off-page), destruction of evidence, rampant traffic violations, premeditated hotel reservation with Only One Bed, desecration of the dead, awkward meetings with the ex, awkward meetings with the ex’s mom, deadly bisexuals, hypermasculine podcaster trash, acknowledgment of white privilege, false license plates, conspiracy, squatting, looting, mauling, home invasion, trespassing, witchcraft, abuse of authority, aggressive generosity, arguable cannibalism, destruction of private property, search warrant violations, outright lies, phone hacking, petty theft, grand larceny, vandalism, arson, defenestration, resisting arrest, driving under the influence of existential shock, appropriation of queer meme culture, shooting, punching, kicking, biting, couch surfing, bribery of wildlife, old timey Hollywood stereotypes, internet sexism and exploitation thereof, unflattering implications about Heaven and angels, two entirely normal cats, and the Black Dog of the Mojave.

GRAND THEFT SORCERY stands alone as a thrill ride unto itself, yet it shares a world and characters with the Good Intentions series. No prior reading required, but GI readers will recognize events and a few very familiar faces. Again, if you want a good preview, chapter one is here on my website!

Cover illustration by Julie Dillon, title design by Lee Moyer!

[ryanguzmansource]

September 27, 2024

Ryan Guzman is currently filming his next thriller: Midnight and, in his talk with Xmag, he takes a tour of his professional career. Despite his current international projection as an actor, Ryan Guzman did not plan to dedicate himself to acting at first. The American actor and model began to get interested in mixed martial arts when he was only seven years old and, after winning his first black belt when he was ten, he was a mixed martial arts fighter in Sacramento until 2010. A shoulder injury prevented him from continuing with his dream and he redirected his career working as a model in various magazines and brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Affliction and Reebok. Everything completely changed when he got his first starring role in Step Up: Revolution. “It changed the direction of my life. It was as if I was launching myself into a world that I had only seen in the distance.” The dance franchise was an international success and Ryan tells us about the process he followed for the films, which, according to him, has always been the same over the years. “I try hard at something new without fear of failure. I do it this way because I know that I can fail at the beginning of anything I try. The goal is to learn from my failures and be open to new ideas when it comes to acquiring and perfecting a skill.”

His career as an actor continued in 2015 with the psychological thriller The Boy Next Door, which as Ryan explains, gave him "an invaluable perspective on the business side of the entertainment industry.” In the film, he shared the limelight with Jennifer Lopez and Ryan tells us about his experience working on the film and what it was like working with her. "Jennifer's life is something that most people won't be able to comprehend because it involves A LOT. She's a superstar. He has a million things going on at the same time. I had a great time collaborating with her and the director, Rob. They both made me feel very comfortable. It was so much fun playing the bad boy!” From a psychological drama about a woman who falls in love with her younger neighbor, Ryan jumped to play Eddie Diaz in the police drama series 9-1-1, which tells the story of a Los Angeles rescue group willing to attend to any emergency. The series underwent a big change after its transition from the FOX network to ABC and Ryan explains how that has affected his character. "Eddie's character has evolved a lot since his introduction into the 9-1-1 universe. As in any great evolution, destruction must occur in order to rebuild something new. The transition from FOX to ABC came at a perfect time for my character and I was able to represent that evolution through destruction just before another defining event in Eddie's life. Season eight is about Eddie making peace with his demons and finding self-love.” Being a series that deals with extreme and challenging situations, Ryan describes how he prepared physically and psychologically for those moments. "Empathy is the key. I draw from what I've experienced and my understanding of it; then I use the truth of those encounters to connect with the character. As for my physical fitness, I keep practicing martial arts." Recently, one of his latest projects has been the fictional comedy The Present, starring Isla Fisher and Greg Kinnear. Ryan explains that the possibility of working with these two actors was one of the reasons I chose this film. “The moment I saw that Isla Fisher and Greg Kinnear were involved in the film, I joined the project. These are two actors I've always wanted to collaborate with. Working with Isla was a dream, she gave me a lot of love and knowledge and Greg is someone who I have always enjoyed watching perform. Also, the theme resonated deeply with me, as I was going through a divorce at the time, which made the story especially relatable.”

Right now, the American actor is involved in the filming of the thriller Midnight. "I received the script from writer Lamont Magee and when he asked me if I would be interested in one of the roles opposite Rosario Dawson, he didn't have to say much more to capture my interest. 'Midnight' was an opportunity to show action in a way that I haven't been able to do as much as I would like as an actor.” According to Ryan, the thriller promises to be an intriguing story and one that will surprise the spectators. "I think seeing Rosario Dawson come face to face with Mila Jovovich is intriguing enough, but then you add the layers of her sister's character, played by Alexandra Shipp and the truth is that the audience is about to discover a lot of twists and surprises.” As immersed as he is in his work, Ryan ends the interview by expressing how grateful he feels to have a community of fans and followers who have always been supporting him. “I cannot fully express the depth of my gratitude to those who have found my work entertaining and have continued to support my career over the years. THANK YOU!”