#give this man a soap opera award

[junkdrawerfics]

Swan Sisters (Part 3)

Part 1 Part 2

Jasper Whitlock X Reader

Bella Swan and Sister!Reader

Summary: Part 3 of the sister!reader series where you're Bella's sister and a vampire, but she doesn't know. Yet. In this part - the decision making meeting following the accident + you finding Edward in Bella's room that night + talk of La Push beach

Word Count: 3199

Warnings: None? Jasper's murderous intent, but like, only for a moment.

---

“NO!”

You are met with the clattering of a falling chair and Edward’s voice, sharp and defiant, as you step into the Cullen’s house.

“Edward.” That’s Carlisle’s voice.

You peek into the dining room, where the whole family is sitting around the table. Except Edward, who looks ready to flee, and Carlisle, who’s keeping him from doing just that. Jasper’s eyes find yours, and you can tell that it’s not going well. They must be talking about what to do already.

“It’s crystal clear, Edward. You can deny it all you want, but that’s what I see,” Alice sighs.

“I have to leave.”

“You can’t!”

Everyone’s eyes snap to you, as if they weren’t already keenly aware of your presence. It makes you flinch, unprepared to have so much attention so suddenly. You hadn’t meant to burst out like that.

“He’s not leaving,” Alice chimes, voice light despite the nerves fizzling in the air. “There are only two ways I see this ending and neither involve him leaving. He’ll never be able to at this rate.”

“I can change it!”

“What do you see, Alice?” You implore her, finally stepping into the room. The argument you planned in your head on the way here is all but forgotten. There isn’t often much you can do to change Alice’s visions.

The little ravenette glances at you, and only then does she hesitate. It can’t be good, then. You look to Edward, to ask him, but his eyes are locked on you, dripping with such misery - and remorse? - it makes you waver. Dread creeps up your spine. What did she see?

“Tell us, Alice,” Jasper urges, looking uneasy from the storm of emotions clouding the room.

“Well, it depends on how strong Edward is,” Alice starts, glancing warily between you and her brother.  “If he’s not strong enough to control himself, he’ll…kill Bella.”

Your eyes blow wide. Kill her? No, no you won’t allow that.

“And he’ll hurt you when you try to stop him,” she finishes, though she looks like she’s waiting for-

A low snarl tears through the room.

Everyone goes abruptly still, except Alice. All eyes turn towards Jasper.

And the sight steals your breath away.

Standing at his full height, Jasper braces himself against the table, every carved muscle drawn taut, wood splintering under his grip. His hair falls like shattered pieces of a halo around his face, lips drawn back around a feral, animalistic snarl. Bleeding to a molten black hue and dripping with something violently dark, his eyes are locked solely on Edward.

The others all shift back, instincts screaming at them to get away from the threat in front of them. This isn’t Jasper anymore. No, it’s the soldier. A man ravaged by war, whose skin is decorated with scars like medals, whose fingers still drip with the blood of past kills. And he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again to protect what he loves.

And you’re in awe. Because it is Jasper. The man you love. Your mate.

How could you ever be afraid of him?

“Jasper-” Edward holds out his hands, but it does little to placate the blond. Jasper just narrows his eyes, and Edward seems to flinch from some invisible attack.

You shake yourself from your reverie. As much as you want to kill Edward yourself, the thought of him hurting your sister burning like ice through your veins, you know you shouldn’t. Deep down, even if this is something Alice has seen, there’s a part of you that’s certain he won’t do it. He’d never be able to live with himself. So you won’t let him die just yet. For Bella.

“Jasper,” you call softly, his name sugar on your lips, “stop, please.”

The change is instant, like a cat retracting its claws and flattening its fur. The blond is at your side, his touch gentle as he curls around you, nose tucking into your hair. No more fury. No more soldier. Just your Jasper. Though you can still feel his concern, and that only warms your heart more.

“I feel safe, Jas. Can’t you tell?” You smile up at him, letting your emotions speak for you.

“You sure, darlin’?” 

“Completely.” 

Just like that, he relaxes against you, letting out a soft huff in your hair when you giggle. It seems you’re pretty good at taming the big, bad wolf. He’s really just a soft puppy on the inside anyways. Maybe he’d purr if you scratched him under the chin - you’ll have to try that some time, you think with another laugh.

With that settled, you turn back to the family. Each and every one of them is staring at you with wide eyes, astonishment clear in their features. Edward looks so relieved he might faint, and just a touch disturbed. You can’t help but give him a teasing smile.

“You thought he was going to hurt you?” You chirp, leaning back into Jasper’s chest.

Edward glances warily at the blond (who you know is still glaring daggers, not that you mind).

“You should have heard what he was thinking,” he replies, shaken, “What he’s still thinking!”

“Jasper.” You elbow him none too gently.

“...Sorry.” He’s obviously not. But you nod anyways, much to Edward’s chagrin.

“What else did you see, Alice? What’s the other outcome?”

Alice, not missing a beat, picks up right where she left off, “The other ending is that she will be one of us someday.”

You blink. 

And blink and blink.

You would say you’re shocked, but can you really be? 

This is where you ended up, so why not her?

“Okay,” you hum, finitely.

“What? No! That’s not going to happen!” You roll your eyes at Edwards, dramatics. You suppose that also makes sense now.

“This certainly makes things more complicated,” Carlisle murmurs.

“I’ll say,” Emmett agrees, voice bordering on laughter.

“Our plans don’t change though. We’ll stay and watch. And no one will touch Bella.”

“No-”

“Edward,” you cut him off, and he stiffens, “just think about it. Think about what it means.”

If she becomes a vampire, that probably means they’ll fall in love, just like you and Jasper. You can already see it. Especially after your conversation with Bella.

Edward jerks as he sees your memories, the ones your purposefully let fill your mind. Her blushing at his name, the vehement denial, her laughter. And you see the spark in his eyes, the gleam of something beyond thirst, beyond amusement, and you know.

But he shuts down, a shield of cold disinterest covering his face, before storming right out of the house. With him gone and Jasper calmed, the rest of the Cullens settle back into their seats. None of them seem too surprised by Edward’s dramatics. You’re still feeling a bit whiplashed, though.

With a heavy sigh, you lean even further into Jasper’s embrace. Someday he’ll figure it out. You can only imagine how he feels, especially since you know what he thinks about being a vampire himself. The only thing keeping them apart at this point though, is their pure stubbornness.

It’s just a matter of time before they both accept where they’re going.

The silence left in Edward’s wake breaks when Emmett bursts, “What just happened?”

And then everyone is laughing, and the tension dissipates.

“I think our dear Edward just realized he’s falling for a human,” Rosalie says, nose scrunching.

“Hey, I was human just a little bit ago,” you point out, but Rose just rolls her eyes.

“You were different.”

“Mhm.” Your eyes squint into thin crescents. “I believe I was even more awkward. God only knows how you all put up with me.”

“Oh, we loved you, (Y/n),” Esme chimes, ever the second mother to you all, “And you’ve been so good to Jasper.”

“Not as good as he’s been to me,” you reply, looking over your shoulder at the blond.

His arms tighten around you a fraction, lips curling with a soft grin as he brushes your noses together. It’s such a sweet, gentle gesture, you can’t help but sigh, eyes flickering shut.

“You guys are sickening,” Emmett grumbles.

“I think they’re cute,” Alice chirps.

“If cute means gross.”

As if he and Rose are any better, you muse and hide your smile in Jasper’s chest. At least you keep things innocent in front of everyone else. Bar one incident where you could have sworn no one was in the house. But still!

“So, Jas-” You prop your chin against him, eyes alight with unrestrained admiration. “-were you really going to hurt Edward to protect me?”

Jasper’s brow furrows, his hands tracing along your waist thoughtlessly to keep himself grounded. Even the memory of your sudden fear, the feeling so sharp it had felt like a knife digging into his chest, makes him want to chase the copper-haired vampire down and kill him. He’s sure he could too. Edward may have his ability, but his fighting experience is lacking compared to him.

Seeing the dark shadow fall over his eyes again, you reach up, brushing your fingertips along his jaw before cupping the side of his face. They flicker down to you hesitantly, and it’s easy to find your answer there.

“No killing him,” you hum, drawing a sharp frown from the blond. “Bella likes him, so I think she’d be pretty put out if something happened to him.”

“And he’s a part of this family, just like you,” Carlisle adds serenely, a more valid reason perhaps.

“And he’s the only one who will play chess with me.” Of course you can’t take that from Alice.

“So we can’t lose him,” you say, voice veiled with laughter. “Plus, he keeps the family safe, including me. Just like you’re trying to do.” You press a kiss to the corner of his lips, which seems to melt a bit of his icy defense. “I want Bella to be like us one day and it looks like she might be if we let this play itself out.”

You feel lighter after saying it out loud, even more so when Jasper finally loosens, giving you one of those stiff, reluctant nods before pulling you back in to bury his face in the crook of your neck. You curl your arms around him, letting out a relieved breath into his hair.

Just like that, the weight of it all seems to magically disappear. This changes everything, after all. If Bella gets turned, you’ll never have to lose her. That thought alone makes you soar. And if she ends up with Edward? Well, that’d just be perfect. 

There’s a lot you still need to navigate, but maybe it’ll all work out.

---

If working out means you find Edward standing in your little sister’s room in the dead of night several hours later.

“You have three seconds to explain before I kill you,” you growl, voice just quiet enough to not wake Bella.

“(Y/n)-”

“Time’s up.”

You shove him right out the window.

Edward deftly catches himself and you drop down right next to him, ready to give him a lashing. But before you can even get a single scathing word out, he jumps to cover your mouth. You both freeze. Slowly, your eyes narrow into slits, every murderous thought flickering through your head. Maybe you should let Jasper at him. Edward goes even paler than usual, if that’s possible.

“Just…let me explain?” He implores quietly.

You hold your fierce glare for a moment, just to watch him squirm, but eventually concede.

Brows raised, Edward hesitantly lets his hand fall away, as if he still expects you to bite his head off. You want to. You feel like you have every right to, given how you just found him, but he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Just this once.

“I was worried. About her,” he starts, sounding just as bewildered with himself as you are. “I couldn’t stop myself, I just had to make sure she was safe.”

“So you broke into her room and watched her sleep? Do you know how creepy that is?” Your face screws up as you recount the sight. “Seriously, Edward, you can’t just-”

“I know,” he snaps, “I know. I was just going to check on her and leave, but then I started thinking about…about staying.”

Staying? Hope sparks in your chest. Does that mean he’s accepting Alice’s vision? An image of him and Bella, walking hand in hand, in love, flashes through your mind.

“Please try to restrain yourself,” he mutters, suddenly reluctant at your inner burst of excitement, “I still don’t think it’s safe.”

“But you’re trying to make it safer.” That’s why he stayed. Being around her is like some kind of weird exposure therapy.

Edward cringes, “Don’t call it that.”

“That’s what it is, though,” you hum, all your previous malice evaporating into the air. This is so exciting! He wants it to work. “You’re hoping being around her will desensitize you to her scent.”

“It worked for you.”

“And if it works for you, you’ll stay?”

“...maybe.”

Good enough for you! Esme will be so happy. And Alice. She probably already sees it. 

“Okay!” You concede with a bright smile and give him a cheesy thumbs up, “Still creepy but I’ll allow it! I believe in you, Edward, you can make this work.”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s just the smallest smile pulling at his lips that shows his fondness for you. Your optimism has always been effective at cheering up even his cloudy moods. There’s something contagious about it, which makes you all the more perfect for his brother, alongside your fierce protectiveness.

Speaking of.

“If you touch her though, I will garrotte you.”

And with that, you skip off back to the house, humming to yourself and leaving a baffled Edward behind you.

There was no hint of a lie in your mind.

---

“Are you sure Edward isn’t bipolar?”

You snort, barely covering your mouth before a cackle escapes you.

Bella, queen of smooth segways. You were just asking what she wanted for dinner.

“Pretty sure,” you chirp once the laughter passes, “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just-” She pinches her lips together in frustration. “I can’t figure him out. One minute he’s being nice to me and the next it’s like he’s trying to scare me off.”

“Not surprised,” you say with a shrug, “I don’t think he’s ever liked someone before.”

You grab a potato, making quick work of peeling it. Charlie likes your roasted potato recipe. The man is a meat and potatoes person through and thro-

Oh no.

You twist on your heels, coming face to face with a stunned Bella. She’s staring at you, doe-eyed, mouth barely gaping.

Oh, you weren’t supposed to say that.

“I mean- he uh, he- oh I’m so screwed.” You steeple your fingers in front of your lips.

“He likes me?”

“Well…” How can you answer this without answering it? You groan. If only you’d gotten some special ability to turn back time, or not say stupid things at least. “Can you forget I said that? He’s gonna kill me.”

“Why would he treat me like this if he likes me?”

“I don’t know! Cause he’s stupid? Cause he thinks he’s not good for you?”

Bella frowns, as if it’s the most bizarre idea in the world “But he’s-” She gestures vaguely.

“Gorgeous? Perfect? Stunning?” 

That’s what you thought when you first saw Jasper. You could hardly speak a word to the man because of how flustered his beauty made you. If your memory serves correct, the first time you successfully put words together in front of him, it was because he used his ability to calm you down.

“They really are an attractive bunch,” you mumble to yourself.

“You fit pretty well with them,” Bella says offhandedly, a hint of something in her voice you choose to ignore.

“Anyways, you and Edward. What did he do this time to prompt such accusations?”

“Well, a group of us are going to the beach, and I tried inviting him. He says he wants to be friends, but that we shouldn’t be, and then he got all-” Another vague gesture, and you can’t help but giggle as Bella tries to do an impression of Edward’s sulky expression. “I don’t know, but it was weird.”

“Which beach?” You ask, curious. If it’s-

“La Push.”

Yup. La Push, the beach on the Quileute’s reservation. Many of your summers were spent at that beach, up until you were turned and learned about the true history between them and the Cullens. Now you can’t go anymore, unless the wolves become a little more amicable.

“I think there’s a history there,” you explain vaguely, “The Quileute don't like the Cullens. But that sounds fun! You might run into Jacob!”

“Jacob, yah.” She doesn’t seem too interested in the prospect, not compared to the intrigue in her voice when she asks, “Why don’t they like the Cullens?”

“Not sure, some legend or something?” It wasn’t something you asked about in depth. All you know is that Sam Uley does not like you anymore, not that he ever really did. “Just don’t take the whole Edward thing too seriously. He probably wanted to.”

“Because he likes me?” Bella raises a deft eyebrow.

You give her a sharp glare in return, “If you tell him I said anything, you’re dead meat, Tinkerbell. I’ll have just enough time to get you before he kills me.”

“It’s not like I believe you.” She shrugs, coming beside you to pick up peeling the potato where you left off, though you catch the smallest frown marring her lips. “No way Edward Cullens likes me.”

Oh.

“So you’re both stupid.” 

A match made in heaven. Or purgatory maybe.

“Just realistic.”

Oh sweetie.

You shake your head, allowing the silence to stretch as you switch over to the steak and let her finish the potatoes. 

You departed from reality a long time ago. There is absolutely nothing realistic about your life right now. A girl from Forks, one of the most uneventful towns in the country, who somehow fell in love with a Cullen, the one with the least control mind you, and ended up getting turned into a vampire herself. Not to mention the werewolves and their weird imprinting thing. It’s really like you’ve set foot in some fantasy novel.

And now Bella, too. You can only imagine how she’d react to learning about it all.

By the time you finish preparing the meal, right before Charlie gets home, Bella seems less perturbed. There’s a little glint to her eyes as she plates herself some food, one you can’t miss after growing up with her.

“What are you thinking, Bells?” You prod, practically gluing yourself to her side.

“Nothing, just that it might not be too bad to run into Jacob tomorrow,” she mumbles, avoiding your curious gaze.

You tilt your head, “Why?”

She just shrugs again, and that’s when your father decides to make his entrance. You let out a soft huff and slump into your seat, not missing Bella’s little secretive grin.

That can’t mean anything good.

---

Part 4

The amount of times I read through these bits in Midnight Sun to try and stick with the books! I love Midnight Sun, such a good book :3 definitely recommend if you like the main series!

[skippyangel16]

Seriously? Sharing a star with Tomlinson?

Never heard of before today but…

The Ostend Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ostend, Belgium. The film voted by a jury as the best in the competition section receives the Best Film Award. A highlight in the Flemish film year, the Ensor Awards take place at the end of it to honor the cinematic achievements by the industry. Wikipedia ( launched 2007)

TCND was on as a premier… so why the star now?

According to the festival …

To honor their visit to Ostend, Dries Vos and the cast will be honored with a star on our prestigious Walk of Fame. This special recognition on the promenade marks their exceptional contribution to the world of film and television.

(source below at bottom of page)

So they just showed up and got a star for individual past works?

So why did ‘they’ ….Sam and Eleanor get a star? There was a cast of 4 and in my mind all equal? Silly me obviously not that equal? Did Driez Vos get a star on his own?

Anyway, never in my wildest did I expect that this soap opera of a series would lead him to have his name immortalised in a star with Tomlinson…dear god!

As the star was not specific to TCND…why do they have to share one? Now forever linked 🙄.

My cynical mind …another NOT WITH BALFE.

We all know S&C were robbed of true accolade in Outlander along with Tobias imo.

Sam will never be automatically linked with Tomlinson. Another year TCND will be forgotten. It’s not going to be binged over and over imo. It’s barely getting the ratings. But yes he has his name in a star and his work has been recognised…in Belgium. Where everyone knows his name.

It’s sad but Sam should have had a star years ago with a certain lady. It’s like season one and two of outlander never happened. This was quality! This was sexy! This was hot! THIS WAS CHEMISTRY NOT TCND! This was what paved the way for TCND, side to side its shite Sam. Your chemistry does not waver so give up the sexy leads, unless it’s Balfe it seems to be an epic fail…but yes the best effort so far 🤷‍♀️JMHO

You will never replicate this hotness so play a different role…

Unfortunately the only Star that will ever be for them is the one with the z in it…but one can live in hope!

TCND, I stand by my review 👇out of all of them Jessica De Gouw was the stand out. Give her a star …

Source

Other star owners include Pierce Brosnan who turned up to promote his film November Man 2014 and Jeanne Claude Van Damme in 2018 promoting his film Lukas, aka the Bouncer…

[thececeverse]

JASON DAY-FUJIWARA is a Japanese-English actor, visual artist, videographer, businessman, and semi-retired model. Born on January 4th, 1997, Jason began his career as a child actor and model in 2004, and his earliest jobs came in the form of Abercrombie campaigns and print advertisements for Burberry and Chloe. His acting debut didn't come until 2005, in which he had a supporting role in a British soap opera. Prior to his breakthrough, Jason became a prominent young TV actor in England, and his popularity led him to a role in the 2011 Disney film, Lemonade Mouth.

In 2014, Jason was one of two co-stars in the film Sister. The film was an international success, and it won him a Young Hollywood Award, a Saturn Award, and even his first Golden Globe. Sister saw recognition at the Academy Awards, and won the GLAAD Media Award for Best Outstanding Film. The film's success catapulted Jason into semi-stardom in the United States, and he found his way into an Emmy-nominated television film later that year. In 2016, however, he would be transformed into an established actor seemingly overnight.

Jason would secure the role of Jess (later Jax) Takeda in Stranger Things, and his character's subsequent popularity turned him into a beloved actor. As a result, he's since achieved roles in major productions such as Squid Game, The Power of the Dog, Dune, Fast X, the Knives Out trilogy, Scream, Mad Max: Furiosa, Succession, Bridgerton, and Shiai—the latter of which garnered him a Best Actor nomination at the 2024 Academy Awards.

In addition to his booming acting career, Jason also has a booming modeling career. In 2013, he signed a contract with IMG Models, and a year later, he was sent to Paris and London to make his Fashion Week debuts. In between 2014 and 2016, he was seen as a rising star within the modeling world, booking shows and campaigns for the likes of Valentino, Alexander Wang, and Louis Vuitton. Jason's career as a model came to a rather abrupt end in 2016, though, when he announced that he would be taking an indefinite hiatus from modeling. The hiatus would thankfully end six years later, when he returned to the runway for Paris Fashion Week in 2022. Now, he's an ambassador for Celine, Hermès, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Saint Laurent's "L'Homme" fragrance, and is the first male ambassador for SK-II. Additionally, Jason also happens to be the founder and CEO of Day Media Corp, a gallery and media company, mainly for photography and videography. Founding the company in 2021, it has gone on to be immensely successful.

In 2018, Jason came out as a demiboy, changing his name from Jocelyn Charlene Day to Jason Day-Fujiwara. In his post, he expressed his feelings of gender dysphoria and confusing attraction to women, which he had been feeling for over two years at that point (which was also one of the reasons he decided to step back from modeling). Three years later, he would publicly come out as a transgender man, citing his then-girlfriend for giving him the courage to do so. Since then, Jason has been a staunch activist for the LGBT community and other marginalized groups, regularly speaking at charity events and making frequent appearances at Pride.

In 2019, Jason met his future wife, Aikawa Chouka (also known as Love). Meeting during the table reading before the production of Stranger Things' third season, the two clicked instantly due to their shared Japanese heritage and similar social standing (as Jason's father—Jonathan Day—is the president of the Day Banking Group, while his mother is a wealthy heiress and cast member of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). Interestingly enough, they also attended the same Swiss private school at the same time, and their mothers were very familiar with each other. They became immensely close over the next two years, to the point where a relationship between their characters on Stranger Things was written in due to their intense chemistry, and by 2021, the internet was beginning to notice just how close they were. Everyone's suspicions were confirmed on Valentine's Day of that year, when both Jason and Chouka confirmed their relationship on Instagram. The world couldn't have been happier, and they've since gone on to become an iconic couple, even tying the knot in 2024. Their lavish Italian wedding has gone down as the "wedding of the decade."

Now, Jason has cemented himself as a beloved celebrity, becoming known as one of the best and most popular actors of the modern age. With his string of iconic roles, activism, booming business, and aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed, it doesn't look like Jason will be going away anytime soon (especially since he's married to Chouka).

[whileiamdying]

James Earl Jones, Whose Powerful Acting Resonated Onstage and Onscreen, Dies at 93

He gave life to characters like Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and went on to collect Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys and an honorary Oscar.

James Earl Jones in 1980. He climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords.Credit...M. Reichenthal/Associated Press

Published Sept. 9, 2024 Updated Sept. 10, 2024, 1:30 a.m. ET

James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America’s most versatile actors in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare’s rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93.

The office of his agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed the death in a statement.

From destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Mr. Jones climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords. He was abandoned as a child by his parents, raised by a racist grandmother and mute for years in his stutterer’s shame, but he learned to speak again with a herculean will. All had much to do with his success.

So did plays by Howard Sackler and August Wilson that let a young actor explore racial hatred in the national experience; television soap operas that boldly cast a Black man as a doctor in the 1960s; and a decision by George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” to put an anonymous, rumbling African American voice behind the grotesque mask of the galactic villain Vader.

Mr. Jones in 1979 as the author Alex Haley on “Roots: The Next Generation.” Credit...Warner Brothers Television, via Everett Collection

The rest was accomplished by Mr. Jones himself: a prodigious body of work that encompassed scores of plays, nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series, and some 120 movies. They included his voice work, much of it uncredited, in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, in the credited voice-over of Mufasa in “The Lion King,” Disney’s 1994 animated musical film, and in his reprise of the role in Jon Favreau’s computer-animated remake in 2019.

Mr. Jones was no matinee idol, like Cary Grant or Denzel Washington. But his bulky Everyman suited many characters, and his range of forcefulness and subtlety was often compared to Morgan Freeman’s. Nor was he a singer; yet his voice, though not nearly as powerful, was sometimes likened to that of the great Paul Robeson. Mr. Jones collected Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys, Kennedy Center honors and an honorary Academy Award.

Under the artistic and competitive demands of daily stage work and heavy commitments to television and Hollywood — pressures that burn out many actors — Mr. Jones was a rock. He once appeared in 18 plays in 30 months. He often made a half-dozen films a year, in addition to his television work. And he did it for a half-century, giving thousands of performances that captivated audiences, moviegoers and critics.

They were dazzled by his presence. A bear of a man — 6 feet 2 inches and 200 pounds — he dominated a stage with his barrel chest, large head and emotional fires, tromping across the boards and spitting his lines into the front rows. And audiences were mesmerized by the voice. It was Lear’s roaring crash into madness, Othello’s sweet balm for Desdemona, Oberon’s last rapture for Titania, the queen of the fairies on a midsummer night.

Mr. Jones as Othello in the Broadway revival of the play in New York in 1981. Credit...Martha Swope/The New York Public Library

He liked to portray kings and generals, garbage men and bricklayers; perform Shakespeare in Central Park and the works of August Wilson and Athol Fugard on Broadway. He could strut and court lecherously, erupt with rage or melt tenderly; play the blustering Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (2008) or an aging Norman Thayer Jr. in Ernest Thompson’s confrontation with mortality, “On Golden Pond” (2005).

Some theatergoers, aware of Mr. Jones’s childhood affliction, discerned occasional subtle hesitations in his delivery of lines. The pauses were deliberate, he said, a technique of self-restraint learned by stutterers to control involuntary repetitions. Far from detracting from his lucidity, the pauses usually added force to an emotional moment.

Mr. Jones profited from a deep analysis of meaning in his lines. “Because of my muteness,” he said in “Voices and Silences,” a 1993 memoir written with Penelope Niven, “I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.”

Mr. Jones playing the fictional former U.S. President Arthur Hockstader in Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man” on Broadway in 2012. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Another of his theatrical techniques was to stand alone for a few minutes in a darkened wing before the curtain went up, settling himself and silently evoking the emotion he needed for the first scene. It became a nightly ritual during performances of Mr. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Fences” (1987), in which Mr. Jones portrayed a sanitation worker brooding over broken dreams, his once promising baseball career cut short by big league racial barriers. It ran for 15 months on Broadway, and Mr. Jones won a Tony for best actor.

Voice of Vader

Mr. Jones’s technique in the first “Star Wars” trilogy — “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983) — was another trademark. To sustain Vader’s menace — a voice to go with his black cape and a helmet that filtered his hissing breath and evil tidings — Mr. Jones spoke in a narrowly inflected range, almost a monotone, to make nearly every phrase sound threatening. (He was credited for voice work in the third film, but, at his request, he was not credited in the first two until a special edition rerelease in 1997.)

Mr. Jones was one of the first Black actors to appear regularly on the daytime soaps, playing a doctor in “The Guiding Light” and in “As the World Turns” in the 1960s. Television became a staple of his career. He appeared in the dramatic series “The Defenders,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and in mini-series, including “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979), playing the author Alex Haley.

Mr. Jones and Diana Sands in the 1960s in the dramatic television series “East Side, West Side.” His prodigious body of work included nearly 90 television network dramas and episodic series. Credit...Everett Collection

Mr. Jones’s first Hollywood role was small but memorable, as the B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire on nuclear war, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

While drama critics recorded his steady progress as an actor, Mr. Jones did not win film stardom until 1970, when he played Jack Jefferson, a character based on Jack Johnson, the first Black boxing champion, in “The Great White Hope,” reprising a role he performed on Broadway in 1968. He won a Tony for the stage work and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie.

Mr. Jones as Jack Jefferson in “The Great White Hope.” He won a Tony for his stage work in the role and was nominated for an Oscar for the movie version. Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

Although he was never active in the civil rights movement, Mr. Jones said early in his career that he admired Malcolm X and that he, too, might have been a revolutionary had he not become an actor.

He said his contributions to civil rights lay in roles that dealt with racial issues — and there were many. Notable among these was his almost overlooked casting in the 1961 play “The Blacks,” Jean Genet’s violent drama on race relations. It featured a cast that included Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett Jr. and Billy Dee Williams, some wearing gruesome white masks, who night after night enacted in a kangaroo court the rape and murder of a white woman. Mr. Jones, the brutal and beguiling protagonist, found the role so emotionally draining that he left and then rejoined the cast several times in its three-and-a-half-year run Off Broadway.

But the experience helped clarify his feelings about race. “Through that role,” he told The Washington Post in 1967, “I came to realize that the Black man in America is the tragic hero, the Oedipus, the Hamlet, the Macbeth, even the working-class Willy Loman, the Uncle Tom and Uncle Vanya of contemporary American life.”

James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Miss., on Jan. 17, 1931, to Robert Earl and Ruth (Connolly) Jones. About the time of his birth, his father left the family to chase prizefighting and acting dreams. His mother eventually obtained a divorce. But when James was 5 or 6, his frequently absent mother remarried, moved away and left him to be raised by her parents, John and Maggie Connolly, on a farm near Dublin, Mich.

Abandonment by his parents left the boy with raw wounds and psychic scars. He referred to his mother as Ruth — he said he thought of her as an aunt — and he called his grandparents Papa and Mama, although even the refuge of his surrogate home with them was a troubled place to grow up.

“I was raised by a very racist grandmother, who was part Cherokee, part Choctaw and Black,” Mr. Jones told the BBC in a 2011 interview. “She was the most racist person, bigoted person I have ever known.” She blamed all white people for slavery, and Native American and Black people “for allowing it to happen,” he said, and her ranting compounded his emotional turmoil.

Years of Silence

Traumatized, James began to stammer. By age 8 he was stuttering so badly, and was so mortified by his affliction, that he stopped talking altogether, terrified that only gibberish would come out. In the one-room rural school he attended in Manistee County, Mich., he communicated by writing notes. Friendless, lonely, self-conscious and depressed, he endured years of silence and isolation.

“No matter how old the character I play,” Mr. Jones told Newsweek in 1968, “even if I’m playing Lear, those deep childhood memories, those furies, will come out. I understand this.”

Mr. Jones playing a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995). Credit...Miramax, via Alamy

In high school in nearby Brethren, an English teacher, Donald Crouch, began to help him. He found that James had a talent for poetry and encouraged him to write, and tentatively to stand before the class and read his lines. Gaining confidence, James recited a poem a day in class. The speech impediment subsided. He joined a debating team and entered oratorical contests. By graduation, in 1949, he had largely overcome his disability, although the effects lingered and never quite went away.

Years later, Mr. Jones came to believe that learning to control his stutter had led to his career as an actor.

“Just discovering the joy of communicating set it up for me, I think,” he told The New York Times in 1974. “In a very personal way, once I found out I could communicate verbally again, it became a very important thing for me, like making up for lost time, making up for the years that I didn’t speak.”

Mr. Jones as Big Daddy in a 2008 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” With him was Terrence Howard. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Jones enrolled at the University of Michigan on a scholarship, taking pre-med courses, and joined a drama group. With a growing interest in acting, he switched majors and focused on drama in the university’s School of Music, Theater and Dance. In a memoir, he said he left college in 1953 without a degree but resumed studies later to finish his required course work. He received a degree in drama in 1955.

In college, he had also joined the Army under an R.O.T.C. commitment, then washed out of infantry Ranger School. But he did so well in cold-weather training in the Rockies that he considered a military career. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in mid-1953, after the end of the Korean War, and was subsequently promoted to first lieutenant.

In 1955, however, he resigned his commission and moved to New York, determined to be an actor. He lived briefly with his father, whom he had met a few years earlier. Robert Jones had a modest acting career and offered encouragement. James found cheap rooms on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, took odd jobs and studied at the American Theater Wing and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.

A Run of Shakespeare

After minor roles in small productions, including three plays in which he performed with his father, he joined Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1960; over several years he appeared in “Henry V,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard III” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” During a long run as Othello in 1964, he fell in love with Julienne Marie, his Desdemona.

They were married in 1968, but they divorced in 1972. In 1982, he married the actress Cecilia Hart, who had also played Desdemona to one of his Othellos. She died in 2016. They had a son, Flynn Earl Jones, who survives him, along with a brother, Matthew.

In the 1970s and most of the ’80s, Mr. Jones was in constant demand for stage work in New York, films in Hollywood and television roles on both coasts. He took occasional breaks at a desert retreat near Los Angeles and at his home in Pawling, N.Y., in Dutchess County.

Mr. Jones in 2017 when he accepted a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

But his long run with “Fences” in 1987 and 1988, including a national tour, proved too taxing. He did not return to Broadway for many years, and made movies almost exclusively. His notable film roles included an oppressed coal miner in John Sayles’s “Matewan” (1987); the king of a fictional African nation in the John Landis comedy “Coming to America” (1988), a role he reprised at 90 in 2021 in “Coming 2 America”; an embittered but resilient writer in the baseball movie “Field of Dreams” (1989); and a South African priest in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995).

Mr. Jones received the National Medal of the Arts from President George Bush at the White House in 1992, Kennedy Center honors in 2002, an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement, and in 2017 a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, as well as an honorary doctor of arts degree from Harvard University.

In 2015, Mr. Jones and Cicely Tyson appeared in a Broadway revival of D.L. Coburn’s 1976 play, “The Gin Game,” portraying residents of a retirement home making nice, and sometimes not so nice, over a card table. For the 84-year-old Mr. Jones, it was, as The Times noted, his sixth Broadway role in the past decade.

In 2022, Broadway’s 110-year-old Cort Theater was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater.

[laboulaie]

Llanview's Leading Ladies Let Loose

"We are family" might be the new motto for ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Cramer women. United in the pursuit of fame, fortune and a fabulous wardrobe, these ladies have decided that they can get what they want without the help of the opposite sex. (From left) Kassie DePaiva (Blair), Gina Tognoni (Kelly), Robin Strasser (Dorian) and *Laura Koffman (Cassie) sat down with Soap Opera Digest for a no-holds-barred chat at the chi chi Cafe des Aristes restaurant in New York City.

Digest: What's the best thing that's happened to you this year?

Strasser: It's a little self-serving, but winning the Soap Opera Digest Award has to be right up there. That was a big thrill.

DePaiva, Koffman and Tognoni in unison: Very well deserved.

Strasser: I hate that expression, girls.

DePaiva: Robin hates any compliment you ever give her...

Tognoni: ... while she's working.

Strasser: And I'm a little superstitious, too. After dress rehearsal, they'll say, "Oh, that was so good." I'm like, "Don't tell me."

DePaiva: She thinks we're complimenting her, but we're not. I'm trying to tell her she sucks.

Strasser: Thank you for sharing, Kassie.

DePaiva: Actually, her wardrobe is what's working (smiles). There have been some dresses she's worn that I'll say, "I'm sorry, I cannot work with this. She has those big boobies; I can't work with her."

Strasser: (Ray, the stage manager) always says, "We're just trying to make the material more uplifting."

DePaiva: It's like, never work with babies, animals or Robin's breasts. You just can't compete.

Tognoni: You should see her when she has that negligee stuff on.

Koffman: Thank God, Cassie never walked in on it!

Strasser: All right, was that dress too low-cut for the Soap Opera Digest Awards? Yes, it was, but I had never worn anything like that. Even my mother was astonished.

Koffman: Everybody said you looked so fabulous.

Tognoni: You looked great.

Strasser: I got nailed by the New York Daily News for wearing too low-cut a dress and they said Gina's was...

Tognoni: Too frumpy. We both made the paper.

Strasser: Patricia Mauceri (Carlotta) and I once made "Worst Dressed" in the Enquirer. We didn't deserve it. It was the hottest day, 104 degrees, and we were at a blood drive. We were giving up our time for a fund-raiser and we got nailed for wearing flowered dresses.

DePaiva: If I wore Blair's dresses out in the street, I would be acosted!

Strasser: Just because they don't cover your rear end?

DePaiva: They don't cover my rear end, they don't cover my boobs. I love Susan Gammie (OLTL costume designer) but she...

Strasser: ... undresses you.

Digest: And how about you, Gina?

Tognoni: I was nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award - that was fantastic. It was the first time I'd ever been nominated for anything.

DePaiva: Won't be the last, honey.

Strasser: She's the best young actress I've ever worked with - and I've worked with plenty.

Digest: Which OLTL actor would you like to work with that you haven't already?

DePaiva: I think Laura (as Cassie) should have a fantasy sequence. In each scene a different actor comes in and takes his clothes off and she sleeps with him. The first scene should be with Kevin Stapleton (Kevin).

Koffman: I like him.

DePaiva: There was a scene where Cassie is supposed to be speechless when she sees Kevin without his shirt on. (In real life) Laura said, "Oh my God."

Koffman: I was so mortified, he opens up the door and I was like (shows a stunned look). I blew all my lines.

DePaiva: It was right on cue.

Koffman: And Robyn Goodman (supervising producer) said, "Nice chest, huh Laura?"

Strasser: Does he have a nice chest?

DePaiva: Yes.

Digest: Who would you like to work with, Gina?

Tognoni: Susan Haskell (Marty). I think she's awesome. And Thorsten Kaye (Patrick). I had a few scenes with him. Man, he's so there. He's sooo there.

Koffman: I never worked with Roger Howarth (Todd).

Digest: You'd like to work with Roger?

Koffman: Oh yeah, in a minute.

Strasser: I would love to work with Bob Woods (Bo). Years and years ago, Dorian and Bo went on a date. He took off his cowboy hat and planted one on me. It was enjoyable. They never let me do a scene with him again. Broke my heart.

Digest: Let's do a male word association. I'll name a co-star and you tell me the first word that pops into your head. We'll start with Thorsten Kaye.

Tognoni: Sexy.

Strasser: Wow. Wow.

DePaiva: Lovely.

Digest: John Loprieno (Cord).

Tognoni: He's really sweet.

Koffman: Brilliant.

Strasser: Dreamboat.

DePaiva: Precious. He's going to hate us, you know that.

Digest: Nathan Fillion (Joey).

DePaiva: Nathan is the best.

Tognoni: He's a brilliant comedian.

Koffman: He gives a lot of love and he needs a lot of love.

Strasser: Look how much he's changed in just the last year and a half. He's a major player and we'll all be very proud to have known him.

Digest: Phil Carey (Asa).

Tognoni: Curmudgeon. Hilarious.

Koffman: I love him. He's great.

Strasser: Bigger than life.

DePaiva: I love him. And I love working with him.

Digest: Moving on to dressing rooms - whose is the messiest?

Strasser and DePaiva: Probably mine.

DePaiva: Laura and I share a room. She is clean. When I moved in with her, she told me where I could hang my pictures.

Koffman: I did not.

DePaiva: Yes, you did. You hung them for me, actually.

Digest: Let's talk wardrobe.

DePaiva: We need to get Dorian a new wardrobe. I'm taking her shopping.

Strasser: My mom thanks you. Actually, if there's anybody who need to be taken shopping, it's Cassie.

Koffman: Agreed.

DePaiva: When you start doing Kevin.

All: Oooohhh.

DePaiva: I see that coming around the corner. Of course, last week, Dorian says, "Come on Cassie, aren't you tired of that reverend?" I thought I would...

Koffman: Die.

Digest: What film actor would you love to work with?

Koffman: Kevin Bacon. I find him amazing.

DePaiva: He's over at my gym all the time. I would love to work with John Travolta. I think my energy could work off him. That'd be fun.

Strasser: Robert DeNiro and Liam Neeson. In separate scenes. And Tommy Lee Jones. Yep, darn it. I didn't play the part then, but Dorian apparently had an affair with Tommy Lee Jones' character (Dr. Mark Toland, 1971-1975)

Koffman: I love Harrison Ford. I saw him once in Sloan's supermarket at 10 o'clock at night. I said to him, "I love your work, forever." Forever? Shit! He looked at me and said, "Thanks." For three days, I kept thinking, "What a jerk I am. What a jerk!"

Digest: Is there an initiation ritual you go through when you do your first love scene on the show?

Tognoni: They took my underwear and hung it on the flagpole.

Koffman: Ugghhh!

Tognoni: Joking.

Digest: Is it awkward doing a love scene?

Koffman: They're the hardest.

DePaiva: Love scenes are not ad-libbed; they're choreographed.

Strasser: You wouldn't want to do a love scene with somebody who you didn't like the taste, smell, or feel of - that's a lot like life.

DePaiva: I worked with an actor for a year and a half who didn't want to do love scenes with me. He was very uncomfortable with sexual scenes. That's very difficult, but you have to do the best you can and try not to take it personally.

Digest: What's the most revealing outfit you've had to wear on the show?

DePaiva: I had to strip down to a bra and panties. You feel extremely naked. I've also done love scenes where I just have pasties on.

Tognoni: I just did that last week.

Strasser: I don't wear pasties.

Tognoni: You don't wear anything?

Strasser: No.

DePaiva: Good for you.

Strasser: If something showed, I would rather they cut the tape than have that Band-Aid shot.

Koffman: So you don't wear anything?

Strasser: I wear underwear but I don't wear anything up above.

Digest: What do you think about the Cramer women uniting?

DePaiva: I think it's very interesting and very dynamic.

Strasser: It's a good family unit.

Koffman: I'm just hoping that it keeps developing. It's so powerful.

DePaiva: I think women's issues can be dealt with. And we could talk about self-esteem.

Tognoni: Even though Kelly doesn't have any.

DePaiva: See, that's something. Neither does Blair. I think the Cramer women can put the "fun" in dysfunction.

Digest: And what would you like to do as a united family?

Tognoni: Kick some butt!

Soap Opera Digest (August 27th, 1996 Issue)

*Note that "Laura Koffman" was her married name at the time of this interview and has since reverted back to using her maiden name "Laura Bonarrigo"

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Video Game Awards

I obviously didn't exactly stay up to watch this, but I just read an article (before I start the workday) giving the overview.

Armoured Core 6 ... I mean, I wouldn't know but it's on the wishlist and I see @true0neutral playing it a lot, so I assume it's good?

Game of the Year ... I had a feeling it'd go to Baldur's Gate 3, but with a Zelda game and a Spider-Man game out, I wondered if it wouldn't go to a franchise that's ...not even better-known, I guess, but with more recent entries to the franchise? It's been a long time since Baldur's Gate 2, after all, and we're talking Zelda and Spider-Man here. I guess the D&D Renaissance beats out the Superhero Renaissance - and also BG3 is a pretty massive leap forward for the RPG genre just by how much choices really do matter in that game.

But the one that really got me interested was Best VA. Because I am me. Anyway. Neil Newbon. Yes. There are a lot of great VAs out there, but anyone who can channel two hundred years of pain and all the other emotional states that can go with it (depending on where you took your Astarion, I guess) ... yeah, he nailed it from what I could see. I mean, I always knew why he was a little shit. And Newbon plays a very convincing little shit. But he also plays a very convincing abuse survivor, however his story ends up. The fact that I can have a complicated relationship with the character is what makes me very, very glad that he's the one who won that. Many were deserving, both in BG3 specifically and probably in games in general, but he went above and beyond.

(Plus it amuses me that I've probably seen him in British soap operas. Like so many other British voice actors, honestly.)

Right. Back to the overtime. AAAAAAAA.

[rn-zane]

TIMING: past SUMMARY: How long could you hold out hope and continue looking for a family to call your own? OR Zane's journey to Wicked's Rest.

Carson City’s Home for Boys didn’t smell anything like a home. It smelled of sweaty boys, old wood and cigarettes. The fresh smell of grass Zane had gotten used to back home was nowhere to be found, even on the playground where it got suffocated by the smell of cars and something sour. There was grass here, sure, but the fond memories of picking daffodils for his mother had been suffocated as well when he first got shoved into the dirt splotched grass. He wasn’t alone in enduring this terror - most of the boys here were angry and abandoned and took it out on each other. There still wasn't a connection to be found since Zane approached it all with an outward calm and humility and even angered the boys with his messages of hope. ‘Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.’ So during the day, he waited for a meaning to his new situation, for God's and his parents' plan to be revealed to him. When the lights were out, he cried until it felt like his lungs would never be able to fill with air again. 

His first foster parent called him Simon for most of his time there. Opportunities to correct him were scarce as conversations were limited to demands. Take out the trash, go do your homework, grab me a beer from the fridge. The ones who followed were either a slight improvement or subtly worse, especially the ones with other foster kids. Zane was infringing on their space, eating part of their food and taking away from any sliver of attention their foster parents could afford. ‘Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.’ There was less crying in the foster homes, rooms usually shared with other children who laughed at him or surrounded by thin walls where adults shushed on the other side. 

High school was a blast. At some point, his grades became the entertainment at every classroom break. Each fleeting glance at another boy meant weeks of less than charming slurs and when there was refuge to be found from that, his thrifted clothes became the center of attention. No matter how many hits he brushed off, they kept coming. A few friends came and went, just as lonely as Zane in the chaos of teenage hormones but jumping at the chance to move up the ladder if a chance presented itself. ‘For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.’ One thing he did learn quickly in high school was that boys didn't cry.

College was calmer in some ways but even more confusing in others. It seemed like the logical choice since housing was incredibly difficult to come by under other circumstances. Still didn’t smell like home, more so like beer, different scents of perfume and a moldy smell he would later realize was weed. Parties were hard but better than spending nights alone with McDreamy yet again and for once, there seemed to be some hope. A first kiss. Not quite the romantic moment his soap-opera infused brain had imagined - more sloppy and accompanied by the bitter taste of beer but still. It was a start. Or an end, Zane realized when Monday’s history class awarded him with nothing but a dismissive glance from his not-so-McDreamy. He didn’t go to parties after that. Stopped praying, too. 

Finally, a new cause. No more tests that made his brain short circuit or strange social rules he never got the hang of despite his best efforts. Zane had a group of like-minded people in Shining Light. Spreading good and making a family grow at every stop. For some, a temporary family. Still, it was the best he’d found so far. He’d share his secrets with someone and wave them off on another adventure the next week. Try things, under the covers with another man, that his thirteen year old brain never could have fathomed before sending him back to his girlfriend who apparently lived in Costa Rica. Then they all disbanded and the search continued. Nursing school was a large community and sitting through lectures made him feel like screaming. So he studied alone while others formed groups and bailed on the parties until they no longer invited him. He went for runs and hoped, secretly prayed in some secluded corner of his mind, that his actual family could still be out there. 

When Zane’s consciousness was fading from blood loss and teeth piercing skin, it was a relief to see so many faces staring and waiting. Wanting him to be a part of their community. Their family. They knew his name, they knew where he came from and who he wanted to love, and they still wanted him there. It wasn’t really a question, giving up a ‘normal’ life for this, when everything up to this point had been so lonely. Maybe he could finally stop searching. 

‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head…’

[thelonesomequeen]

Love all this discussion RE: acting/movies/agents, etc.

Way more fun (for me) than the fandom fighting.

Anyways, some random thoughts w/respect to Mr. Evans. The discussion about ensemble casting has been done, but one thing that struck me during the talk about Jeremy Strong is just how many talented actors in that general age group exist. I'll go with the around mid thirties all the way up to the getting a little crispy Leo D. (I'm kidding sort of with him--he's still 'young' per se, but I wish Scorsese had cast a younger actor in Killers of the Flower Moon). Fifty isn't really 'old' but it starts to show differently on people's physical form and thus IMO begins to change one's script offers. I digress.

So, in that mid-thirties to fifty cohort, think of some of the best actors world-wide and it's a larger group than in the past. Note: no scientific research was done to back up that claim. Some of that may be due to the Biz (FINALLY) very slowly beginning to bring in more diversity (keep going because you're not there yet, studios) and some of it could perhaps be to something discussed on your blog earlier-- the streaming networks?

Streaming has opened up eyes to more shows (along with socials like X/insta), IMO and despite the negatives to streaming, some actors may perhaps gain a bit of a following due to a show and that makes them a little more competitive when names are tossed around the table. That used to happen in the days of my grandparents (like the soap opera/or themed tv large cast shows) but it just seems like there's MORE now (almost too much more but again I digress).

Case in point--Regé-Jean Page is a fine enough actor, but w/o Bridgerton I wonder if he'd have made as quick a leap into other high profile discussions (like 007). I have to wonder if streaming has helped actors who have talent but being that it's so hard to get one's foot in the door having a vehicle helps to just plow through it because the viewers are behind the wheel saying, "hey pay attention to this guy, he's good!"

To me, for Chris that means that regardless of awards interest, anytime there is a role, there is a range of people whose names are also being considered--from Benedict Cumberbatch and the rest of the UK crowd to the homegrown talent like Austin Butler (younger but I'll hedge on him) to Lewis Pullman to Jake Gyllenhaal to the two Ryans among others. It's a tough field and always has been, but the 'relegation' tier between film and it's A list B list and television has been blurred more than in the past. Now you have Eddie Redmayne starring in not only the FB series and Oscar nominated roles in film, but once again appearing in the film/streaming category with The Good Nurse. If you're a solid talent, then you might have a miss here and there, but too many strikes at the plate and you may get sent to the minors. It's just my opinion and sure I don't know what the man thinks, but it's his life and I'm a fan of film and actors/actresses so I'll give most anything a view, regardless of critics/general sentiment. I sat through Aloha recently because I had missed it the first go round and I'm a fan of Emma Stone but yeah, that was a hot mess of a plot that was.

Sorry for the length. TLDR: Chris is in a competitive business and he'll have to figure out what he wants if he hasn't done so already (not like I have the man in my contacts) and go from there.

*Side note: I almost ended up with an entire paragraph on the MCU but that really deserves its own discussion and I've clogged up your ask box enough with this soapbox oratory on Chris and the competition.

This is actually a very interesting take, thank you! 🧜🏻‍♀️

[enmusasblog]

The Kinks fortsätter fira 60 år med The Journey – Part 2

Den 17 november släpps andra delen av The Kinks tvådelade 60-årsantologiserie The Journey. Antologin släpps på 2CD, 2LP, Digital och HD Digital och innehåller nya mixar av Ray Davies och tidigare outgivna låtar.  The Kinks, en av de största brittiska rockgrupperna någonsin, fortsätter fira 60-årsjubileet av sin musikaliska resa med del 2 av deras karriärdefinierade antologi, The Journey, som släpps 17 november på BMG.

Efter släppet av The Journey – Del 1 i mars i år (med hits som ’You Really Got Me’, ’Waterloo Sunset’, ’All Day And All Of The Night’, ‘Supersonic Rocket Ship’ och ‘Dead End Street’) kommer nu del 2, sammanställd av bandet och tillgänglig i formaten 2CD, 2LP, Digital & HD Digital. 

De fysiska formaten innehåller ett häfte med bandfoton och spår-för-spår-anteckningar skrivna av originalmedlemmarna Ray Davies, Dave Davies och Mick Avory. I materialet delar de med sig av sina minnen och väver in dem i The Kinks otroliga berättelse.

The Journey - Del 2 innehåller singlar, B-sidor, albumspår och framför allt sex nya Ray Davies-mixar, varav tre är tidigare outgivna liveframträdanden från New Victoria Theatre i London 1975. 'Everybody's a Star (Starmaker) (Live, 2023 Mix) finns at lyssna på redan. Släppet inkluderar hits som 'Lola', 'Sunny Afternoon', '20th Century Man', 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion', 'Till The End Of The Day', 'A Well Respected Man', 'See My Friends' och 'Everybody's A Star (Starmaker)'. 

Utgåvan åtföljs av lansering av helt ny The Kinks-merch som lanseras idag, 27 september, som representerar deras 60 år ihop som grupp. Hela utbudet av varor är tillgängligt från Backstreet Merch. 

Ray Davies: "I thought I knew everything about my songs until I was given the opportunity to put this record together. The new sequencing has enabled us to show the ‘big picture’ and give a more insightful back story about how our music evolved. I learned a lot about myself in putting this together." 

Dave Davies: “Another chance to listen to some of my favourite Kinks releases over the years. A perfect example of our diverse and creative musical legacy.”  

Mick Avory: “A strong selection of Kinks songs across the years, that should give the listener some nice surprises.”  Låtarna på The Journey - del 1 och 2 är handplockade av Ray, Dave och Mick. Det är första gången bandet själva kurerat en samling och temat är de prövningar och motgångar de stött på under sin gemensamma resa sedan starten 1963. 

Spåren är hämtade från klassiska original-The Kinks-album som Face To Face, The Kink Kontroversy, Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, Lola Versus Powerman och The Moneygoround, Muswell Hillbillies, Everybody's In Show-Biz, Preservation Acts 1 & 2 och A Soap Opera. Alla låtar har vördnadsfullt remastrats av Kevin Gray i Cohearent Studios i LA, övervakat av Andrew Sandoval.

The Kinks bildades år 1963 i Muswell Hill, norra London, av bröderna och Ray och Dave Davies ihop med deras vän Pete Quaife. De fick sällskap av Mick Avory i början av 1964 och bandet etablerade sig snabbt som en av 60-talets epokdefinierande grupper. Deras musikaliska påverkan märks fortfarande världen över. 

Statistiken talar för sig själv: The Kinks har sålt över 50 miljoner skivor globalt och har streamats över en miljard gånger. De har haft fem US Top 10-singlar, nio US Top 40-album, 22 UK Top 20-singlar/EPs och sex UK Top 10-album, med fyra album certifierade som guld. Bland många utmärkelser har de fått Ivor Novello Award för "Outstanding Service To British Music" och har blivit invalda i "Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame" och "UK Music Hall of Fame". Flerfaldigt prisbelönte, legendariske frontmannen Sir Ray Davies är allmänt erkänd som en av de största brittiska låtskrivarna. 

The Journey – Part 2 släpps den 17 november som uppföljare till den första delen som släpptes i våras. En mängd globala evenemang och aktiviteter kommer att lanseras under 2023 och 2024 för att markera bandets 60-årsjubileum.

Mer information om låtarna finns HärFör intervjuer kontakta: Anette Ståhl / Enmusa Music, tel: 0707-180 120 anette@enmusamusic.com För mer information: Ulrika Hammar / BMG, tel 0705–295 312 ulrika.hammar@bmg.com

[fmhiphop]

Gangsta Boo Dead at 43, Believed to be Drug Overdose

   Memphis legend Gangsta Boo tragically died on Sunday (Jan 1) just after celebrating New Years' Eve in her hometown. A Stunning Update Gangsta Boo, real name Lola Mitchell, was a standout member of Three 6 Mafia and a pioneer in female rap. The 43-year-old was found dead on her front porch around 4 pm, Jan 1. Sources close to Gangsta Boo personally are now claiming the cause of death to be drug-related. An update from TMZ yesterday is only adding to the talk of an overdose. According to their report, Mitchell was attending a NYE concert with her brother the previous night. At some point, the man overdosed and was rushed to the hospital. Luckily her sibling recovered, but the same can’t be said for Gangsta Boo. It appears the New Years' celebration continued at Boo's home, where she eventually suffered from some kind of medical emergency. Sources in contact with TMZ insist that narcotics were found on her upon police arrival. In addition to this, fentanyl is believed to be a factor in her sudden passing. Nonetheless, an official autopsy has yet to be conducted or released at this time. Showing Respect to Gangsta Boo The ‘Throw It Up’ artist was confirmed dead by her friend and former labelmate DJ Paul on Instagram. The Three 6 Mafia alumni posted a captionless photo of Boo with an outpouring of rap industry icons showing love in the comments. Rap heavyweights like Ludacris, Lil Jon, Big Boi, and Paul Wall left their condolences for one of the brightest stars to come out of Memphis.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by DJ Paul K.O.M. Three 6 Mafia (@djpaulkom) Gangsta Boo is primarily known for being one of the only female members of Three 6 Mafia. The group emerged during a time when female rappers were already few and far in between. Despite this,  she always held her own off and on the track. Gangsta Boo, along with DJ Paul, Juicy J, La Chat, Project Pat, Crunchy Black, and several others, formed Three 6 Mafia in the early '90s and quickly began gaining notoriety throughout the south with their debut album Mystic Stylez. Overnight this turned to national acclaim with the group's breakout hit 'Tear Da Club Up' and 'Late Night Tip'. All of this culminated in a groundbreaking achievement in 2006 when Three 6 Mafia became the first hip-hop group to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song with ‘It's Hard out Here for a Pimp’. That record, and the hit movie Hustle n Flow from which it originated, helped bring the group into a huge spotlight. An Artist All Her Own Of course, Gangsta Boo's legacy extends outside of Three 6 Mafia. Before leaving the group in the early 2000s, her solo music had already gained praise and respect from her peers. Namely, ‘Where Dem Dollas at’, ‘Love Don’t Live’, and ‘Nasty Trick’ effectively made Boo one to watch out for amongst her male peers. She continued to drop albums throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, including Enquiring Minds Il - The Soap Opera, 4 da Hood, Witch, and Underground Cassette Tape Music, Vol. 1 and 2. During all this, Boo racked up countless features with rap's biggest names like Outkast, TI, and Gucci Mane. Most often, she would collaborate with Killer Mike of Run The Jewels and close friend La Chat. Gangsta Boo never stopped making music, right up until her death. Just last year she collaborated with Glorilla and Latto on ‘FTCU’ and perfectly matched both the southern hitmakers' energy. And that’s no coincidence. The confidence, boldness, and rough flow coined by Gangsta Boo and other Memphis rappers in the 90s served as a massive inspiration for the female artists that followed. With so many successful female MCs recently coming from down south, Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, Glorilla, and Flo Milli just to name a few, it’s safe to say Gangsta Boos's legacy will always carry on. Not to mention remaining members of Three 6 Mafia like La Chat, Juicy J and DJ Paul using social media to carry a torch for their late friend. Support and give condolences below. https://twitter.com/therealjuicyj/status/1609744827310301186?s=46&t=uW6cpJMZNiDve1AdPsRJEg https://twitter.com/dareallachat/status/1609761093626527744?cxt=HHwWgIDU7fHLgtcsAAAA Dreema Carrington Read the full article

[timmymyluv]

Hey, I already love your writing lol. Can you please write famous!actress reader and Timmy being a fan of them. And they both meet at an award show. And it’s love at first sight

Thank you ❤️💜💙❤️💜💙

P.S what are your pronouns? Mines is she/her

tysm it means the world to me! my pronouns are she/her haha. this is my first request and im so honoured! so sorry it took so long but i hope you like it

You walk across the red carpet, perfectly rehearsed as the camera flashes glare at you furiously amongst a chorus of demanding paparazzi. Even as your feet throb from the pain of the heels you’ve been wearing for hours, nothing can wipe off the smile off your face.

You’ve worked for years to get to this moment, to finally go from occasional child actress and guest star to leading film star and box office magnet. After a number of indie movies between your high school years, it was you being cast in the newest Gossip Girl reboot that skyrocketed you into fame.

There was a flip side- with a “teeny-bopper chick flick” like Gossip Girl, the fame and press could be a double edged sword. You could end up still being a second-tier supporting actress on washed up b-movies, or shake off the impression of being just a flashy, one-dimensional soap opera actress and be a respected, versatile thespian who balanced both respected art films and billion dollar blockbusters. You happened to perfect the latter.

As you wave politely to thank the eager photographers to leave the red carpet, you don’t look where you’re going and bump into a tall, lanky young man dressed to the nines in front of you.

To your luck, the cameras catch that too. Oh, this is so going to be in the papers tomorrow. You can already hear your publicist shaking her head at you and your manager sighing with an almost material fondness.

“I’m so sorry-” You both say in unison.

“Timothee Chalamet?” You gasp in surprise, embarrassed to have given the worst first impression possible on the planet.

“The one and only. I don’t think we’ve met before- You’re Y/N and I’m such a big fan of your work actually.” He gives a cheeky grin, not bothered at all that you nearly knocked him cold to the ground for everyone to see.

Believe it or not, even with being around the same age and both being the top A-list actors of your generation, you two have never crossed paths or even been considered to be cast in the same projects together. It was like fate was pulling you two both in opposite directions but couldn’t intervene this time.

“You know my name?” You can’t believe that’s what you said, but you say it without even thinking and put your palm over your mouth with bulging eyes.

Timothee giggles almost adorably, so boyishly yet still charmingly casual, suavely and kindly all at the same time. No wonder he’s the heartthrob of your times - even you are not safe from falling under his spell.

“How could I not? I think I’ve seen all your projects and I’m a big fan of Y/Movie/N and Gossip Girl as well. Haven’t missed a single episode!” He offers a hand to shake and you reciprocate with an equally eager smile.

The tabloids are going to go insane at the photos of you two meeting, fabricating some of the worst headlines you can already imagine, but at that very moment, you didn’t care. You met a friend, someone who understood you even when you’ve barely met and exchanged words. Yet, he felt comfortingly familiar and you felt at ease around him. And you could tell from his body language that he felt just as safe to be vulnerable around you.

You two are interrupted by an ushering, impatient producer with headphones on and a mic tapped to their cheek, shooing you both inside hastily, not wanting to hold back the scheduled line of actors and actresses waiting behind you.

You two quickly make it inside the venue, running as fast as you as you could at a prestigious acting awards show. You’re ready to wave him goodbye when he keeps walking in the same direction and you end up sitting together at the awards show for non-nominees but still in nominated projects.

“What are the odds?” He says, with a smile, but there’s a hint of yearning, of understanding there's much more than you tow meeting underneath.

You could sense it too.

“Yeah- what are the odds.”

[thequeenofsastiel]

Not Me Episode 11 Review

I liked this episode a lot. I will have to rewatch it because I think I'll like it even more when I'm not on tenterhooks waiting for the reveal, but I still liked it.

It looks like Todd and Black were friends, not faen, but, given how meaningful my own friendships are, I don't think that diminishes their connection. I very much enjoyed Black saying that power corrupts, though I wish that when he invoked MLK's name(which took me aback like whoa), he'd have mentioned that MLK once said: "A riot is the language of the unheard." I feel like that would have fit his character a lot more than talking about peaceful protest and civil disobedience. Then again, most Americans aren't even familiar with that quote, so it doesn't astonish me that Black probably doesn't know it either.

I find it interesting that Todd's plan appears to involve pushing Tawi out of power to take his place. That explains why Todd didn't do anything to stop White and the gang from carrying out their plans. I'm still not clear on why Todd had Black beaten up, but hopefully we'll find that out eventually.

Sidenote, I feel like Black should be too smart to drink what Todd gave him, but whatever.

Well, it's confirmed that Dan is the one who shot Sean's father, which pretty much everyone called, but I'm nonetheless disappointed by. This show has felt very real so far, and throwing in that soap opera esque interconnection between the characters diminished that. I did like that Yok didn't get angry at Dan about it, despite his initial shock. I especially like that Yok told Dan not to tell Sean, though I wish he'd told Dan that telling Sean would be a selfish act to make himself feel better, rather than making it easier for Sean. It might have stopped Dan from telling Sean next episode.

Yok handled Dan's bullet wound about as well as one could hope in that situation. They're both very lucky that the bullet didn't shatter.

The entire time White and Sean were talking in the abandoned building I was practically pulling my hair out and chanting "Tell him, tell him, tell him for fuck's sake!"

I like that it took everyone aback that Black was acting like he'd never seen Dan before, though I think it made Sean the most suspicious.

I LOVED that Sean used the trust fall as a way to ascertain whether he was talking to White or Black. I'm still not sure how long Sean has suspected, and I do hope we find out. Their whole interaction was very enjoyable to watch. I loved these parts especially:

I really love that even though Sean says he knows, he still has this moment of shock at hearing it confirmed:

But then. Then, the tiniest of smiles briefly crosses his lips:

And, almost instantly:

It was all so deeply satisfying. I'm so glad that Sean has no intention of giving up on White despite the fact that White lied to him.

I also loved the way Sean and Black looked at each other after the truth was fully revealed:

This is the first time that we actually got to see Sean and Black look at each other while they both knew who the other was. Their real emotions towards each other shone through, and it was excellently done. Honestly I don't think I'm going to be able to wax poetic enough about Off and Gun's acting skills in this show. Especially Gun. Jfc give this man ALL the awards.

9/10. Really good by and large but the Dan reveal was a disappointment.

[orionares]

BTHB: Comatose, Part 4

She's awake.

Elliot is speechless, unable to think of any of the planned words he had thought of in between the visits from Noah, Kathleen and Eli and Olivia’s team. The detective's mind remains blank until a hand touches his shoulder.

“Dad," Kathleen says gently with a nod of her head towards the bed. His daughter gives Olivia a warm smile and greets her," Hi, Liv. How are you feeling?"

Olivia blinks a couple of times before her eyes slowly scan the foot of the bed and up to Kathleen before finally settling on to Elliot. Her recognition of Elliot is slow- she stares at him for a long beat before mumbling, "Whs...am...I…"

She's finally awake.

The words repeat in his head and Elliot finally pulls together what comes out in a stammer. "Liv-I-your'e a-awake."

"Cm...whe...noah…"

"Liv, you're-" Elliot chokes on his words when he feels a soft brush against his hand resting on the bed. Olivia's pinky brushes against his hand before her fingers settles on top of his. The move, likely involuntary, causes his heart to flutter for the first time in years.

“Hello, family of Captain Benson," a cheery voice booms from the doorway. A man in scrubs with physical features similar to the ADA enters the room and walks up to Olivia's side. "Captain Benson, how are we feeling?"

Elliot doesn’t break his stare at his ex-partner. “She- she’s kind of out of it.”

“That can be expected,” the doctor replies. Elliot notes the name Harlowe on his jacket. “Let me take a look at her and then we’ll go from there. “

Before Elliot's protectiveness kicks in, Kathleen tugs on his sleeve and motions to the door. He winces before following her from the bed to the doorframe where Eli stands, shoulders dropped and eyes avoidan of the chaos.

“I can call everyone and let them know she’s awake,” Kathleen offers as she wraps her arms around herself. She pauses to read her father's disheveled state. "Dad."

"I-" He gapes at his daughter and Kathleen can see his brain grasping for an answer on what to say next.

“She isn’t Mom,” his daughter reminds gently. A mirror image of her mother, Elliot feels himself briefly fall back to the countless comforting smiles from Kathy on the worst of days.

Eli tucks his hands into his pockets and mutters what sounds like, "Yeah."

"Go be with her, " Kathleen says with a quick kiss on the cheek. She squeezes Eli's shoulder and nods towards the elevators to follow. His son hesitates before muttering," Bye, Dad," quickly before leading his sister to the elevator.

We raised good ones. Scratch that- you raised good ones, Elliot thinks warmly.

“Sir?”

Elliot turns around and sees Harlowe tapping at a tablet in hand over a once again sleeping Olivia. He nearly leaps across the room to demand answers but Harlowe gives him the answer he’s desperate for, “She fell back asleep.”

Kathy had fallen asleep before she had- “You don’t seem concerned.”

Harlowe doesn’t react to Elliot’s harsh tone. He pockets the small tablet in his white coat and gives a warm small smile. “Detective Tutola caught me in the hall yesterday and gave some information about what to prepare for when Miss Benson would wake up.”

He steps back and sammers, “What did he say?”

“His exact words were that you're a stubborn asshole who’ll bite anyones head off when it comes to her,” Harlowe explains. He shrugs and adds, “and that you two are a never ending goddamn soap opera.”

For the first time in weeks, Elliot chuckles, surprising himself. “Sounds right. Sorry about that.”

“Not my first- look, we’ll continue to evaluate, especially when she wakes again, but she’s stable. Breathe.”

The idea of just ‘breathing’ sounds so easy but he knows it’s just the beginning. Until she's discharged, I'm not breathing.

--------------

Olivia drifts awake slowly back to the bright lights of her hospital room two hours later.

She blinks a few times as her mind tries to fight once more through a haze. The dreams of Elliot sitting in a jail cell and speaking to Kathy in the cafe flash between bits and pieces of an explosion and a man in a grey bloodied suit that she can’t remember the name of.

God, her head throbs.

Olivia takes a beat to scan the open room door to see a darkly lit station and two women in scrubs talking quietly behind the desk. The low activity and the darkness from the window elicits a conclusion that it’s sometime during the night. She’s ready to settle back and drift asleep once more until she hears a small noise on her right.

“Elliot,” she gasps at the sight of her ex-partner sitting in a chair right next to the bed, asleep with his head resting on the edge of the bed and his hand entangled with hers.

This has to be a dream.

“El, go!”

No, maybe it isn’t a dream- Elliot and a woman named Ayanana Bell stepping off an elevator in a hospital replays in her mind. If he’s here and this is real, he’d-

Richard Wheatley. We had arrested Richard Wheatley and there was a bomb.

Elliot lets out a small little snore again and it calms and distracts her. Olivia turns her head slightly more to the right to give her a better view of the calmest she’s ever seen Elliot

His green jacket is draped over his shoulders as a makeshift blanket. She weakly brushes her fingers over the top of his head, stopping at his ears. In the twelve years of their partnership, she’s never outwardly admitted of the physical traits of him that she loves- his blue eyes that shine with intensity, his broad shoulders and oddly, his absolutely adorable ears.

“El,” Olivia whispers and she watches him suddenly jerk his head upwards and look her in the eye with confusion. His face quickly turns to relief and he says, “Hey. You're up.”

Olivia smirks and whispers,"You're here."

"Of course, I-"

"My head…'is foggy," Olivia says breathlessly. "I don't….when you'd come back?"

Elliot's heart immediately drops. "It's been... " he stammers, "I've been back in New York for months. I came back for your award, remember?"

Her eyes flutter briefly before she continues without acknowledgement to Elliot. "Everything is so fuzzy and...I can't think straight."

"Hey, hey, hey," Elliot replies softly. He can feel himself drifting over the line in the sand as he leans forward and kisses her forehead. Her confusion lessens only slightly as her eyes finally meet his.

"I'm here," Elliot states. He can see her beginning to slip back into sleep and that he can handle. "I'm home."

-‐--------------‐-----

A/N: 1-2 more parts.

[lizacstuff]

Your thoughts on the first episode of the new season? And can we talk about all those parallels? Also I'm loving the summer vibes!

I'm LIVING for the summer vibes! Doesn't everything feel like a breath of fresh air? I definitely feel like new life has been injected into the series. And that new location is so beautiful, I LOVE IT.

As for the episode, I thought it was masterfully done. You could tell Ayse was back and bringing the perfect mix of comedy, romance and drama. And the sparkle! The show sparkles again. The almost two and half hours flew buy, I was on the edge of my seat, and the performances from Hande and Kerem were amazing. Plus I just adore every moment between Serkan and his new nemesis (aka his secret daughter).

On the sober side, I don't care how jerky Serkan got while battling cancer, or how he may have pushed her away, nothing they've shown us so far even begins to justify Eda not telling him about Kiraz, and it certainly doesn't justify her continuing to lie when he's standing right in front of her making overtures (and her daughter is clearly longing for her father). Obviously, there are still many things we don't know and I'm sure there are many flashbacks to come, and Eda has been though so much, but still...I don't see how they will thread that needle and have Eda come out unscathed.

That being said, with this first episode they executed this story so well and it really does give new life to the series, so I won't dwell on the fact that Eda never would have done this. Never. We just have to move past it, accept that it's a soap opera plot device designed to give us an amazing second season packed with all sorts of amazing scenes and just enjoy every minute while it lasts.

(More under the cut)

I'll get to more on Edser later, as for everyone else... silliness abounds.

First... Erdem cheated on Leyla? WHAT!?!?! With whom? But I guess that was a clean way to explain Leyla leaving.

Engin and Piril, I love that Engin is staying home with their son, and that young actor is a cutie! As for Piril... GRRRRRR... she is still on my shitlist. Last time it was for betraying Eda (and Serkan) by enabling Selin's reign of terror, this time it's by betraying her friend and business partner Serkan! Good grief. If Piril just found out recently at the start of this project I could accept on her holding off because it's not her secret to run off and tell, but what I can't accept is her actively working against Serkan finding out. Even if in this episode she had gently said to Eda... "do you think maybe it's time you told him?" it would be a lot easier to swallow... but nope! She's acting like it would be the end of the world if Serkan found out. I sincerely hope that when everyone finds out and Engin finds out Piril knew, it causes problems between them. She deserves that.

She remains my second least favorite character. Who was my least favorite character this episode? Oh you know! Awful Ayfer is back! We got a reprieve from her in the last arc, but she's back to her annoying, controlling, Serkan-hating ways. Eda is a mother, an international award-winning landscape architect and business owner and she still has to lie to Ayfer because she's such a pain-in-the-ass? Watching her is going to be a trial.

Even though it feels like both Aydan and Ayfer were reset to zero character development, and Aydan has done worse (keeping the fact that Serkan was alive from Eda) I still find her a much easier character to take. Probably because Neslihan is a much better comedic actress, so she's a lot more entertaining. But... Aydan's been with Kemal for 5 years and hasn't told Serkan? WHY? I can't believe Kemal didn't give her an ultimatum years ago. I was loving, however, Serkan being in the way for both Aydan/Kemal and Engin/Piril. GOOD. Those people caused problems for him at one point or another or were in the way, it was nice to see him return the favor. I like Kemal and am still hoping they'll do a parallel "not knowing your father thing" and reveal he's Serkan's bio dad while Serkan is finding out he had a child he never knew about.

Melo and Seyfi were their awesome supportive, funny selves. It was great to see both of them, I'm so glad they stayed.

As for the new characters, love the kids. The new hotel manager is apparently ditzy and starstruck over Serkan, and I don't really understand how she's going to be integrated into the cast, but I love that she was used as a device to show us that Serkan has zero interest in any woman who is not Eda Yildiz. Eda's assistant seems like he'll be a fine side character. As for Burak, he seems harmless, obviously he has feeling for Eda that she does not reciprocate (fuck off Ayfer trying to push her on him) but hopefully they don't make him a psycho like Deniz. I did think he was a bit out of line to Serkan. Isn't that his cafe? And a customer has his glass spilled by a child in his care, and he insults him instead of apologizing? That is the worst customer service I've ever seen! He's a character that could wear on me quickly, we shall see. Kiraz can't help but be sassy because of genetics, but some of the adults in her life seem to be modeling rude behavior!

Now on to Eda and Serkan, I can't say enough about Hande and Kerem's acting in this episode. Phenomenal! They were both brilliant. Plus both are doing a great job working off of Maya (especially Kerem) those scenes were priceless. I don't often enjoy kids on shows, but so far I'm loving this dynamic.

As for Edser, while we don't know everything yet it feels like Serkan got to a point where he couldn't stand to see Eda in pain and putting her life on hold, he outright mentioned that she might not have graduated if they'd stayed together, and so that was part of the reason he reverted to his robot self and pushed her away. I'm going to guess she tried and tried and he was just unyielding. Saying he didn't want to get married or have kids in the harshest way possible. Perhaps even she went to tell him that she was pregnant and he went off on not wanting kids before she could even tell him. Time will tell.

At this juncture, my best guess is Eda's fear is rooted in rejection. It can't be that she thinks Serkan is a terrible person that doesn't deserve to know his child, or would be detrimental to Kiraz. However, she knows what it feels like to be rejected by Serkan, I'm sure she was beyond devastated, so I'm guessing now she's bent on protecting her daughter from feeling that same rejection. She fears if he found out, but wanted nothing to do with her, it would feel worse than him not knowing. She's not thinking clearly and perhaps it hasn't even occurred to her that the man she fell in love with is still under there and that man is fully capable of opening his heart wide to their child.

The fact that this child, a stranger to him, already has him wrapped around her little finger to the tune of being late to meetings while he waits for her to pick berries, speaks volumes.

The lies that Eda is telling Kiraz though... there is a fairy tale poetry to Eda saying her father is among the stars... but there was no way this would ever end well. Such a bad idea. Eda.... has made mistakes.

As for Eda and Serkan, their reunion was so bitter sweet. The way Serkan was sure he was hallucinating her and couldn't believe she was real, speaks to the fact that his thinking he saw her that morning was not an anomaly. It must happen all the time. She's never left his thoughts in 5 years. Especially since Engin makes it clear that women throw themselves at Serkan all the time, and he never bites. That's a lot of years celebrate, pining after a love he lost through his own actions. Though it's not that surprising that he didn't pursue other women, as he's never been a character who was motivated by sex. Which makes it hilarious that during his presentation that's where his mind was at, remembering their intimate times together. Serkan Bolat is an Edasexual.

Serkan seemed to want to brush past what happened between them, how they ended, but from Eda's pain, it's clear it was gut-wrenching and tragic and that's something he's going to need to recon with in the coming episodes. But how refreshing that they actually talked! That Eda actually expressed her pain to him! Wowza, that's a change from recent episodes when they didn't even have a proper conversation after he got his memory back.

The flashback scenes were a combination of pure brilliance and pain. Just rip out my heart why don't you. Serkan's angry reactions seem very believable for someone suffering what he was going through. I think it's typical to lash out at the person closest to you. And their fear and pain, their commitment to getting him better and seeing it through... those scenes were made all the more heartbreaking knowing that they didn't make it out the other side intact.

On a lighter note, I loved how even despite their intention and best efforts to remain closed off to one another, and away from one another, they couldn't. Physically, Serkan couldn't stay away, and every time Eda was in his presence you saw her resolve slip and her start to feel that old pull towards him. The fact that Eda thinks there's any way to keep this secret and get rid of him, she must just be in full panic mode and not thinking clearly. She's never going to shake him.

Thank goodness Serkan came back and actually issued a sincere apology for what he said at coffee. He definitely owed her one, but what was extraordinary is that it showed that the growth he went through when they were together didn't regress. He was able to apologize and explain that he was angry and hurt and that's why it happened. If you remember from the first time around, saying sorry was something he was just unable to do, so this felt big to me. He's not the same robot Bolat, she left an indelible mark on him.

As for him making her present her proposal, it's really not out-of-line for the professional relationship, however, we all know he did it just so he had an excuse to be around her. That man will take any excuse, plus he likes to get a rise out of her.

The dinner scene was breathtaking. How beautiful and achingly romantic was that setting? Wowza. And what a roller coaster of emotion those scenes were. It was great to watch them talk and laugh. Who didn't swoon when he deveined her shrimp and when she gave him fries? But we had to know it wouldn't last. Eda's speech had me breathless. Serkan had that coming, it hurt but it had to happen. What a relief to see them get things out in the open. Now I hope we get to see them really talk about what happened and why. Explain yourself Serkan!

As for the next episode, I was so hopeful that the Kiraz secret would be out after the final scene, but the first fragman makes it look like that's not going to happen, at least not at the start of the episode. My fear is that if Eda outright lies to him that just makes everything worse. The longer she keeps it from him, when they're back in each other's orbits and it's clear he's not running away, it makes her more and more at fault.

In any case, it looks like we're in for some fabulous scene so I look forward to the second episode!

[bxllafanficc]

¡Skate/sing your hearts out! (Yuri Plisetsky x reader)

(part four)

Part one. Part two. Part three. Part five. Masterlist

Summary:After last year's cancellation of Figure Skating Grand Prix, Yuri Plisetsky finds himself unable to bring out his inner skater after a year of doing nothing but enjoy life like a regular teenager. That's when you enter the picture; We Are Voice Grand Awards's currently hottest competitive vocalist come first place two years in a row. Just like the other competitors of Grand Prix, it turns out that Victor and Yuuri faces the same issue. With an arrangement between Victor and Yakov, they agree to travel to Japan and hire you as a mutual coach for Yuri and Yuuri to help bring back the emotion into their performances like before, maybe even more intense than ever. Yuri however, who's never experienced issues with his coaches before, for some reason finds this one particularly difficult to coexist along with in their (reasonably) odd partnership. Warnings: none

*Your POV*

Your eyes scanned through the fully stocked room that came to be yours a couple of days ago. Fairly large and a great window where the sun came to welcome you each morning. Not even the blinds could stop it. Now it was fairly dark inside since the sun was about to go down. You reached for the light switch and scanned through all your products and belongings for things that you could possibly move somewhere else.

The grunt of the Russian skater behind you caused you to turn around. As you did, he stopped and returned your stare, as if waiting for you to announce something. There was a lot that you needed to clean up. If you had known that you'd be expecting a roommate, you'd already have done so. Guess Victor forgot to mention that too, eh?

The visible twitch in the corner of your left eye was impossible to force back. Just at the mere thought of unintentional (?) screwups of the one and only Victor Nikiforov. Now, just because he was your childhood friend, it didn't mean that he wouldn't receive a massive ass-whooping if he as much as repeated the same mistake three times the same day now the few remaining hours of the day. If only you could get that message through.

And, you kind of did. Just not to the man you intended. Yuri at the receiving end of your stare was just about to open his mouth to say something, what you assume, sour when he noticed the twitching of your eye. Surprisingly, it shut him up before he started. He kind of shielded himself behind one of his bags and eyed you carefully.

Shit, wrong Russian dude.

"Sorry, that was meant for Victor." You let out a sigh and helped him with one of his bags out in the hall. You got a simple nod from the boy just before you passed him in the doorway.

He's been acting all quiet and confused ever since you tended to his wounds. Was something you said unclear? Maybe you should make sure the two of you were on the same page. 'Later...' you thought.

Yuuri and Victor hurried to the entrance of your room with a couple of more bags.

"So what do you think about it, Yuri? Pretty special eh?" It was Yuuri who spoke up, probably just as an act of friendliness. Though, you could understand how a punk like Yuri might take it as teasing.

"I'm not staying here. There's- there is no way I'm sharing a room with another person. I should have my own room. Why can't Victor and (Y/n) share a room and I get my own?!"

Ah, there he is. You were starting to get worried that he might actually turn nice. Then you'd have to call an ambulance just to ease Yakov's mind if he ever found out.

"With that thief? Nuh-uh. He already owes me an entire bottle of lotion, a mascara and a lipgloss. And for some reason, my throwaway razors are gone too. I'm not endangering any more of my stuff to him!" You shot a glare at Victor but he intentionally pretended not to hear nor see you. Seriously?

"Just lock them up or something, I don't care. Maybe I should just sleep on the couch. Give me one reason why it's worth sharing this room with you."

You didn't really know why you felt so opposed to the thought of him sleeping on the couch. You should be relived that you wouldn't have to share room with The Russian punk. But you still mumbled the one sentence after taking a brief moment to carefully word out your reason.

"What did you say?"

"... I have a cat."

The silence following almost made you feel like the scene of these weird soap operas that streamed on tv once in a while. But you did have a cat. A beautiful sacred Birman with the eyes of an ocean. And you knew about Yuri's fascination with them. Victor mentioned it somewhere along the lines when discussing his arrival days ago. And if you had to give him one reason, then that would be the one. It's probably the only reason too.

"Where." It wasn't a question. It almost made you giggle but you kept a straight face. Victor who knew the reason behind your words, almost cracked under the pressure.

"He's probable sleeping under the blanket on my bed, as always-"

Yuri pushed Victor aside with a stern 'move' and headed for your bed. A little anxious, you followed him through the entrance, afraid that he would be like one of those crazy catpeople who never stopped bothering their cat. You worried because you were one of those people. But because your cat was rather clingy too and you always had a bunch of stuff to do daytime, it kind of evened out the contrast. Two crazy people were too much, you figured.

"Well, we'll go off now and let you two bond now. Don't forget that we're having afternoon tea in an hour!" And with that, Victor and Yuuri was out of the picture. For awhile.

A round uneven pile under you blanket made Yuri stop at the end of the bed. You stood beside him as he lifted the blanket, revealing the fuzzy ball that was your cat. Round eyes stared up at the both at you and the cat stretched it's back, making a 'u' position.

"His name is Magnolia. You'll have to apologize to him for interrupting his sleepy time though." You half expected Yuri to scoff at your statement, thinking you were taking the animal too seriously. But the baby voice he used to communicate with Magnolia next almost had you taking a step back.

"Hi, Magnolia... 'm sorry, pretty boy. You'll have to forgive me, I'm afraid." He kept on talking to the sleepy cat as he extended a hand for him to smell. Magnolia yawned and gave the hand a sniff before sitting up, eyes intensely staring into the boy's soul. You could tell by the hesitation of Yuri's petting hand that he really wanted the cat's approval. He cat kept staring him straight in the eyes which usually means bad. Though, the purring heard from his belly said the opposite. You finally relaxed a little. Magnolia is very picky with who gets to touch him and you were expecting a bite, honestly.

"He's always been so stare-y... I've figured that he only stare at people he like or something he finds very interesting." You crouched down beside Yuri and rested with your arms at the bedside.

"Like owner, like cat, I guess then. I feel like he has the exact same piercing gaze you gave me earlier." Yuri grinned smugly at you and turned back his attention to the ball of fur who stood up, stroking its back to your chin. A little heat rose to your cheeks and you hoped Magnolia covered it up well enough with his body. It was kind of true. And you couldn't really deny it. You always did watch things a little to intense. But just because you found people very interesting, always seeking to improve your understanding and emotional range at any given time. So you shrugged your shoulders and coughed a little when the cat made sure to get his butt all up in your face too. This habit, you had noticed, was a trait almost every cat held within them.

"You're going to object or what?" Yuri caught your attention again and Magnolia moved away from your face just in time. So he was expecting some kind of denial.

"You're not wrong... You've just got the wrong idea of it."

"What do you mean?"

"You should probably start getting yourself settled here. We only have one hour."

"You didn't answer me." Yuri's remark left unanswered as well as you stood up and threw a bag at him. A light 'oof' slipped through him as the heavy thing hit him right in the stomach.

"Hey!"

You grinned and opened another bag, pouring the internal onto the floor. Tons of clothes splattered on the floor. Everything in-between black training clothes to underwear and a pajamas with cat prints. A keychain with a chibi cat and a stuffed animal of a tiger fell out on the floor lastly on top of the pile. Yuri quickly made his way to the clothes and gathered them in his arms, trying to hide them away. It was worth taking an extra look at the blush staining his cheeks. You wondered if you'd just met a fellow catmerch fan as instense as you. No, this was far crazier than you! Especially as you recognized the keychain being a print of his own cat that you'd seen on a social media Yuri Plisetsky fanpage once.

"Y-you can't touch my stuff! Nor see it!" His voice was a good blend of anger and a thick stain of embarrassment.

Maybe it wasn't ideal poring someone else's belongings onto the floor. But you knew that look that Yuri bearded only moments ago. The cat had taken him as his loyal servant and Yuri wasn't intending to move until he had satisfied Magnolia's every need. If you let that happen, it would take the entire hour you had to clean up the room. And you clearly didn't have that time.

"Just hurry up and help me then if I'm not allowed to touch it!"

"Fine! And move your stupid clothes and stuff over to your half of the room!"

(A/N: Shoutout to my cat who gave me the entire butt-in-face idea through experience. I really owe you one, you little jerk<3 Also, what have you thought of the story so far? I bet you Victor has planned a familiar exercise for tomorrow's day of training. Just a little helping hand to get Yuri back into shape, y'know;))

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

"Hand me that loofah."

Keeping his face carefully averted, Pyro picked up the sponge, and tossed in Fabian’s general direction.

An angry “Watch it, you idiot!” indicated that the loofah had struck it’s intended target. Then there was a low chuckle.

“I get it. You’re a married man, after all. You can’t bear to look upon me, lest you completely lose your self-control. Don’t feel bad, you’re hardly the first.”

Pyro was, in fact, struggling not to lose his self-control, but was fighting the urge to vomit.

“You should have invited me to the wedding,” Fabian continued, accompanied by splashing sounds as he apparently flopped around in the tub. “Are we not friends?”

That sentence was technically true the way Fabian had phrased it.

“Yes,” Pyro responded simply.

“But I can understand that, too,” Fabian continued. “You didn’t want to be upstaged at your own nuptials, and my presence certainly would have captured all the attention.”

“Dominic and I thought you might be a bit too busy,” Pyro said, although the truth was less “thought” and more “hoped.” “We didn’t want to intrude on your valuable time.” He was absolutely going to relay this whole horrible conversation to Avalanche tonight over drinks, with a very exaggerated impression of Cortez.

“Well, I always make time for the little people!” Fabian exclaimed magnanimously. “Hand me that towel.” Water sloshed and Pyro was hit with a fine spray as Cortez stood up in the tub. At least it sounded like he was standing up, Pyro wasn’t going to look. He grabbed the nearest towel and thrust it blindly at the demanding voice.

A hand grabbed his wrist and yanked Pyro around, so that he was face to face with a dripping, naked Fabian Cortez, with soap suds sloughing off his glistening body. It was actually a very nice body, that was the worst part, with with a “package” that partially explained the man’s unearned confidence. But the smarmy, arrogant smile completely ruined the picture.

“Looking’s free, you know,” Fabian grinned.

Directing credit, Pyro thought fiercely to himself. Executive producer.

“Why don’t I give you some privacy to get dressed?” He said aloud, plastering a fake smile on his face. This would all be worth it when show’s profits started coming in, and then Pyro would get himself and Dominic matching His and His jet-skis.

He still wasn’t entirely sure how he wound up in this position. It had started with Shinobi pitching a reality show to the Council, which had somehow, inexiplicably, gotten a majority approval vote, possibly because Krakoa hadn’t been attacked in the last few weeks and the Council was bored. It was Survivor meets the Bachelor, in which groups of male and female mutants competed to win the hand of the handsome, debonair, and, most importantly, ridiculously wealthy Shinobi Shaw, through date nights and dinners and pointless jungle challenges of strength and skill.

Pyro had just made a few innocent comments, that was all. Just a couple of suggestions to Emma, who had wound up saddled with the bulk of the responsibility, about story arcs and pairings and how to arrange scenes for maximum drama and pathos. He understood that stuff, after all, as a romance novelist it was his bread and butter. (And he was a bit of a soap opera fanatic, but he wasn’t going to admit that freely.) Emma had listened with an eager, almost hungry glint in her eyes, and there had been a short conversation that had somehow ended with Pyro agreeing to serve as a writer, director and general creative supervisor, in exchange for a percentage of the profits and fairly massive salary. (Massive to Pyro, anyway, probably a drop in the bucket to Emma “Swimming in the money bin” Frost.)

And it actually had been kind of fun. “Reality” TV presented a unique challenge, in that he wasn’t allowed to directly tell the “performers” what to say, but he could do absolutely anything else to construct his creative vision. He could ask leading questions in the talking head interviews, edit scenes by splicing completely unrelated shots together, and put volatile contestants in a room with plenty of alcohol, then poke at them until they exploded.

Unfortunately, his duties had somehow gradually expanded to include talent-wrangling both on and off-set, which left him stuck making nice with Fabian Cortez, the most “colorful” (obnoxious) and, unfortunately, most popular, of all the contestants. Iceman would probably win the show as the nice, relatable, boy-next-door type, but Fabian was what kept viewers tuning in.

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Fabian purred. He contorted his body as he toweled himself off, appearing to pose for nonexistant cameras. “I’m a generous man, I can spare you a bit of eye candy, even if our relationship must remain professional.”

“Yes, that would be best. Listen, we need you to do another challenge with Sienna Blaze.”

Fabian’s “generosity” quickly withered away.

“I will NOT get in front of a camera with that maniac! Such an uptight, ill-mannered, man-hating – well, I’m too much of a gentleman to use the word that she so richly deserves! She nearly killed me last time! Over a simple compliment!”

Yes, Pyro remembered it well. Fabian’s near barbeque had garnered record-high ratings. And hopefully tossing them into a mud-pit together in bathing suits would produce similarly explosive results.

“Oh yes, I know, Fabian,” Pyro cooed, hating himself a little. “She’s very difficult, and you’ve been such a professional about it.” He pulled up comforting mental images as he spoke. Jet-skis. Wagyu steak. Insanely expensive whiskey. Him and Dominic having a long honeymoon in Bali, Sydney, Seoul and Tokyo. All those zeros at the end of the check that Emma had given him.

“Well, a professional shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of shabby treatment!” Fabian said haughtily. He was finally wrapping the towel around his waist, to Pyro’s great relief. “I asked for Norwegian strawberries in my dressing room, and that idiot assistant brought me French!”

“I’ll look into it,” Pyro assured him, fully intending to send Fabian the exact same strawberries (which were, in fact, grown on Krakoa) with his apologies and a fake Norweigian label.

He had a vague notion in the back of his head that Emma should be handling this, Emma was supposed to be in charge! And yet she’d gradually eased the responsibility into Pyro’s arms, only sashaying onto set once every few weeks for a “status report,” and spending the rest of the time off performing mysterious and supposedly very important duties for the Hellfire Trading Company and the Council. She never picked up her phone or responded to voice mails.

It was okay, though. Pyro could handle this. He was a damn writer, and he was good at it, and he would poke and prod his stars through the storyline he had planned, because he was absolutely brilliant. Even Emma had said so.

“Anyway, don’t worry about Blaze,” Pyro insisted, his voice dripping with sticky-sweet honey. “We’ve given her a talking to about her behavior.” He had done no such thing. “I’m sure she’ll be much nicer to work with. In fact, we think the audience will really enjoy you putting her in her place. Really demonstrate your masculine superiority.” Was that too much? They couldn’t have Fabian dying on camera, after all, even though it would be hilarious.

“Well, I should hope so!” Fabian said, rubbing lotion carefully across his pecs. “I’m obviously carrying this entire show, and I will be treated with the respect I deserve.”

“You know,” Pyro added slyly, “I think she’s actually got a bit of a crush on you. You know how some women are.” No, this was definitely too much. Oh well, they could edit around Fabian’s inevitable death and resurrection, and in the mean time they’d get some amazing footage.

“Oh, of course,” Fabian said, with a leering understanding creeping across his face. “I suspected from the very beginning. She couldn’t handle my raw sensuality.”

“Who can, really?” Pyro hated this, he really hated every second of having to pull on the polite mask of social niceties and insincere compliments. It always seemed almost obscene. May as well just flip the other fellow over and start tongueing his arsehole, right? Except that was actually fun in the right circumstances.

But he’d done it before, as a journalist dealing with self-important sources, as a novelist schmoozing with publishers and book sellers. He could do it now, for the astronomical salary that Emma was paying him, and for the Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Program that was hovering in his sights. Emma had assured him that it was a strong possibility. Just imagine rubbing that in the faces of all the critics who had called him a talentless hack! They’d say…well, they’d probably say that an Emmy for trashy reality TV was the highest possible honor for a hack like him, but Pyro wouldn’t give a fuck, because he’d have an Emmy and they wouldn’t.

“C’mon, then, we’ll give you a quick touch-up with bronzer. We’re shooting the scene in fifteen minutes.” Pyro began to guide Fabian, still clad in only a towel, towards the bathroom door.

“We’ll shoot the scene when I’m ready, and not a second before!” Fabian insisted. It would probably be another hour of Fabian demanding and sending back expensive snacks before they could even get him to the set. Luckily, they were actually scheduled to shoot the scene in two hours.

“Yes, of course, whatever you want,” Pyro wheedled, imagining the satisfying explosion of flesh and blood that would very likely occur when Fabian and Sienna Blaze came into contact. And Fabian was going to do it, that much was clear now. “I know you’ll do a fantastic job. You’re brilliant you know, absolutely brilliant……”

For a moment, Pyro trailed off as a crack opened in his mental wall, and memories slipped out into the light. Emma pouring more wine into his glass during their monthly meetings, assuring him again and again that he was absolutely brilliant, a true artist, that the show would thrive in his capable hands.

“No, that’s completely different,” Pyro muttered to himself, shaking his head.

“What was that?” Fabian twisted around, the towel slipping dangerously low on his hips.

“Oh, nothing,” Pyro exclaimed brightly, slamming the mental wall shut again. “Now, let’s get you into make-up, ya big handsome star!”