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polizwrites · 1 year ago

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WIP Update - 16 Aug 2023

A slightly-below average writing week. I touched 5 fics (4 WIPs & 1 new work) for a total of 1900 words.

On Ao3, I posted:

Chapter Three of Finding Something Fresh - Beta!Sub!Bucky and omega!Dom!Steve have their first (non-sexual) scene together.

Chapter One of Seduction and Abduction; Collusion and Retribution - a Stony Pirate AU with Captain!Stephen kidnapping Anthony as an exchange/ransom for his first mate, James.

Both - Both is Good - a domestic fluff WinterPepperony ficlet featuring an inquisitive Morgan Stark.

I have 20 semi-active WIPs 😬 with my current deadlines being the Tony Stark This or That, Hot Bucky Summer and Stony AUgust events, which all wrap at the end of August.

See below cut for what I’m working on/planning to work on - arranged more or less by bingos/challenges/etc. As always, feel free to send me prompts or plot bunnies as well as asks regarding any of these projects or any other WIPs I’ve got out there. Interaction really helps feed the Muse and keep me motivated!

Seek & Destroy Collab

After reading @psychiccatpanda‘s amazing Morguna and the Green Queen, I got the itch to explore the Soldier’s POV and talked Faustie into collab’ing with me! We’re working on a new part of the series, and I’ve contributed about 900 words towards the 2500-ish we have so far. Going to see if I can squeeze any of my BBB squares into this fic.

Hot Bucky Summer [BBE_HBS] (Ends Aug 30)

Another @buckybarnesevents event, this time with weekly smexy prompts. My goal is to complete at least two fics/chapters per month for this challenge and have actually filled/will fill three of the 4 weeks for June and July so far.

Week Eleven - “Give me a color” + Green/Red/Yellow – Posted Chapter Three of Finding Something Fresh last Friday - with Beta!Sub!Bucky and omega!Dom!Steve working on pre-scene negotiations. It crossed over with SVB Comforting Insecurity and came in at 1216 words.

Week Twelve - “Who’s My ___”+ Good Boy - I think this will work well with Chapter 5 of Technicalities, which goes back to Steve POV. This would post 8/23 - and with only 237 words so far, I need to get a move on this!

Week Thirteen - FREE WEEK - another previous prompt use - Week Nine’s “How do you want me?” + Tied Down crossing over with ACB Alexander Pierce and CABB Licking Lips squares for Chapter Four of Finding Something Fresh. This chapter will post 8/25 and is drafted at 1116 words.

Tony Stark This or That [TSTOT_23] (Ends 31 Aug)

Excited to see this event (hosted by @tstot ) come back! When you sign up, you get a card with 10 prompts in pairs - so to complete the card, you create five fanworks. I have four prompts posted and one WIP

* 1a - Love Letters brainstormed with @somesortofitalianroast and Meg during the @buckybarnesbingo Discord party and will be combining this with my BBB Fireplace prompt for a 1980′s No Powers WinterIron fic where they discover that someone’s writing them both the same love letters. Started poking at this and have 129 words towards a minimum 600 due by the end of the month. Targeting to post on the 30th

Stony AUgust (Ends 31 Aug)

This weekly prompt challenge is run as a part of the @stonyauniverse bingo, but you don’t have to be participating in the bingo to play along!

Week 1 - Profession - Chapter One of Falling For You - see TSTOT Disaster above.

Week 2 - Time Period – Posted Chapter One of Seduction and Abduction; Collusion and Retribution which crossed over with my SAUB AU: Pirate and TSB Historical prompts for a Pirate Captain!Steve/kidnapped!Tony fic. It came in at 969 words and I have Vague Ideas of where to go next...

Week 3 - No Powers - working on an established Stony fic that crosses over with my SAUB AU: Cruise Ship, TSB Retirement and CABB Anniversary Date squares. I'm 763 words in to Set A Course for Adventure and they're just now getting to the ship. 😁 Hoping to wrap this up somewhere between 1-1.2k as a one shot with a potential Stuckony sequel at some point.

All Caps Bingo [ACB_R1] (Ends 30 Sep)

I’ve got seventeen completed fics, four WIPs and will be pursuing the One Fill, One Bingo Challenge for Row 5. “Man, shut the hell up!”, Alpha Bucky Barnes, James Rhodes, Humping, Competitive Idiocy

* N2 - Sex Toys - Filling this with the upcoming Chapter Five of Finding Something Fresh - Beta!Sub!Bucky and Omega!Dom!Steve enjoy their first sexual scene together.

* G1 - Isaiah Bradley - Planning to add more to The Fist, Defeated. (possibly present day)

* G2 - Nesting - This works with the upcoming Chapter 5 of Sugar-Coated Pill where Bucky and Tony finally get together. I’m combining it with my TSB “Are you there yet?” and WIB Blowjob squares. It’s sitting at 1229 words and is slated to post on Friday the 18th.

* G3 - Established Relationship - planning to fill this with Chapter 2 of Half of the Flesh and Blood That Makes Me Whole - a Bucky POV remix of at least the first part of Take What Was Wrong (And Make it Right), which is current sitting at 52 words. I’m expecting at least one more chapter, possibly two, depending on how far I want to take the remix.

* O3 - Pararescue Sam Wilson - Wrote a remix of Falling For You from Sam’s POV as a crossover with @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt: [#FFF212 Gotta Go Fast]. Braking Their Fall came in at 607 words and will post to Ao3 before this event is over.

* O4 - AU: Domestic - filled this with Both - Both is Good. This crossed over with my WinterIron Pride Prompt Party Day 20: Both Are Good prompt - with Morgan asking her daddy if he loves Uncle Bucky like he does Mommy. It came in at 443 words and posted this morning.

Sam Wilson Bingo [SWB_R3] (Ends 15 Oct 2023)

I have five fills and one WIP - I need to work on cross fills between this and the All Caps, Bucky Barnes and Captain Bottom bingo!

* B4 - Natasha Romanoff - Maybe add on to my Card Sharks drabble, where SamNat & Steve conspire to create a polycule with Bucky? this idea crosses over nicely with my BBB KINK: Seduction mission square

* N5 - James Rhodes - filled with Braking Their Fall - see ACB Pararescue Sam Wilson above.

* G3 - Joaquin Torres - possible expansion of A Rising Star

WinterIron Bingo - [WIB_R1] (Ends 16 Dec 2023)

I have thirteen fills completed and two WIPs for this brand-new bingo event that I’m helping mod! Along with crossfilling against my other bingos, I’m going to try to combine my B column squares for the Iron Soldier badge (complete a bingo with a single work). – Alpha Tony Stark, “That was not my intention.”, James Rhodes, Alpine loves Tony and Blind date. (Tony POV remix of A Sugar Coated Pill?)

* N1 - Bucharest – I think I can fold this into a future chapter of My Love is Vengeance - where a young!Tony and a recovering!Bucky have been kidnapped by Hydra, who still thinks Bucky is the Soldier.

* G2 - Eye contact during sex - This will come into play in Chapter 6 of A Sugar-Coated Pill, where Bucky figures out what making love really means, with Tony’s help. It’s crossing over with BBB KINK: Gentle Sex and is up to 312 words.

* G4 - AU: College Students – looking to expand Beaten to the Punch with some backstory on Bucky and Tony as science camp counselors to fit with this square - will also cross over with my WFB Volunteering Together square.

* O2 - Blowjob - Chapter 5 of A Sugar-Coated Pill – see ACB Nesting above.

* O5 - Gentle – use this poem as inspiration?

Stucky’Verse Bingo Round 1 - [SVB_R1] (Ends 22 Dec)

Nine fills, three WIPs and a couple of ideas.

* A1 - Harem - crossover with CABB Secret/Forbidden Relationship - Bucky and shrimpy!Steve are both concubines - they love each other more than their lored.

* A4 - Fairy Tale Curse - this seems custom-made for a continuation of Beyond the Beast😁 Nothing written yet, other than some Vague Ideas.

* B3 - Tied to a Bed – Chapter Five of Finding Something Fresh - see ACB Sex Toys above. 😁

* B5 - Comforting Insecurity - Chapter Three of Finding Something Fresh - see HBS Week 11.

* D4 - Edging - Probably Chapter Five of Technicalities.

Bucky Barnes Bingo - [BBB_R5] (Ends 10 Jan 2024)

I’ve got eleven fills, three WIPs, and a couple more Vague ideas.

*B2 - KINK: Seduction Mission - might add a new chapter to Card Sharks - where Sam/Natasha and Steve finish what they started to get Bucky onboard for a poly partnership.

* U1 - Never the fall that kills you - I’ve got a WinterIron hanahaki fic idea for this that I want to play with.

* U3 - Fireplace - see TSTOT Love Letters above

* C2 - Yelena Belova– The plan is to use this prompt in the next chapter of Peresmešnik, (aka Three Avengers and a Baby), which is currently sitting at 1100 words (400-ish of which are mine).

* C5 - Marriage of Convenience/Pretend Couple - next chapter of Lady Natasha’s Consort and Lord Steve’s Companion. Not quite sure where to take this next at the moment. 😕

* K3 - Magic - Aro!Bucky sickfic idea?

* Y1 - Gentle Sex - In-progress Chapter 6 of Sugar-Coated Pill – see WIB Eye Contact During Sex.

* Y3 - Alpine - see WIB Iron Soldier combo.

* Y4 - Forgotten Things - using this for Chapter 4 of You Can’t Stop It With a Gun - it’s sitting at 116 words at the moment.

* May Adopted - Insomnia - finally got this filled with The Dead of Night, which also filled last week’s Flash Fiction Friday prompt [#FFF211 An Old Friend] along with my JBB FREE square. It came in at 317 words and will post to Ao3 before this event ends.

Tony Stark Bingo Round 7 - [TSB_R7] (ends 15 Feb)

Six fills and two WIPs, with a couple of ideas in play.

* S1 - Galaxy - possibly use in final chapter of Never More to Go Astray ?

* S4 - “Are you there yet?” -upcoming Chapter 5 of Sugar-Coated Pill – see ACB Nesting above

* T5 - Shawarma - possible crossover with SAUB Canon Divergence – Battle of New York-related?

* A2 - KINK: Concubine - possible crossover with SAUB Gentle Dom

* A4 - Historical - see Stony AUGust Week 2: Time Period above.

* R1 - Animal Transformation - DemonPanda shared a fun prompt on the WIB server - Tony as a short-haired werewolf who needs to cuddle his pack members for warmth.

* R3 - Retirement - filling this with Set A Course for Adventure - see Stony AUgust Week 3: No Powers above.

* R5 - Doppelganger/Evil Twins - this will probably cross over with my Stony AUniverse AU: Crack square as I have a semi-silly idea for it, inspired by seeing a T shirt of mine in a mirror.

Stony AUniverse Bingo [SAUB_R1] (ends 15 Feb)

Another brand-new bingo I’m helping co-mod! Three fills, three WIPs and several crossover ideas already!

* S2 - AU: Crack - see TSB Doppelganger/Evil Twins

* S3 - AU: Wings - see ACB Established Relationship

* S5 - Accidental Baby Acquisition - see BBB Yelena Belova

* T1 - AU: Fantasy - CoffeeOwl shared a really cool dragon!Steve/indebted!Tony prompt in the ACB Discord server that I may be playing with for this.

* T4 - AU: Canon Divergence - see TSB Shawarma above.

* N1 - AU: Spy - I want to expand on/add backstory to Keeping All My Secrets Safe Tonight from the Stony Drabbles challenge.

* N2 - Mutual Pining - crossover with CABB Royal Knight?

* N3 - Gentle Dom - see TSB KINK: Concubine above

* N4 - AU: Pirate - see Stony AUgust Week 2: Time Period above.

* Y2 -AU: Cruise Ship - filling this with Set A Course for Adventure - see Stony AUgust Week 3: No Powers above.

Captain (America) Bottom Bingo - Round 2 [CABB] (ends 28 Feb 2024)

I signed up for a 3x3 card for this bingo and have two fills, one WIP and a couple of crossover ideas.

* A1 - Licking Lips - Chapter Four of Finding Something Fresh - see HBS Week 13

* A2 - Secret/Forbidden Relationship - see SVB Harem

* B3 - Royal Knight - see SAUB Mutual Pining.

* C1 - Anniversary Date - filling this with Set A Course for Adventure - see Stony AUgust Week 3: No Powers above.

Post July Break Bingo [JBB_23p] (Ends Apr? 2024)

@julybreakbingo is running another event to tide participants over with a 2x3 non-fandom-specific card - I got mine earlier this week and am checking it over for potential crossovers.

B2 - Character’s personality is split into two different beings – I’ve never played with Bucky & the Soldier being two different people, but this seems like the perfect opportunity! Will see what might be a good crossover on BBB or WIB (or even SVB)

C1 - Touch Starved – another good fit for a Bucky-centric fic. (either Steve or Tony)

Warm and Fluffy Bingo - [WFB] (no end date)

I got my card from @warmandfluffybingocards back in February but really hadn’t done much with it - however, I’m picking it back up for some crossover possibilities!

* O5 - Volunteering Together – see WIB AU: College Students

————

On other creative fronts: I have a Robot Monster Stuffed With Character figure in progress for an upcoming con. I will be making an announcement about commissions sometime this month so if you’re looking for one of a kind gifts for birthdays or other celebrations, check out Stuffed With Character over on Facebook for a full list of my designs (now over 150!). These soft stuffed figures are mostly Marvel and monsters, but I have some Star Wars, Star Trek, DC and Disney figures as well. Plus I love to take custom design requests for any fandom!

#writing stuff #wip wednesday #wip update #shameless self promo

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no-reply95 · 3 years ago

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Jealous Guys

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while now is the different ways jealousy manifested for John and Paul over the course of their friendship.

I’m going to look at John and Paul in turn and have a look at some of the key ways jealousy appeared, before, during and after the Beatles period. This will be a looooong post so if you want to go on deep dive keep reading below.

John

Jealousy was something that John acknowledged as a big part of his personality, as far as I’m aware, he only acknowledged his jealousy publicly in terms of his relationship with Yoko but I believe jealousy was a feature of all of John’s major relationships. John’s first real partnership was with Pete Shotton, his childhood best friend, and Pete has outlined how John’s jealousy and possessiveness was a feature in their friendship with them falling out when Pete first started showing interest in girls and with John acting out when Pete started to spend more time with other friends, instead of him, here Pete recounts John’s reflection on this period of their friendship:

“Years later John confessed to having felt acutely jealous throughout that interlude: “I was scared shitless I’d lost you after our fight in science class, when you starting playing with David Jones. I really thought I’d gone too far with you that time.“

Pete Shotton, John Lennon: In My Life , 1983

Pete’s recollections establish a pattern in John’s life of acting out due to a fear of abandonment and losing those who are closest to him so it’s not surprising that once John had formed a strong bond with Paul that would stir similar fears in him.

Below I’ve categorised the groups of people that were the focus of John’s jealousy and have picked one person from each group as an example:

Family - Jim McCartney

Paul’s family was and continues to be a big part of his life. From the outset of their friendship, John was made aware of how important Jim was to Paul and vice versa. John and Paul had to skip school to hang out together because Jim wouldn’t have John in their house initially and John confessed his resentment of Jim’s influence over Paul’s life. It appears that after some time John grew tired of having to contend with Jim for the position of the most important person in Paul’s life, and this culminated in John giving Paul a pseudo ultimatum as John discussed in 1971:

“But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, "I need a steady career." We couldn't believe it… “So I told him on the phone, "Either come or you're out." So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Friends - Mal Evans

Throughout the active years of the band it was typical of them to refer to each other as their best friends and, given the lives they led, I think the simple fact that no one else could understand what it was like to be a Beatle would have meant they all shared a special bond. However, they all had friendships outside of the band and this was something that could cause issues for John when it came to Paul.

According to Tune In, Mal initially became friends with Paul during the band's initial shows at the Cavern Club then, after a suggestion from George, Mal became a part of the Beatles entourage thereafter. Mal had friendships with all the Beatles, as part of their inner circle, but from his comments it appears John took umbrage with the closeness of Mal’s friendship with Paul:

“Paul would suddenly come in with this circle saying, “This is Magical Mystery Tour, will you write that bit?” And I was choked that he’d arranged it all with Mal anyway, for a kickoff, and had all this idea going”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Mal also comes up when John discusses his recollections of the writing of Eleanor Rigby:

“So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,”... “ Now, I sat there with Mal Evans, a road manager who was a telephone installer, and Neil Aspinall, who was a not-completed student accountant who became our road manager. And I was insulted and hurt that he’d thrown it out in the air”...” There might be a version that they contributed, but there isn’t a line in there that they put in.“

Playboy interview, David Sheff 1980

John’s discomfort with the closeness of Paul’s relationship with Mal was something that wasn’t lost on Mal’s wife Lil:

“He was always at their beck and call. He was a nice fella to have around, so much so that it could provoke little jealousies within the band. When I met Yoko years after Mal died, she said John had told her he’d been very jealous at one point of Mal’s relationship with Paul.”

Lil Evans interview with Ray Connolly, 2005

Love interests - Linda McCartney

Throughout their friendship both John and Paul had quite a few love interests, which (to varying degrees) prompted jealousy between them.

Although John displayed jealousy of a few of Paul’s love interests this was no more apparent than with Paul’s first wife Linda McCartney, which is confirmed by both John’s words and actions regarding Linda and her partnership with Paul:

“"Then Klein informed Lennon that McCartney had secretly been increasing his stake in Northern Songs. ‘John flew into a rage,’ recalled Apple executive Peter Brown. ‘At one point I thought he was really going to hit Paul, but he managed to calm himself down.’ One unconfirmed report of this meeting had Lennon leaping towards Linda McCartney, his fists raised in her face"

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money

"Int: When did you first meet her [Linda]? John: The first time I saw her was after that press conference to announce Apple in America. We were just going back to the airport and she was in the car with us. I didn't think she was particularly attractive, I wondered what he was bothering having her in the car for. A bit too tweedy, you know. But she sat in the car and took photographs and that was it. And the next minute she's married him."

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

“I was reading your letter and wondering what middle aged cranky Beatle fan wrote it... "What the hell—it’s Linda! . . . Linda— if you don’t care what I say—shut up!—let Paul write—or whatever.”

"Of course, the money angle is important—to all of us—especially after all the petty shit that came from your insane family/in laws—and GOD HELP YOU OUT, PAUL—see you in two years—I reckon you’ll be out then"

Draft letter from John Lennon to Linda McCartney, circa 1971

"The presumption is a) the Beatles would get together again or are even thinking about it and b) if they got together, John and Yoko split, Paul and Linda split"

John (with Yoko) talks to John Fielding on Weekend World, 1973

"John often speculated on why Paul and Linda remained married while, at the same time, resenting their evident happiness, to the extent that he had Green do a tarot reading to ensure him that Paul and Linda were really secretly miserable and were going to divorce within a year"

According to Fred Seaman and John Green, source

Paul

Of course jealousy wasn't a one-way street in the Lennon-McCartney relationship. Unlike with John, for Paul I'm focusing more on the key people I believe his jealousy, regarding John, was directed to:

Stuart Sutcliffe

John met Stu at Art College and struck up a really close friendship with him. At the point that John met Stu, John had already become friends with Paul so Paul felt threatened when Stu entered the picture:

"When he [Stu] came into the band, around Christmas of 1959, we were a little jealous of him; it was something I didn’t deal with very well. We were always slightly jealous of John’s other friendships.

When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from George and me. We had to take a bit of a back seat."

Paul McCartney, Anthology 2000

"Paul was saying something about Stu’s girl – he was jealous because she was a great girl, and Stu hit him, on stage. And Stu wasn’t a violent guy at all."

John Lennon, 1967 Anthology 2000

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really."

John Lennon, The Beatles Hunter Davies 1968

Yoko Ono

Of all the relationships I've already discussed, the relationship and jealousy displayed from Paul towards Yoko is probably the most widely discussed in Beatles historiography and general discourse. From the official start of Yoko's relationship with John in 1968 it was clear that Paul resented her presence in John's life and her proximity to the band:

"He even sent them [John and Yoko] a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of his fan mail in a big basket and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they got to the anonymous note, they looked puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes. ‘You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit’, it said."

Francie Schwartz, Body Count 1972

"Cause she’s [Yoko] very much to do with it from John’s angle, that’s the thing, you know. And I – the thing is that I – there’s— Again, like, there’s always only two answers. One is to fight it, and fight her, and try and get The Beatles back to four people without Yoko, and sort of ask her to sit down at the board meetings. Or else, the other thing is to just realize that she’s there, you know. And he’s not gonna sort of – split with her, just for our sakes."

Paul McCartney, Let It Be Sessions, 1969

"I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me."

Paul McCartney, interview with Ray Connolly, 1970

What are the similarities and differences in the way jealousy manifested for John and Paul?

I think it's obvious but bears repeating that both John and Paul displayed jealousy towards other people who they felt would threaten their relationship so that's central to all the instances I have flagged, Jim, Mal, Linda, Stu, Yoko all posed real or imagined threats to John and Paul's partnership.

However, you'll note that I included more sources to display John's jealousy regarding Paul and that I categorised John's jealousy targets whereas I only pulled out two key individuals for Paul, this isn't to say that John was more jealous than Paul was, as jealousy isn't something you can quantify, but to highlight my opinion that Paul's jealousy regarding John was more targeted than John's jealousy regarding Paul. I think what stands out to me is that, I think generally Stu and Yoko are held up as the prime examples of Paul's jealousy of other people getting close to John, as far as we know, Paul never had significant issues with other people who formed close relationships with John like Pete Shotton, Cynthia Lennon, Magic Alex etc., why was that? I think that Paul was more threatened when he felt that John was replacing him so by bringing Stu into the band (even though he wasn't a musician) and Yoko into the studio (one instance where Paul was especially hurt was when John gave Paul's line in The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill to Yoko to sing), Paul perhaps felt that his place as John's primary collaborator was in jeopardy and that he could lose a partnership that had become central to his self-worth as a person - that, I believe, was when his jealousy was most likely to rise to the fore. John, on the other hand, had a much wider range of targets when it came to jealousy regarding Paul, why was John jealous of Linda? Linda wasn't trying to replace John as Paul's collaborator, if anything she wanted the Lennon-McCartney partnership to be stronger. Why was John jealous of Mal? Mal wasn't a musician, Mal was a huge fan of the band and constantly worked to fulfil their requests, so why was John so threatened by his friendship with Paul? For me, John's jealousy regarding Paul was more than just a fear of directly being replaced, I believe John's jealousy was fundamentally triggered by a fear of abandonment. I think the childhood trauma John experienced, of being left by both his parents, meant that whenever any of his close friendships and relationships were threatened, or he felt that someone close to him may leave him, he would act out. John fell out with his childhood best friend Pete when he got a girlfriend, John hit Cynthia when he saw her dancing with Stu, John was rude to several of Paul's love interests and ultimately John never fully accepted Paul's relationship with Linda because, although he could see that she could offer Paul the family life he always wanted, John didn't want Linda to take Paul away and give him a family that meant that Paul would no longer be able to prioritise John in his life as he had in the past.

Ultimately, we'll never know all the ways that jealousy factored into John and Paul's relationship with each other and those around them, as I'm sure it impacted several relationships in more complex ways than I can articulate (i.e. I suspect jealousy played a part in Paul's initial resentment of Brian but they grew closer over time so maybe Paul's jealousy lessened over time or Brian became less of a threat?). I do think it's important to consider that jealousy was present on both sides and was likely a factor in the breakdown of John and Paul's relationship, the breakdown of the Beatles and was a continued factor in disrupting reconciliations between John and Paul into the 70s and 1980.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #john and paul #paul and linda #john and yoko #jealous guy #linda mccartney #yoko ono #stuart sutcliffe #mal evans #jim mccartney #brian epstein #long post #thoughts

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shadowstryker · 4 years ago

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Sleepless in Shibuya

Two support reapers clad in their read hoodies traverse across Shibuya, locked deep in conversation about the mundanities of the evening before. Across their shoulders, one each carried an unconscious Player, toting them to the next starting point for the next day. See, when the GM decides the day is done- usually but not always after the completion of a mission- they have the power to simply yank the consciousness of the Players from them. A handy feature given by the power of the Composer’s Game, but he had never imagined himself as one of the unfortunate recipients of such. However, they cannot simply teleport the Players to their designated waking point for some Composer given reason, so the support reapers are sent at the day’s end to physically haul the Players across Shibuya to where they need to be.

As an illegal Player (and more importantly, due to the power he carries), he is not beholden to the GMs command to sleep until commanded otherwise. Which means Joshua Kiryu, the great and powerful Composer of Shibuya, has the great pleasure of allowing himself to go limp and fall on his face the same way Neku has no choice to every evening. Such lengths he goes to in order to avoid detection.

This, Joshua decides as he hangs limply over of one of the support reaper’s shoulder to feign sleep, is the worst part of this whole halfway thought out plan.

He does not care about what his reapers have to say about the rumors of the UG, much less is he pleased about being forced to catch up on the gossip every night. (Admittedly, however, he is slowly getting invested in one of the reaper’s star-crossed love with an RG shopkeep, and he hates that he’s begun rooting for the poor guy.)

And then Joshua is ungracefully dumped on his ass, half propped against a wall, with Neku dumped in his lap. He represses a sigh as the support reapers finally head off.

Still, he feigns sleep a few more minutes after. He’s hyperaware of every instinctual breath Neku takes (silly boy, he doesn’t need that at all right now) and of every little twitch Neku gives. Who would have thought his stoic proxy was so energetic when he was asleep?

Joshua peeks an eye open. Not a reaper in sight. Perfect.

In one fluid motion, he sits up and shoves his partner off of his lap, leaving him to curl up against the cold concrete with his headphones caught between his chin and the ground. It certainly looks rather uncomfortable. Joshua crosses his legs beneath him as he pulls out his phone to tap away on. Time for another twelve straight hours of arguing with Sanae and playing snake. And watching Neku.

Neku shifts around quite a bit in his sleep, as Joshua had learned simply through their first night together. He could swear he’s even heard him mumble a few words here and there, sending Joshua giggling to himself. He must admit, in the almost-quiet hours of deep night Shibuya, that he’s become ever so slightly fond of his proxy- his stubbornness, his temper, the disaster fashion that Neku insists helps them in battle (he’s right, but Joshua won’t admit that.)

He’s even become fond of Neku’s strange turn for the positive.

Joshua isn’t quite sure what to make of this change in his proxy. He certainly thought that Neku would be more cynical at this point, but it seems his entry fee for this week has ignited a fire in his player. Shiki Misaki, hm? What influence did she have on Neku?

It doesn’t matter. It still won’t mess up his plans, not after what he plans to do to-

Oh?

Joshua stares in surprise as Neku all but stretches in his sleep, rolling onto his other side and snuggling back in on himself. And Joshua. In his lap. Again.

Hm.

Joshua did not anticipate this- just like he hasn’t anticipated nearly anything his player has done during their week together.

Neku looks quite cozy, half lifted into Joshua’s lap and all but buried in his stomach. Joshua keeps his arms raised for a moment, brain rebooting. What does he do now? Neku’s face looks so slack and easy, Joshua doesn’t quite have the heart to shove the poor boy off his lap again.

“You just keep on surprising me, don’t you Neku Sakuraba?” Joshua murmurs, sighing softly. He shuts his phone with a soft click and tucks it away. A soft smile tugs at his lips as he slowly lowers his hands, fingertip resting gently against the band of those precious headphones Neku keeps clapped over his ears. His thumb sweeps across bleached hair without thinking. He chuckles and leans back against the wall to settle in for the night.

“I hope you continue to do so, dear proxy.”

I’ve been meaning to write this for ages- I once even mentioned my plans to do on a side blog. Months ago. It’s not the most cohesive thing I’ve written, and maybe it’s a rough draft I churned out in 45 minutes with my first bout of inspiration in literal months, but the comic that inspired this by @abnormallynicehere always gives me so much joy to look at. I had to write something for it eventually! Joh gives so much cute art out to the fandom they deserve something back!

And the thought of Joshua being toted around like a sack of potatoes was one that I had to share.

#enough chat #stry writes #twewy #the world ends with you #joshua kiryu #neku sakuraba #joshneku #i wanted to be introspective to josh and also keep this a drabble so bleh here #hope you enjoy

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kurofai-olympics · 4 years ago

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KuroFai Olympics 2021 - Sun Vs Moon - FAQ

What are the KuroFai Olympics?

The KuroFai Olympics (or as I usually end up typing, Olympfics) are a friendly team-based writing competition between two teams writing opposing themes of fiction, based around the same set of subthemes or prompts.

This year, it is Team Sun and Team Moon.

Each team will have the same number of competitors, and each competitor will square off against the other team’s competitor using the same prompt, with both posting their fics on the same day as determined by the posting schedule.

Where are the Olympics held?

The home of the Olympics is the KuroFai Dreamwidth community. You can also keep up to date with us on Discord, Twitter and Tumblr. We also have a collection on AO3 and you contact the mods via [email protected].

Roles within the Olympics

Moderators: a small dedicated group tasked with planning, coordinating and overall, doing what they can to make this year another success.

Writers: wordsmiths ready and willing to write a story where the main focus is about KuroFai, will be either fluffy or angsty, and fits into the subtheme.

Artists: folks with a passion for the visual arts. While each year, we are blessed with an Artist willing to create a header for the year's Olympics (this year, we thank ValdrickV), for the tenth anniversary, there is an additional role for Artists. To create art based around the prompts. This can be done based on one's interpretation of the prompt or in coordination with a Writer.

Betas: A second pair of eyes for a Writer, offering insight, advice and or a grammar check in exchange for an early reading of the story.

Pinchhitters: Brave and generous folks willing to take on the role of Writer should the need arise.

Read and Reviewers: Lovers of KuroFai who participate by reading the posted stories and then afterwards, leaving a Review for the author. Let's face it, Kudos is wonderful, but a review leaves a greater impact.

Scorers: by popular demand, rather than leave a Review with a score, Scorer fill out a brief survey where they score the fic. A form of online presence will be required - no going entirely anonymous allowed.

What are Pinch-hitters?

A stand-by writer, in case someone who signs up with a team has to step down for any reason (life obligations, sick, believe they won't finish on time, etc.) so they will step up to write for the prompt left vacant. If a competitor feels they need to step down, please let a Mod know as soon as possible, and the Mods will then ask a pinch-hitter to take over their prompt. Should you be unreachable for two days after a scheduled check in, a pinch hitter will be called upon to take over.

To give a Pinch-Hitter the most time to write, their posting day will be moved to the last posting day. Should two need to step down, the first Pinch Hitter and their competitor will get the day before the last and the newest Pinch Hitter and their competitor will have the last posting day

Posting Dates?

The posting schedule for the Olympics starts on the 8th of August. Each of our sub themes will be assigned a posting date with the first fics being posted on the 9th of August.

The schedule is prone to change but the mods will ensure that all writers know what date they will post on. If a Pinchitter is called upon their prompt will always move to the end of the schedule.

Time zone for posting?

We are currently considering what Timezone to use. This will be updated once it has been decided.

That said, time zones are an illusion we gave ourselves, so as long as you post within an hour or two of midnight on the day of your posting, you won’t be docked points. If you post after the next competitors’ have started posting for their prompt, however, that late penalty card comes into play.

Checkins?

All writers and artists will be required to checkin with the mods three times during the creating period. These checkins are just to see how you are going and to figure out if the posting dates need to be altered. While participants can reach out to the Mods at any time if issues arise the checkins are just a formalisation of this process.

Can I write a joint fic?

All fics entered in the Olympics must be new, original works written for the appropriate prompt by a single participant. You may ask your teammates/friends/family to help you out with coming up with an idea and you can ask anyone even Mods to beta your fic once it's written, but you have to write it.

Can I reuse an older piece of work?

No, you can't take a draft fic you had prepared earlier and jazz it up for the prompt. (We may not have proof but this is where your honor comes in. Write something new for your honor.)

Fic outlines are acceptable and allowed so long as you have not begun writing fic for it before you receive your prompt.

Length of fic?

There's no minimum or maximum length of entries; if you can tell a story in a thousand words, more power to you, and if it takes you fifty thousand, that's great too. However, a word count of between five thousand to twenty thousand for the length of your fic is generally recommended.

Can I share my work before posting day?

You can share up to 10% of your work as a teaser on various social medias before your posting date. You can of course share your work with your Beta and Team Mates before hand if you like.

Do I have to post my fic on Dreamwidth?

The fic, not necessarily. But you will need to make an entry post on Dreamwidth. That is, a post where you either post under a cut or provide a link to the location where your fic is posted. A template for fic entry posts will be provided closer to the posting date.

How do I post on Dreamwidth?

You will need a Dreamwidth account to post your entry and be a member of the KuroFai Dreamwidth Community. Copy and paste the template provided into a new Dreamwidth post making sure you choose HTML and not Rich text for editing. Also remeber to chose KuroFai community as it is easy to accidentally post it to your own Dreamwidth. Example of last years template post https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/131379.html

Do I have to submit my fic to the AO3 collection?

While we would love for you to put your fic in the KuroFai Olympics 2020 collection it is not a requirement of the competition. This year collection is 2021_KuroFai_Olympics

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2021_KuroFai_Olympics

What if I can’t write competitively?

There is nothing to prevent you from writing a fic of your own to match the theme or a prompt you really like. We simply ask that you don’t post it during the Week (give or take) that the Teams will be posting theirs.

How can Artists get involved?

This year artist can sign up to do Art for the various prompts. The lovely Valdrick has created our banner art this year. Once prompts have been assigned to the artist there are no restrictions beyond relating to the prompt and KuroFai. Any size, any medium, any colour what ever takes your fancy.

How are fics scored?

By popular demand, this year rather than leave a Review with a score, the reader will be asked to fill out a brief survey which will be linked to at the end of the fic. A form of online presence will be required - no going entirely anonymous allowed for scoring.

Rules for scoring a fic?

Mods will not be allowed to leave a score but can still read and leave a review.

All Writers will be allowed to leave a Score EXCEPT on their fic and the corresponding fic from the other team.

Betas, Artists and others who aided in the Olympics and are not Writers or Mods are free to Score any fic.

People from across the fandom are free to Score any fic but will be required to leave a form of contact in the scoring survey.

The Scorecard

With 1 being the very worst and 10 being the very best, how well do you think this story did?

1. How well did this fic fit the prompt?

2. How well written was the fic?

3. How much did you enjoy the fic?

And please answer Yes/No

4. Was this fic tagged properly?

Questions 1-3 will have a maximum of 30 points available (and when you divide that by 3, you could get a solid 10 Pointer)

Regarding 4, if the Yes outweigh the No, then +2 Points. If the No outweigh the Yes than -2 Points.

Penalty Card

If the Penalty Card had to come in for Late and or Unfinished, then those Points will be taken out when we do the scoring.

No Story Posted: While this has happened due to unfortunate circumstance, it does result in a total loss of points. A zero for that story.

Late but Complete Fic: 1 Point Docked.

Incomplete Story Posted: 1-2 Points docked from that story.

Not Tagged Properly: 2 Points.

Not Tagged Properly?

Because of the sensitivity of subjects, all of these subjects MUST be clearly warned about should they appear in your story. At the bottom of the story under the cut is not clearly warned about.

Non-Con, Sexual violence, Dub-con, Underage, Sexual Kinks, Omega verse, Graphic Violence, Self Harm, Suicide or Suicidal thoughts.

Things like Language, Drug Use, Implied (sensitive subject), etc. are not required but are welcome to make the story that much more reader-friendly.

While not mandatory, stories featuring material from the events after Acid Tokyo, AU or Canon based, have a new tag available to them. It’s called NSFN (Not Safe for Nick/Newbies) and will make this even more reader-friendly.

Failure to comply with the Must be warned about rule results in a 2 Point loss for that story.

#KuroFai Olympics 2021 #mod post #FAQ

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duchessfics · 4 years ago

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Quarantine Headcanons for Billie x Reader x Audrey

This is for Anon: Can you do another Billie Audrey and reader story they are addicting and you’re such a great reader!! Can we see one where they are in quarantine and a lot of fluff?

I know this isn’t a fic, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! Also I hope you all are still staying safe and healthy at this time. And maybe these headcanons will bring a little sunshine to your day! Thank you for all of the likes and feedback! 💖

(https://ahsdaily.co.vu/post/150514222930)

I alluded to this in my other fic at the beginning of quarantining for coronavirus, but Billie would for sure take this time to have sex with you and Audrey anywhere and in every position.

Of course there are the usual places like your bed, your shower, your bathtub, and your couch. But you end up christening the living room coffee table, the steps of your staircase, the top of your washing machine in between cycles, and even one time inside of your food pantry.

Because both Billie and Audrey are celebrities, they both take part in different Instagram lives on their own and with other people. Normally you stay out of the public eye because if they are invited to an event they only get a plus one. So they go together. But when you accidentally interrupt their shared live, people immediately are interested in you.

At first Audrey is a little annoyed at all of the attention you’re getting just for accidentally opening the door and Billie giving you a minimal introduction. But you suggest that maybe after people see you once they’ll get bored and move on. So in the next live they do, they introduce you and it helps…kind of.

Instead of people focusing on you, their audience focuses on all three of you being an item. So once a week, all three of you will sit down and do a short live. Sometimes you answer questions, sometimes you play a boardgame, or sometimes you just chat for a while. But people love it either way.

Speaking of social media, it’s early on during quarantine when you download tiktok. And while you were skeptical about the app before all of this, you do find yourself learning the dances and posting some of your own content.

Of course your girlfriends are featured in a few of your tiktoks, but they also just think it’s funny and cute to see you randomly doing the dances around the house and singing to yourself. However if they wake up to see you still scrolling through tiktok for what’s probably been hours into the middle of the night, they will sandwich you in between them and summon you to sleep by intensive cuddling.

Because of the virus, your usual staff that performs daily tasks can’t come over. So Audrey signs the three of you up for an online cooking course. In the beginning, you know most of the techniques, but you do end up refining your skill. And Billie and Audrey become much, much better cooks.

And because Audrey feels so passionate about cooking now, she decides to order plenty of seeds to plant a whole garden. And this garden is supposed to take up a large chunk of your yard. However, because all three of you have never done something like this before, you look up how to successfully plant a garden and manage to actually do it.

Once it’s completely planted, this garden is Audrey’s literal child. She will go out each morning to track each plant’s growth. Her Instagram essentially becomes one for her garden and one time when she saw a racoon trying to get some of the fruits (and vegetables) of her labor, Audrey literally ran out and chased them off before you or Billie could stop her.

Besides learning how to cook, both Billie and Audrey have to clean. You never thought you would see your girlfriends doing laundry or scrubbing toilets, but they do it. And in the process, you help them go through and declutter the entire house for the first time in many, many years. That helps to refresh the house and makes cleaning much easier.

After a couple weeks of doing these hands-on tasks Billie’s acrylics all eventually pop off. So you offer your “services” to give her a manicure and she gladly accepts. She even lets you pick out the colors. Of course Audrey joins in and incorporates special toners, serums, and facial treatments since her aesthetician is unavailable and she’s afraid of her wrinkles emerging (Which both you and Billie assure her are nonexistent, but still)

Even with all of these new tasks, after being at home for more than three months you are bored and want to change something up. Specifically you want to do something different with your hair. When you mention it, both of your girlfriends think you’re joking and say you wouldn’t even know how to pick out the right hair color let alone actually doing anything.

That angers you and only makes you more determined to prove them wrong. So you order some bleach and hair dye and secretly use them. However instead of surprising your girlfriends with a gorgeous new head of hair, you come to them with tears and completely ruined hair.

Both Billie and Audrey feel horrible seeing you so defeated, but there’s nothing they can really do except section your hair off and try to salvage what healthy hair remains, resulting in a very short haircut. Luckily the short hairstyle actually looks amazing on you! And Billie and Audrey love it as well.

Because the three of you have more time together than ever before, you’re able to be more involved with some of Billie and Audrey’s personal ventures. So when Audrey needs to practice reading her lines, you take on the other characters and read through the script with her.

Of course you speak in silly voices and make funny faces for different characters which makes Audrey giggle and reprimand you, but she does find it adorable and it helps her to remain in character better.

On Billie’s end, fortunately you are able to have access to an isolated tennis court. So you get to watch the medium play a sport that she is well-versed in. Plus seeing her in different cute tennis outfits all sweaty and wet…it just does things to you.

To try and make it fair, you and Audrey play as a team against Billie, but she still annihilates you both. While you and Audrey are exhausted and completely winded, Billie looks fully enlivened and even says this is “rusty” for her compared to when she regularly played.

Another thing you and Billie do while Audrey works virtually is check out a possible abandoned house for Billie to film at. In the beginning you are able to play it cool. However as she looks around and speaks with forces that are invisible to your eyes you begin to get the creeps.

You trust Billie, but after a couple hours of having lights flick on and off, unexplained footsteps, and cold drafts as she continues to speak to different spirits, you’re practically climbing up onto her, terrified.

Billie didn’t realize how intense the experience would be so when she sees you so scared she feels terrible. But you promise you’ll be ok. However when Audrey sees you even she notices how shaken up you are. So you share a nice, hot bath and Billie uses some cleansing techniques she has learned making you feel better. And she promises to be more aware of checking in on you next time.

A couple weeks before the date, they remember your birthday is coming up. Due to the coronavirus you can’t really do much. But they still ask what you would like to do out of the options available.

For you just being around your girlfriends is a gift in itself, but they insist. So you tell them that you would enjoy just spending a day out in nature after being cooped up for so long. Billie and Audrey take your small suggestion and go even further. On the morning of your birthday, they wake you up by serving you breakfast in bed. And it’s actually a good breakfast!

Then the three of you go to a park that is never very popular and hike a couple trails. And it just feels nice to have an outing. After hiking, you pick up take out from your favorite local restaurant and eat at home. And to finish the night off, the three of you have a campfire, make smores, and lay on a blanket to look up at the stars while cuddling and talking. Even though the day seems ordinary, this is one of the best birthdays you have had in years.

In terms of other holidays, you don’t really do too much. On Easter, Audrey convinces you and Billie to dress up and take some spring pictures in your yard. The theme was pastel colors and seeing Billie with her pearls in a blush pink dress as well as Audrey in a pistachio jumpsuit with a spontaneously made flower crown is adorable.

On the fourth of July, you grill up some food and the three of you spend the day by the pool. The day is even more special because Billie wears an American flag bikini you and Audrey bought for her with a cherry red color on her lips that matches her nails. Seeing her laid out like that has never made you or Audrey feel more patriotic in your lives. And she knows it too.

Now because Audrey is British, you and Billie enjoy teasing her about the defeat of England. She plays along, but really isn’t bothered. Especially because both of the loves of her life were born and raised in the United States.

For the first time all three of you are able to sit back and binge Netflix and Hulu as long as you want. And when you find out a couple of movies Audrey first appeared in are coming to these streaming services you ask about watching them.

At first she says no out of embarrassment, but after you promise to not make fun of her, she lets you watch them. In reality she is the hardest on herself about her “horrible” acting and how old she looks now. But you and Billie reassure her that she performed well and still looks absolutely beautiful.

This year Audrey received an invitation to attend the met gala and planned to take Billie as her plus one. Of course Audrey knows in the whole scheme of things, going to some gala is not something to make a big deal out of. But you and Billie know how honored Audrey felt and how disappointed she is. So you get her to put on the dress and give her a personal photoshoot. Of course it’s nowhere near professional, but the photos come out gorgeous and it does lift her spirits to see them.

When the information came out about masks being important to help flatten the curve and work to prevent the spread of coronavirus, before you can even look into it, Audrey has purchased color-coordinating masks for all three of you so you can match. But at the same time they are different enough to flatter each of your personal styles. And any time you have to go out, you all make sure to wear the coordinating ones.

Originally the three of you were going to travel to England to meet Audrey’s family for the first time this summer. Of course with the coronavirus you cancelled plans, however the three of your do take the time to FaceTime her family and meet them virtually. And they are all so nice. That’s when you see where Audrey gets her bubbly and friendly personality from.

You also take the time to FaceTime your own family and Billie’s family. For the first time you feel connected to a network of loved ones outside of the three of you and it’s really nice.

Finally, because the three of you are staying home, you take the opportunity to foster pets. You have always wanted to foster neonatal kittens and this is the perfect opportunity. Plus the idea of seeing your girlfriends holding and caring for the kittens makes your heart melt.

In the process the shelter contacts you about a dog to foster. At first, Audrey says no, but they assure you they’ll find a different foster home for them by the end of the weekend. So she begrudgingly allows it and—no kidding she falls in love with the dog.

The dog loves sniffing the kittens (but they are also lowkey terrified because they’re so small and fragile), going on long walks with Audrey, playing fetch or tug-of-war with you, and snuggling up with Billie at night. So you do end up fostering the dog and consider adoption.

However when you meet the applicant and see the dog light up at seeing the children of the family, you know they belong with these adopters who have kids for them to play with. So…even though it’s tough and Audrey sheds some tears, you all remember the good times you had with the dog and know the kittens will be there to snuggle and provide a little comfort when you get home.

Tagged: @marilynroselleprentiss, @saviorinsilk, @chokemepaulson, @versonstar, @find-me-a-constellation, @cordwliagoode, @psychobitchtess, @midnight-lestrange, @mysweetdelia, @venablesbitch, @peachesandlesbians, @nerdaroo, @cordeliafoxxe, @leskaksel, @lovelymspaulson, @grilledcheeseandguavajelly, @whatabluddymess, @natasha-danvers, @saucy-sapphic, @marvelfansince08love, @wilheminawinters, @dontsblameme, @mssallymckenna

Let me know if you would like to be tagged in later works!

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overwhelmedbyskeletons · 3 years ago

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When Nothing Moves

I can’t sleep. The sun is too bright.

I started this job cleaning out fruit slicers all night a month ago and I haven’t had a good nights sleep since. Every night filled with tossing and turning, trying to find a way to comfortably shield my eyes from the suns blinding light. Working a graveyard hours job meant I was sleeping all day and working all night. The cruddy curtains in my room were doing fuck-all for blocking out sunlight. Some of the guys at my job that were friendly enough told me to buy some blackout curtains and it will make my room completely dark, even with the sun beating down and hopefully it will help me get some good rest. after my work week ended, in my car I ordered that highest-reviewed blackout curtains I could find online and they were due to arrive at my apartment the next morning, in seven hours.

I woke the next day to a knock on my door and a shine directly into my eyes. I could have rearranged my entire room several times and still wouldn’t be able find a way to not get work on my tan while I sleep. I hurried to the door to get the package and gave a wave to the delivery driver before they made it down the stairs out of view.

Putting up the curtains was smooth, even though they were quite heavy material. My biggest fear was that they would pull the curtain rod from the wall, but that worry didn’t last long as the void that my bedroom had become was a sight for sore and tired eyes. I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen before sitting down on my bed. Before I could take a sip, the comfort of my sheets began to sing symphonies to my tired muscles and lull me back to sleep.

I slept in, something that was unheard of even before I started my backwards sleep schedule. The clock on the bedside table read 9:23pm in red digital font, illuminating my wallet and phone that I had forgotten to plug in after last nights shift and was now most definitely dead. Still in a sleep state, I reached down to grab the charger and plug it into my phone when I heard a noise come from the other side of the bed. A tapping in a rhythmic matter, which would explain why i hadn’t noticed it sooner, but now it had gotten louder, almost annoyed at me paying it no mind and I froze leaning halfway off the bed. The jolt of fear that swarmed my body woke me up better than any instant java could ever wish. It knows that I know and its playing with me now. The tapping is getting faster and multiplies and I now that it is the sound of fingernails tapping on my wall.

(Did somebody break in am I really going to get murdered in my bed after the first night of decent sleep in my life?)

The tapping stopped suddenly, followed by a bang on the wall knocking out one of the nails holding up the curtains. My fists clenched among other things. I roll off the bed into a stance and with a sorry excuse of a warcry ready to fight whatever it was in my room to the death if need be. Nothing was there; I was sure of that. The curtains had fallen letting in the bright glow from the 7-11 across the street, revealing the only thing out of the ordinary in my room was that I needed to clean.

“Must’ve been a dream.” I said out loud, an attempt to calm myself after what I just experienced or just only imagined.

I flicked the flicked the lights on and fixed the curtains. Hammering in the nails all a little more for good measure before walking out of my room to start my day.

My apartment is in no meaning of the word interesting. I’ll state that I had, two chairs, a couch, some scattered goodwill tables of varying size, and a flatscreen TV on a small Swedish table decorated with a collection of games and movies. It wasn’t much, but I enjoyed what I had.

I prepared myself a bowl of cereal and sat on the couch to watch a show when I noticed movement down the hallway into my room. It wasn’t a natural movement in any sense and even now it is hard to explain. It was as if the world had lost focus of that specific spot in my bedroom doorway and it had grown hazy and distorted. It had the height of a man in a sheet ghost’s clothing and it was raising what I presumed to be its arms when an ad on the TV startled me back to reality. I started up a show and began eating my food quickly, doing my best to forget what might be lurking down the hall and failing as thoughts raced through my head.

(I didn’t check under the bed FUCK no one can fit under there anyways FUCK THE CLOSET FUCK it’s nothing probably just a reflection YOU HAVE NO MIRRORS IN THERE DUMBASS AND YOU CLOSED THE CURTAINS IT’S A GHOST YOU ARE BEING HAUNTED CONGRATULATIONS SHIRLEY FUCKING JACKSON WOULD WRITE A BOOK ABOUT YOU CALLED THE IDIOT’S HAUNTING IF SHE WAS STILL ALIVE)

Frustrated with myself I hopped up and marched down the hall to my room huffing and puffing with each authoritative stomp, making sure that whoever await beyond the door knew I meant the most serious of business, as well as sloshing my breakfast everywhere. As I pushed the door open fully I was rushed by what I can only describe as a shadow, knocking me on my back. spilling cereal and milk all over me and as I looked up I could see the shadow turn left at the end of the hallway into the TV room and out of my sight.

I was terrified. I tried to stand myself up while keeping my sights on where I last saw it. As I got to my knees and began to prop up, the shadow peaked around the corner with a featureless, translucent face starring at me with what I assumed was malicious intent. Frozen in fear, I could only muster up the breath to ask a single question.

“Who?”

To which, to my absolute horror it responded in a echoed whisper.

“Boo.”

And vanished.

With my pants shit and my legs like jello, it took me a moment to breath, let alone move. When Blood returned to my veins I hastily made my way to the bathroom to clean myself of spilled Golden Grahams and milk and to face the realization that what I had just witnessed was anything but normal. I spent a moment arguing with my thoughts, fighting the impulse to sleep in my car. My reflection in the bathroom mirror helped to ground me in reality, to remind me that I am fine and no harm was done. I convinced myself of a resident Casper The Friendly, albeit roughhousing ghost. I soon after left the bathroom.

I poured myself another, bigger bowl of cereal and sat down to watch anything the TV had to offer. I spent the rest of the night on the couch, eating and finding any excuse to not look down the hallway.

At around 2:51am I had had enough of wracking my brain, thinking that at any moment the shadow would reappear and attack me again, this time finishing the job. I bolted down the hallway to my bedroom, grabbed my keys and wallet and headed out my apartment to go across the street to the 7-11 for a early morning slurpee. The cashier knew me and joked about my usual purchase of sugary drinks and snacks. I gave no response, paid my $6.23 and headed out the door.

As I was crossing the street back to my apartment, I looked up to my second floor bedroom window, half hoping to see nothing, other half expecting bloody Mary herself. After what I had been through that night, I’m not sure why I even went back into that apartment. The curtain rod had been torn out of the wall again and standing in my room were two of the shadow figures latched to the windowsill, with the distinct outline of hands pushed against the glass. They watched me as I continued crossing the street; my heart was almost bursting out of my chest. I was running on fear induced auto-pilot and my destination was my apartment door. When I reached my door I finally paused and reflected on what had happened tonight.

(If they wanted me dead, They could have done it already. They were playing games with me, but why?)

I stood in front of my door for a minute before realizing I had never locked it and walked right in ready to confront whatever was inside. I flicked the kitchen light on, set my drink and bag down, and looked down the dark hallway. Spilling out of my room were dozens of shadows piling over each other, all different shapes and heights of darkness, fading in and out as if there was a draft blowing through them. I began nervously pacing in my small kitchen, checking on the hallways inhabitants every few rounds. They never moved. After a while a voice moaned from my bedroom.

“Leave”

“No.” I spat out responded in annoyance.

“Leave or...”

“Or fucking what?” I shouted with such ferocity that my neighbors definitely heard me.

“Die.”

All the blood drained from my face and immediately the shadows in the hall began screaming and moaning, shifting from side to side,all while inching towards me. My legs turned gave out from under me. trying to catch myself from falling I had turned the kitchen light off which seemed to invite the shadows to come closer. As they got closer, their faces appeared mangled and distorted consisting of holes where a human features should be. As their shadows began to overtake my motionless body, I shut my eyes so tight that it hurt. Amidst the moaning I heard one last phrase.

“Sleep again now. We’ll do the rest.”

The next thing I know, i’m laying on the doormat outside of my apartment. I didn’t care how I got there. I quickly got on my feet and down the stairs to my car. I closed my eyes as I backed out of the parking lot. I didn’t want to ever look at that window ever again.

I stayed at my friend Aiden’s place for a week. He lived alone, so he liked the company and he had the room for it, so he didn’t mind. I had told him a lie of how the landlord was spying on me when I showered and once tried to seduce me while fixing the sink. I think he believed it.

I only wanted to go back to the apartment once to get my stuff. After a week of staying with Aiden, the two of us drove to the apartment building and found that where my bedroom window used to be was blown out, stained black with burn marks. Aiden didn’t know what to say and I was beyond confused. We parked the car and I went to the landlord’s door alone and asked what had happened. He told me in detail that four days again my room had exploded from a gas leak and that I was lucky I went on vacation or else i’d be a deadman. There was nothing to be packed up that wasn’t ash. I apologized to him about his building, and said goodbye. I headed back to my friends car who was waiting with a drink for me from across the street. I got into the car without a word.

“What the fuck happened? Did he try to kill you? Tried to burn you alive cuz you weren’t turned on by his wrinkles?” Aiden said as he started the car.

“No, he doesn’t know what happened. Gas leak they think, he told me.” I said. “Let me take one last look.”

“Oh, sure. Of course.” He said, shutting the engine off. I rested my arms on the top of his car looking up to my once bedroom window now black from the fires, but somehow still intact. I thought I saw something and ran across the street to see it closer. There were two marks on the burnt windowsill; marks I could swear were burned in hands.

“You ok, Rick?” Aiden shouted from the driver’s seat.

“Yea, no, I’m good. Just getting a closer look.” I said as I ran back to the car. “Just saying goodbye is all.”

“Well alrighty, you want to grab some burgers?”

I nodded and smiled.

I never asked him if he saw the handprints.

We pulled out of the parking lot, passing my old apartment building one last time. I instinctively waved to the window that used to be my bedroom. Nothing waved back.

#short story #ghosts #horror #short-story

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mrpenguinpants · 4 years ago

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OMG wait, I do have an idea—

Keqing going through a retirement of a company that basically raised her and taught her many stuff, telling the guys about it, and them dragging her to a day in order to get over it

They wind up in a convenience store and a song that the company used to comfort her once plays, she sings along and Diluc is just like “Let’s go get some snacks while she cries it out” (directed to Zhongli), Kaeya is silent because he doesn’t feel like being cheerful anymore, and after like the chorus, him and Childe sing along with beers as their mics. The store owner comes to them and yells at how they’re scaring off customers and Kaeya is like “You know what, fuck you!”, Childe follows up with “No one’s here besides us anyway!”, and Keqing just loses it and joins in the slander being like “Yeah, we can do whatever we want, fuck off!”

Diluc aggresively swipes his card and tries to get them out of the store as quickly as possible and Zhongli is like genuinely impressed. They spend the whole day by her side, making sure that she was okay and happy even for just short whiles.

- keqing harem brainrot anon

In case you may have missed it, I would absolutely write a Keqing/Childe pairing for you^^

GOD. I LOVE IT WHEN I SEE YOU POP UP IN MY INBOX. Please never leave;; Honestly Keqing anon, don’t feel pressured to feel that you can only shoot me a msg whenever you have more harem ideas (but I do love anything you send). If you just wanna chat about anything, I’m completely down^^

I’m always the worst when it comes to replying to people on time but please, don’t take it the wrong way. Actually you know what, this is my call out post.

I am shit at replying to people on time. It’s not because I’m ignoring you or I don’t care (I do a lot). Social interaction is just really hard on me plus school is grabbing me by the neck. Everything is due tomorrow WHY IS EVERYTHING DUE TOMORROW. I just wanna see my boy;;

But anyways, CONTENT. I feel like if this was an actual show, this would be those “monster of the week” kinda deals and then something huge happens and everything goes down hill. cries in bsd and dororo

I still haven’t read Keqing’s character story so I’m just gonna headcanon this as actual lore and if it is WOW AM I UPSET. I can just imagine them all having their two brain cell fun and then Keqing get’s a letter and just seems so upset. Everyone is so used to her business, I was not payed enough to deal with this fucking shit *clenches fist*, type attitude that when she seems genuinely upset. No one knows what to do because it’s such whiplash. Zhongli comes in clutch because he both respects Keqing but he also has no social awareness or cues so he asks what’s wrong. Everyone else is emotionally constipated COUGH DILUC AND KAEYA COUGH but gives him the thumbs up.

I can see Childe being the one to propose the idea, he has younger siblings and even if Keqing is technically maybe older than him (is he? I have no idea) he get’s mad mother hen instincts. Totally the type to simp for his friends. Honestly, I can see this failed harem to be those budget road trip movies haha. But yeah Zhongli has great practical advice even if his words are so metaphorical he sounds like Shakespeare, but in practice the man is horrible. Can spit the facts but can’t make the act. Diluc is...so emotionally constipated that he’s the kinda guy that will give you the most awkward hug you’ve ever felt in your life. Actually feels like he’s trying to liquify your spine. Kaeya is a complete ass and will straight up avoid that situation entirely but pretend he was there the entire time. So the mom role get’s shoved onto Childe.

Keqing anon, being serious right here. I want covid to end so I can go on 3am adventures down to the convenience store. It really hits different. Who needs to go on a backpack trip around Europe when I can go down to my local 7/11 at waytooearly oclock with the lads. As much as I hate living with roommates it REALLY hits different.

That mental image of singing along with a song that makes you sad while you cry your eyes out at a convenience store is SUCH A SAD MOOD. If anyone asks me how my mental state is I’m gonna tell them this. Well actually my mental state is “I have at least 5 new updates on my computer but I refuse to shut down or reset my computer to do the update. It’s either the computer forces itself to hard reset or I have these updates for the rest of my life”. Basically I have chronic insomnia and my brainworm posts is when I’ve officially burnt myself out. But getting back on topic (if it isn’t obvious I’m in those brainworm moods rn), rip Diluc man. Has to be the responsible adult when Keqing is out of commission. BUT YES KAEYA IS SUCH THE TYPE TO SAY YOU KNOW WHAT, FUCK YOU. JUST FUCK YOU MAN. I stan the kaeya/childe idea that they are actually two brain cell fuckers that vibe together but would never be caught dead next to each other. You know how Chongyun has his like, bursts of adrenaline? That’s how I see Keqing.

Poor Diluc playing damage control while Zhongli is old grandpa that’s proud of everyone as he drinks his tea out of a juice box. But this is some wholesome stuff keqing anon 💕💕

---

ALSO. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT IF YOU SPLIT SCREEN TUMBLR ON YOUR WINDOW ON BROSWER YOU HAVE ALL THE MOBILE FEATURES?? YOU CAN DO SMALL TEXT AND COLOUR TEXT.

I can’t screenshot it so here is my crappy camera pic. Also be warned, tumblr might accidently kick you out of your draft SO PLEASE SAVE FIRST. I’m always been going on mobile and awkwardly trying to highlight everything to small text. Time re-write my entire response again...

#crying on the inside because I want to write another xiao fic to prepare for rolls but I'm actually so swamped with work rn #AHHHHHHHH #its okay today is just gonna be a grind day #can you hear my crying #imma just answer asks today and then im gonna be dead for the next week cause EVERYTHING IS DUE THIS WEEK WHY IS EVERYTHING DUE THIS WEEK #but its nice seeing you again^^#super duper big mwah #keqing harem brainrot anon #lovely anon #anon ask #genshin #genshin impact

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multimetaverse · 5 years ago

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HSMTMTS 1x09 Review

Opening Night was a chaotic, messy ep. Let’s dig in!

Pour one out for the opening night audience members; they’re gonna be so confused with all these actors changing roles throughout the musical

The songs and choreography were all amazing. Gina killed her dance break in Stick to the Status Quo and Seb brought down the house with his vocals and that spinning dance move with the guy who plays Ryan. Carlos really does belong on Broadway. The sets and lighting and acting were a mess though I think that’s all justifiable in universe. A lot of their sets were destroyed in the fire, Big Red has no prior tech experience, Ricky has never been in a musical, this is Nini’s first big role, Kourtney wasn’t ever supposed to have to play Taylor, and Miss Jenn has never actually put on a production before

Just for a Moment was a lovely song. Joshua and Olivia did a great job writing it and I hope they and other cast members get the chance to write more songs in future seasons. Interesting that the in universe conceit is that Ricky wrote the song for Nini, hopefully she gets to hear it. Ricky’s stare at the camera after Big Red reveals that he didn’t realize that Ricky and Nini had almost kissed was hilarious. Nice to see that Nini has framed the photo of her and Ricky that she had taken down earlier. The dog tag is a nice gift and I’m curious to see what it says

Lynne is really out here trying to take worst mother of the year award. She’s literally doing everything that divorced parents are not supposed to do when introducing a new romantic partner into their children’s lives. She and Todd really should have known better than to show up unannounced. Joshua gave a really strong performance tonight, we see Ricky happy to see his parents sitting together like all is well if just for a moment and then when he sees Todd and his mom he just can’t handle it. Once he realizes what the possible stakes are for Nini he decides that she’d be better off performing with EJ and decides to abandon the show. It’s very sad to see him give up though somewhat tempered by the fact that he does think it would help Nini. Of course, he doesn’t have the right to decide that for Nini and I expect that to be addressed in the finale

It’s clear that EJ was the one who bought Gina’s plane ticket which was nice of him. From one of the old trailers we know there’s a clip of Gina performing in a big dance class and that hasn’t happened yet so there’s a good chance that she gets into YAC due to her show stopping dance break. It would still be messy to have her leave before inevitably having to return to East High but it would be less messy for the show than sending Nini to Denver

I will say that the brief Ricky and Gina convo was one of the worst written scenes we’ve yet seen on the series. It was way too much subtext and read either like a shitty first draft or several different drafts mashed together. Obviously we’re supposed to take Ricky’s line about not being the same guy he was a week ago/ being the guy he’s always been as him realizing that its always been Nini for him. I get that the show doesn’t want to just come out and say that Gina was a distraction for Ricky when he felt like there was no hope left with Nini but that’s basically the message they’re sending anyways. I don’t think the writers expected Ricky and Gina to have as much chemistry as they did and that made the inevitable end of Rina less smooth then it should have been. Whether we ever see Rina again is an open question, Rini is certainly endgame but it’s unlikely that they’ll be together the entire run of the series which leaves room for Ricky and Nini to date other people at some point

Good set up this ep for a Miss Jenn/ Benjamin Mazzara/ Mike Bowen love triangle in S2

Looking Ahead:

We get a Seblos moment next week which is nice. Hopefully it’s substantial, a kiss would be nice though I’m keeping my expectations low and am willing to wait for S2 for more developed Seblos now that Seb will also be a main character

With the release of Breaking Free we know that EJ starts singing the song alone and then there’s an instrumental break before Nini and Ricky join in which strongly suggests that its Nini who goes and finds Ricky and they talk and she’s the one to convince him to return as she wants to sing with him not EJ. We also know from behind the scenes photos that Ricky ends up wearing the dog tag necklace and of course we have the kiss that Miss Jenn inserted into the script

We also have confirmation that S2 will have 12 eps and will now feature 3 songs per ep rather than 2. I think the extra eps will help as this show really could use some breathing room. Not sure how sustainable an extra song every ep will prove in the long run but we’ll see how it plays out

Until next week ep wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Rini #Ricky Bowen #Nini Salazar-Roberts #Gina Porter #EJ Caswell #Miss Jenn #Mike Bowen #HSMTMTS Reviews

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my-very-random-blog · 4 years ago

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This might save me (and my grades/homework)

I got this from this website btw: https://www.disability.illinois.edu/strategiestechniques-adhd

Rb to save a life

Study Skills

Plan for longer study time.

Find a quiet space that is used for studying only.

Develop a regular routine.

Take frequent breaks.

Keep up with work and do not wait until the last minute to study.

Allow extra time for writing assignments to includes editing & rewriting.

Use tutors when necessary.

Highlight or color code important information in text and notes.

Rewrite notes.

Test self on information studied, including making up practice essay questions.

Use active reading techniques—read headings before reading chapter, skim chapter to see what comes next, takes notes while reading, make up questions using chapter headings, practice answering these questions while reading, review major points.

Use a laptop computer to take class notes.

Space studying throughout the day into one hour sessions rather than having to spend 3-4 hours in the evening.

Find your prime study time when you are most attentive and at your best.

Figure at what type of environment is best, white noise versus absolute quiet.

Figure out if you study better alone so you won’t get off track talking to others or if you need others around to make studying more interesting and help you stay on track.

Review notes as soon after class as possible, filling in any gaps, and helping to remember the information, then review notes prior to the next class.

Use the SQ4R method, Survey Question Read, Rite (write) Recite Review-survey sections by looking over the main headings, make up questions, read the entire sections, rite answers to the questions, recite the information out loud if possible, and review your work.

Use movement (reading, underlining, writing in margins, highlighting , stimulation, and conversation(reciting information out loud), to stay alert while studying.

Organizational Skills

Keep desk clear of mess.

Use folders/binders to organize class notes and study notes.

Leave margins when taking notes to add information from the text.

Keep track of books and other supplies.

Get books and articles from library before you sit down to write.

Clear/straighten desk at the end of every day.

Time Management Skills

Start each day with a list of what needs to be done and prioritize your goals, for example buying socks does not have the same importance as completing your assignment that is due in class that day.

Do not procrastinate.

Finish “to do” list each day.

Do not overbook or overschedule.

Allow extra time for assignments, readings, and studying.

Organize time with space for breaks, rest, exercise, social time, and meals.

Use a daily planner to write down all important tasks/activities for the day.

Stick to the plan and avoid temptations of distracting activities.

Be realistic about how long things will take and block off study time, lab work, library research, and writing time in daily planner.

Build in extra room in case things take longer than planned.

Break down large tasks into small components and put these in planner. A large task may feel overwhelming however, when it is broken down into small parts each component is quite manageable.

For paperwork use the O.H.I.O principle - Only Handle It Once. When you receive a document try to respond on the spot, throw it away, or file it permanently.

Do not use a “To Do” box. For people with ADHD, these become Never Done piles.

Use an appointment book with a semester at a glance, month at glance, and week at a glance features.

Get into the habit of carrying a pda (personal data assistant) or daytimes and writing things down frequently. The more you use the reminder, the more you will come to rely on it. Check entries in you reminder each morning before you start your day and throughout the day.

Course/Assignment Strategies

Develop a relationship with each professor and discuss needs.

See professor immediately if anything was missed in class.

Take a break between classes to get a snack, walk around, sit and relax for a moment.

Try to schedule classed carefully to allow enough time to get from one part of the campus to another.

Alternate between harder/easier or challenging/less challenging courses and spread class load over 2-3 days (M, W, F are heavy but T, Thu are light) to allow for study and writing time.

Plan big papers in advance to allow time to meet with professor to discuss topic, do library research, editing, rewriting, and organization, and use of several drafts.

Test Preparation Strategies

Review information frequently—this is the only way information is stored in long-term memory.

Understand information rather than just rote memorization.

Structure

Frequent use of lists and notes to self.

Color code (e.g., files, texts, schedules).

Consistent use of routines and rituals.

Reminders.

Computer software program that assists in managing time.

Use of calendar, computers, phones.

Procrastination

Stick to your daily plan.

Do things that were put off from the day before.

Tackle tough assignments early.

Pick interesting paper assignment to avoid boredom.

Evaluate choice of major and seek help from advisor or career center.

Learn what motivates you.

Work before play.

Use little rewards throughout the day (e.g., soda break, snacks, telephone calls, visiting a friend).

Time breaks to avoid letting a 10-15 minute break turn into 30-45 minutes.

Avoid the TV when studying; use this as a reward for finishing or plan studying around a tv break.

Give bigger rewards for getting a paper done (e.g., weekend away from campus, game away from home).

RB to save a life fam

#i got distracted #i'm procrastinating

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withasideoficing · 5 years ago

Text

How You Get the Girl

Summary: You’re a childhood friend of Auston, who introduces you to Clayton. From there, a friendship starts to bloom, until one day everything changes.

Features: Minor angst. Auston as a side character. Mentions of the movie Thankskilling...do yourself a favor and never watch it...ever

Notes: Requested fic. This took me a while to write and I’m glad it’s finally done. Originally was going to be titled Love Me Anyway, but ended up liking How You Get the Girl as the title more.

Word Count: 2898

Arizona was home. It was where your family was, where your friends were. You were sticking around for college. You had grown up with Auston Matthews, who had gone first overall to the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was Auston’s fault you ended up here, at least that’s what you were telling yourself. Auston’s rookie season had come to an end. Clayton Keller, who had been the Coyote’s 2016 Draft Pick, had signed his contract with the Coyote’s and was sticking around for a little while after the end of the season to get a feel for his new city. Auston had invited you to lunch to introduce you.

“You can show him around,” Auston said when you met up with the duo. You just rolled your eyes. But you agreed. There was something about Clayton that attracted you. You weren’t sure why Auston didn’t do it himself, but couldn’t be bothered to ask. Not when it meant you got to spend time with an attractive guy.

You and Clayton spent a day going to your favorite places. You showed him some hidden gems, some popular spots, and some places that you just liked to go because of the familiarity. You quickly fell into a routine with him, even after he headed home for the summer.

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You were hanging out with Auston one night late in the summer before he was getting ready to head back to Toronto for the season. You had gotten to choose the movie that night, and instead of going to a favored movie or playing Netflix Roulette, you chose Thankskilling, opting to subject Auston to the film. Your friends had made you watch it with them a few months prior when they were doing a binge watch of a series called Theater Mode. And so far, it had been a fantastic option, if only for the horrified expressions your best friend made and the snarky commentary.

“Did that turkey just…?” Auston asked trailing off. You just nodded. The movie, if you could even call it that, was hard enough to sit through the first time. Your phone lit up with a new text, Clayton’s name flashing on your screen. You smiled when you read his message, telling you when he’d be coming back to Arizona.

“Who’s got you all smiley?” Auston asked, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen that kind of smile on your face in some time. Last time he’d seen a smile that bright on your face had been when you were dating some football player in high school. And that had ended in disaster.

“What? Oh. Just talking to Clayton,” you told him. He frowned slightly at your answer. When he’d asked you to show him around, he hadn’t thought you’d continue to talk to Clayton, especially once he went home for the summer. According to the message you had just gotten, he was due back in a couple days and you were genuinely excited to see him. You tried to ignore the butterflies you got when you thought about it. Clayton was your friend, nothing more. You didn’t want to make it weird.

“Since when are you two friends?” Auston questioned, his tone laced with annoyance. You raised an eyebrow. After all, it had been his idea for you to show Clayton around.

“Since you asked me to show him around,” you replied, before grabbing a handful of the popcorn that sat between you and your best friend. The credits of the film were rolling and you took the opportunity to put some distance between you and Auston and get away from his interrogation. You went to get more water and Auston followed you.

“You like him,” Auston said, sounding so sure of himself.

“Auston, it’s not like that,” you told him as you filled your glass up. You took a sip, watching as Auston shook his head.

“Y/N, I’ve known you long enough to know when you’ve got it bad for someone,” he said.

“Honestly, Aus, it’s nothing. We’re friends. I thought that’s what you wanted,” you said. He sighed.

“I’m happy you two are getting along. I just don’t want to see you hurt,” he said, his voice growing softer. Auston was like a brother to you. He was protective of you and had been since you were kids.

“Alright Matthews, enough about Clayton. What’d you think of the movie?” you asked. His expression turned to one of disgust.

“It wasn’t scary but it was fucking horrifying. Please never make me watch it again,” he replied. You laughed. You decided not to tell him about the sequel just yet. You’d save that for the next time he pissed you off before movie night.

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

September arrived and with it, so did Clayton. You two fell into an easy routine of hanging out when he wasn’t busy with the pre-season. You were hanging out, just catching up, when it happened. You weren’t sure who initiated the first kiss, but it was heated. The two of you broke apart just long enough for him to speak.

“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you replied. And with that, you took him by the hand and led him down the hall to your room.

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

The summer had faded into the fall as October arrived, bringing the regular season with it. You tried to tell yourself it was just the start of the regular season that was the reason for Clayton’s absence from your life. But you knew that wasn’t the truth. After that night, you got sporadic responses and the only Snaps you got were to maintain the streak. And that hurt. You should have known hooking up with him would change things. Should have seen it coming.You had done the one thing you promised yourself you wouldn’t when Auston introduced you. You caught feelings.

You were at a Starbucks when you saw him. You had been working on a paper for class. He froze when he saw you. You had a choice in that moment, either ignore him and pretend you didn’t see him or acknowledge him. You sighed, running a hand through your hair before offering up a weak smile and a wave. He just nodded at you, before grabbing his order and leaving. You felt your heartbreak a little more.

The next time you saw him, you were trying not to cry. Jason, the cute guy from your Western Civilizations class, had asked you out on a date. You two had been talking for a couple weeks. It was December now, and the semester was rapidly coming to an end. He had stood you up and now you were sat alone at a table for two. Clayton had walked in with some of his teammates. But when he saw you, he sent them ahead to the table that was waiting for them.

“Y/N?” he asked. You turned to see him, your eyes meeting his.

“Clayton, hey,” you said, your voice breaking a little. You were surprised when he sat down across from you.

“What are you doing here? Wait...stupid question,” he said, taking note of your appearance. You’d spent more time getting ready for this date than you would have cared to admit.

“Getting stood up, apparently,” you grumbled. The smile he’d had on his face fell.

“Who would stand you up?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe someone would stand you up. You just shrugged.

“A guy from my history class...it...it doesn’t matter. I should just go,” you said. You moved to stand up. As you did so, Clayton placed his hand over yours.

“Or...we could have dinner and I can make up for being a terrible friend the last couple months?” he said, unsure of what your answer would be.

“Yeah?” you asked with a small smile.

“Yeah, my treat,” he said.

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

You and Clayton fell back into an easy routine. It was like what had happened all those months ago had never happened at all. You had missed hanging out with him. You had quickly become a regular at the home games. You and Clayton spent a lot of your free time together. Where one went, you would probably find the other.

“Dude this is the third time this week I’ve come over and your dirty socks are still all over the floor,” you said when you walked into Clayton’s place.

“It’s been a long week,” he grumbled. You sighed. You started picking up the living room and he just stared at you. Clayton had become one of your best friends and you had finally had enough of the mess in his living room.

“What?” you asked. He just shook his head.

“Nothing, nothing. Let me help you since it is my mess,” he said, getting up off the couch. You tossed a sock at him, hitting him square in the face. The two of you joked around as you cleaned. It was nice just spending time with him. But you found yourself wondering if you would ever be more. You still hadn’t been able to get that night out of your head, no matter how much you tried. You had gone on a couple dates here and there but they weren’t Clayton. None of the guys you had gone out with made you feel the way he did and there was no way around it. You were undoubtedly falling for him hard.

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At the end of February, his mother came to town. You had never met any of his family before, and for some reason, you were nervous. We’re just friends, you told yourself. Friends didn’t get nervous about meeting family. Friends didn’t feel like their heart was going to jump out of their chest at the thought of meeting parents. And your feelings for Clayton? They were still strong as ever.

You were put at ease after your first meeting with her. And there was the bonus of getting embarrassing childhood stories about Clayton. The Coyotes had a decent stretch of home games, which meant more time to spend with Clayton. With his mom in town though, you planned to let him spend time with family.

A few days into her visit though, you were back at Clayton’s for your regularly scheduled movie night. You had gotten up to use the restroom. When you came back, you paused when you heard your name. Sure, eavesdropping was wrong, but you couldn’t help yourself when they were talking about you.

“I know that look on your face,” Clayton’s mom said to him.

“What look?” he asked her.

“You’re in love with her. And if I’m right, she’s feeling the same way about you. If you keep her waiting too long, someone else will come along and sweep her off her feet,” she said. You decided to make your presence known as you walked back into the room, pretending to be reading something on your phone.

“Popcorn ready?” you asked.

“Yeah, extra butter,” Clayton said. You smiled.

“You know me so well,” you told him as you sat down next to him. His mother looked between the two of you and excused herself to head to bed. You found yourself falling asleep with your head on his shoulder. It was getting late.

“Hey sleepy, why don’t you just stay here tonight,” Clayton said. You yawned as you sat up.

“If you want me to stay, then get off my bed,” you grumbled. Clayton laughed.

“You take my bed,” he told you. You shook your head.

“Between the two of us, only one of us is a professional athlete,” you said.

“One night on the couch won’t kill me,” he said.

“I don’t know, I hear the monsters under the couch are even worse than the monsters under the bed,” you joked.

“More of a reason for you to take the bed,” he replied. You looked at each other and lost it laughing. It hadn’t even been that funny but the two of you were crying with laughter. When you finally calmed down, Clayton looked at you.

“You know...we could always just share,” he pointed out.

“We could...just...don’t be a blanket hog and we’ll be fine,” you said.

“According to Auston, it’s you who’s a blanket hog,” he said. His words made you pause. He talked to Auston about you. He talked to Auston about you. You tried not to let it get your hopes up.

“So, you uh, you talk to Auston about me a lot?” you asked. Clayton’s cheeks tinged pink.

“I...well, yeah,” he said, not entirely sure how to respond.

“You do that often?” you questioned.

“Every once in a while,” he replied. There was a strange tension in the air. You weren’t sure what it was. You stood up, setting the popcorn bowl on the table. You decided to head towards his room, wanting to escape the feeling that had set in the room. You grabbed a pair of his sweatpants, heading to his bathroom to change. You had no reservations about borrowing his clothes. There had been plenty of nights that you ended up crashing at his place that it became expected. You even had an emergency toothbrush in his bathroom. The only thing missing from the scene was the two of you being anything more than friends.

You headed back into his room, pulling the covers back before laying down. A few minutes later, Clayton joined you. You didn’t talk. You were scared to, if you were being honest. But you were curious.

“So...why do you talk to Auston about me?” you asked him, breaking the silence.

“He asks how you’re doing. And sometimes you just come up. It’s no big deal,” he said.

“Does he know?” you asked, bringing up the one topic you had avoided for months. Clayton was quiet for a minute.

“No...I think he’d kill me for that,” he said. You let out a shaky laugh.

“Why did you stop talking to me after we hooked up? And don’t say you didn’t stop talking to me. Snapping me once a day to keep a streak alive isn’t talking,” you challenged. He sighed.

“Would you believe me if I said I got scared? You’re one of Auston’s best friends. If we were together and things didn’t work out--,” you cut him off.

“It would have nothing to do with Auston. I’m my own person. Yeah, he’s my best friend and he introduced him but do you honestly think he has any say in who I do or don’t date?” you asked him.

“Y/N,” he started to say. You sat up and looked at him, thankful the lamp on his bedside table was still on.

“I like you Clayton. Like, I want to go on dates and be with you, be your girlfriend, kind of like you,” you said. For once, you had the confidence to lay it on the line.

“I’ve wanted that since we met. But you were, are, off limits,” he said.

“Says who? Auston? Bro code?” you asked.

“You’re Auston’s best friend. He’s one of my friends,” he said.

“So then if we make it and go the distance he can say he’s the one who introduced us. If you like me and I like you, well, one plus one equals two, maybe, just maybe we should give it a try? Not let your worries about Auston maybe being upset with both of us get in the way?” you asked.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said. You weren’t expecting the kiss, but you leaned into it nonetheless.

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

You woke up the next morning to find yourself tangled up with Clayton, your head on his chest and his arm thrown over you. He was already awake.

“Morning beautiful,” he said. And you smiled.

It was a couple months later, just before playoffs, that you mentioned it to Auston. You had made an offhanded comment when you were talking about plans for the summer, after playoffs. The Leafs were in, the Coyotes weren’t.

“Wait, back that up a few sentences, Y/N. You and Clayton are what?” he asked.

“We’re dating? Have been since February? Keep up Matthews, god,” you said jokingly, rolling your eyes.

“When? What? How? Why? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he asked.

“To be fair, I did tell you I had a new boyfriend,” you said.

“You never said it was Clayton. Damn it, now I owe Mitch,” he said.

“You...you bet on Clayton and I getting together?” you asked. He just gave you a look through the screen that seemed to say he was tired of your bullshit.

“Y/N, I swear to god, if I had to hear one more comment from one of you about the other, next time I was in town I was going to lock the two of you in a closet,” he said. You just laughed. After you ended the call with him, you saw you had a new notification. Clayton had tagged you in post on Instagram.

You were excited for what the summer had in store. You smiled when you looked up and saw Clayton had walked in.

“Ready to hit the road?” he asked. You stood up, slipping your sunglasses on before taking his hand as the two of you headed out on a summer roadtrip.

#hockey imagine #hockey imagines #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #clayton keller imagine #arizona coyotes imagine #hockey fic

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior February 21, 2020 – CALL OF THE WILD, BRAHMS: THE BOY II, THE IMPRACTICAL JOKERS MOVIE, EMMA and more!

After overestimating Birds of Prey… I mean, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey… it looks like I underestimated Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog… I mean Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik… with Sonic. It truly spanked my lowball prediction in the mid-$40 millions, but I wasn’t alone there at least. Hey, it’s a fun movie and my positive review wasn’t off-base with the critical world at large, so there’s that, too. (Apparently, I liked both Downhill and Fantasy Island more than most people, including CinemaScore voters who gave the movies a “D” and “C-“ respectively… ouch!)

This is likely to be another down week as neither of the two new movies are particularly strong, which gives me a chance to focus instead on this week’s FEATURED MOVIES! And we have four of ‘em this week, no less!

That’s right. I think it’s time I go back to my previous desire to use this column to focus on smaller movies that you may have missed since very few of the bigger outlets bother to cover them, and there’s a few worth pointing out this week. I’m gonna start with the two foreign films, because hopefully, you’ve listened to Bong Joon-ho and his translator and are not as fearful of subtitles…

First up, opening on Wednesday at New York’s Film Forumis Jan Komasa’s CORPUS CHRISTI (Film Movement), Poland’s selection for the Oscar International Feature category, which was actually nominated for an Oscar in the category in which everyone already knew Parasite was always gonna win! It’s a shame, cause this is a really amazing film with Bartosz Bielenia playing Daniel, a troubled youth just out of juvenile hall who steals the trappings and identity of the youth prison’s pastor and is therefore mistaken as an actual priest when he arrives at a small community village that has suffered a tragic loss. It’s an amazing film about faith and forgiveness and redemption, and how the script came to Komasa from screenwriter Mateusz Pacewic is an equally amazing story. Seriously, if you get a chance, definitely check this powerful drama out, since it’s another fantastic film from a country that has continually been delivering the goods in terms of original storytelling.

I was just going to do three featured movies this week, but a really good German thriller is finally hitting the States, opening at the Quad in New York Friday then in L.A. on March 13 before a nationwide rollout. Michael Bully Herbig’s incredibly suspenseful German thriller BALLOON (Distrib Films USA) is about two families from the GDR (aka East Germany) who try to cross over into West Germany in 1979 using a hot air balloon, over a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Based on the actual events, their story previously was adapted into the Disney movie Night Crossing (which oddly, isn’t on Disney+ yet-- I checked, but it’s on Amazon Prime if you wanna compare the two movies). The movie doesn’t spend nearly as much time in the balloon as something like The Aeronauts, as the family’s first attempt fails miserably, so much of the film involves them working towards a second attempt, while trying not to be caught.

Balloon is a pretty heavy film (irony?), sometimes a little overwrought with drama but it keeps you on the edge of your seat as it cuts between the families trying to figure out their escape plan and the authorities trying to put together the clues to find these defectors. There’s a particularly amusing man in charge of the investigation, played by the always-amazing Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist), who is constantly berating his men, something that helps lighten the otherwise heavy tone that permeates the film. This is another fairly low-key foreign film that’s worth seeking out.

Another movie people should make an effort to seek out is Rashaad Ernesto Green’s PREMATURE (IFC Films), an amazing film that follows the relationship between two young people in Harlem over the course of a summer. We first meet Zora Howard’s Ayanna as she’s hanging with her friends kibitzing about boys, as they begin their last summer before Ayanna heads to college. Shortly after, she meets Josh Boone’s Isaiah, and the two hit it off. The rest of the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship including incredibly intimate moments that lead up to Ayanna getting pregnant.

I won’t go through the plot play-by-play style, because it’s interesting to discover the twist and turns in their relationship in a similar way as we do our own relationships. Needless to say Green has a pretty amazing partner and lead in Howard, who co-wrote the screenplay, which is probably why it feels so authentic and real. Sure, there are a few scenes between Howard and Boone, both fantastic actors, that feel a bit too showy dramatically but otherwise, it’s a fantastic second feature from Green who has mainly been directing TV since his earlier film Gun Hill Road. I’ll definitely be very curious to see what Green and Howard get up to next either alone or working together.

Opening in New York and L.A. this Friday but in theaters nationwide on March 6 is the latest incarnation of Jane Austen’s novel EMMA. (Focus Features), this time starring the wonderful Anya Taylor-Joy (from The VVitchand Split/Glass) as the title character, Emma Woodhouse, a 28-year-old matchmaker who prides herself on the relationships she’s put together even while unable to find her own mate. The film follows as the latter starts coming in the way of the former as she infiltrates herself into things as an “expert on love” who can’t find it herself.

Maybe it’s not surprising that I haven’t read much of Austen’s work and have missed this one altogether, never having seen any of the other iterations, but it’s a fairly wild and witty ride. Much of that is due to the amazing and wonderful cast around the young actor, the most surprising behind Mia Goth, who is in fact three years older than Taylor-Joy, but plays the younger wide-eyed Harriet who looks up to Emma and elicits her advice. Emma basically steers Harriet from the farmer she likes to Josh O’Connor’s Mr. Elton, the wealthy local vicar who is more than a little bit of a dark. This leads to a bit of a revolving door of who is interested in whom, etc especially when Emma’s nemesis Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) returns to Hartfield.

Some of the other men in the mix are Johnny Flynn’s dashing George Knightley – the brother-in-law to Emma’s sister – and Callum Turner’s wealthy Frank Churchill, whose attentions lead to more misunderstandings. Both were great but I was more impressed with O’Connor who transforms into a completely other person when Emma spurns his affections and seems like a different person from the way first-time features director (and photographer) Autumn de Wilde shoots him. Of course, Bill Nighy is as great as always as Emma’s father, always feeling a slight draft, but even more impressive is the wonderfully hilarious Miranda Hart (from Spy) as Miss Bates, a woman who gabs at length about how wonderful Jane Fairfax is, much to Emma’s annoyance. As much as Emma. is Anya Taylor-Joy’s show, it’s the ensemble cast around her that makes the movie so infinitely enjoyable, getting better as it goes along.

This is a very good first feature from de Wilde, who has directed quite a number of music videos for Beck, and Emma. seems very different from the movies we normally get from video directors, much of that to do with Austen’s source material and the cast. Either way, how things develop over the course of the film makes it more enjoyable as it goes along. (Although I have never read the book, the film seems fairly faithful to the book’s Wikipedia page, so Austen fans should enjoy it, too.)

I guess we can now get to the wide and semi-wide releases and the rest of the movies – merging my two columns into one means you get more 5,000-word columns, you lucky ducks!

The higher-profile of the two new wide releases is probably CALL OF THE WILD (20thCentury Studios), a PG adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel starring Harrison Ford and the most adorable CG dog (i.e. not real, so back off PETA!) you’ve ever met named Buck! Sure, dog lovers might say, “Why would we want to watch a movie with a CG dog when clearly, a movie with actors in green suits turned into dogs using CG would suffice?” But no, it’s actually a very heavily CG movie directed by Chris Sanders, who directed Lilo & Sitch, the first How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods before giving a go at live action. (Sanders also provided quite a few voices in earlier animated films like Disney’s Mulan and Tarzan.)

A film that already was well into production when Disney bought Fox (now 20thCentury Studios), Call of the Wild also stars Omar Sy (returning for next year’s “Jurassic World” finale), Karen Gillan, Dan Stevens, Bradley Whitford but the real star of the movie is the dog Buck, which is performed by the immensely talented Terry Notary, who you’ll know for his work on the “Apes” movies with Andy Serkis, Kong: Skull Island and some of the characters in the last couple “Avengers” movies.

Of course, opening the weekend after Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog, which has turned out to be a bigger hit than anyone imagined, certainly won’t help The Call of the Wild.

In many ways, this reminds me of the 2002 Disney movie Snow Dogs, which opened with $17.8 million over the 4-day MLK weekend. The combination of Ford (who appears in very few movies) and the adorable dog antics might be enough for the movie to make $15 to 17 million this weekend, maybe a little more, although it only has two weeks to do business before Disney’s next Pixar movie, Onward, takes over, not giving it much time to make bank.

Mini-Review: It’s pretty evident that this exceedingly faithful take on Jack London’s book will not be for everyone. While I personally was mixed, I expect this to be one of the rare positive reviews just ‘cause. Surprisingly, it’s also the most “Disneyfied” movie that could possibly come from the newly-renamed 21stCentury Studios as it’s a movie clearly made for kids and animal lovers even if never the ‘twain shall meet, in some cases.

The story follows a large St. Bernard named Buck (portrayed by Terry Notary – but we’ll get back to that), who begins his life as the spoiled and pampered pet of a wealthy judge in California but is sold to a man who trains Buck with his club sending the dog on a wild journey across the Yukon as part of a dog sled for a pair of Canadian postal workers (played by Omar Sy and Cara Gee from “The Expanse”). Eventually, he’s paired with an alcoholic frontiersman (Harrison Ford) and he finds true love, as the two of them go off looking (and finding) gold.

Some might be surprised that director Chris Sanders (who has an extensive animation background) decided to go for straight-up CG when depicting the animals and some of the environments in Call of the Wild. In fact, it feels almost necessary to make Buck as expressive as he needs to be to carry this film, and that’s where Terry Notary (Andy Serkis’ partner-in-performance-capture from the “Apes” movies) and the CG team comes in handy. Buck is already lovable but being able to make him so expressive doesn’t hurt, and the scenes where he’s interacting with other animals are pretty amazing.

We do have to discuss the negatives, and one of them is the episodic nature of Buck’s story that means that Harrison Ford, other than the narration and a brief appearance, doesn’t play a large part in Buck’s story until about the 45-minute mark. I didn’t think much of the performances by Sy and Gee or Dan Steven and Karen Gillan as the spoiled rich people who buy Buck to drive their dog sled off to find gold. Buck’s experiences as part of the first dog sled is far more positive even though it’s rigorous and it puts him at odd with the dog pack leader. The problem is that most of the human actors don’t come close to delivering what Notary does as Buck, the exception being Ford, but it’s still one of those odd CG-live action amalgations that doesn’t always work.

If you’re fond of Jack London’s Arctic adventures (as I generally am), Call of the Wild offers as much good as it does bad, but it’s worthwhile more for the amazing vistas and terrific use of CG (and Terry Notary’s performance as Buck) than anything else.

Rating: 6.5/10

I won’t have a chance to see the horror sequel BRAHMS: THE BOY II (STXfilms), but I never got around to seeing the first movie either, although this one, starring Katie Holmes, does look kind of fun. 2020 has not been a great year for horror so far with almost a new horror every weekend and few doing particularly well – The Grudge tops the heap with just $21 million and that opened almost two months ago!

I really don’t have a lot to say about this other than the fact that the original The Boy(not to be confused with The Boy, The Boy or The Boy, which are also movies about a different “Boy”), also directed by William Brent Bell, opened in January 2016 to $10.8 million on its way to $35.8 million domestic but it also opened at a time when there were no strong horror films in theaters. Some could argue that there are still no strong horror films in theaters, especially since so many of them quickly lost theaters after bombing. Still, there have been a lot this year already and the most recent one, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island underperformed this past weekend, so why would anyone want more?

STXfilms’ marketing has been solid even as this moved from its December release to now, but I still think it will be tough for this to make more than $10 million this weekend and probably will end up closer to $8 million or less.

Opening in limited release but also sure to be exciting to the fans of the TruTV hidden camera prank show is IMPRACTICAL JOKERS: THE MOVIE, which brings the hilarious Tenderloins comedy troop – Q, Murr, Sal and Joe -- to the big screen as they go off on a cross-country adventure to attend a party in Florida, playing their usual prank-filled games to see which three get to attend. At this writing, I have no idea how many theaters it’s opening – I’m assuming 150 to 200 maybe? – so no idea how it might do although there are already some sold out showings in my general area (NYC) where the guys are from.

Mini-Review: It feels like there need to be two reviews for this movie – one for those who already know and love the show and find the Tenderloins hysterical (this includes me) —and then one for everyone else. The former can probably skip the next paragraph.

The Tenderloins are a group of four Staten Island friends (names above) whose antics led to a successful TruTV hidden camera show where they pull pranks and challenge each other to say and do whatever they’re told. The show has run eight seasons, and it’s made the Tenderloins such big stars they regularly sell out enormous venues (like Radio City Music Hall) to perform live for their fans. Considering the success Johnny Knoxville’s “Jackass” show has had in movie theaters where it can take advantage of an R-rating, there’s little reason why the “Impractical Jokers” shouldn’t be able to do the same. (For some context, I watched this movie with a theater full of the group’s friends, crew as well as Q’s firehouse buddies, in other words, 75% of Staten Island.)

The movie, directed by Chris Henchy, long time McKay and Ferrell collaborator – the film is presented by their “Funny or Die” brand –opens with one of a number of scripted/staged scenes to frame the road trip the Tenderloins to attend a party in Miami being held by Paula Abdul. Since they only have three passes, they need to compete in their usual challenges to determine who misses out.

If you are a fan of the show, I’m not going to spoil any of the challenges or pranks they plan on each other, but they generally get better and funnier as the movie goes along, to the point that when it returns to the “story” and the scripted stuff, the movie does falter a little. Although the Tenderloins aren’t the greatest actors, they are great improvisers and you can tell when they’re coming up with lines by the seat of their pants.

The majority of the movie is basically what we see on the show without all of the commercial breaks cutting in just as things start to get outrageous, and as someone who watches more of the show than I probably should admit, I find it hard to believe no one watching the movie will at least get one good snicker out of the movie. There are a few recurring gags throughout the movie as well as a follow-up to a memorable punishment from an earlier season. (Like with the show, you’re likely to feel bad for Murr and Sal, the nicer half of the group who always get the most abuse because of it.)

If you’re already a fan of the Impractical Jokers, you’ll probably like the movie, but if not, you might not get it and there’s just no real use trying. In other words, not a great intro to the “Impractical Jokers” but a fine bit of fun for the already-converted.

Rating: 6.5/10

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount) - $29 million -50% (up $1.5 million)**

2. Call of the Wild (20th Century) - $17 million N/A (up .3 million)** 3. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (Warner Bros) - $9 million -48%

4. Brahms: The Boy II (STXfilms) - $7 million N/A (down .6 million)**

5. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $6 million -48% (down .1 million)**

6. The Photograph (Universal) – $5.5 million -55% (down .6 million)**

7. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (Sony) - $5.3 million -57%

8. 1917 (Universal) - $5 million -38%

9. Parasite (NEON) - $3.6 million -35%

10. Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony) - $3.3 million -42%

-- The Impractical Jokers Movie (TruTV) - $1.8 million*

-- Las Pildoras de mi Novio (Pantelion/Lionsgate) - $1.3 million*

* These last two projections are made without much info on either movie, including theater counts for the former.

**A few minor tweaks as we go into weekends with actual theater counts, although this weekend will still mostly be about Sonic the Hedgehog. I still don’t have any theater counts for Impractical Jokers on Thursday night so I guess we’ll just have to see if the theaters playing it report to Rentrak and it gets some sort of placement, presumably outside the top 10, on Sunday.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are lots of other new limited releases this weekend beyond the ones I mentioned above.

On Wednesday night, Fathom Events is releasing Masaaki Yuasa’s new movie RIDE YOUR WAVE (GKIDS) across the nation for one night only in some places, although it will get a limited release on Friday at New York’s Village East and maybe other places, as well. If you’ve seen any of Yuasa’s other films like 2017’s The Night is Short, Walk on Girl or Lu Over the Wall or Mind Game, then you can probably expect this to be another wild ride, except this time it’s on a surfboard. It follows the story of a surfer and a firefighter who fall in love. You can learn more about how to get tickets here.

Like Portrait of a Lady on Fire last week, Una director Benedict Andrews’ SEBERG (Amazon) received a one-week release in 2019 but it’s getting a legit limited release this Friday. It stars Kristen Stewart as French New Wave icon Jean Seberg who came to the States in the late ‘60s and began a relationship with civil rights leader Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), putting her in the sights of the FBI who were hoping to use her to bust the Black Panthers. The film also stars Jack O’Connell, Margaret Qualley, Vince Vaughn, and Stephen Root, and it’s a pretty solid historical drama, although I haven’t seen it so long I’m not sure I can say much more about that.

I was never a huge fan of Bob Dylan or the Band but I found Daniel Roher’s doc ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND (Magnolia) (about the latter) to be quite compelling as the story is told by various people who were there, including the film’s exec. producer Martin Scorsese who directed the band’s legendary concert film The Last Waltz. This is also produced by Ron Howard and Brian SGrazer of Imagine, so you know it’s gonna be a quality music doc, and it certainly is, although I’m not sure it will be of that much interest to people who aren’t already fans of The Band.

Opening in roughly 350 theaters this weekend is LAS PILDORAS DE MI NOVIO (Pantelion), translated as “My Boyfriend’s Meds,” a comedy about a woman (Sandra Echeverria) who falls for a mattress store owner who suffers from multiple personality disorder and when they go on vacation… he forgets to bring along his meds! Humor abounds. As usual, this won’t screen in advance for critics.

Tye Sheridan stars with Knives Out’s Ana De Armas in Michael Cristofer’s thriller The Night Clerk (Saban Films), Sheridan plays a hotel clerk with Asperger’s Syndrome who witnesses a murder in one of the rooms but ends up as the main suspect by the lead detective, played by John Leguizamo. The film also stars Helen Hunt and it will be released in select theaters (including New York’s Cinema Village), on demand and digitally this Friday. Just couldn’t into this one, having at least one good friend with Asperger’s, due to the way Sheridan played this often-debilitating disease. (Think Rain Man without the talent of Dustin Hoffman.)

Opening exclusively at theMetrographFriday with an expansion on March 3 is Portugese filmmaker Bruno de Almeida’s Cabaret Maxime (Giant Pictures), starring Michael Imperioli as Bennie Gaza, the owner and manager of the title nightclub specializing in a mix of burlesque, striptease, music and comedy. Bennie is fairly old-fashioned so when a modern day (translation: trashy and demeaning to women) strip club opens across the way, Bennie finds himself pressure to make changes to stay in line as he starts getting pressure from his mobster financer to change. I was kinda mixed on this movie, which delivers another typically great performance from Imperioli but the way it cuts between various acts and disparate scenes that do very little to move the story forward (including the far-more-interesting subplot about Bennie’s wife Stella, a performer suffering from depression, as played by the amazing Ana Padrão). I think one of the reasons I just couldn’t get into the movie is cause a friend of mine attempted a similar film based out of a nightclub and the film never got much traction. De Almeida should have paid more attention developing the storytelling than showing off his talented musical singing/dancing friends.

A second Portugese filmmaker, Pedro Costa, also releases a new film this week. Vitalina Varela (Grasshopper Film) will open at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center on Friday. The title of the film is also the name of the non-actor who returns from Costa’s Horse Moneyto play a woman from Cape Verdean who comes to Fontainhas for her estranged husband’s funeral and sets up a new life there.

Also opening at the Quad Friday is the latest from the Dardenne Brothers, Young Ahmed (Kino Lorber) about a 13-year-old (Idir ben Addi) who has come under the grips of radical jihadism in his Belgian town, putting him at odds with various factions. When he carries out an act of violence, he ends up in a juvenile detention facility. The Dardennes won the Best Director award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where their films have been honored with the Palme d’Or twice. I’ve never been much of a fan but what do I know?

Opening at the IFC Center Wednesday is Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte’s documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others, which is built around recently recovered audio recordings of the 1963-4 Rivona trial in which Nelson Mandela and eight others faced death sentences for challenging Apartheid. The film mixes animation showing the trails with contemporary interviews with the survivors including Winnie Mandela, about their fight against the country’s corrupt system.

Another doc I know little about is Andrew Goldberg’s Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations, which will open at the Village East Friday but it includes the likes of Julianna Margulies, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton as anti-semitism rears its ugly head over 70 years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

Also opening at Cinema Village is Matt Ratner’s Standing Up, Falling Down (Shout! Studios) starring Billy Crystal and Ben Schwartz (the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog!), the latter playing a stand-up comic whose L.A. dreams have crashed and burned leaving him with little money, forcing him to return to Long Island. Once there, he pines over his ex (Eloise Mumford) and becomes friends with an eccentric dermatologist (Crystal) as they help each other deal with their respective failures.

Playing at the Roxy for a one-week run starting Friday is Sam De Jong’s Goldie (Film Movement), starring actress/model Slick Woods as the title character, a teenager in a family shelter pursuing her dreams of being a dancer while trying to keep her sisters together. This premiered at the Tribeca Film Festivallast year.

Oscilloscope (the distributor that brought you the cat doc Kedi) is doing something called “Cat Video Fest 2020,” which will take place at the Alamo in Brooklyn (although the Saturday screening is sold out there) and the Village East Cinema. This screening of pre-selected cat videos is also taking place at other cities throughout the country, and you can find out where right here.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

This Friday, the Metrograph will debut its newest series “Climate Crisis Parabels,” a series of varied future shock films, this weekend with Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977), Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1999) (hosted by Naomi Klein Sunday afternoon, but also playing as part of the Playtime Family Matinees”) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cu ton Sunday night. “To Hong Kong with Love” also continues with screenings of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1987) and the 2016 film Raise the Umbrellas. The ongoing Welcome To Metrograph: Redux also continues with HarunFarocki’sdocumentary Before Your Eyes: Vietnam (1981). This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is another Japanese thriller, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1966 thriller The Face of Another, and the Metrograph’s Japanese love continues as Playtime: Family Matinees will also show Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke from 1999.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is Ken Russell’s 1987 film Gothic, and this week’s “Kids Camp” offering is the 2006 animated Curious George with a special “pick your own price.” In preparation for the release of Emma. On Friday, the Alamo is doing a “Champagne Cinema” screening of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley, which unfortunately, is sold out already. (Waugh Waugh) Monday’s “Out of Tune” is the Prince film Under the Cherry Moon from 1986, which is also sold out. (Hey, Jeremy Wein, why don’t you tell me these things are going on sale so I can go!?!) Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the horror classic Candyman (1992), which is ALSO almost sold out and then we’re back to “Weird Wednesday” with next week’s offering, 1985’s soft-core actioneer Gwendoline.

If you’re one of those poor souls living in L.A., you can also go to see Don Coscarelli’s 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep, starring Bruce Campbell, on Wednesday night or the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors on Thursday at the grand, new(ish) Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Los Angeles. Saturday afternoon is a matinee of Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998), starring George Clooney and J-Lo and Saturday night, you can see Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), starring Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands. Monday night is Juliet Bashore’s 1986 Kamikaze Hearts, which looked into the X-rated SF underground of the ‘80s. The West Coast “Terror Tuesday” is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldman and Winona Rider!

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday’s afternoon matinee is the classical musical The Sound of Music (1965) and then Weds and Thurs night’s double feature is Robert Redford’sThe Hot Rock (1972) and Cops and Robber (1973). Friday’s matinee is the late Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983) and then the Tarantino-pennedTrue Romance (1993, also directed by Scott), will play Friday midnight and Saturday’s midnight movie is the 1967 film Carmen, Baby. This weekend’s Kiddee Mattine is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Monday’s matinee is Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) and the Monday night double feature is A Man for All Seasons(1966) and The Mission (1986). Tuesday’s Grindhouse double feature is 1980’s Super Fuzz and 1977’s Death Promise, both in 35mm, of course.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Weds’ “Black Voices” movie is William Greaves’ 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, and then on Friday night in the Spielberg Theater, you can see the 1913 film Traffic in Souls with live music as well as a couple shorts. The Japanese horror film Kwaidan(1965) will play in the normal theater. On Saturday, the Egyptian is presenting “Leigh Whannell’s Thrill-A-thon” a series of four films that helped to inspire Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which comes out next week with some great options worth seeing, including 1987’s Fatal Attraction, David Fincher’s 2014 film Gone Girl, Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation Misery(1990) and the classic Aussie thriller Dead Calm(1989) starring Nicole Kidman … all for just 15 bucks!

AERO (LA):

The AERO’s “Black Voices” film for Weds. is the great Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and then on Thursday afternoon, you can see Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classicDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb for $8 (free to Cinemateque members!) New restoration of the Russian film Come and See (also opening at the Film Forum in New York) will play on Saturday evening as part of the “Antiwar Cinema” series. Sunday’s double feature in that series is Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and the Russian film The Ascent (1977). Tuesday’s “Black Voices” matinee is Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) and then Greg Proops will screen the 1996 film Ridicule as part of his Film Club podcast which precedes the film.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon continues through the end of the month with Mister Roberts (1955) on Weds., Billly Wilder’s Avanti (1972) and the classic (and one of my all-time faves) Some Like it Hot (1959) on Friday. This weekend also sees movies in the continuing “Theater of Operations” series, which will include Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2009) on Saturday afternoon and a bunch of docs including Werner Herzog’s 1992 film Lessons of Darkness on Sunday. Weds also kicks off “Television Movies: Big Pictures on the Small Screen” – pretty self-explanatory, I think – with 1953’s The Trip to Bountiful and 1955’s Tosca on Weds. and Sunday, 1967’s Present Laughter Thursday and Tuesday and more. (Click on the link for full schedule!) Following Film Forum’s focus on black actresses (for February, Black History Month, get it?) MOMA begins a “It’s All in Me: Black Heroines” series with All By Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story and Julie Dash’s Illusions, both from 1982, on Thursday and many more running through March 5.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

The Anthology still has a few more films in its “Devil Probably: A Century of Satanic Panic” including Eric Weston’s Evilspeak (1981) tonight in 35mm, but also David Van Taylor will be at tonight’s screening of his 1991 film Dream Deceivers. I’ve never seen either of these, by the way. Robert Eggers’ The VVitch and Alan Parker’s Angel Heart screen one more time on Thursday night, as well. This weekend also begins a new series, “Dream Dance: The Films of Ed Emshwiller” but since I have no idea who that is, I have nothing further to add. (Sorry!)

NITEHAWK CINEMA (NYC):

Williamsburgis showing David Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart as part of its “Uncaged” series on Friday just after midnight and John Singleton’s Poetic Justice on Saturday morning as part of “California Love.” They’re also showing Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride on Saturday morning for an “All-Ages Brunch Movie.”

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Elem Klimov’s 1985 Russian drama Come and See (Janus) will have a DCP restoration premiere at the Forum and Sunday afternoon will be a screening of the 1953 Mexican film El Corazon y La Espada in 3D. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the 1953 pseudo-doc Little Fugitive. Monday night is a screening of David Rich’s Madame X (1966) introduced by actor/playwright Charles Busch.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel is the Mexican film The Exterminating Angel (1962), while Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s will screen Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Mnemonic and Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020is taking a surprising weekend off.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Still waiting to see if Pandora and the Flying Dutchman continues through the weekend, as at this time (Monday), there is nothing repertory listed.

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

Horace Jenkins’ Cane River continues through Friday. Saturday night’s “Beyond the Canon” is a double feature of Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker(1953) and Malick’s Badlands (1973).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s “See It Big! Outer Space” offerings include1974’s Space is the Placeon Friday and 1924’s Aelita, Queen of Mars and the 1980 Flash Gordonscreening on Saturday and Sunday. As usual, 2001: A Space Odysseywill screen on Saturday afternoon as part of the ongoing exhibition.

ROXY CINEMA(NYC)

Weds’ Nicolas Cage movie is Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and then Thursday is a 35mm screening of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)!

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight movie is Who Killed Roger Rabbit (1988).

STREAMING AND CABLE

Let’s see what’s going on in the world of streaming this week, shall we?

Netflix is debuting Dee (Mudbound) Rees’ new movie THE LAST THING HE WANTED on the streaming service Friday, even though apparently, it opened in select cities last week, including New York’s Paris Theater, although it got such terrible reviewsout of Sundance, maybe Netflix didn’t want any more bad reviews before it begins streaming. Regardless, it stars Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe, Ben Affleck and Rosie Perez, and it’s based on Joan Didion’s novel about a D.C. journalist named Elena (Hathaway) who abandons her work on the 1984 campaign trail to run an errand for her father (Dafoe). I guess I’ll watch it when it’s on Netflix just like everyone else but my expectations have been suitably lowered.

The Jordan Peele-produced series “Hunters,” starring Al Pacino, which is about a group of Nazi hunters will hit Amazon Prime this Friday as well, and a new season of the popular series“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” will debut on Friday on Disney+, adding to the amazing amount of content already available on that network.

Next week, Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell revamps The Invisible Man for Universal with Elisabeth Moss, and there’s also (supposedly) a movie call The Ride, which I know nothing about. You can guess which movie I’ll be focusing on.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

#TheCallOfTheWIld BrahmsTheBoy Premature Emma Balloon CorpusChristi Movies Reviews Repertory Streaming TheWeekendWarrior

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parkpavilion · 5 years ago

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Opening Day

If you’re driving along Rainier Avenue near the giant hardware store at the McClellan intersection, you may notice a dingy sign indicating that you’re passing the “Historic Site of Sick’s Stadium.” From 1938 through 1968, this was where the Seattle Rainiers, a franchise in the old Pacific Coast League, played their games. In terms of local history, that’s the location’s main significance—the team was successful for decades and provided a launching pad for one of the city’s favorite sons, Fred Hutchinson. There are several books that cover Rainiers history, but for my money the best of the lot is a picture book called A Ticket to the Pennant by Mark Holtzen, which captures the childlike enthusiasm Seattle once had for its hometown nine.

If the stadium is remembered at all outside of our region, though, it’s as the home field of the Northwest’s first major league baseball team, the Seattle Pilots. They were a squad that started too early (rushed into existence in 1969 to balance the schedule opposite a much better prepared expansion team from Kansas City, the Royals) and finished too soon (the Pilots went bankrupt after a single season and headed to Milwaukee to become the Brewers). They’re barely more than a footnote in the annals of sport, and that they even manage that is thanks to the work of one man, Jim Bouton.

Bouton came into the majors as a clean-cut New York Yankee in 1962, throwing fastballs so hard that his cap would regularly fly off with the effort. He thrived for a few years on the mound, won some World Series games, then blew out his arm and floundered around the minors for a while trying to reinvent himself as a knuckleball specialist. By 1969 his hair was a little longer and his pitching form had improved enough that the Pilots took a chance and called his name in the expansion draft. He had an up-and-down couple of months with the team before being sent down to the minors and then getting traded. It was about as nondescript a season as you could imagine except that he described it in a diary that became the legendary memoir Ball Four.

Ball Four was one of the first sports bios that wasn’t a hagiography. Bouton was frank about his struggles and also about the character of his teammates. Unlike the plaster saints of yesteryear, but like real young men everywhere, they drank, swore, chased women, and generally set a poor example for their impressionable fans. By today’s standards the revelations in the book were tame stuff, but back in the early ‘70s they made its author a countercultural hero and an establishment pariah. He remained persona non grata at Yankee old-timer’s games for thirty years, but found acclaim elsewhere, as an iconoclastic sportscaster and the co-inventor of Big League Chew shredded bubble gum.

He also continued to write and publish books. I encountered one of these in the most fortuitous way possible. It was 2003 and I’d left my corporate job without having a plan to replace it. At loose ends but with a paycheck or two in my pocket, I took a weeks-long road trip across the US. Passing through New Jersey, I went into a bookstore and saw Bouton’s byline on a cover. I’d heard he was at work on something new but had no idea what, and I snatched a copy to buy without finding out. Started reading it in the car as my companion drove.

The book was Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark, and it was about Bouton’s efforts to renovate one of the oldest stadiums in America and bring a minor league team to play in it. This was Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts*, which happened to be my next destination. Because it was the home of Herman Melville, obviously. But that’s another story.

Flipping those pages in the passenger seat was something like reading a thriller. As the miles disappeared under the wheels, Bouton wrangled with civic leaders and the local media to realize his vision, and I had no idea as I approached the site how the story turned out. It was another battle against the establishment for him, this time with stakes that were more than personal. The town authorities wanted to tear down the old wooden structure and replace it elsewhere at taxpayer expense, while Bouton and his partner promised to invest their own money to keep history alive. The newspaper editorialized against the interlopers; the outsiders discovered that the newspaper owned the polluted, otherwise unsellable land where the new project was to be built. Quid met quo and profit fought with preservation.

Wahconah Park was still standing when I arrived, a charming relic set defiantly in the face of the setting sun (games there featured a unique ritual, a brief suspension when the light on the horizon shone directly in the batters’ eyes) but it was empty. I climbed the outfield fence to look onto the field and felt like a kid peeking through a knothole at a World Series game. The new stadium project fell through, but Bouton didn’t get his team. Nevertheless, he’d won again, turning failure into a different kind of success. Foul Ball was a book about things greater than baseball—politics, corruption, and right versus wrong. It’s out of print now, but it still tells an important story.

I meant to write about Bouton when he passed away last summer, but life got away from me, as it did for him on more than one occasion. I thought of him again as this year’s major league season was due to start but stalled under the weight of a viral pandemic. With no games to watch, I had more time to read and found a new book written in his spirit, about baseball, history, politics, and more: Stealing Home by Eric Nusbaum. Failure breeding success again. Life gets away, but it keeps going on.

—James

*Another fun Pittsfield fact: it’s where historians found the first recorded evidence of baseball being played on this continent. Minutes from a 1791 town meeting there prohibit “any game of wicket, cricket, baseball, batball, football, cat, fives, or any other game played with ball” within eighty yards of the town hall and its new windows. You can read all about that, and about the true history of the sport going back to 14th-century Europe and beyond, in Baseball Before We Knew It by David Block.

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liamoreillygevert · 5 years ago

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04/03/2020

Second week back!

Today’s class was more group based stuff, finalizing groups and setting up roles for the semester to come! We did some tasks to plan out the groups roles as well as focus in on what our actually goals for the project are.

Roles: (TBC)

Hannah - Admin

Liam - Maker/Film

Roxy - Lead/Boss

Tre - Creative/Editor

Zed - Creative/Sound

Goals:

To create an installation that “challenges” stigma around sex-specific diseases, to inspire.

From this we want to try and get it featured on the screen in WZ and see if our product actually inspires the audience.

______________________________________________________________

From here we discussed how we were going to do this. We though of creating a short film that portrays a male figure talking about the struggles and the dangers of breast cancer. From this we developed the idea to an abstract short film discussing different diseases with different narrators talking about the struggles and dangers of the disease but the difference is that the audience would have to engage in it. There would be different sets of headphones stationed around the installation each playing a different audio, for example one would be an older male in a angry tone discussing the effects of breast cancer and another would be a younger female in a happy tone discussing the effects of prostate cancer. This would immerse the audience and make them think about how there talking about the issue, “why is she happy when talking about cancer?”. Different ways to stimulate the audiences feelings and making them think twice about the things they are saying.

We took a step back as I thought we were having a bit of future creep and getting a bit a head of our selves. We thought to strip it back to the basics and look at what we really wanted out of it. A short film comprised of people talking about contrasting diseases to inspire others into acting out and supporting a cause.

We then moved on to getting some information, we each wrote down 2 questions each and formed a survey from our questions all based around the idea of female diseases with males as the figure head.

To anyone reading this it would be sweet if you could fill it out here.

______________________________________________________________

I’ve set myself a little task to do till our group next meets, I’d like to set up a draft aesthetic and possibly a script or just a few lines for the short film.

I’m mostly thinking about the aesthetic for now and for inspiration I’m using the photography agency Magnum. They are a famous agency that has been taking ground breaking photos since WW2 and they have a very minimalist aesthetic. I bought myself there 70th anniversary photography book called “MAGNUM Manifesto”, it contains there most groundbreaking photos and stories from 70 years of work.

(A page from “MAGNUM Manifesto”)

But what I’m really interested in is the minimalist aesthetic of the book its self, although its just photos on a blank page arraigned in asymmetrical ways with minimal description its effective because it attracts your eye to the important subject of the photo. This would be an effective way of showing off our narrators/subject. As well as this, most of the images in the book are actually in black and white due to the age of the photos, this is also something we could touch on. A black and white film to show the gloomier theme but with colored aspects in certain locations within the film and within the narrators voice to show that there is hope and kindness behind the film. But this is just inspiration, next comes creating my own style of this, then discussing it with the group to better the aesthetic or completely revamp it!

Thus conclude blog post two for 2020!

#ctec607

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miguel-manbemel · 5 years ago

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Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 20: The Pact - Part 2

Here comes part 2 of the story I released some days ago as part of this fanfic blog inspired on Sanders Sides by Thomas Sanders, Joan S. and the Foster Dawg Team. Fun fact, the main premise of the story is that Thomas gets terribly sick with high fever... and it was premonitory because I wrote the basic draft of the story last week and I, myself, got really sick this week with high fever. When I published part 1, I was still recovering. I’m totally fine now, but how did this venture into the future happen? Maybe, subconsciously, I was seeing it coming and it flew into the story? I don’t know.

Gotta say that letting the writing rest unpublished for these past three days has allowed me to do so many tweaks and improvements to the story. Maybe I should make this the norm and wait five days after I finish any writing to improve it and make it better. There were so many parts I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that have turned so much better thanks to these improvements. Who would have known? For instance, one thing I have decided here is to start giving proper names to the Sides’ counterparts in the shorts, specifically the Prince Guy which as this point has become a regular character in the fic. I decided to give them names that sound similar to the Sanders Sides but not exactly the same. If you want to see what name I gave him, just keep reading the episode. That’s one of the improvements I was talking about, among many others. Anyway, now I leave you with this part of the story. As usual, if you want to check previous entries, including part 1, you can find them right here. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. Until next time.

SYNOPSIS: The Dark Master has left the Mind Palace, and as a result Thomas is seriously ill. If the Sides, with the assistance of Joan and Talyn, don’t find a way to make him return to the Mind Palace before it’s too late, Thomas will die.

WARNINGS: Prinxiety. Thomas is featured with an illness that has some intense moments of angst, including moments where Thomas is on the verge of dying. Remus appears, but due to the nature of the episode he will be forced to ally with the other Sides, so he’ll be a little less nasty than usual. Scenes of violence and animal cruelty are mentioned.

EPISODE INDEX

[flashback of the final moments from the previous episode]

DARK MASTER: Be careful with what you wish for. Your wish was to get rid of me. And now you will. I’m leaving this Mind Palace to live in the real world. Too bad that a host without one of his two Masters… cannot survive.

ROMAN: [distressed] Oh, no! Thomas!

DARK MASTER: By the way, the ingredients and cauldron were just to set me free. I am a Master. Turning Dark into Light is child’s play for me. I could have turned you into a Light Side permanently all the time. So long, guys! I’m gonna enjoy my freedom!

[The Dark Master flies away, carrying the bag with the cauldron with him]

ROMAN: Wait! Come back!

[Thomas suddenly loses balance and has to be grabbed by Logan and Patton]

THOMAS: I’m… I’m feeling so cold…

PATTON: [putting his hand on Thomas’ forefront] My God, you’re burning! You have high fever!

ROMAN: [approaching Thomas] I’m sorry, Thomas. This is my fault.

THOMAS: [weak voice] It’s… okay… But, guys, please… take me home…

[Thomas faints]

ROMAN: [horrified] Thomas? Thomas!? Oh, no, what have I done!? Thomas!!

[intro sequence]

ROMAN: Thomas? Thomas, please!

LOGAN: It’s okay, he’s still breathing.

VIRGIL: Why haven’t we fainted with him?

LOGAN: He hasn’t totally passed out, he’s still mostly conscious, only too weak to open his eyes.

PATTON: We need to take him home, kiddos.

LOGAN: And we need to contact Joan. They and Talyn are the only ones in the real world we can ask for help.

[Ira and the Prince Guy arrive]

PRINCE GUY: How did it go…? [scared after seeing Thomas lying on the ground] What’s happened!?

ROMAN: Roland, I mean… brother, help us! We need to take Thomas home quickly. This has been a disaster as you can see.

PRINCE GUY: Ira, use your sprite form to travel faster, go fetch the royal carriage, quick!

IRA: Aye, aye, my liege!

[Ira turns into a sprite and flies away]

PRINCE GUY: Your emissary told me about the pact and where I could find you. What’s happened now, Roman?

ROMAN: I was tricked! It was a plot orchestrated by the Dark Master, and I fell into it like a fool. And now Thomas is gonna die, and it’s all gonna be my fault!

VIRGIL: Don’t say that, Roman.

ROMAN: But it’s true! I condemned us all for my stupid gullibility!

VIRGIL: We still have something to say in this situation, Roman. This is not over yet. We’ll make the Dark Master pay, somehow.

LOGAN: [invokes a thermometer and puts it on Thomas’ head, then checks the result] He’s got 105ºF, which is 40.5ºC. We need to lower his temperature now. Patton, have you got a handkerchief?

PATTON: No, I left it in my room.

LOGAN: It’s okay. [Logan takes his necktie off] Take this. Immerse it in the pond and put it on Thomas’ forehead. The water in the pond looks clean. I hope it is cold enough.

PATTON: Okay.

[Patton immerses the necktie in the pond and takes it out soaking wet. After squeezing it a little bit, he puts it on Thomas’ head. He starts shivering]

THOMAS: [plaintive groan] …no, please… so cold…

LOGAN: I know it’s cold, Thomas, but this is mandatory. This is for your own good. Hold on. [invokes his old necktie and puts it on] I’m not myself without my necktie, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for Thomas’ well-being.

PATTON: This is the worst situation we have ever been into. If Thomas dies… we will all die with him.

LOGAN: I know… But he’s not dead yet, Patton. Let’s not lose hope so soon.

[Ira arrives with the carriage]

IRA: I’m here, guys! Quickly, put Thomas in!

[Thomas is held up by Patton, Logan and Deceit and placed inside the carriage. They all get in and the carriage goes away. In a matter of minutes, it reaches the door to Sandersia. Then they get Thomas into Roman’s room]

IRA: Okay, we can’t get beyond this point. Take care of Thomas, okay?

ROMAN: We’ll do. Here.

[Roman invokes a crystal ball and gives it to the Prince Guy]

ROMAN: This crystal orb is connected to me and will show an image of the room where I am every moment. With this, you’ll be able to see how everything’s going in the outside world, so that you can stay informed.

PRINCE GUY: Thank you, Roman. Now go, and take care of Thomas.

ROMAN: I’ll do my best, but…

[tears fall down Roman’s eyes. The Prince Guy hugs Roman]

PRINCE GUY: Hey, hey, come on. You can’t afford falling apart right now. Thomas needs you. We all need you. Be strong for me. Will ya?

ROMAN: [cleaning his eyes] I will… I’m sorry.

PRINCE GUY: It’s okay. Now go and be great. You can do this. I love you.

ROMAN: I love you too. Bye, Roland.

[Roman closes the door and approaches Thomas]

PATTON: Roland? Your brother’s name is Roland?

ROMAN: Yes, that’s my brother’s name. You didn’t think his name was “Prince Guy” did you?

PATTON: Yeah, but you never used his name before today, so, like, I kinda assumed he was nameless at this point, like the early Disney princes…

ROMAN: Of course not, Patton. It’s just that he doesn’t want his name to be featured in the shorts, that’s why we never use it. But earlier it just slipped out and… [looking at Thomas] okay, that doesn’t matter now. We have more important business to attend to. [leaning down towards Thomas, speaking with a soft and sweet voice] Thomas… open your eyes, please. Can you do that for me?

THOMAS: [very weak voice, opening his eyes] I’m… so cold…

ROMAN: I know. It’s the fever. But you must make an effort. We can’t get you out to the real world, you must get out yourself.

THOMAS: I… I can’t.

ROMAN: Yes, you can. You are strong and brave. I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. Come on. You can do it. Just this once, and then we’ll let you rest, okay?

THOMAS: I’ll try…

[Thomas closes his eyes. Then he starts sinking down]

ROMAN: Well done, Thomas, you’re doing it.

[Thomas disappears. Then the Sides sink down and they all appear in the living room. Roman and Patton place Thomas on the couch, Patton sits down next to Thomas]

ROMAN: Well done, buddy… I’m so proud of you. Now rest. You’ve earned it.

THOMAS: [a tear falls down his cheek, his face is blushing because of the fever] Don’t go away from me… Don’t leave me alone… I’m scared.

PATTON: [tearing up, holding Thomas’ hand and kissing it] I’m here, Thomas and I will never leave you. I’ll be with you all the time, kiddo.

[Logan picks up Thomas’ phone and calls someone]

LOGAN: Hello? Is it you, Joan? No, I’m not Thomas, I’m Logan. Listen, this is an emergency. You and Talyn must come to Thomas’ home quickly. Thomas is in mortal danger right now and needs help… I can’t give you more details by phone, time is short. Yes, we’ll be here. Hurry up, please.

[Logan hangs up]

ROMAN: Do you think they will be able to do something, anyway?

LOGAN: I don’t know, but what else can we do? They are our only allies in the real world. We need them.

[Deceit brings a basin full of water with a couple of little towels floating on it]

DECEIT: Here, I filled this with cold water.

LOGAN: Good idea, Deceit. Keep putting cold compresses on his forehead, and replace them when they get warm. We must fight that fever. Virgil, go put an effervescent tablet of ibuprofen in a glass of water and make Thomas drink it. Perhaps that will be of help too.

VIRGIL: Okay.

[suddenly, Remus storms in the living room]

REMUS: Where is it!? What did you do with it!?

ROMAN: Remus, it’s you. What are you doing here?

REMUS: Enough with the “what are you doing here”! I know you’ve been in my room! Where did you put my black cauldron!?

ROMAN: The Dark Master has it.

REMUS: Oh, no! You fool! How could you let the Dark Master put his hands on my cauldron!? Don’t you see what you’ve done!?

ROMAN: Yes, I do. Look at Thomas.

REMUS: Yes, that’s my point and that’s what I feared!

ROMAN: Now you care about Thomas? I thought you hated him.

REMUS: Don’t jump to conclusions! It’s not what you think, you idiot! I don’t care about Mr. Sunny-boy anymore than I care about any of you, and I don’t mind putting Thomas into all kinds of mental misfortunes! But I would never physically harm him, cause if he dies, we all die! And I don’t know about you, but I am too young to die! I raised that barrier to protect the cauldron from falling into the Dark Master’s hands, and you ruined it! I hope you’re proud of yourself!

[Roman shows a face of remorse]

VIRGIL: [angry] Hey, Mortimer Re-Mouse! Cut him some slack, will ya? If you care so much about your own safety, you could try to be constructive for once in your life!

THOMAS: [weak voice] Guys… don’t fight, please…

PATTON: How are you doing, Thomas?

THOMAS: I’m still feeling so cold…

LOGAN: Let me see…

[Logan puts the thermometer on Thomas’ forehead, then checks the temperature]

LOGAN: 103ºF, or 39.4ºC… It’s a little better, but it’s still high fever. But I guess the ibuprofen is doing some work after all…

THOMAS: I’m sorry I cannot be of use to you now, guys…

PATTON: [sweetly petting his hair, all wet because of the compresses, speaking with the sweetest, relaxing voice] Relax, kiddo. The only way you can be of use for us now is by getting some rest.

[there’s a knock on the door]

LOGAN: That must be Joan. Virgil, go open the door.

VIRGIL: Okay.

[Virgil goes to open the door. Joan and Talyn come in]

JOAN: Where is Thomas? What is going on?

VIRGIL: He’s on the couch.

[Joan and Talyn go to the couch]

JOAN: Oh, my goodness, Thomas! You look so bad!

THOMAS: [weak ironic smile] Hello, Joan… thank you for your compliments…

JOAN: What’s wrong with you?

LOGAN: He’s got a high fever. We have managed to keep it under control, sort of, but he’s far from recovery, I’m afraid.

TALYN: We need to take him to a hospital.

LOGAN: I’m afraid that wouldn’t be helpful. His illness is not of organic origin.

JOAN: What’s happened?

LOGAN: The Dark Master has set himself free. He’s left Thomas’ Mind Palace to wander around in the real world, and Thomas cannot survive without him. If we don’t find a way of making the Dark Master return to the Mind Palace, Thomas will die.

JOAN: What? But how could this happen?

ROMAN: [giving Joan the magic scroll] Maybe this will explain it to you.

[Joan reads the contract]

JOAN: I don’t fully understand. So, you made a deal with the Dark Master to become a Light Side again? And for that you gave him these shirts and that black cauldron? Why would you do that?

ROMAN: I told them already, he tricked me! I didn’t know he was the Dark Master! I would have never participated in this if I had known! Do you honesty think that I would have sold Thomas, my friends and the Side that I love to make my wish come true? You all are more important to me than me being Dark or Light! You should know that!

VIRGIL: I know. We know, Roman.

JOAN: Yes, I know… I’m sorry if I made you feel otherwise Roman. I also forgot that you don’t speak Tagalog, the Filipino language. As you know, my family is of Filipino origin. Even though I only know a few words of Tagalog, one of them is “Madilim”, which means “Dark” in Tagalog, so I quickly identified he was the Dark Master, so the shock made me assume that you would have known too… I’m terribly sorry, Roman.

ROMAN: It’s okay. I wish I would have known the language too, so I wouldn’t have fallen prey of his tricks. I wouldn’t have given him that dang cauldron if I had known the truth.

DECEIT: What was in that cauldron, anyway? How could the Dark Master use it to free himself like that?

REMUS: When Roman left me in the island, I was still a Light Side. As time went on, I realized I was slowly turning into a Dark Side, the more Roman tried to repress me. I tried to counter that change by projecting my dark energy out of me into that cauldron. At first, it worked, as I turned back into a Light Side, but the repression kept happening again, and again, and every time stronger than the previous one.

DECEIT: That must have been angsty.

REMUS: There was a moment when the cauldron was so full of Dark Energy, that I could not fill it anymore, or it would corrupt myself, so I finally gave up and let the transformation happen, until I became a Dark Side. At that moment, my room in the Dark Realm appeared. I came there to check out, and the Dark Master confronted me. He tried to force me to submit to his will with his whip and all. But you know me already. I’m too kinky to be tortured. I was totally unaffected by his physical chastising, I even enjoyed it.

PATTON: Why am I not surprised?

REMUS: So, he eventually gave me up as impossible and just allowed me to stay in my room without messing too much in my life, just checking out what I was up to from time to time, and forbidding other Dark Sides to approach me, as he didn’t want my rebellious attitude to spread out among them. But one day, he noticed my cauldron. He wanted it desperately. As he told me when trying to bribe me into giving it to him, he could use all the concentrated Dark Energy inside to set himself free. If combined with objects belonging to the different Sides, not only he could be free to get out of the Dark Realm. He could also get out of the Mind Palace itself.

LOGAN: Why was the Dark Master so open about his plans? It doesn’t make sense.

REMUS: He probably thought I was so demented and so thirsty of revenge against Roman, Thomas and the Light Sides, that I would give him the cauldron without further question. I may act idiotic, but I’m not stupid! I knew what would happen to Thomas, and by extension to all of us, if he did that. I couldn’t destroy the cauldron, as that would have set free a wave of Dark Energy so strong that it would have destroyed Sandersia, which would have wounded Roman and by extension me. And if I destroyed it in the Dark Realm, I would have only been making it easier to the Dark Master, as he could just absorb the Dark Energy and perform his plan, so I raised the barrier around my room, a barrier only Creativity, that is, Roman or I, could cross and allow others to cross. I figured that a ton of bricks like the ones Roman used in his Dream Factory, which I also was able to create, would be enough to keep the cauldron safe. I didn’t expect that Roman would eventually mess everything up, and not only by getting the cauldron out of the barrier, but also willingly giving it to the enemy! And then it’s me who they call demented!

VIRGIL: As I said, it would be better for all of us if you were constructive, and not destructive as you usually are!

REMUS: I am what I am, emo! And right now, I’m an angry octopus, that’s all!

VIRGIL: Octopus?

[tentacles appear from Remus’ back]

REMUS: Yes, octopus! Oh, did my tentacles scare you? You can thank Roman for them, I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t been turned into a Dark Side!

[Remus hides the tentacles]

VIRGIL: [with voice of disgust] I… I’ll just pretend I didn’t see that.

LOGAN: [scared] Guys, Thomas is getting worse!

THOMAS: [loud breathing] I’m finding it hard to breath…

PATTON: [scared] Thomas, please… hold on.

JOAN: Where the f… [bleep] are we going to get some oxygen for him now? We need to call an ambulance, Logan!

THOMAS: No… no… it’s okay… it’s getting over… it was only a moment… I can breath again now…

LOGAN: [angry] Guys, you’re wasting time! Thomas is fading in front of our own eyes and you’re all just behaving like bratty babies as if we had all the time in the world! Instead of arguing or blaming yourselves or others, it would be better if we made a plan of action! He is running out of time!

PATTON: Well, Logan, you’re Thomas’ logical thinking. No one better than you to set a course of action.

LOGAN: All right… first, we need to find the Dark Master. But that’s easier said than done. Gainesville may not be a huge city, but it’s big enough to help someone hide. And he will probably be disguised to go unnoticed.

REMUS: You don’t have to worry about that. Didn’t you have a little green firefly, or something?

LOGAN: You mean Ira?

REMUS: Yeah, Ira or whatever. That b… [bleep] , I mean the Dark Master, not the green b… [bleep], and now I mean Ira, not [pointing at himself] this green b… [bleep] …

PATTON: [annoyed] Cut to the chase, you b… [elongates the B letter] ...b-b-biscuit!

REMUS: [beat] As I was saying, before daddy interrupted me, the Dark Master has used my own energy to set himself free, which means your sprite friend could easily trace him, as long as he’s still holding my black cauldron. If he isn’t… well, he’d still be traceable for a couple of hours more, while remnants of my energy are still on his body, then he’ll be gone for good.

LOGAN: I doubt he would want to get rid of that cauldron. He would have simply left it in the forest if he hadn’t found it useful or didn’t think it was dangerous for him to leave it behind. He’s still carrying the cauldron, I’m sure.

ROMAN: Okay, Ira, did you hear that? I know you’re watching from the crystal orb. Come here now, we need your ability again.

[Honesty appears]

PATTON: Oh, Honesty, hi. Long time no see. It’s been a while since you last showed up. Are you okay?

HONESTY: Why are you asking that? I’m fine. Besides, that’s not important now. The important thing here is to make sure Thomas is okay right now.

PATTON: You’re right, but us being worried about Thomas doesn’t mean we cannot be worried about you at the same time. Is anything wrong with you lately? Why don’t you want to show up?

HONESTY: [concerned] Well, I…

PATTON: You don’t intend to fade away for another eight years like the last time, do you?

[Honesty doesn’t have time to answer, as Ira’s sprite appears]

PATTON: We’ll talk about that later, but you bet we’ll have that conversation, mister.

DECEIT: If we’re still alive by then… Sorry, did I say that aloud? I totally didn’t mean it…

REMUS: [a little scared, to Ira] Stay away from me, Stinkerbell!

[Ira makes a loud jingle bell sound that reminds of a raspberry noise]

VIRGIL: You can see him? Then that means you’re not a Dark Side. Not completely at least.

REMUS: Of course I can see him, and want him away from me! His bite still hurts on my neck and it’s the only non pleasant pain I have ever felt!

ROMAN: Okay, easy, Captain Poop. Ira, can you do what Remus said? Can you detect the Dark Master’s trace? We need to find him…

[Ira starts flying up and down, as if nodding to say yes]

LOGAN: However, we mustn’t just go running blindly on the hunt of the Dark Master. We need to think beforehand what to do when we find him. Otherwise, he could harm us.

ROMAN: No, he couldn’t.

JOAN: Why not?

ROMAN: The pact. It says that he can’t actively hurt us, or else everything would turn to be as it was before. That could be a solution… with good things and bad things. The good thing is that that would send the Dark Master back to the Mind Palace, saving Thomas’ life. The bad thing…

VIRGIL: What?

ROMAN: …the bad thing is that I would turn back into a Dark Side again.

REMUS: What? You were a Dark Side?

ROMAN: Yes, and it’s all your fault, by the way. Something happened when we fused that corrupted me into a Dark Side when we split up.

REMUS: You’re saying it as if I was the only one to blame. I didn’t put a gun on your head, did I? You wanted to fuse with me as much as I did, so you’re as guilty as I am. Besides, I love that that’s happened to you. Now you will know how it feels, cause that’s what you did to me when you tried to repress me, and, unlike me, you did it on purpose! I guess karma is real after all.

ROMAN: [sighs] I guess you’re right, cause it really looks like a karmic punishment. That doesn’t matter, anyway. If I have to turn into a Dark Side, then so be it. I prefer being a Dark Side rather than getting Thomas killed. Anyway, this is all just speculation. He would never attack us knowing what’s on risk for him, and I would never put any of us in danger of getting harmed by him, so…

REMUS: You know what? I’m tired of waiting!

ROMAN: What?

REMUS: You guys are just standing here talking about life and doing nothing! I’m not a man of talking, I’m a man of action! And I’m gonna destroy the Dark Master with my own hands! [invoking it] And this Morningstar!

LOGAN: That’s not a wise idea. We should form a plan together to…

REMUS: [yelling] Don’t tell what to do, you’re not my boss! I do what I want whenever it pleases me, and now what pleases me is getting out of here, okay? Bye!

[Remus gets out of the apartment]

ROMAN: Wait! Urgh! Why does he have to be so dramatic all the time? I can’t believe it’s me who’s said that… He’s right in one thing, though. We don’t have time to form a plan of action. We must get moving right now.

LOGAN: [sighs, looking at Thomas] I think you’re right…

ROMAN: Okay, guys, we must divide forces. Joan, Talyn, Logan and Patton, you will stay with Thomas. Take care of him and if he gets worse, take him to a hospital if it’s necessary. It may not do any effect, but at least he’d be under control.

LOGAN: Okay.

ROMAN: [invokes another crystal ball and gives it to Joan] Here. This is another crystal orb like the one I gave my brother, so that they could check out what was going on. You will see all that is happening to us through it, okay?

JOAN: Okay.

ROMAN: Virgil, Deceit and I, and Honesty too, of course. We’ll follow Ira and face the Dark Master when we find him. We must be careful, we don’t know what he may be up to. He can’t harm us purposely, but he may try to harm innocent people instead or use them as hostages. We mustn’t let him do that, okay?

VIRGIL: Got it.

JOAN: Won’t it call people’s attention to see four clones of Thomas Sanders wandering around Gainesville?

ROMAN: Don’t worry, Joan. We’ll be invisible when we are moving around Gainesville, and if we have to be visible, we can assume any shape to go unnoticed.

JOAN: Okay.

THOMAS: Be careful, guys…

ROMAN: We will be, Thomas. Okay, guys. Let’s go. Thomas, we’re borrowing your car, okay?

[Honesty disappears into Deceit, then Roman, Virgil and Deceit get out of the apartment. The sound of a car is heard outside going away]

THOMAS: [to Logan, with a weak voice] It’s the first time they are gonna get away from me in the real world… Are you sure they can do it?

LOGAN: Don’t worry. We can move around Gainesville at will. In fact, and sorry we’ve hidden this from you, this is not the first time at all. We have already done this once or twice, always staying invisible of course or shape-shifting into ordinary people. I have visited the library several times thanks to that. How do you think I get the knowledge of things you don’t even know about sometimes?

PATTON: Yeah, and I got some good cooking recipes in the library too. If I had waited for you to start learning how to cook, I would still be doing Playdoh cookies, you know?

THOMAS: And that… doesn’t affect me in any way? I mean, Virgil just clocked out and I became a whole mess. Wouldn’t it be worse if you literally wandered miles away from my body?

LOGAN: Well, it does affect you. Have you ever felt like distracted, with your head figuratively in the clouds? It was probably because one of us was hanging around out there. But, as long as we don’t leave Gainesville, or the city or town you’re staying at the moment, we’re still in contact with you, even if we’re far away, that’s why you don’t become a complete mess like when Virgil switched himself off.

THOMAS: I’d be a little mad if I wasn’t feeling so bad… You guys have to bring me up to date about these secret escapades of yours… that is, if I get out of this one…

TALYN: Of course you’ll get out of this one, Thomas. Don’t lose hope.

THOMAS: I don’t… I trust my Sides and I know if they set their mind on saving my life, I couldn’t be in better hands…

[there’s a knock at the door]

JOAN: What? Who can it be? Here, Talyn, hide the crystal orb. You, Logan, Patton, go invisible.

LOGAN: Done.

PATTON: Ready.

JOAN: I can still see you.

LOGAN: Don’t worry, Joan. We can be seen only by the people we want to be seen, and that’s Talyn and you exclusively.

JOAN: Okay, I’ll go to the door.

[Joan goes to open the door]

JOAN: Oh, Dahlia, Dominic, it’s you.

DAHLIA: Joan? What are you doing here? We’re coming to talk to Thomas.

DOMINIC: Yeah, he has to give us an explanation!

JOAN: An explanation? About what?

DAHLIA: He has been around Gainesville, doing the most disgusting things. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but I saw it with my own eyes an hour ago. He kicked a little dog on the back and left it in pain. And he left laughing just like that.

DOMINIC: We took it to the vet. Thank God the poor boy is not in danger. We called Thomas, but he’s not answering the phone. We assumed we’d find him here at this time of the evening.

LOGAN: They must have called while we were still on Sandersia. The outer world signal can’t reach there, that’s why I had to wait till we got out to call Joan.

JOAN: Guys, I think you are completely wrong, Thomas could have never done something like that.

DAHLIA: Yeah, I thought that too, but we saw it with our own eyes, Joan. Now, are you going to let us in or not?

JOAN: I mean that he could have never done that, because he has been here all the time. He’s sick. Talyn and I have been nursing him all the evening.

DAHLIA: What? I can’t believe that!

JOAN: See it for yourselves. He’s now on the couch with a high fever. Come and see.

[Dahlia and Dominic enter the apartment. When they see Thomas on the couch they sport a confused face]

DAHLIA: Thomas?

THOMAS: [weak voice] Hello… Dahlia.

DOMINIC: You look awful…

THOMAS: Thanks for noticing, Dominic…

JOAN: As you can see, he couldn’t have left the house in his condition. He can barely move.

DAHLIA: No… I guess not… and besides you’re right, it was such an out-of-character thing to do from Thomas… He adores dogs…

DOMINIC: But if it wasn’t you… who was that person? He looked just like you. Dahlia and I saw his face clearly, and it was exactly your face, only with a malevolent expression that chilled the blood.

TALYN: Are you sure he looked like Thomas? Perhaps it was just someone who reminded you of him.

DAHLIA: No, Talyn, I’m telling you. It’s not just that he was similar to him, or I could have had any doubt he was someone else. I’m telling you he was a clone of Thomas, like a twin brother or something. Heck, he was even wearing the same shirt you’re wearing right now! How is that possible?

DOMINIC: Are… are you guys hiding something from us? Cause I’m not buying that you don’t know who that doppelganger is.

LOGAN: Thomas… don’t worry, they can’t hear me yet. But I think the time has come to tell them the truth about us.

THOMAS: Are you sure, Logan?

DAHLIA: What? Logan? Who is Logan?

DOMINIC: Who are you talking to now? Don’t tell me you’re gonna start talking to the thin air like the other time!

TALYN: [nervous] I… I think it may be the fever, he is probably delirious…

LOGAN: Don’t worry, Talyn. I think we can trust Dahlia and Dominic. They’re your friends after all. And they have already seen too much. They’re already suspecting. Something tells me they’re not gonna stop until they find out the truth one way or another, and I think they deserve to know the truth from us, don’t you think?

THOMAS: Yes, I think you’re right, they deserve it…

DAHLIA: Deserve what?

THOMAS: Okay, Dahlia, Dominic… I’m going to level up with you, but you must promise that you will never ever tell this to anybody, promised?

DAHLIA: Tell what?

THOMAS: Promised?

DAHLIA: Okay, I promise.

DOMINIC: Me too.

THOMAS: Okay, don’t be afraid now.

DAHLIA: That’s a phrase that never works when someone says it, Thomas.

THOMAS: Logan, you can show up.

LOGAN: Good evening, Dahlia. Salutations Dominic.

[Dahlia gasps and has to sit down on the other couch due to the impression. Dominic is too stunned to react]

DAHLIA: What? What is going on? Who are you?

LOGAN: My name is Logan. And I am Thomas’ logical Side.

JOAN: Do you remember Thomas’ stories about his Sanders Sides? The videos he makes in his YouTube channel?

DAHLIA: Yes, I do. I also remember that sometimes he started talking to himself in his living room as if he was sustaining long conversations with someone. But I thought he was only rehearsing his acting abilities for those videos.

DOMINIC: As you know, Joan, I saw Thomas once yelling outside as if he was talking to someone. So… the Sanders Sides from his stories… are real? And you knew this all this time, Joan?

JOAN: It’s okay, guys. Talyn and I were as surprised as you are when we first found out. You wouldn’t believe everything we’ve seen these last few months. And Dominic, if it serves as something, when you told me that, I still didn’t know anything about the Sides. But it was precisely that what prompted me to find out the truth. It’s a long story, though.

DAHLIA: So that guy we saw earlier… it was another of your Sides? Your nasty Side or something?

LOGAN: Not exactly, although it is indeed a close definition. The one you saw calls himself the Dark Master. It is a concentration of Thomas’ evil self, the evil part that all human beings have inside themselves to one extent or another. Thomas had him repressed in his subconscious, but he set himself free and now is wreaking havoc around Gainesville.

PATTON: That’s right.

DAHLIA: [startled] Oh! I didn’t see you coming.

PATTON: Sorry, kiddos. I’m Patton, I’m Thomas’ Morality.

DOMINIC: By the way… you also look almost exactly like the guys in Thomas’ shorts…

PATTON: Yes, kiddo. Thomas got inspired on us to make these shorts.

DAHLIA: You all have the same face… isn’t it weird to you, Thomas?

THOMAS: Oh, it has never been weird to me. They have been with me all of my life since I was a child. I never found them weird at all.

[Thomas takes a deep breath as if he was running out of air]

LOGAN: Thomas, you shouldn’t speak so much. You should save your strength. You’re ill, just in case you forgot.

DAHLIA: What’s the matter with Thomas?

JOAN: Thomas needs the Dark Master to survive. That’s why he’s sick right now. If we don’t find a way to make him return inside of him before it’s too late, Thomas will die.

DAHLIA: What!?

DOMINIC: What can we do to help him!?

LOGAN: Some other Sides of Thomas have gone to fetch the Dark Master. And that reminds me… Talyn, you had the crystal orb, didn’t you?

TALYN: [pulling the crystal ball out] Yes.

LOGAN: Let’s see how they’re doing. I hope they found him already.

[everyone starts looking at the crystal ball which shows the following images. Roman, Virgil and Deceit are in front of a guy around whom Ira is flying]

ROMAN: There he is! Show yourself, Dark Master, there’s no use in hiding anymore!

DARK MASTER: [changing back into his real form] Very clever of you! I should have spared Ira’s life. It was a mistake to let him transform into this and call me out.

ROMAN: Too bad for you, Dark Master. We got you, and you won’t get away this time.

DARK MASTER: You certainly took your time, though. I’ve been sporting Thomas’ form for the last couple of hours, and only disguised myself a few minutes ago.

DECEIT: Why would you do that?

DARK MASTER: Because it was fun to destroy Thomas’ reputation while I was on it. I want to make that vicious Light Master pay for everything he’s done to me. I want to destroy him socially and revel in his suffering before he ceases to be a nuisance once and for all.

DAHLIA: If we needed any more confirmations, now we have them. I’m sorry I have ever doubted you, Thomas.

DOMINIC: Me too.

THOMAS: It’s okay, guys… let’s keep watching.

ROMAN: You truly are a sadist, and if you think we’re gonna let you do that…

DARK MASTER: And what are you planning to do to stop me, Princey? You can’t do anything to me. I’m too powerful for you and without your Light Master, you’re nothing. You should fear me.

ROMAN: Heh, neither you can do anything to us, remember? If you touch us, the pact would be broken and you’d turn back into what you were before, a fragment of yourself trapped as a simple character in Sandersia. That’s what you were as Madilim, weren’t you? I bet it stung. The once all powerful Dark Master, forced to be a secondary character in my stories.

DARK MASTER: [furious yelling] SHUT UP! [putting himself together, turning back to his mocking attitude] It’s true that I cannot touch and you cannot touch me. So we’re tied on this one. Or so you think. Because I just have to wait until Thomas perishes, and then you would all perish with him, and I’d be the winner, so the joke’s on you.

VIRGIL: If we die, you will die too!

DARK MASTER: Wrong! That’s a little extra from the spell. I’m totally independent from Thomas now. I’m just gonna dance above your grave!

DECEIT: You won’t get away with this! Somehow, we’ll take care of you!

DARK MASTER: Oh, do you think so, snake? Excuse me… [checks his watch] Three… two… one…

[Thomas starts running out of air again]

LOGAN: Thomas, hold on! Try to breath!

DARK MASTER: See? I can sense that already. Thomas is facing his final moments. Soon you’ll be history.

VIRGIL: Oh, no, Thomas!

THOMAS: [voice of suffocation] I… can’t… breath…

PATTON: [crying] Thomas, hold on, please!

DAHLIA: What are we gonna do?

DOMINIC: Should I call 9-1-1?

[meanwhile, a stranger approaches the Dark Master]

STRANGER: Excuse me, sir, could you tell me how to get to the Vam York Theater? I’m a little lost in this town and…

ROMAN: What? Who’s that dude?

DARK MASTER: What? Get lost!

[the Dark Master pushes the stranger and makes him fall]

STRANGER: [getting up] Hey, you don’t have to be so rude! I’ll teach you some manners, mister!

[the stranger slaps the Dark Master in the face]

VIRGIL: Uh-oh… [yelling] Sir, get away! That man is dangerous!

DARK MASTER: [angry] You’re gonna regret this!

[the Dark Master points at the stranger with his finger]

ROMAN: [horrified] Oh, no, I know that gesture! Don’t do that, Dark Master! He’s an innocent!

DARK MASTER: As if I cared about that! Die!

[the Dark Master shoots a black beam at the stranger, it crosses him through the chest]

ROMAN: [suddenly in pain] Aw! It hurts!

VIRGIL: [scared] Roman, what’s wrong with you?

DARK MASTER: What? What’s going on here?

STRANGER: [with a mischievous smile] I got you… Dark Master.

[the stranger falls to the ground, then transforms into Remus. Roman also falls down, sporting the same wound Remus has on the chest]

VIRGIL: [leaning towards Roman] Oh, no, Roman! Remus, what have you done?

REMUS: What had to be done! I got my revenge both on the Dark Master and on my brother, finally! I’m sure Thomas can survive without creativity, at least he’ll be alive to tell it.

DARK MASTER: Oh, no, but if you’re Remus, then that means…

REMUS: I’m not a friend of Roman’s, and he doesn’t truly consider me a relative, but we are connected. By hurting me, you have hurt Roman, so the pact is broken. Eat this!

[the bag flies away from the Dark Master’s hand and falls on Roman’s hands, then the Dark Master starts sinking down]

DARK MASTER: [full of angst] No, no! I don’t wanna go back in there again! No!

REMUS: [blowing him a kiss] Bye, bye, blackbird!

DARK MASTER: NOOOO!

[the Dark Master sinks down completely. At the same time, Thomas starts regaining his breath]

THOMAS: [relieved] It’s over… I can breath again…

PATTON: Thomas, are you okay?

THOMAS: I’m still a little weak, but I can feel myself getting better by the minute. I already feel the coldness fading away…

LOGAN: Yes, even as we speak, you’re starting to look better. [he puts the thermometer on Thomas’ forehead, then checks the result] 98ºF which is 36.6ºC. You don’t even have fever anymore. The Dark Master is back into the Mind Palace. They did it!

[Thomas’ friends cheer, but Patton makes gestures to them to be quiet with a worried face]

PATTON: Guys, look at the crystal orb! Roman and Remus are wounded!

[everyone stops cheering and look at the orb. Deceit has grabbed Remus and put him next to Roman]

VIRGIL: Roman, your face! A half is turning into… a fox!

ROMAN: Well, that confirms it… I’m a Dark Side again.

REMUS: Well, you’ll just have to deal with it as I did. You can’t have everything, you know?

ROMAN: It doesn’t matter, anyway… I think we’re not getting out of this one. I hope I can make a good red sprite…

REMUS: Oh, do you think so? Think again, bro.

[Remus touches his wound on the chest and the wound starts healing itself. At the same time, Roman’s wound starts healing itself too]

ROMAN: What? What is going on?

REMUS: Sticks and stones can’t break my bones, brother. The Dark Master tried everything to subdue me, but I just healed myself again and again and just moved on. He can’t do me any harm if I don’t let him. That’s the power of intrusive thoughts, you can never destroy us. And that applies both for the Dark Master and the Light Master.

[after a few seconds, Remus rises up totally healed. Then helps Roman rise up, he’s also all right]

ROMAN: You… saved us all.

REMUS: Nah, don’t read too much into this. I was just saving my own butt, that’s all.

[Roman hugs Remus]

ROMAN: Thank you! Thank you, Remus!

REMUS: [surprised by the hug, a little startled] Look out! If you hug me like this, we’ll fuse again!

[Roman doesn’t listen, he still hugs Remus]

DECEIT: It’s weird. Nothing’s happening.

VIRGIL: I guess something happened when Thomas broke your fusion so abruptly. Perhaps you can’t fuse right now.

REMUS: Oh… do you think so, emo? [hugs Roman back, letting go a little brief smile of joy] Okay… [pushing Roman away after a couple of seconds, faking annoyance] Okay, let go, let me breath!

[Roman lets go, looking at Remus with a loving glance that makes him blush and look away bashfully]

VIRGIL: Let’s go back with Thomas. I hope he is okay now.

[The Sides jump into Thomas’ car, Remus gets on the wheel]

ROMAN: Are you sure you know how to drive?

REMUS: Bro, I was born to drive!

[Remus starts the car which goes away at high speed while Deceit screams in fear like a little girl. The crystal orb turns off then]

THOMAS: If Remus harms my car I swear…

PATTON: Glad to see that you’re okay, Thomas.

THOMAS: Guys, I suddenly thought… What has the Dark Master done while he was on the loose? How many people are going to hate me for things I didn’t do? And even if we explain it wasn’t me, how are we going to explain the presence of someone who looks exactly like me? This is gonna be tricky…

LOGAN: I think I’ve got an idea. I’m going to need Roman and Deceit’s help, though, they are the best actors among us.

ROMAN: [suddenly opening the front door] Thank you for your compliments, Logan!

THOMAS: How fast were you going, Remus!?

REMUS: I don’t know… Is it normal that the car emits smoke and fire from inside the hood?

THOMAS: [horrified] What!? My car!

REMUS: I was kidding! You should have seen your face, Thomas! [starts laughing like a maniac]

THOMAS: If you weren’t virtually indestructible, I would kill you…

ROMAN: [noticing Dominic and Dahlia] Oh… whoops… did… did I miss something?

THOMAS: Oh, don’t worry, Roman. Dominic and Dahlia are on our side, they’re our allies now.

ROMAN: Oh, okay… I got scared for a second.

THOMAS: Guys, let me introduce them to you. This is Virgil, my Vigilance, although I’m still fond of calling him my Anxiety. This is Deceit. Inside of him, there’s Honesty. It seems he doesn’t want to show up, but you’ll get to know him someday. And these are Prince Roman and Duke Remus. Together, they form my Creativity.

DOMINIC: Nice to meet all of you.

DAHLIA: Same.

THOMAS: Now Dominic, Dahlia, remember your promise. You must never ever tell anybody, not even the rest of our friends or families. I don’t wanna become some sort of laboratory guinea pig. Okay?

DOMINIC: Don’t worry, Thomas, your secret is safe.

DAHLIA: You can count on us, our lips are sealed.

REMUS: Well, this was fun, now I gotta go. Give me back my cauldron, Roman.

ROMAN: [giving him the cauldron] Here you are. But before you go, let me tell you that you got your facts wrong.

REMUS: About what?

ROMAN: You thought that it was me being wounded what broke the pact. It wasn’t. As the Dark Master didn’t touch me and didn’t know he was gonna harm me, that wouldn’t have counted as “actively harm” me. If the pact was broken, it’s because he directly harmed you, because you are my brother, and now I finally feel you like my brother. I hope you see it as a proof and give me a chance to start over again with our relationship.

REMUS: [shows a brief emotional smile, then tries to mask it with his usual attitude] I just want to make something clear so that you don’t get mistaken. I am what I am. I still am Thomas’ intrusive thoughts and the part of creativity he doesn’t like. I’m not gonna dulcify myself like Virgil and Deceit did, because that’s not how I work. I can’t change who I am. In fact, I don’t wanna change who I am. See ya later, Thomas, cause you’re gonna see me soon, whether you like it or not…

[Remus sinks down]

ROMAN: [sighs] That’s something I’ve always known, but this is a start anyway… Now, what were you saying about me being a good actor? Not that I disagree or something.

LOGAN: I didn’t say you were a good actor. I said you were the best actor among us, alongside Deceit. Not counting Thomas, the bar is not that high in this Mind Palace, anyway.

ROMAN: [beat] Fair enough…

LOGAN: Listen, this is the scene you are gonna perform. I want Deceit and you to go to the Taco Bell that is located in that downtown avenue and say this. [gives them a paper with some lines] I also want Thomas’ friends to show up, to give realism to the scene. This will help clean Thomas’ name.

ROMAN: Hmm… I don’t know, Logan, these lines do not let me show off my acting skills. Couldn’t I tweak this a little bit, just for a better show?

LOGAN: [rolls his eyes] I know it’s hard work for you, Roman, but this has to be realistic.

ROMAN: Are you implying that I can’t act realistically?

LOGAN: Are you implying that I’m implying anything different?

[Roman emits some offended Princey noises]

DECEIT: I’m not good at memorizing lines, Logan. Remember how I was barely able to remember the details in your outfits when I tried to impersonate you. I can’t do this.

LOGAN: [sighs] Okay, then Roman will memorize his lines, and if you don’t remember the exact words, improvise, but try to stick to the ideas in the text, please.

ROMAN: Why do you let him say what he wants and not me!?

LOGAN: [angry snapping] Because I’m the dramaturg, writer, producer and director of this play, and you’re gonna obey my orders, got it!?

ROMAN: [pouty face] Okay, got it, but this play’s gonna suck!

VIRGIL: It’s cool that that is gonna get fixed and all… [sad voice] …but…

[Roman looks at Virgil with a sad face]

ROMAN: I know… Even if now I can spend short amounts of time with you because I’m no longer emitting so much Dark Energy… We are forced to live separated again. It’s not fair.

THOMAS: At least we’re all alive and well and we have time to think on something to fix this that doesn’t imply me catching a lethal cold again.

ROMAN: Yeah, sorry again, Thomas. You have gone through so much because of me. I don’t know how to apologize…

THOMAS: It’s okay. All’s well that ends well.

ROMAN: If only it had ended well for everybody… I wish there was a way to fix this other than recurring to that monster. For him it was so easy, he said that he didn’t even need the objects, he… [suddenly opening his eyes wide] …wait a second…

THOMAS: What?

ROMAN: He also said that for a Master it was child’s play to turn Dark Energy into Light Energy… Thomas, you’re also a Master! If the Dark Master was right, you also have the power to turn me back into a Light Side!

THOMAS: What? But… how?

ROMAN: I don’t know, Thomas, you are the Master, not me!

THOMAS: I don’t know how to use these powers! I didn’t even know that I had them in the first place!

LOGAN: And yet you have used them already, at least once, and now everything’s making sense.

THOMAS: What?

LOGAN: Thomas, it was you who unconsciously turned Roman into a Dark Side. While you forced the separation, you used some ability that made the transformation. You have the power in you to revert that transformation.

THOMAS: But I don’t know how to do that!

LOGAN: It’s okay. Now that your life is not endangered, we have plenty of time to help you learn how to use your Light Master powers. We’ll help you in the task the best that we can. It’s only a matter of time.

THOMAS: But are you sure you’re gonna be all right in the mean time, Roman? You’ll have to be separated from Virgil, who knows for how long?

ROMAN: Yes, it’s gonna be torturing, but at least I have something I did not have these past few days: hope. Now I know that, sooner or later, Virgil and I will be reunited.

THOMAS: You have so much faith in me… I don’t know if I deserve it.

PATTON: Of course you do, kiddo! You can do so much more than what you give yourself credit for!

ROMAN: I do have faith in you, Thomas, because Patton is right. Quoting what Christopher Robin told Winnie the Pooh, “you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think”. If you weren’t, we wouldn’t be here, remember?

THOMAS: Thanks, guys.

DOMINIC: And we’re gonna help in anyway we can, Thomas.

THOMAS: Thanks to you too. The truth is your help is gonna be greatly appreciated.

DAHLIA: It’s okay, Thomas.

THOMAS: [to the camera] Well, to all of you out there…

DAHLIA: [confused] Who are you talking to now, Thomas?

JOAN: It’s okay, Dahlia, I’ll tell you later.

THOMAS: Thank you so much for watching, and until next time, take it easy, guys, gals and non binary pals. Peace out!

[end card]

[It’s the morning after. Joan, Dominic, Dahlia and Talyn are with Roman and Deceit, disguised as Thomas and as a copy of the Dark Master respectively, in front of the Taco Bell in the street]

ROMAN: [yelling] How could you do this, cousin? You’ve besmirched the name Sanders!

DECEIT: I’m sorry, Thomas! I didn’t mean it! I… You know what happens to me when I drink!

ROMAN: Yes, you become a blatant jerk, but that’s no excuse! Do you know how many people has phoned me saying horrible things to me because they confused me with you!? Among all my family members, why did I have the misfortune to be a perfect look-alike to you!?

DECEIT: I’m sorry, I don’t deserve to live! [mumbling] This is not humiliating at all… [yelling] Tell me what can I do?

ROMAN: What you can do? Easy! You will go back to Montana and never return! Gainesville doesn’t want people like you, and certainly neither do I!

DECEIT: Okay, as you wish, Thomas! I’ll pack my bags and leave, and never return!

ROMAN: And if you want some advice, stop drinking, or they will also expel you from Montana! You are lucky that no one has denounced you here! Don’t push your luck!

DECEIT: Farewell, Gainesville! Farewell, cousin! Bye!

[Thomas is watching the scene from his car, with Patton, Logan and Virgil]

THOMAS: [frowning a little bit] Wow, overacting much?

PATTON: Well I did like it, it got me all emotional!

VIRGIL: Dad, you’re always all emotional. It’s okay, though, Thomas. It’s true that their acting wasn’t on point today, but I think it will help add a sense of freakiness to your “cousin” and make him more believable, somehow.

LOGAN: Okay, I recorded everything on my phone. Now I just have to send it online, share it anonymously with a few of your friends and, with some luck, it will go viral and clean your name.

THOMAS: But what if my family watches the video? Won’t they be asking questions about who that “cousin” is?

LOGAN: You can always tell them it was an acting and editing exercise. You told me that nothing about the Dark Master’s doing reached them, so they will believe that.

THOMAS: I hope so.

[Roman and Deceit approach the car]

ROMAN: Okay, did you get it all?

THOMAS: Yes, we did, Roman.

ROMAN: I was great as usual, wasn’t I?

THOMAS: [affected voice] Sure… so great…

DECEIT: Okay, can we go home now? Groveling out loud like that has been so humiliating.

ROMAN: Yeah, your acting hasn’t been on point either. Don’t worry, you’ll get the grip on it next time.

DECEIT: [annoyed] My acting!? What about your acting!?

ROMAN: What do you have to say about my acting!?

DECEIT: [sweet but at the same time sarcastic] Nothing. You have been the best actor I’ve ever met, and certainly you do not deserve a Razzie for your performance…

[at first Roman shows himself flattered… then he realizes that it’s Deceit who’s said that and emits some offended Princey noises]

THOMAS: Guys, guys, don’t start again! Just get in the car and let’s go home. We have a lot of work to do!

[Roman and Deceit jump in the car with pouty faces, then the car goes away]

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