#that when it came time to cast that role it was like...oh well OBVIOUSLY

[thelaurenshippen]

you guys you guys you GUYS!!!!!

LOOK!!!!

can you BELIEVE!?!?!? this CAST!?!?!? obviously I love Misha, Melissa, and Karan with my whole heart and can't wait to hear more of what they've done this season (what I've heard so far has me flopping on the ground like a fish) but holy SHIT, Alan Tudyk and Tricia Helfer??? are you KIDDING me?!?

I was a very nerdy (read: lonely) teen and spent HOURS watching and rewatching Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, two of my favorite sci-fi shows of all time. to have these two actors saying words that I wrote is a dream come true!!!!

catch up on season 1 now!!

[whirlinglikeaballet]

RANT TIME ‼️‼️‼️

[jgroffdaily]

Interview by Jake Nevis, photos by Jenny Anderson - excerpts:

For Groff in particular, who’s earned a Tony Award nomination for his swaggering turn as the prodigious composer Franklin Shepard, the experience of starring in Merrily We Roll Along is provoking a tender sort of reappraisal of the wide-eyed, closeted 20-something who arrived on Broadway two decades ago in Spring Awakening, tending his own dreams. “There’s so many powerful parallels and I’m feeling the opportunity to release a lot of the tension I was holding at that time,” he told me earlier this month over coffee in Greenwich Village (just before showing face at a Tony’s luncheon). “This character feels like an exorcism of the lightest and darkest parts of myself.” With easy candor—and a charm not dissimilar to the kind he demonstrates in the role—Groff opened up about learning to live without shame and what Looking, the polarizing HBO series he starred in from 2014 to 2016, taught him about show business.

JAKE NEVINS: Hey, Jonathan. Congrats on your Tony nomination.

JONATHON GROFF: Thank you so much.

NEVINS: That’s exciting. How do you feel?

GROFF: Oh my god, I feel super emotional. I’ve been crying a lot these days. Last time I was nominated was during Hamilton, which was like seven or eight years ago. And I wasn’t in the show when the nominations happened. I had left to do a TV show. So this is the first time since Spring Awakening that I’ve experienced the intensity of awards season on Broadway while being in the show. I’m having a lot of flashbacks to being 22 years old.

NEVINS: What were your first encounters with Merrily in particular?

GROFF: Gideon Glick, who was in Spring Awakening with me, sent a text to the Spring Awakening text chain saying, “This documentary came out called The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. And it’s devastating and beautiful, and it reminded me so much of us. You all have to go see it.” So I watched the documentary about Merrily that Lonny Price made and was blown away by it. At the Hollywood Bowl, I had done Sondheim on Sondheim, where I sang the role of Frank in “Opening Doors” and Jesse Tyler Ferguson did “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” so I knew the songs from there. Funny enough, we had just finished our Spring Awakening reunion concert, which was in the fall of 2021, and we were making a documentary about the concert and about the show. The Merrily doc was a big inspiration for that because of how they went back and forth and showed them as kids and showed them as adults. And then in January 2022, me and Jim Carnahan, who cast me in Spring Awakening 16 years before, were in a film club during COVID. After we saw 8½ at the Film Forum in January 2022, he said to me, “We’re going to come to you with an offer for Frank in Merrily We Roll Along. Do you know the show?” And I was like, “I know pieces of it, but I don’t know the show.” Maria’s production in London was on YouTube, so I watched it and I died for it. I just thought it was fucking genius, never having seen it and obviously knowing from the documentary that the show was originally a flop. So it took six months between January and June 2022 for us to figure out the dates. Dan [Radcliffe] was already attached to play Charley, and then Lindsay [Mendez] came on, and then we were off and running.

[Jonathan on reactions to Looking] And I was like, “Whoa.” That was when I started to learn the art of walking with an open heart and also protecting myself.

NEVINS: What does that look like?

GROFF: It’s like, having empathy and respect for the haters and honoring them and understanding that that opinion can exist and I can still be in my lane and express myself. Just because someone says it’s terrible doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth making.

NEVINS: Well, I’ll leave you with this. What’s the status of your inner voice? By all accounts, you’re living your dream, but I don’t want to draw any conclusions.

GROFF: This feels like it’s been a rebirth, a bit of a renaissance, and a release. It’s like I’m re-experiencing what I experienced when I was 22 with Spring Awakening, but now as a flashback, which is what Merrily is about. I moved to New York in 2004, 20 years ago. This show takes place over the course of 20 years. It’s about three friends. Spring Awakening was about these three characters. There’s so many powerful parallels and I’m feeling the opportunity to release a lot of the tension I was holding at that time. It feels like this opportunity to tap back into that 20-year-old I was and release all of the baggage from that time. I’m feeling more like myself than I ever have. This character feels like an exorcism of the lightest and darkest parts of myself.

NEVINS: An exorcism that ends with a Tony, hopefully

GROFF: Oh my god.

[saturnaftertaste]

I would like to hear your hirarchie opinions!

oh anon, you’re too sweet. you do spoil me so ♡

so, my take on hirarchie?

look. as a feminist, my first thought in the archie-ronnie-hiram subplot/relationship triangle will always be veronica. as such, my thoughts on hirarchie come from the angle of thinking about veronica, who is a very interesting figure in the case of the Jughead-Narrated Riverdale Universe.

first of all - veronica is a legacy outsider to Riverdale. i’ve mentioned this before, but out of s1’s protagonist cast, ronnie was the only one to not be white. not only this, but hiram’s history itself starts outside of riverdale. unlike betty | alice, archie | fred, cheryl | penelope, jughead | fp, veronica | hiram do not have history here. in fact, archie, betty, jughead, and cheryl all have direct ancestors who landed in riverdale in 1580 - i.e. as per colonial “american” practice, the town was “built” by them and their descendants.

so what role do the lodges play in all of this? the blossoms are rich, the andrews’ are good, the coopers are cunning and the joneses write the history, so what role do the lodges play in the existence of riverdale? are they even necessary for that existence? my point is this - nothing happens in riverdale until a lodge shows up.

think about it! we’ve seen riverdale prime start up twice - once in season 1, once in season 7. a lot of people pin jughead’s narration from s1 on jason blossom’s death (“little miss inciting incident”) but my take on this is that the starting point of any riverdale story is the entrance of a lodge. one of my main riverdale theories is that while the events of s1-4 are narrated by jughead, s5-7 are original written pieces by jughead within the meta of the river-verse. as given in the canon, jughead is not a very good writer - so to keep riverdale afloat from s5-7, the stories he tells are essentially ripped off from the first four of seasons, remixed and then re-presented: hence, when s7 starts in the 50s, it starts on the day when veronica comes to town, just like s1, except there is no murder; jason blossom doesn’t exist.

what does this have to do with archie? good question. i’m getting there (i promise. i hope).

this post by @/wallbeatjournal talks about how just because archie and hiram aren’t related, it doesn’t make it any less incestuous. that is what got me thinking about the riverdale citizens’ roles in their society. as the town pares down in terms of citizens, season by season, and the “following in. families’ footsteps” themes become more and more in-your-face, one must question the cycles and where they came from. interestingly enough, the modern-day riverdalians are 1-to-1 copies of their ancestors, with a specific focus on gender. the farthest ancestors shown are not patriarchal heads of houses— instead you have: asher andrews, blessing cooper, james jones, charity blossom. obviously, we do not know if these are “true”; as per my personal theory, this is all jughead making filler backstory for s6 bc he’s alone and trapped in an empty bunker trying to power a dead universe for himself. however, the genders and the naming conventions match our current protagonists. moving forward in time and referencing the parents of the riverdale citizens, all of them who have a historical colonial ancestor become one of their parents, usually looking like one of them as well, despite the end goal being to break out of their cycles of perpetual violence; usually, the parent they become is the one they share a gender with:

betty is the “gang leader’s girlfriend/perfect small-town girl/thrill-seeking investigator” -> all roles alice has occupied, in that order. notice how despite hal’s attempted influence on her, she does not become a serial killer.

jughead is the “writer/gang leader/scholarship kid/alcoholic” -> roles both F.P and his grandfather occupied. he is incapable of leaving riverdale permanently, like F.P., but unlike gladys who left prior to any inciting incident.

cheryl is the “alive half of a pair/center of tragedy/repressed rich kid/witch” -> roles occupied by penelope blossom as more of the story is unveiled, reflecting cheryl’s life? or cheryl reflecting penelope? (remember, clifford blossom dies before s1 is up, so in this way, jason and clifford match in that they are the Dead ones.)

(remember, this is all through the jughead lens, so it’s all subjective. anyway)*

so where does that leave archiekins and veronica?

veronica is interesting, like i said before. she has no colonial ancestor; her ties to riverdale do not extend beyond hiram’s own. in fact, you could say that veronica and hiram have no ties to riverdale at all, since it was jaime luna that came to riverdale, and hiram lodge who left to manhattan after he married hermione.

veronica is also interesting in that she’s the only one out of the main cast to not be the same gender as her primary-complex-relationship parent. although hiram is not present for season 1, most of veronica’s conflict still stems from his existence as her father. veronica is a girl, yet she does not resemble hermione in her riverdale role**; she is her father’s daughter, constantly actively fighting him while mirroring his own traits. the owning of businesses, the murderous intent, the guns for hire (reggie, circa s3?) thé illegal activity? the mob interactions? she is not a gangster’s moll like hermione ends up as; she is the gangster. remember that episode when they all got sent to therapy in the guise of “college counseling” in their senior year? it’s openly stated that one interpretation of hiram and veronica’s relationship is combative, and that hiram doesn’t see her as an extension of himself, but rather an outside agent who might take his place (hence veronica has to “beat” him to win.)

all this to say that the lodges are, on a narrative level, instigators. (the party don’t start till i walk in! - veronica lodge, 2017) not the blossoms. veronica comes to town, and the story starts. hiram comes to town, and veronica and hiram start fighting on various battlegrounds, for some unnamed, constantly shifting purpose. the lodges do not belong in riverdale, and the story is aware of this, but the story/the town also knows that it cannot exist in reality without the lodges jumpstarting it’s existence. only one lodge can bring back the other (veronica in riverdale brings hiram to riverdale; hiram’s nefarious plans for sunnydale truly bring veronica back to riverdale); only one lodge can get rid of the other (hiram attempts to send veronica to harvard, veronica chases him out of town with the shotgun AND orders a hit on him), and yet - the town needs one lodge to keep things moving (the juvenile prison, the speakeasy under pops. the sunnydale development project, the babylonium) the lodges are the only access to growth and change the town has. otherwise, it sits on its haunches, repeatedly producing people who are named like their ancestors and look&behave like their parents.

all except for one person; the one person who becomes the rope in the lodges’ metaphorical game of tug-of-war.

see, archie, through the jughead lens, is special. archie is complex. where everyone else has to be bent to fit a stereotype (girl next door, rich girl, tragic victim, mindless jock, gay best friend), jughead’s narration expands to fill in the gaps about archie (he was a victim? he was clout-chasing football star? a musician? a folk hero?every government service? he fought a bear???) archie, i think, is the only one he allows free will/choices—archie is his protagonist, so he must have a story, but also is the object of his affection. hence, archie “tries” to be like his perception of his father (“good” “kind”, “strong”, male) but often ends up behaving like his mother (leaves people, bisexual***, protective, desperate for the american dream****, redheaded) while also making other choices - presumably, those choices were based in the reality that jughead is recording from s1-s4, and everyone’s actions around archie’s choices are folded into their characters to the fit the stereotypes and story arcs they inhabit.

so what happens when an instigator meets the only other person in their path who has free will? when veronica comes into contact with archie, she jumpstarts the betty/archie thing that supposedly has been simmering for years. when hiram comes into contact with archie, archie unlocks a new ability to take matters into his own hands. veronica consistently enables the choices that archie makes, whether good or bad, and hiram constantly unlocks new levels of action in archie, whether good or bad.

hiram’s influence on archie is obviously paralleled with hiram’s own story, but instead of inflicting it on his daughter who he comes into conflict with, he tries to instigate new levels of action from archie. i think if hiram had had a son, riverdale as a story would cease to exist because the point of lodges, (and i do mean lodges, not lunas) is to be different, even to each other - hence them creating change. riverdale’s near-all-white population in hiram’s years? he moves there, and now the town has someone new and different to them in poverty. his daughter comes to riverdale, and all of a sudden the entire social balance and relationship structures of the town’s youth are upended, because she’s new and different to them and rich. he becomes a lodge; she becomes a luna. he pushes archie to take action (i.e, red circle); she takes actions for archie (raising money for the community center). if veronica had been a son, chances are he would’ve followed so completely in hiram’s steps that he wouldn’t have come to riverdale at all.

why else would they fight as equals? only one of them can be in riverdale at a time. otherwise, they cancel out - hiram puts archie in prison, ronnie gets him out. hiram buys pop’s? ronnie buys pop’s back. and so on and so forth.

hirarchie exists and functions because hiram is one of the only two factors the town can rely on for any kind of change, and archie is jughead’s clumsy (remember he’s a bad writer!) projection of the town’s soul onto his best friend; thus archie is at the mercy of the lodges because the town wishes to express itself through a story, and a story requires conflict, something that cannot be produced without the presence of an outsider.

*the jughead lens is both misogynistic and apathetic but most importantly it’s simplistic. jughead himself does not make it as a writer in nyc beyond his one book - this is because he is unable to write characters that cannot eventually be folded into one-dimensional tropes that are very obviously props for his own opinions and desires.

**side note: while hermione does not have any ancestors mentioned in historical riverdale, someone matching a younger version of her/teenage veronica does exist in rivervale. this, along with teenage hermione’s description of her mother’s job cleaning houses in the “midnight club” episode, establishes that hermione may have been here longer than hiram — and yet, veronica only follows hiram’s patterns, not hermione or her unnamed grandmothers’.

***bisexuality is presumed on account of the interest-in-reggie-and-jughead sub?text and the absence-is-presence of jarchie in the polycule from s7.

****it is implied that mary explores her sexuality after she leaves fred (at least, that’s how i remember it, please correct me if i’m wrong) and the marrying fred and settling into the american dream as fast as possible draws parallels with archie being desperate to maintain “normal” - the wedding fantasies with veronica in s2, the trying to make it work with betty in s5, the insistence on a baby in s6 - this, apart from the red hair, is the greatest similarity archie has with his mother.

[t1oui]

hi everybody i'm having some thoughts right now and i need to share them. mentions of walburga black's a+ parenting in this fic idea so do be aware of that

what if regulus's parents send him to "conversion camp" after he comes out as trans but the conversion camp actually turns out to be a safe house for queer kids run by effie and monty that's masking as a conversion camp so homophobic parents send their kids there.

so reg arrives dressed up in a nice dress and with walburga aggressively using she/her pronouns and his deadname and the second she leaves effie is like "well that sucked, why don't we get you some more comfortable clothes and you can tell me your actual name?" and regulus is like oh. oh this is the best thing that's ever happened to me and my parents are idiots

i'm envisioning that the place is a farm and so the only rules for kids at the safe house are 1. be nice to each other and 2. find something to spend your time on every day that's not just a device (it doesn't have to be farm related) (this is a muggle au if you couldn't tell)

and ofc because it's effie and monty's place james is there and he likes helping out on the farm. reg takes one look at him and is like yeah ik i was gay but this man confirms it

☆

that's all i have rn as far as plot and story (i mean james and reg fall in love obviously but other than that idk) so here's intros to the cast of characters and their roles in the story !! (this is my favorite part):

james potter (18) - he/him pansexual (+ maybe ace) - son of effie and monty - helps out on the farm

regulus black (17) - he/him gay & transmasc - sent there after coming out as trans (or just after walburga finds out bc let's be real he probably knew not to tell her) - currently trying to figure out his hobby

sirius black (18) - he/him gay - knew james in school, came here after fight w/ parents when he was 16 - makes art

remus lupin (19) - he/they bisexual & transmasc - father disowned him and his mother, with the best of intentions, sent him to the farm when he was 16 in hopes that his father would reconsider cutting him off - works in the garden/greenhouses, helps with the bees

barty crouch jr (17) - he/him bisexual demiromantic + hypersexual - sent there at 15 by his father after some scandal with another politician's son - makes pottery, some of which he sells at the farmer's market every saturday

emmeline vance (19) - she/her queer - sent at 17 by her parents after they caught her with a girl - works in the orchard & cooks

marlene mckinnon (18) - she/her lesbian - lives down the road and comes by to help james

lily evans (18) - she/her lesbian - sent at 15 by her sister after her parents died and petunia got custody of her - makes her own clothes and sells them at the market

mary macdonald (18) - she/her bisexual - adopted by the potters at 13 after her parents died in a car accident - looks after the goats and llamas & helps with the horses

pandora rosier (18) - she/her pansexual transfem - sent at 17 after her parents found out she was trans - works w the horses

evan rosier (18) - he/they biromantic asexual & bigender - sent at 17 after their parents caught them wearing "girl clothes" - writes + draws, helps rem with the bees

dorcas meadowes (17) - she/her lesbian - sent at 17 (a few months before reg) after her parents caught her watching... adult content of two women - makes & sells bouquets, effie helps her <3

peter pettigrew (18) - he/him aromantic (NOT ace) - marlene's next door neighbor, has had sex with barty multiple times and these two fuck in the WEIRDEST spots (poor james keeps catching them :')) - helps emmeline in the orchard

severus snape (17) - he/him bisexual transmasc - sent by his father at 14 after starting to present as a boy - cooks, helps lily with her clothes making sometimes, writes sad boy poetry (/half joking)

narcissa, alice, and xeno will also be in the story i'm just not sure exactly where they fit in... xeno's another neighbor and narcissa's a former safehouse resident who's now living w alice but that's all i know rn

☆

now as for SHIPS...

so i know there will be jegulus of course, and since sirius is totally going to pine for gardener/beekeeper remus wolfstar too. i want rosekiller, but because of barty and peter's dynamic, i'm thinking romantic rosekiller w/ sexual party and queerplatonic... peter x evan (idk their ship name 😭)

as for the GIRLS... omg i have so many thoughts guys AAAAA

first of all i cant decide between pandalily and dorlily for lily and i don't want a triad (i don't ship panda x dorcas) and i don't want both so that's... rough

and then there's also marylene.... BUT DORLENE-

i wanna put sev with someone (ik he's not a girl but i'm having thoughts for him rn)... maybe he smooches w emmeline?? but i feel like she'd make fun of him 💀 (in a joking way but yk)

or maybe emmeline could go with mary panda with lily dorcas with marlene... and... sev with xeno?? guys am i a genius

so yeah other than jegulus, wolfstar, and partyvan idk what to do. live laugh love multishipping am i right

[n7punk]

"Our Love Is God" Fic Notes

OLIG finished off yesterday! For once I almost nailed the length, I was expecting 12 chapters but didn’t want to commit early on. HI I TRIED TO POST THIS SO MANY TIMES but apparently it was TOO MUCH TEXT in a single block and it wouldn't give me that error, I just had to GUESS because I knew that's been a problem before. Anyway. Here it is finally.

Playlist:

Obviously the West End and Off-Broadway cast recordings, but also I did still primarily use a separate curated playlist:

Good For You — Dear Evan Hansen (original Broadway cast)

The Worst Person Alive — G Flip

Ego Talking — Fletcher

Take Your Time — Chloe Moriondo

You Don’t Want Me Like That — Rachel Bochner & XANA

leave me for dead — GAYLE

pity — Charlotte Sands

Bodybag — Chloe Moriondo

spite — Charlotte Sands

butterflies — GAYLE

Tantrum — Charlotte Sands

Killbot! — Chloe Moriondo

LOVE IS A… — PVRIS

I Don’t Like The Quiet — The Haunt

Celebrity (Blood Bunny Version) — Chloe Moriondo

Doing Better — FLETCHER

Bad Girl — Daya

Not To Be Dramatic — Zoe Clark

My Perfect — Gen and the Degenerates

Often — Lauren Sanderson

Pretending — FLETCHER

Epilogue Life:

The original cast of Heathers played on stage for just over a year before most of them move on to other projects with the major cast change. Heathers (gay version) runs for about two years, going through two more cast changes, before closing. The original cast does go to see the new cast and cheer them on, but it is kind of weird to see someone else acting out a role that became like breathing to them. Overall the remake is taken very well but has just run its course by the time it ends. There will be another revival in a few years and it actually uses both the straight and gay versions of the musical between cast changes.

Catra carries Shot in the Dark for its entire two year run before it dwindles into a temporary retirement and gets revived with a new cast a few years later (same sets and such). She’s the defining lead for the show and obviously on the cast album. She’s really, really proud to have originated a magicat-led show and makes her new origination goal a sapphic role.

After Shot in the Dark, she takes a supporting role in another musical for eight months before leaving early to join Adora and Netossa on a new project. They don’t actually interact a lot in the show and aren’t love interests or anything, and they’ve long since learned to balance their careers while in different shows, but it does allow Adora to propose to her during final bow (with approval from Netossa). Adora tipped their parents off and they’re both in the audience to watch her say yes.

(Adora knew she was going to accept, hence the public proposal, and Catra’s relationship with her mom has gotten better now she’s a successful, independent adult. Also Felina would have been So Sad to miss it so Adora told them both). Oh also they moved in together as soon as their leases came up lmao.

Adora led one show in the mean time between Chicago and their show together, but it was smaller, not as demanding as Veronica, and she was really excited to hop on a project with Netossa and Catra again. She decides to make originating a gay role and collecting cast albums her career goal, in addition to getting in a few specific shows she and her mom looked up to when she was growing up. She already feels pretty fulfilled with her early career though and considers everything else the cherry on top.

Rest of the cast quick hits: Mermista plays Velma center stage in Chicago along with Adora. Fitting her braid in that wig cap is definitely a challenge lol. Sea Hawk starred in a Hello, Again short revival run which Catra and Adora were dying sitting through, but they support all their fellow cast members when they move on to new shows. Perfuma finally got up the nerve to ask Scorpia out on their very last night performing in Heathers together, getting her flowers and then revealing after the show — when everybody was already crying about it ending — they were from her. It was a very confusing confession until Perfuma was finally able to spell it out for her that she wanted to go on a date with her. Scorpia enthusiastically agreed (still crying before the whole “last show” thing), and then gushed to Catra later about how she couldn’t believe Perfuma liked her while Catra nearly tore her hair out listening to the obliviousness. Glimmer and Bow got to play a couple that were already-together side characters in a musical and that’s what finally gets them together because Bow realizes oh, I can’t risk losing this, and Glimmer is done trying to play the jealousy game because it clearly didn’t work and she doesn’t really have a flirty relationship with any of her new cast so they can finally just be honest with each other.

Chapter 1: Auditions

⦁ Things like homophobia and Christianity are usually world aspects I avoid in my fics, but they’re both present in the musical so they had to at least be mentioned in this.

⦁ Oh I should say this will have mentions of all the triggers warned for in the fic.

⦁ Adora and Catra both gave good but not necessarily the best auditions of the day separately. Catra’s was really good when she got permission to do it in her natural register and threw in a growl (she wasn’t actually audibly straining yet, but Netossa scouted her specifically for her voice and knew she was pushing it up near the top of her range), but her Candy Store was a little more uneven thanks to the lack of practice and register change. Adora did just fine in her regular song and really good in her Beautiful reprise, but there were people that did sing a little better technically. That doesn’t mean they would have been better over the course of the show itself, though, and what Catra and Adora had going for them was it looked like they were considering involving fists (the sexy or the fighting kind, take your pick) the moment they were on stage together. They eyefucked their way through both songs with such insane chemistry Netossa was like oh we can sell Fight For Me with these two EASY.

⦁ (Fight For Me is the second song in the musical where Veronica basically see JD in a fistfight and thinks it’s so fucking hot she immediately falls for him, and then they actually spend time together and it seems like they have similar views of the high school around them. And they do! But they definitely have very different solutions. Anyway, it’s a quick romance plot setup that doesn’t pretend not to be based solely on sexual attraction at first but that works and is realistic! The actors just need to have chemistry to make it read right, and damn do Catra and Adora have that).

⦁ Okay, every Veronica has been pretty, but there was some metric that made them not perfect conventional. For the first two Veronicas this was pretty much being brunette with messy hair lmao. For the West End, Veronica was played by Carrie Hope Fletcher, who I think is gorgeous and has blonde curly hair, but she faced a lot of backlash for being “too fat” to play Veronica. Adora is close to the Hollywood ideal, which is the point Netossa is trying to make: someone who could play Heather Chandler in one version of this show ends up the Veronica because she commits the sin of not meeting society’s hetereonormative expectations. Bigots will throw you out for any association with queerness. However, still meeting all those other metrics is what allows her to slip in with the Heathers as long as she helps them out and dresses femme — that’s part of her transformation, going from jeans in the opening number to skirts for the rest of the musical until the final sequence. When show starts, she’s wearing jeans and a ratty flannel with her hair in a ponytail. It’s a quick change outfit, so she runs behind the set to pull it off to reveal her main outfit beneath, brushes her skirt into place, and lets Netossa fix a scrunchy with a big bow on it on top of her existing ponytail to complete her transformation into a feminine popular girl.

⦁ “Janis Dean” is a reference to Mean Girls, and yes, that’s in-universe.

⦁ Catra got the casting call specifically because Netossa needed someone to match JD’s register — plus the growls in the right places added a lot of emotions to his songs. Including the sex ones.

⦁ Changes in Netossa’s version: - The aforementioned “Pretty Veronica” thing. When the Heathers give her the makeover she puts on the iconic skirt and has to wear skirts for the rest of the show, performing femininity in every extra way she can, to make up for her “deviance” of being bi (also, she’s bi. It’s another thing where any degree of deviation is grounds for rejection). - The line delivery (and some content) has been tweaked for the fatphobic stuff to match the changed metanarrative that comes from Scorpia, someone who isn’t actually overweight, playing Martha. The commentary then becomes that nothing is good enough and society’s fatphobia is thrown into light as completely unreasonable. The whole point of that aspect of the show is that it illustrates how awful the characters are, but genuine fatphobia and using it as a plot device to show a character is morally corrupt looks awful similar, so by having someone who is basically just tall and strong play Martha it makes it extremely obvious that the demands are unreasonable. This ties in well with Heather M’s story, where she does have that model body type and is pretty and popular but develops an eating disorder because she’s afraid of losing that. - Obviously a lot is different with JD. She “chooses” to be a lone wolf/outcast because of her personality and views on society, but there’s obvious undertones in their dialogue in the 7/11 that even if she did want to choose differently, she couldn’t because she would be rejected for being a dyke, so is she really making a choice at all then? She goes by JD specifically because it’s more gender neutral than Janis. She couldn’t ever be a Heather and she couldn’t even be a Veronica either, because Veronica could at least be comfortable putting on a matching skirt with her friends while this JD is butch, so she hangs out in her trench coat at the fringes of society. There’s also undertones to her being the only magicat in school due to her father moving around and not caring if he brought her into a hostile — conservative, racist, homophobic, etc — area. - Heather M. is only in with the popular girls for safety and there’s some dialogue around this in the bathroom scene with Veronica. It’s kind of public information (not officially stated but implied in her social media) that her actress, Perfuma, is trans. This wasn’t planned at the time of the casting call, but Netossa worked on it during workshops and the backstory became that Heather M started transitioning how she could before high school and is continuing to “in secret” now. Some people have clocked her though and she sticks so close to the other Heathers to keep herself from being the target of terrible bullying. As long as the Heathers tolerate her (Heather C is on a bit of an ego trip about having blackmail material on her and essentially owning someone in the palm of her hand), she’s given a pass and “has the best (cishood) assumed” about her. - Veronica and JD’s relationship is a little more secretive in this version, but the Heathers do know and Duke later tell her to just be careful not to “dyke it up” at school or they would out her (currently she’s just kind of clocked by some, not confirmed to the whole school). After Heather C’s death, Duke basically threatens Veronica to stay at her heel like Heather M or she’ll out them both.

Chapter 2: Workshop

⦁ You would have to be fucking blind to not realize Adora and Catra have history even in the glances of them Netossa and Spinnerella saw, and Netossa spent the first part of workshop trying to unpack whatever was going on with them. She had to put together the clues to figure out what it was. Once she decided exes was a likely story, she confronted Catra about it because she figured talking about it was the only way to handle the resentment. She was partially using reverse psychology and partially being honest about not resolving all of it being good for the show.

⦁ I made Freeze Your Brain more homoerotic. In the musical, JD does his entire song facing Veronica or walking around the stage and then offers the drink to her at the very end. He does not get in close and offer her the drink and then sip from it after her in an indirect kiss with her lipstick prints on the straw, but mine’s better.

⦁ In the actual show, Heather Chandler doesn’t put on any death makeup. The Off-Broadway would shine a blue light on her after she died to give her an other-worldly appearance and the West End didn’t seem to do anything at all, which was a mistake imho. In this one, when she “rises from the dead”, she does it a bit more dramatically and zombie-like under a blue light, and then she on-stage reaches over for her vanity and starts powdering her face, looks back at Veronica and says “What? I want to look good for eternity” and finishes as Veronica and JD write the rest of the suicide note before collapsing so the cops can find her.

Chapter 3: Previews

⦁ Once again changing the staging for my version (jokes on you, this isn’t just a Catradora fic, it’s me writing my ideal version of Heathers). Usually Heathers has some kind of bi-level stage. This one has catwalks hidden along the backs of the lockers, but they also have more sets. They have house facades they slide in front of the high school set/lockers for the croquet scene (Freeze Your Brain is the closest song) through to Heather’s murder, sliding them away again for The Me Inside of Me. They come back for Our Love Is God, although the second level with JD’s window isn’t brought back until the very end of the show. Kurt tries to climb the same trellis Adora used to get into JD’s window to escape JD as he chases him down. The full facade doesn’t come back until it’s time for Meant To Be Yours so JD can climb through Veronica’s window (that was once his). It is wheeled out as the entire stage narrows in on the center stage for the pep rally and finale.

⦁ Veronica doesn’t rebutton her shirt until after the nightmare scene in the West End version (I honestly can’t remember for off-Broadway), but for this show Adora just isn’t super comfortable hanging out shirtless in front of crowds every night, especially knowing some people are perverted about the lesbian version of Dead Girl Walking, so Netossa said buttoning her shirt and putting her clothes back on before they fall asleep was fine back when they were deciding what Catra was going to do since JD rips his shirt off undoes his buckle during this scene. Adora could have done it (she wears the bodysuit for Mona, after all), but Netossa didn’t mind making that small tweak for her. Catra cared less, but also because she’s not in the kind of underwear that straight guys like. They decided she would have a high-coverage sports bra, the kind that can pass for a binder, on (for this scene and for the entirety of the show since Janis Dean is supposed to be firmly butch). Catra does most of JD’s usual choreo here, minus the belt thing, because they do the version of the choreo where they never stand up and Catra isn’t wearing a belt at all.

Chapter 4: Candy Store

⦁ No wonder she was what way indeed, huh, Catra? Well, multiple. No wonder she was so frustrated, because Catra is infuriating when she wants to be. No wonder she was so hung up on her, because Glimmer also wants to fuck her inexplicably. No wonder she lived and breathed the word homoerotic, because Catra made sure they lived on the razer edge of it at all times. No wonder she was down bad, because again — see the last two point. This line is less of an insult and more of Catra being too magnetic for anybody’s good, honestly, but that annoys Glimmer because she doesn’t want to like her (like that, or at all) so it definitely comes out like an insult and Glimmer is good with that.

⦁ I need you to picture Catra’s “What?” after the brat comment in the same tone of voice as Elle Woods saying “What, like it’s hard?” because Catra definitely wants it hard.

Chapter 5: We Can Start and Finish Wars

⦁ I was nervous about doing this scene just from a trigger perspective, but I figured it would be okay if I kept it all contained to this one chapter, and it was something I really wanted to cover. It was my first thought when I heard You’re Welcome (since it was a new song). I also wanted to explore the support a cast really gives. You don’t have to improvise every night or anything, but there’s always something that pops up over a show and you have to adapt for when you’re doing shows night after night. This is why casts really have to have each others’ backs and are often close. Every person on that stage would have done what they could to help Adora get through the show, but Catra, Bow, and Sea Hawk were the only ones who could have helped in that specific scenario due to their roles, and Adora was good enough at covering it up that only her best friends noticed.

⦁ This chapter was a turning point for them between the lines with the show and reality blurring and Catra realizing (though trying to repress it) how important Adora is to her.

⦁ They do workshop a version of the scenes where Kurt and Ram just don’t come as close in contact to Adora and end up being even more slapstick with each other in place of the more aggressive choreography moments, and during Never Shut Up Again they don’t even come close to Veronica, instead running around the stage to tell the audience/school. They only use it once on Adora’s signal, and Bow voluntarily opts for it once based on vibes and Sea Hawk immediately adapts, but Netossa is right: it’s a good thing to have, and she’s really glad Adora agreed to collaborate on something.

⦁ This last scene wraps up the rest of the show to verify it goes well, but it’s mostly here just to showcase Good Director™️ Netossa. She really cares about her people a lot even when she’s a hard ass.

⦁ Adora doesn’t keep up too much with comments due to what she mentions about knowing there will be homophobia in them, but she’s not totally tuned out on them and a long flood of notifications still draws attention. After this time she becomes more committed to not reading them much, though.

⦁ Yes they’re going to the same dinner place featured later.

⦁ While out at dinner, Glimmer and Bow try to ask her how she’s doing and she gives them an even more abridged version of what she told Netossa and Catra because she just doesn’t want to think about it anymore, but of course Glimmer and Bow are super supportive, and Bow is really enthusiastic about them choreographing an alternate version of the scene because he just wants Adora to be okay and is proud of her for taking that step.

Chapter 6: No Time to Knock (I’m a Dead Girl Walking)

⦁ Chapter title from DGW

⦁ Dead Girl Walking honestly didn’t look that different that night, and Netossa did miss them making out after the lights went down because she was scrambling looking for a scrunchy, but she could tell Catra was going further with the choreo than she was supposed to, especially with the kiss during the kitchen scene when Netossa had given up looking for it until the show was over, and in a situation like that Adora couldn’t say no or stop her without changing the intent of the scene, hence Netossa threatening Catra about the consent issue despite how Adora didn’t seem upset. It’s just something she has to do as director. I ended up reducing it to a one-sentence mention later in the fic, but I thought about having a scene where, after a few nights of them kissing on stage, Netossa goes to Catra’s dressing room and asks her if Adora ever gave her permission for that, to which Catra says yes she’s fine with that, and Netossa corrects her and says did Adora ever give you verbal, explicit permission for that at which point Catra goes quiet and Netossa then demands she go to Adora’s dressing room and secure it before she’s allowed to leave for the night. Cure Catra awkwardly standing in Adora’s doorway asking Adora if it’s okay for them to kiss during the show as Netossa stands down the hall and waits for her. Adora was very bewildered but could tell Catra was being put up to it from the way she kept glancing to the side so she just agreed because she didn’t want them to get in trouble and Catra quickly fled. It just didn’t even up fitting in the flow of the story because it meant verbally acknowleding what they were doing earlier than they were supposed to so that’s why I changed it to Netossa privately asking Adora instead of forcing a confrontation, which is the better thing for Netossa to do anyway rather than force Adora to deal with it if she really were uncomfortable (the reason she did it in this version of the scene was because she was 100% certain it didn’t bother Adora but was doing her duty as director).

Chapter 7: Happiness Comes / When Everything Numbs

⦁ Chapter title from Freeze Your Brain.

⦁ Forever thinking about ND’s “and it was” comic.

⦁ Real shoutout to the person who informed me about the official stage recording of the later version of the West End Heathers because I definitely did not remember any of the dialogue outside of songs and it let me take notes to write scenes like the croquet scene, which is like 50% similar to the one that actually takes place in the musical. A lot of the dialogue not overtly related to Veronica’s queerness is the same, but a little bit of the action was changed around to extend the scene for the extra dialogue and include using an actual ball, because Glimmer being frighteningly accurate at hitting things with a giant mallet felt right.

Chapter 8: Fight For Me

⦁ Heather tries to get Veronica to admit she’s into girls so much so that she can have blackmail over her to keep her in line, although she doesn’t actually need her to admit it, she just knows Veronica would be more afraid of the threat whenever she makes it if Veronica is aware it’s something Heather has 100% confirmed to be true.

⦁ I didn’t include it because I didn’t want to have to cover every scene with differences in here, but in the 7/11 Heather bothers Veronica more about clearly being into girls and is mildly homophobic to JD. Then, in the scene after Dead Girl Walking and Veronica’s nightmare, as Veronica is freaking out about getting to Heather and making amends before Monday, she tells JD in clear terms “She’s going to out me and tell the school I’m bi” which is what Adora was referring to in chapter three when she mentions this version of the musical having the word bisexual in the opening act.

⦁ I know what y’all are going to think this was inspired by, but it’s actually inspired by a fucking Try Guys Korean bbq video where they went karaokeing afterwards. I’ve never been to a karaoke place like that and it got me thinking.

Chapter 9: Big Fun!

⦁ When the show started, Bow and Sea Hawk were both given like packs of the exact same underwear (one in blue variants, one in red variants, and one in black variants) so they could match throughout the show. It’d be easier to coordinate if it was all the same pair, but they wanted the variety for people who came to multiple shows. They actually have a lot of fun coordinating and then, on their own, decided to get a pair of those classical heart-print boxers that they throw in occasionally. Sometimes that’s just based on a day when they don’t want to wear something as revealing as the tighty-whities they usually wear, but usually it’s as a gag.

⦁ It was too awkward to shoe-in here, but part of reworking the choreography around You’re Welcome included the decision to have robes backstage for Bow and Sea Hawk, which they don’t often use, but if it’s a night where Adora is getting overwhelmed intermission is a lot more comfortable if Bow and Sea Hawk aren’t wandering around naked. Sea Hawk’s has feathers along the collar and cuffs.

⦁ Glimmer’s best friends all have abs and she has no idea how sharp her elbows can be.

⦁ Glimmer did realize she was flying a little too close to the sun with Adora if she responded to Catra’s flirting.

⦁ Yeah Catra brought her strap.

⦁ Catra was just a little tired during that show, so she asked Entrapta for some of the drain cleaner as a pickup since it has a lot of sugar, and she was taking a few seconds to rest before she had to go be feral on stage again.

⦁ When I first told my friend Meta I was doing a Heathers fic, Catra downing the fake drain cleaner like shots was one of the first jokes they made and I had to include it.

⦁ Adora thinks there is — a chance — that Catra wants to be dating after this exchange where she says it’s not “a problem”, but she’s definitely worried about saying anything too soon or too presumptive and scaring her off, so she’s just going to lowkey keep acting like they’re seeing each other and hope Catra will open up enough for them to have a conversation about it eventually.

⦁ The people at stage door the night they got “dinner”, and the night they actually got dinner, and the night they went home together, all definitely thought they were dating but only the ones from the first night even thought that might be news. The girl who was a big fan of Catra kept it to herself and her friends, but one half of the couple publicly tweeted the picture they got with Catra and Adora that night mentioning they got to take photos before they went off on a date, but that picture didn’t make its way back to Catra because she wasn’t tagged in it and not that many people “noticed” per se. Final bow was when everyone was like ah so there is something fruity going on there, but even then a lot of people weren’t sure, and it’s something that just got solidified over the coming months as they were seen together more, kissed in public, got a little sappy on Instagram, etc and everyone retroactively realized they were right.

Chapter 10: Beautiful

⦁ Usually the chapter titles are either lyrics that match the chapter or a song that features in a chapter, but in the case of “Beautiful”, it was a thematic match. Beautiful features Veronica picturing her future and the next phase in her life. For this chapter Catra is also exploring her future and her next steps. And also she’s gay for Adora.

⦁ The First Contact scene started as a Mass Effect joke (iykyk) and then I ended up including it. I honestly thought I was going to cut it because it’s kind of random but the point was to show how long they’ve known each other and they have their own world of games and jokes that they lost when they lost each other, so I ended up keeping it.

⦁ Cheekbone > Clavicle > Cupid’s bow (aka Achimenes longiflora) > Gums (aka Alveolar process).

⦁ Catra freezes up after Adora asks what she gets for a good show because she can’t bring herself to say “Me.”

⦁ Shot in the Dark is one of the episodes of the show I’ve rewatched the most, when they find Melog and Catra learns about the power of friendship. The musical was either going to be called that or White Out tbh (real ones know my relationship with that episode) but Catra is playing a magicat specifically in this role so going with the Melog episode felt right.

Chapter 11:

⦁ The blanket came from Lance, actually.

⦁ What’s my ideal choreography for Meant To Be Yours? So glad you definitely asked. This scene is usually presented so abstractly I don’t think someone unfamiliar with the musical/movie would even know Veronica is hiding in her closet. My ideal version (with the staging already set up in this play) is the house facade with the window being rolled in on one side of set (only one just cuz there isn’t time) and JD appearing on the other side of the window (with the light off so it’s more like he’s creepy in the dark) and doing his knock knock thing. Veronica in the middle of the stage panics and runs to the back of center stage, where it’s carefully choreographed for the ghosts (Kurt and Ram) to be rolling in an open doorframe that she runs through and Heather slams behind her. Then Kurt and Ram would lean against each side of the doorframe making fed up and “can you believe this dude?” faces at each other as JD has his whole villain speech in center stage before going to pound on the door and finally wrenching it open to reveal Veronica hanging on the other side with Heather kind of “in the corner” making a comedic fake shock face looking between JD and Veronica as JD breaks down. When he leaves and Veronica struggles to get down for a second, Heather would roll her eyes and help as Kurt and Ram wheel off the door and then quickly move the house facade off stage as it transitions to Dead Girl Walking (Reprise).

Chapter 12:

⦁ My idea for this AU was that Catra would have a “stage mom” and then their acting coach would have been Shadow Weaver to get that Trauma Backstory™️, which means Catra needed actual parents. I already had the pair from Trade Today For Tomorrow, so I wasn’t going come up with a new set of names, but it does feel kind of wrong to have changed Leona to be a “bad” mom. In general, if/when I do use them again, I’ll be using their TTFT personalities. Also, in this AU Leona isn’t awful or anything, but she really wanted to be an actress and it didn’t work out so she has been pushing her child in that direction even when it was painful, which gave them a tense relationship. Most of my other Catras would be thrilled to have parents like this, but Catra doesn’t have that context for None or Very Bad parents, so she’s just another person with an awkward relationship with her parents and doesn’t think about it too much.

⦁ Catra used to spend Christmas ever at Adora’s house and then Christmas at her own/moms’ when they were kids.

Chapter 13:

⦁ My original idea for a childhood dream musical was to stick Adora in Wicked because you know Mara is a sucker for that show, but for mezzo-soprano it’s mainly Elphaba, and the whole point was giving her a role that wasn’t lead. I settled on Chicago because something LGBT is happening in that prison and I think Mara and Hope would both like the show. Adora is going to play Mona in Chicago, a fairly minor character who gets a solo verse in Cell Block Tango when describing why she killed her lover for cheating on her. She appears (namelessly) in more songs but also gets off-stage time, and that song is absolutely ICONIC, so Adora is really excited to get to take part in it, even if it’s pushing the absolute limits of her dancing ability. She does a lot of practicing leading up to the show, so Catra is worried for a bit about her getting too busy and their relationship faltering about, but it balances out after the initial push. Adora’s moms are super psyched when they hear she’s going to be in the show and the marketing team ends up releasing the Broadway cast’s version of Cell Block Tango online at the open of the show to drum up hype for it, so Adora really hits one of her big career dreams — though still with room to grow, if she can get it with a larger role and a full album. This role shows her that headlining isn’t all there is to musical theater, though, and having smaller parts can really by worth it for the off-time.

⦁ Uh so. Mona’s outfit. The outfits for the inmates in Cell Block Tango are usually pretty close to lingerie. Adora has a bodysuit, because it works for the song and she’s more comfortable being covered in something skintight than just wearing two pieces, but it’s still quite a Lot for her parents to see it. They know what they’re in for though and everybody just neglects to address it after the show when they praise her voice. Catra loves Adora in the outfit though.

⦁ Based on my previous formatting Shot in the Dark, Chicago, and Hello, Again should actually just be written out without italics, but because the nature of the titles (length and formatting) make it confusing without italics and clunky with quotes, so I ended up just being inconsistent between them and Heathers.

Original Outline:

I outlined this one pretty heavily going into it, in the way I used to for my fics where I’d write like a one-sentence summary of every scene planned in a chapter going in. Of course, I knew I would add and change scenes as I went, but I was pretty faithful to the outline outside of additions. I was outlined out to chapter 8 but thought it would expand to about 12 chapters between the ending I hadn’t outlined (I needed to be closer to it to know what the right conclusion was) and scenes adding themselves in along the way to up the count, and I finally put that count on the fic when I was writing chapter 10 or so, but then I realized I fucking forgot about the cast album and I got the idea for the bar scene so all of Chapter 12 ended up getting added and expanding it to 12 chapters.

The only “big” thing that didn’t happen was the catnip thing, which was mostly a joke I outlined anyway, but it was just too much from several angles so I cut it before I finished it. The idea was someone pulling a prank on Catra by putting catnip on her vanity and getting her lowkey high. Non-destructively pulling something on a castmate’s dressing room is pretty common antics, but this felt… very targeted and tense even though the castmate was doing it fairly innocently and just ignorant of that angle to it, so I didn’t want to go through with it. Catra was going to corner Adora though and demand if she fucked with her dressing room, and when Adora was obviously confused by the confrontation, fall into her arms and aggressively scentmark her even as she growled explaining the vandalism, which Adora offered to clean up for her and let her use her dressing room to change so she didn’t get more exposure to it. Again, the “getting a castmate a little high” thing, even accidentally (they didn’t realize it had much of an effect) was just not a line I — or the cast — wanted to cross, though.

Upcoming:

The 4th anniversary SPOP Big Bang is going to run May 12th-18th and I’ll be posting daily for the first few days with my magical realism AU Lightbeam along with my amazing artist partner who made an illustration for every chapter! Keep an eye out for it :)

[elegantfelinity]

the production of cats you saw sounds really cool, can you say more about it it sounds like it was awesome!!

i have to do this in parts and w acronyms bc my thoughts are too long for tumblr to comprehend in one post lmao gladly ! there’s a lot that happened that i love to share , so i’m gonna start at the beginning of the show . bomba came out first instead of demeter - she looked right at me the second time i went . this was my favorite ver of the naming of cats EVER . i was in the front row both times i went , so the cats were literally inches away from me whenever they were off stage . the first time i went , alonzo crawled across the aisle and basically sat in front of my mom and i till the song ended . the second time mungo was literally a foot away from me . basically inches because he was reaching his hand out , staring into my soul the entire time . i’m not even exaggerating . like i said in my response to your post , there weren’t many changes to my surprise . they did extend jenny’s song to give her a tap solo . if i remember correctly , i think a few other cats joined in . my brain couldn’t compute at first that it was jelly , dem and bomba singing together at the beginning when i first went because dem was still yellow and bomba was red , but jelly was blue . i'm not gonna complain tho , since i don’t really mind it and i got a pic w jelly in costume after the show , she was nice <3 i'm kinda scared to talk about tugger’s song publicly bc it was wild . i thought the guy playing tugger was great ( i got a pic w him too :D ) , he even sounded like john partridge at some points , but the choreo was definitely a choice . instead of misto singing the terrible bore line , he was off stage for a majority of the song , and a group of toms did instead . i don't get why they had to have all the queens in a circle squealing for him . it's less cringey when jellylorum herself isn't joining the kittens . granted , she was obviously younger in this prod , but i still didn't like the change . i loved the tuggerlurinaness though . i'm insane about them , ask any of my friends and they can tell you personally how annoying i am about them . my favorite part was when she was clinging to him while he was walking across the stage . 9/10 , i was genuinely scared for his song going in the first time . i talked about it here , but tugger doesn’t inherently reject bomba , which gives me all the confirmation i need that tuggerlurina's canon 😇 the griz they casted has one of the best voice i've ever heard , i genuinely prefer her to elaine paige . i almost started crying when she sang the memory reprise at the second performance . continuing in order , i really liked this ver of griz's song . only minor detail i didn’t enjoy is there was a lot of giggling when she came on stage . it felt like they were trying to make a point with them all mocking her , but the exaggerated giggles only work for mungo and rump , not dem and bomba . OH MY GOD THIS MUNGOJERRIE AND RUMPLETEAZER WERE PERFECT . they're literally my favorite performers of the roles now . they were funny , had great voices , and just worked so well together . and they let teazer keep her pearl necklace , 10 / 10 . old deut came out through the audience for his song . idk if he does that in official productions , but he did here . i sat on the right aisle seat the first time i went and literally front row center the second time . he came down through the left aisle , so i didn’t really get to process his entrance because he was all the way on the other side . either way , cute detail . my mom and i have an inside joke abt deut , so i was kinda pointing at her during the song . i think the actor noticed , which was cool .

[junkdrawernoggin]

SPOILERS for CINDERELLA'S CASTLE

Wanted to put a warning because if you can see it you should, and for all the folks who are going to wait for the YouTube release. There are also critiques in here, so if you don't want to see that, pass on by and have a good day!

I really really enjoyed it! I have a couple issues with it so I'll get those out of the way first. I mean these with all respect and kindness to the cast and crew.

Main Issue: You can tell who is an old Starkid member

This distracted me a lot. In this production there are only 3 original members on stage (I'm counting anyone who did AVPMs). That's Jeff Blim, Lauren Lopez, and Joey Richter. They are obviously all very talented. However

My critique for Lauren is that she did the same voice for Rancilda that she did for Ruth, and I wasn't a fan when she did it then. I haven't loved any of her sniveling loser roles, finding them far too annoying to enjoy. Emma and Zazzalil were fantastic, as well as her Tin Can roles. Please let her do that instead.

Edit: The Rancilda voice is actually not Ruth's. There is another character she does that has this exact same shrill thing going on, but for the life of me I cannot recall who it is.

Jeff is a great song writer, but he consistently writes himself parts that are out of his comfortable range. That or his vocal health is in serious disrepair by performance time. The "Castle on a Hill" demo sounds great, but in the DT performance I can almost feel the strain. I miss his lower range.

Joey did amazing puppet work; I especially enjoyed the parts where he was the old dwarf. The problem comes with the singing. NPMD I enjoyed his singing, and he's been good in the Tin Can productions. But you can hear him straining in the background which I felt hindered some of the ensemble parts.

I LOVE the old cast. They all bring unique skills to the table. But I think they are very comfortable now, and also sometimes make choices they think are good but in actuality hinder themselves. I'd love if a different writer came on board to mix things up. They need to be unafraid of giving honest feedback.

Now to the good!

The "new" cast members are so incredible!

Bryce rocked it, and I'm glad to see her highlighted after how well she did in NPMD. She sold every emotion, and her mix of wit and despair was heartcrushing. I would watch a 10 hour version of this production just to see more of her.

James was great. I don't find overly sexual humor that funny, but he did very well keeping a straight face and being utterly sincere with it all.

I will fully admit I have a crush on Kim and Curt, which colors my perspective of them a bit. Kim is such an incredible singer, I could listen to her all day. She's only the Fairy Queen for like...10ish minutes but she absolutely and utterly steals the show. No one else could've sold me that hard on how ethereal she was. Curt impossibly has chemistry with literally every person he's paired with. From the previews I was hoping Tadius and Ella would be paired up, so I am peachy pleased it turned out that way!

Jon was great, his role was clearly inspired by Septimus from Labyrinth and I love how hard he leaned into that.

I also adore Mariah, and I really loved this for her. She has had a pretty wild amount of diversity in all of her roles for Starkid. I was happy to see her really lean into the comedy and shenanigans of it all.

And the cherry on top, ANGELA!!!! I will admit, in Black Friday i wasn't her biggest fan. Mostly because I was so disappointed Mariah was unable to be in that production. However, she utterly shocked me in NPMD, that girl is MADE to play villains!!! I was a bit confused on why Angela was chosen for the stepmother and not Lauren, but oh boy when she came on stage I was HOOKED! She was fantastic. Is she a great singer? In my personal opinion, no not really. Do I really care? NOT AT ALL!! Highlight of the show 10/10

Also the set design was fucking incredible!! I like that they downsized (or at least it looked like they downsized) from the NPMD stage. It looked empty all the time. This time it felt so full and high budget. The lighting was phenomenal, the first time I've ever noticed lighting in a show and not for a bad reason.

The band was great, they always are!

The songs were...iffy. They didn't stick with me the way the NPMD ones did, certainly not like Black Friday or TGWDLM did. I'm a big music fan (I trained professionally to sing as well), so songs stick with me a lot even on a first listen. I know the opening "There's a castle on a hill as the story goes..." because I've watched the announcements so many times. Other than that, I really cannot tell you a single lyric from most of the songs in this show. Very odd for me.

Okay, going in for another watch. Maybe I'll have other opinions after.

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

Somebody's Watching

Season One Masterlist

A Real Rain

Charm and Harm

Summary: While in Los Angeles conducting a profiling seminar with the LAPD, Gideon and Reid are brought in to consult when someone commits a series of murders occurring around a young Hollywood actress, who becomes attracted to Reid.

Warnings: Stalking; Killing; J.D. Zoe being mean to Spencer; Spencer being mean to Zoe; Spencer cursing; Zoe is being a bit shady when it comes to her photo being taken, Obsessive Love

Note: *Although I have recast Lila, because she’s played by a real life UnSub (someone on Archive of Our Own said “she wasn’t but okay” but come on, look what she tried to do) and a genuinely awful person who tried to ruin a good man’s life, there will be passive-aggressive comments about her because I hate her that much because I love Johnny Depp so much. My mom actually wouldn't let me watch Aquaman because she didn't like Herd and this was before the scandal broke, she didn't trust her. I kept being reminded of different actresses because she looked so different or more likely, my brain was trying to replace her with someone I actually like rather than a terrible human being who can't act. She is now cast by Claire Holt from the Originals and H2o*

"When you have seen as much as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love." — J.K. Rowling

Diane Arbus once said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know."

March 26, 2006

Zoe's suspension was up and she was in California with Spencer and Gideon to give a lecture and Spencer had brought them to an art gallery that a semi-friend from high school was hosting. He hadn't been a friend exactly but he hadn't been one of the cruel ones to Spencer and defended him a few times which Spencer had appreciated.

"Spencer! Spencer Reid!" The man was older than Spencer, obviously and hugged Spencer who awkwardly tried to return it. "Dude, dude, dude. Look at you. You look just the same. Look at you, dude, nothing changed. Spencer was the only twelve-year-old in our graduating class. Just the same."

"Thanks." Spencer said.

"This is Special Agent Jason Gideon and this is Doctor Zoe Noble-Valdez." Spencer introduced, "This is Parker Dunley. We went to high school together, as you can probably gather."

"Yeah, I gathered." Zoe said.

"Hi. How are you?" Gideon introduced.

Hey." He said and then he looked at Zoe and Spencer didn't miss how he eyed Zoe. "You work with the FBI?"

"Yeah, Spencer was the youngest before I came along." Zoe said and she looked at her hand still in Parker's hand too long and she pulled it back as Spencer shifted, uncomfortably.

"It's a beautiful gallery." Gideon said.

"Oh, thank you, thank you."

"Uh, Jason's a big contemporary art enthusiast." Zoe said.

"Well, we're exhibiting four up-and-coming artists in this show. Everything's for sale." Parker said.

"Yeah, birds are his favorite. You got any of those" Zoe deadpanned.

Parker looked at Spencer who just shook his head with a fond smile like, she's always like that.

"And I could definitely swing a nice discount for a friend of..." He spotted a pretty blonde woman enter the room with a brunette friend. "Lila." He turned back to them to bring them to introduce them. "Hey. Guys, come on." He walked to the woman.

Spencer turned to Zoe and Gideon, "Do I look twelve-years-old to you?"

"Basically." Zoe deadpanned with a smirk. Not that she

"Fourteen?" Gideon said.

Spencer looked away and shook his head and followed Parker.

"Spencer, you ever meet a real movie star?" Parker asked.

"Movie star? Please. She has a supporting role on a television series about beach volleyball." Lila's friend said, "Totally blue-collar."

"I'm Lila." She introduced to Spencer.

"Hi, I'm uh, Doctor Spencer Reid. Um... I'm Spencer. You don't have to call me doctor." Spencer stammered.

"I won't."

"Doctor Zoe Noble-Valdez, M.D." Zoe said and then started to turn to make her leave before turning back around at such a quick pace that something was clearly wrong and standing stiffly as someone started to take pictures of Lila.

"Excuse me." Parker said and turned to confront the photographer, "Hey, you. I told you no photos in the gallery. All right? Out!

When the photographer moved as Parker made him move, still taking pictures of the group, Zoe ducked and reemerged with her leather jacket hood over her head but she wasn't sure if she had kept herself hidden enough.

A waiter offered them champagne, Lila took one and Spencer declined, Zoe immediately took it, rather annoyed with the situation but unable to leave without risk of getting her photo taken.

"So, you're not from around here, are you?"

"No." Zoe said, blankly.

"Me? No, no. I'm... We're running a training service about profiling for the Los Angeles Police Department." Spencer explained.

"Profiling?" Lila asked.

"Yeah, we're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. We psychoanalyze crime scenes in order to gain a better understanding of the criminal who might have committed the crime." Spencer explained.

"Psychoanalyze, huh?" Lila said and Spencer nodded and glanced away awkwardly.

Zoe stuck her tongue out in disgust. Barf.

"Are you doing that to me right now?" Lila asked

"What? No. I'm not psychoanalyzing you. I'm just..." Spencer stammered.

"I'm kidding." Lila chuckled and Spencer pressed his lips together, nodding.

He noticed Zoe, giving him a rather annoyed look as Lila was clearly charmed by Spencer's awkward nature.

"You're an idiot." Zoe said.

"What?" Spencer asked but she then spun and getting on her phone, deeming possibly being caught on camera was worth getting away from these two.

"Hey, J.D." He caught her say before she disappeared into the crowd. Spencer bit his tongue. "Hey, uh, I know this is just a message but I might have been captured on some paparazzi photos and I'd really appreciate it if you could search for those to make sure they don't reach anyone who may have seen me. I'm at an art gallery actually, I know you don't have many pleasant things to look at other than computer screens, I can look for one something that you'd like as a thank you. And if I wasn't, just... I can't say I'm sorry because I was doing my job but you are where you are because of me. Bye, J.D. I hope you get this soon."

Zoe was examining a piece of art that was closest to JD's taste but still not to it. It was gothic enough. He was dark. When she got the call from him.

He spoke to her with his usual... JD-ness, only she ever understood him. Zoe knew she shouldn't smile when she talked to him but she still did which Spencer noted bitterly.

"I don't think any of these are to your liking. Too modern. You're both. You're classical and modern." Then she spotted Gideon looking deeply uncomfortable. "Uh, Gideon looks like he's freaking out, I gotta go but I'll call you later. Well, Johnson can say that to my face, if he wants. We both know he won't."

"Zoe, let's go. Where's the kid?" Zoe led Gideon to Spencer.

"I can't tell you how to feel." Lila said.

"Right now I feel pretty good." Spencer said, awkwardly.

"We're leaving." Gideon told him

"We're still looking at the exhibit." Spencer protested.

"Now." Gideon said but Spencer hesitated, "Now. Now."

"Uh, yeah, yeah, I guess we're leaving." He shook Lila's hand, "Nice to meet you."

"You too..."

"Reid, now." Gideon said.

"Bye, Spencer." Lila chuckled and watched as he awkwardly weaved his way around the caterers, meeting up with Zoe who was downing a last glass of champagne and not looking at him, determinedly.

——————————————————————————————————

March 27, 2006

They gave the lecture to the LAPD in the morning, "Today, we thought we'd focus on what is probably the most important component of profiling... or, for that matter, any investigative technique, victimology. The word victim stems from the Latin word, 'victima,' which means sacrifice. Victims of violent crimes are brutalized by a subject who takes it upon him or herself to decide life or death over a fellow human being."

Zoe jumped into her work as usual. "There are around sixteen million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Every time a person is killed, robbed or raped, the most important question you will ask yourself is why. Why did your UnSub choose this victim at this time? Was there anything done which provoked the criminal to act or was the target available or weak? A casualty of circumstance?"

Spencer had never seen Zoe be so focused on a lecture, she didn't give one sarcastic comment, and she seemed to be ignoring him.

The detective who had invited them walked the three to their car, Detective Owen Kim.

"You know, we really can get ourselves to the airport." Gideon said.

"I didn't invite the FBI here to let them make their own way around town." He said.

"We really appreciate it." Spencer said.

"Hey, I can't thank you guys enough for conducting the seminar." Kim said.

"Well, don't hesitate to call if there's anything we can help with." Gideon said.

They started to pack up their things when Kim got a call and stepped aside to take it. His body language seemed to change as he got off it.

"Everything all right?" Zoe asked.

"Double murder at a Hollywood bungalow. A celebrity. A young movie star, Natalie Ryan, and her fiancé apparently shot to death. It's going to be a major pain in the ass." Kim said, "Hey, you guys care to take a quick look before I drive you to the airport? It's on the way."

"Absolutely."

Zoe unattached her motorcycle, not wanting to sit next to Spencer and drove off at once.

Kim, Spencer, and Gideon met up with Zoe at the crime scene as she examined the bodies. The woman was on her couch with a bullet to the head, eyes open

"No sign of forced entry." Spencer noted.

"Same weapon." Gideon said.

"Natalie was shot execution style, once in the head. Jeremy Collins, her fiancé, three times in the torso." Zoe said.

"So, you have two different MOs." Gideon said.

Kim approached them, "We have an image on the video surveillance camera. Looks like a messenger of some kind wearing a motorcycle helmet. He's unidentifiable."

"There's no sign of a struggle between the girl and the UnSub from the door to the couch. He most likely forced her at gunpoint." Spencer said.

"He told her to trust him, 'Do what I say. I won't hurt you'." Zoe said.

"Fatal mistake." Kim said and Zoe hummed in agreement.

"He asked her to sit on the couch and then shot her in the head."

"Fiancé wasn't expected. His killing's messier. It's less controlled. It's less organized." Gideon said and looked at Kim, "What do you think?" "I've had a couple other cases recently, past few months. Same type of weapon, .22 caliber handgun, both shot in the head. The first was an established film producer, Wally Melman, and the second was Chloe Harris, another young actress. Though not as well-known as Natalie here." Kim said.

"Sounds like a pattern." Zoe said.

"Any forensic evidence?" Spencer asked.

"No, and the guys have been going through this place all morning and haven't come up with anything."

"So, he clearly knows how to cover his tracks." Zoe said, walking around.

"Like a professional hit man?"

"Maybe." Zoe said and then she suddenly ducked and reemerged, looking annoyed and with her hood back over her head.

"Gideon, there are people actually taking photographs of us from the next yard." Spencer said, looking at what made Zoe duck.

"Yeah, welcome to LA." Kim said.

"Well, some of us don't want their photo taken." Zoe grumbled, turning away from the paparazzi.

Zoe made her way back to the bodies and turned her back to the windows.

"Twenty-two's are small, but efficient. They bounce around inside a person like a pinball." Zoe said.

"Preferred weapon of the Mafia." Spencer said, "You know, there's no obvious sexual component to these crimes, which is usually the case with serial murders."

"So, you are thinking this is a serial killer?" Kim asked.

"Well, it's certainly a series of murders. We don't know enough yet to call them serial." Gideon said.

"Would you consider hanging out in LA a little while?" Kim asked. "Let me lean on your expertise until we do figure out what we've got?"

"As long as I don't get my photo taken." Zoe deadpanned.

"Yeah, just cancel the flights. We'll have the rest of our team out here ASAP."

——————————————————————————————————

Kim listened to what the team had come up with so far once the rest of them arrived.

"This guy is an assassin?"

"When you look at the victimology, there's no obvious links." Morgan said, "All the kills are clean, except in the instance of the last victim, Jeremy Collins."

"There's absolutely no evidence left at the crime scene. There's no DNA. No manifestation of psychosexual release and there's no detectable signature of any kind." Elle said.

"Remember, our profiles are formulated not just by what's present at the scene, but also what's absent." Gideon said.

"From all the evidence that we've gathered, we believe that you're looking for a Type Four Assassin." Alexander said.

"Type Four?"

"Type One's are political assassins like John Wilkes Booth." Spencer explained.

"Type Two's are egocentrics looking for simple recognition." Zoe said.

"Type Three's are psychopaths, cold-blooded killers who leave far messier scenes." Hotch said.

"And Type Four, our UnSub, suffers from a major mental disorder and is frequently delusional." Alexander said.

"The closer we come to figuring out that delusion, the closer we'll get to finding the UnSub." Spencer said.

"Well, what's he going to be doing until we do?" Kim asked.

"Finding other victims." Gideon said.

A man entered, "Excuse me?" He knocked on the open doorway, "Hi. Is there a Detective Kim here?""

"Right here.

"You're heading the investigation into the Natalie Ryan murder?" The man asked.

"Yes."

"Um... My... I have a client, she's... Is there any place we could be private?" He asked.

"We're all working this murder." Kim said.

"Well... She received a note. My client did and she freaked out. I told her not to worry about it, and..." He explained.

"Where's the note?" Morgan asked and the man handed it to him, it was an article about Natalie Ryan's death with three words written in red: You owe me.

"Where is your client?" Hotch asked.

"She's waiting in the other room."

"Reid, Zoe, let's go." Morgan said.

Zoe, Morgan, and Spencer walked through the precinct and... you gotta be kidding me.

"Lila." Spencer recognized her. Why wouldn't he? "Hi."

The team came to interrogate her.

"How well did you know Natalie Ryan?" Hotch asked.

"We spoke when we saw each other in public, but we were never friends." Lila said.

"How about Wally Melman?" Hotch asked.

"What?" Lila asked.

"Wally Melman, he was a producer who was killed a couple months ago." Zoe clarified.

"The-the paper said that was a robbery." Lila stammered.

"Well, the paper was wrong." Zoe said, somewhat curtly.

"Did you know him?"

"Well, we met a few times about a project, but I didn't get the part. They went a different way." Lila said.

"Which way?" Elle asked.

“He cast another act..." Realization came to her face, "Oh, my God."

"What is it?" Spencer asked.

"He cast Natalie Ryan." Her agent, Michael said.

"You owe me." Morgan held up the article with the note.

Lila sighed, devastated in guilt and put her head in her hands.

"I guess that's one way to ice out the competition?" Elle said.

"Don't look at me. I brought her into the police station." Michael pointed out.

"Have you ever had a sense that someone is watching you, following you?" Gideon asked.

"From the moment I get to work," Lila said, "I have hair and makeup, and wardrobe people, producers, writers, my agent, my manager, publicist. Not to mention photographers. I..."

"It's part of the life." Michael said.

"Anything that seems odd, out of the ordinary, happens on a regular basis or a semi-regular basis?" Gideon asked.

"What do you mean?" Lila asked.

"Repetitive phone calls with hang ups? Gifts left anonymously?" Spencer suggested.

"I receive flowers on the seventh of each month they just appear in my trailer. Never a note. Just a plain glass bowl. Red anemones. My favorite." She said.

"And you don't want to know who they're from?" Zoe asked.

"Celebrities get anonymous gifts all the time." Michael said, "She has fans, you know."

"You remember meeting anyone on the seventh day of the month?" Gideon asked, "Or in July, the seventh month of the year?"

"No."

"Wally Melman was a producer who considered hiring you but didn't and Natalie was a rival."

"And Chloe Harris, she looks a lot like you. Don't you think?" Elle asked, showing a picture of her.

"Who?" Lila asked.

"A potential rival." Elle said.

"She was murdered, too." Hotch said.

They doing a real good job at scaring this girl.

"So, all these people are being killed because of me?

"It's possible." Hotch admitted.

Lila put her head in her hands, briefly, this was too much for her. "I'm sorry. I can't. I have to go."

Spencer hurried after Lila, calling her name. He ran awkwardly out the station after her.

She turned to him, "What's happening, Spencer?"

Spencer brushed his hair out of his face as he explained, "Well, it's still rather speculative, but it appears there's a delusional assassin who's killing people to help further your career. It probably started as a stalker. An erotomanic stalker. There's a psychopathology of the evolution of these types of stalkers and the fact that he's contacting you indicates that he believes you owe him something. This model frequently concludes itself with one of two possibilities, either the stalker will kill himself or he'll kill the object of his affection."

——————————————————————————————————

When Spencer left, Zoe shifted and grabbed the file from Hotch aggressively and sat down, going through it.

Morgan did a full turn and walked away, not stupid enough to tease Zoe at the moment.

Alexander came up to her and sat down, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" She asked, shortly and hostilely.

"No reason. No reason." He sighed. "Just a father worries when his only daughter who he knows where she is faces heartache over the boy she's smitten with."

Zoe slammed her hands on the table. "I am not smitten!" She growled out.

"Of course not." He said, blankly, being sarcastic.

"He's twenty-four, he's a great guy, he's smart, single, and still a virgin. I don't get a say in his love life."

"You get a love life too as much as it pains for me to admit." Alexander said.

"No, I don't. The Satanists and the serial killer who paid them to kidnap me made sure of that. Because of them, I can't trust people and I can't let myself feel. Emotional detachment, remember? The last boyfriend I had now has multiple life sentences in jail because of me.”

She looked outside, seeing Lila walking away from Spencer who watching her go and tilting his head, obviously checking her out.

She groaned and dropped her head on the table.

"You're going to have to hit your head harder if you wish to induce a concussion, sweetheart." Her father deadpanned.

“I hate everything.” She groaned.

——————————————————————————————————

March 28, 2006

They gave the profile in the morning.

"With this UnSub we're looking at a compound profile. A Type Four delusional assassin with an erotomanic fixation on the actress, Lila Archer."

Zoe didn't like Lila. She was aware of that even if she was vehemently denying the possibility on why. But she knew what it was like to have an erotomanic stalker with murderous tendencies. Every time she got a package, she feared it would be another bouquet of white lilies covered in blood. She couldn't look at any kind of lilies without seeing them. Sometimes she felt like he was still watching her.

"Erotomanics are a form of stalker who possess the delusional belief that another person, usually of a higher social status, is in love with them."

Zoe's hand went to her biggest scar, all of them aching.

"This phenomena is commonly just thought of as another stalker case to many but they are quite dangerous. Famous erotomaniacs include John Hinckley Junior, Margaret Mary Ray, Michael David Barrett, and John Robert Bardo." Zoe said.

"In the United States, at any given time, there are over two hundred, thousand people being stalked." Elle said. "Our UnSub is having a fantasy love affair with Lila Archer. The way John Hinckley did with Jodie Foster."

"Miss Archer was not aware of her stalker until yesterday." Hotch said, "He wasn't trying to impress her. He was more like an unwanted, very violent guardian angel.

"When the stalker feels as if they've been in some way betrayed by their love object, this often leads to violence against the target." Gideon said.

"In the case of John Robert Bardo, when actress Rebecca Schaeffer took a role where she had to have a sexual relationship with another character, it was enough to force him to snap and seek her out to kill her." Spencer said.

"Though stalkers can be either male or female, it's most likely we're looking for a single male. A loner in his late twenties to early forties, very intelligent with ample time to follow his victim and study her habits." Hotch said.

"As of yet, the UnSub has not directed any violence towards Miss Archer, but he has shifted his focus from those around her to her directly." Spencer said.

"This doesn't preclude the fact that anyone who has the vaguest association with Miss Archer is a potential target." Gideon said.

——————————————————————————————————

Lila had gotten another note that said: Lila—I've always been so good to you. Why would you go to the police?

They were in her trailer looking at the note in the evidence bag now

"I'm intrigued by this particular version of the verb 'to be." Gideon said.

"Past participle." Spencer said.

"Steady state of being. Preceding adverb." Gideon agreed.

"Always."

"In English." Kim requested.

"That is English. We're discussing the verb tenses..." Reid started.

"Reid. Reid." Morgan cut him off.

"No offense but now not the time for a vocab lesson." Zoe said.

Gideon turned to Officer Kim, "Our stalker sounds like someone she knows."

"Based on the tense of the verb." Spencer continued as Lila tilted her head back in exasperation.

Zoe looked at her and gave her a sympathetic smile like, sorry about this.

"Maybe it's time to get her off the street." Morgan suggested.

"You know there's been no physical threat to her. She might be safe just staying put as opposed to anywhere else." Spencer countered.

"I'm standing right here, guys." Lila complained.

“If we did remove you, we’d have to take you to an undisclosed location. I’m sure your stalker knows where you live.” Gideon said.

“I’m not having the whole show close down. I only need one more scene to shoot. Look, last night I decided I wasn’t gonna be afraid of this lunatic." Lila said, reminding Alexander of a rather defiant pair of girls he fathered.

Lila looked at Detective Kim, “Am I safe here?”

“The set’s cleared of everyone except essential personnel, and we have increased security at the gate.” Kim relented.

"But if the stalker sees that she's moved then they may feel more betrayed and try to find her and that never ends well. We don't know how much they know about her." Zoe pointed out.

There was a knock and a young woman with blonde hair around Lila's age stuck her head in. Zoe couldn't get a read off her since she was looking at Lila with the back of her head facing the law enforcement. “Lila, they’re ready for you.”

“Thanks, Mags. I’m staying at work” Lila said and left the trailer.

“Well, she’s one tough girl,” Derek stated the obvious.

“Yeah,” Spencer agreed.

Zoe showed no reaction, putting on her usual apathetic facade.

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, but his anger about her going to the police suggests he might alter his agenda." Gideon said.

"It’s typical for a stalker,” Morgan said.

“She didn’t go alone to the police.”

“Her manager took her.” Zoe recalled, "the stalker could perceive him as guilty for getting the police involved.

“You, Morgan, and Reid stay here. Keep an eye on her,” Gideon instructed.

"Awesome." She muttered.

She both didn't want to stay and watch Lila flirt with Spencer while he remained painfully oblivious to it but stay to make sure they didn't cross any lines, not that they likely would with Spencer's utter inability to interact with other people, especially women.

"I'll hang back, too." Kim said.

"Where are you going?"  Morgan asked.

"To talk to her manager." Gideon said.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Zoe remained on set of this painfully dull set about beach volleyball. God, she hated the beach. She was on her phone searching for a painting to send to J.D. that he'd actually like or maybe she'd get him a book, but the problem was finding on he hadn't read yet.

Zoe looked up, seeing Spencer bump into a camera and try not to knock it down as he made his way to speak to Lila who had put a robe over her bikini.

"Sorry, if I was, um, insensitive last night." Spencer apologized to her.

"You're only doing your job, right?" Lila asked as Spencer drank some a coke bottle.

"Yeah."

"Then there's no need to apologize." She said, giving a doey-eyed look as she sipped her tea or coffee but apparently it was one of those drinks she had to drink to keep her figure or something or she saw another opportunity to flirt because she made a disgusted face. "Ugh." Then she took Spencer's coke. "You don't mind sharing, do you?" She drank it without a reply but he answered anyways. Spencer shook his head.

"No." The germophobe said.

The bell rang, signifying her break was over, so she took off her robe and moved past Spencer who was drinking from the soda again, trying and failing to appear as if he wasn't looking at Lila's body and watching her walk off.

Morgan walked up to Spencer and mimicked Lila, teasingly while Zoe hit the buttons on her phone harder than necessary. "You don't mind sharing with me, do you?"

"Shut up." Spencer told him, sharply.

"Go get 'em, lover."

Spencer went to walk after Lila before realizing he was going in the wrong direction.

Zoe rolled her eyes. "I didn't think you had it in you to be jealous."

Zoe sharply brought her head up from her phone and glared at Morgan. "I am not jealous."

"Then why are you upset?"

"I am not upset. Spencer's just a friend and I don't have any feelings for him and he doesn't have any feelings for me."

Are you blind? Morgan thought.

"Even if he did, he can do much better than me." She said.

Morgan's teasing smirk fell, "You don't really believe that do you."

"My last boyfriend... wasn't totally dissimilar from Spencer. High IQ, Neurodivergent, book lover, but he was... he was homeless when I met him, and I was in a bad place. We clicked because we had similar traumas, but we never really labeled it. I let him help in the cases I was working on when I was Maze's apprentice and we both ended up being kidnapped for six months. What he saw in that prison... it was my fault. And what he did after that led to him being arrested was my fault too. He was survived so much only for me to finally break him."

"You didn't break him, those men did."

"They hurt us but me more than him because I volunteered to be tortured instead of him."

"You volunteered to be tortured."

"He had been hurt so much, if I could keep him from feeling more pain, then I would. And I did. I can take it. That's something you learn when you're being tortured just because." Zoe said, "I'm too broken for someone like Spencer. Even if we did have those feelings, he could do so much better than me." She stiffened up, "If anyone asks, I never said a word."

Morgan saw he had something in common with Zoe. They had both been hurt by men who took advantage of them, even if they weren't aware of it in each other's past yet but they had ways of refusing relationships because of it.

——————————————————————————————————

Michael Ryler, Lila's agent had been shot in the head. They were too late.

Zoe left the studio with Morgan and Kim while Spencer had taken Lila to her house when Elle called, he put her on speaker phone while Zoe pulled her hoodie over her head.

"Morgan, it's Elle."

"Yeah?

"We just found a manila envelope on Michael Ryer's desk. It's full of photos."

"Okay."

"Well, they're candid shots of Lila Archer nude. I'm guessing he was probably paying someone off to keep them out of the press." Elle said as they got in the car, a groan rumbling in Zoe's throat.

"Do we know who?"

"The name on the envelope was Joe Martinez."

"The paparazzo?" Kim asked.

"You know him?"

"Yeah, I deal with him a lot."

"So the creep kind?" Zoe asked.

"You could say that."

"Elle, we're on it."

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Spencer entered Lila's house which was more lavish than his apartment that could be mistaken for a mini-library.

"Wow. I like your house."

"I rent it." Lila said.

"Nice. You should also probably change all your phone numbers." Spencer said.

"I'm unlisted." She told him.

"Anytime you call an 800 number or an 888 number your phone number's put into a data bank that's then sold to telemarketers. If someone gets your cell phone number, they can go online and research all your records." Spencer explained.

Lila looked at him with the usual look.

"Hanging out with you could be really depressing." She said, walking to a different part of the house.

Spencer could practically hear Zoe's remark: He gets that a lot.

"You should also probably carry a piece of paper and a pen with you where ever you go in case you see any suspicious license plates that often reappear." Spencer said, following.

Spencer saw a piece of part that seemed to be randomized bits and pieces.

"Photographic collage." Lila said, "I like it because it's like life, you know? You know, like obscure, difficult."

Spencer nodded and then said, "You should also get a dog. Like a guard dog of some sort."

"Allergic." She said. "Earl Gray or Chamomile?"

"What?" He asked, still oblivious to her attempts to flirt with him and she walked off to the kitchen, "What..."

"Would you like some tea?" She clarified.

"Yes. Yes, uh, sure." He said and then mouthed to himself, scoldingly.

No wonder he had never had a real date-date.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Zoe beat Morgan to the door and kicked it down with her hood still up.

"FBI! Come out where ever you are, creep!" She shouted.

"Martinez?" Morgan shouted.

"The creep's not here. Probably on the prowl." Zoe sighed, coming upon what seemed to be practically a shrine to Lila Archer due to the amount of photos of her "Come look at this!"

"See? This guy's a real scumbag." Kim said.

"You got that right." Spencer said.

"Oh, this creeper." Zoe said, finding a picture of the first paparazzi, "He was taking pictures of her at the gallery we were at the other day. The owner had to kick him out. Morgan, do me a favor. If you see any photos of me, burn them. I'm not being sarcastic, I have a lot of enemies who know what I look like but don't know my name or where I actually live. If they know I'm in America now, it could cause a real problem."

Morgan spotted a piece of paper, "What's this?"

"It's a call sheet." Kim recognized. "It's the shooting schedule for a film or television show."

"That's Lila's show." Zoe recognized.

"Yeah."

"He's not supposed to have that, is he?" Morgan asked.

"No.

"So, at minimum, we can charge him with stalking because this," Zoe gestured around with a finger, "Goes beyond paparazzi to just plain stalking."

Zoe walked to a table and shifted through the photos. She stopped when she spotted a photo of Lila talking to a man. She knew the back of that man.

"Morgan, it's Spencer." Zoe called.

"There's a whole bunch of them." Kim said, shifting through the photos, some directly on Spencer, and some had Zoe in them, turning away from the camera. "He a target now?"

Zoe looked at him, "Not if I can help it. Let's go." Zoe headed to the door, leaving all the pictures of her behind. Who cared if any of those terrorists saw her in the paper, she had to go get Spencer.

"You and me both." Morgan agreed, right on her heels.

"You call him." Zoe said once they left.

Morgan rolled his eyes and called the second youngest agent in the team, "Reid, it's Morgan. Listen to me. You got to watch your back over there. We just found a bunch of close-up photos of you at this guy Joseph Martinez's studio. It looks like he could be the UnSub. He had a ton of photos of Lila and Natalie plus a call sheet for Lila's show. We're on our way right now," Zoe froze, "but I need you to be real careful until we get there, all right? All right."

Zoe had stopped and there was a motorcycle revving up.

"GET DOWN!" She shouted but before they could react gunshots went off at the car, hitting Kim.

Zoe and Morgan pulled their guns and shot at the motorcycle but they were too far away.

Zoe broke away and ran to Kim.

"You hit?" She asked.

"Yeah. It's just my shoulder." He said and Zoe went to applying pressure to the wound.

"All right. I'm calling for help." Morgan said, "Officer down. We need an ambulance at La Brea and Wilshire."

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Gideon, Elle, JJ, Alexander, and Hotch came upon them as they had Kim in the ambulance, it wasn't critical but he did need a hospital.

"How we doing?

"He'll make it." Zoe said, "Caught one in the shoulder and shattered his collarbone.

"You okay?" Alexander asked.

"We're fine." Morgan confirmed.

"Yeah."

"No sign of this Martinez, the photographer?" Gideon asked.

"No."

"Whoever took a shot at you followed you from the set."

"I'm sorry. I should've noticed." Zoe said.

"You can't notice everything." Alexander told his daughter.

"I'm going to head to Lila's to provide extra cover." Zoe said and headed off.

She took out her phone and called Spender.

"Yeah?" Spencer said into the phone.

"Hey, there's been another shooting, Officer Kim. Don't worry, he's still alive but it was only the shoulder and since you know you can barely shoot, I'm heading over to Lila's."

"Alright." Spencer ignored the jab, "You have her address?"

"Yeah." Spencer overlayed the message to Lila who seemed indifferent but when Spencer went back to the phone, Zoe had hung up.

"Huh? She must've gone out of service." He said, oblivious as ever.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Zoe's motorcycle shot off at top speed but barely any noise.

"Martinez has a bunch of paperwork in the studio that says where Lila's going to be every day." Morgan said as Gideon's phone rang once Zoe was long gone.

"Gideon. That's what I thought. Thanks." He hung up, "Garcia's gone through every article written about Lila. She never says anything about red anemones being her favorite flower."

"Well, we're looking for someone pretty close to her." Elle said.

"This list gets shorter every day." Morgan said.

"He's circling in. We need to get to her house." Gideon said.

"I'll make sure the press doesn't get out of hand with this mess." JJ said and Kim held up a sign with his fingers.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Spencer stared at the college when Lila came up behind him. "Feel anything yet?"

"There is something definitely appealing about this one." Spencer said, not being able to tell what.

"That's a start." Lila chuckled and headed towards her pool in the backwards undoing her robe.

"What are you doing?" Spencer asked.

"Going for a swim." She said, dropping the robe to reveal her in a bikini.

"What? No, Lila." Spencer ran after her.

Zoe unlocked the door with Lila's spare key that she had found rather easily and walked through the house, not finding them when she heard a loud splash.

She followed it and saw that Lila had rebelliously jumped into the pool with Spencer stuck between his normal awkwardness and his duty to be responsible towards his job.

Zoe had stopped, watching from inside the house where she was unnoticed by both Spencer and Lila.

"Lila, you cannot do this!" He complained.

"Five minutes." She told him and pointed at her house, "go get a suit in the house."

"What!? No! I don't want to grab a suit!" He exclaimed, his voice going more than a few octaves higher as if she had asked for something else, he had yet experienced. 

"Are you kidding me?"

"Join me."

"No, I'm not gonna join you." He said.

"Why not?"

"You're being pursued by a psychotic killer who shoots people in the head!" Spencer exclaimed.

"I'm not gonna stop living my life. I'm just not." Lila said, words Zoe had said all too often to her dad.

Zoe had to admit, there were some similarities between her and Lila. They were both tough and rebellious, refusing to just submit to whatever people told them to do. They both had a way of teasing for what they want while never actually making a grab for it, hoping someone will take the hint (but he never will). They were determined not to let a little trauma stop them from living their life. The difference was Lila was a tall, beautiful blonde actress with blue eyes, Zoe was a short, tomboyish noirette (black hair) with at best amber-brown eyes. Lila had no scars that littered her skin unlike Zoe's. Lila was full of light while Zoe's had been snuffed out a long time ago, in her opinion.

"Lila, I'm begging of you. Will you please get out of the pool?" Spencer sighed, exasperatedly, feeling like he was babysitting or hanging out with Zoe.

"Really, Spence," Lila said and Zoe flinched; she was the only one who called him Spence.

"You should live a little." She had a point. He was way too uptight.

"Live a little!? I've known you forty-eight hours; I feel like I've aged ten years!" Spencer exclaimed.

Don't we all feel like that when spending time with or watching her?

"Oh. I can't be that bad." She teased.

"Yes. No, you-you are that bad." Spencer exclaimed.

Preach! Truer words have never been said.

"Oh." She said and Zoe could recognize her tactic at once: to pretend to submit to tease some more. "Fine, can you help me out at least?"

Spencer bent down and reached to grab her hand but predictably, she pulled him in with all his clothes on with her laughing. Spencer came back up, now soaked in pool water, brushing his soaked hair out of his face.

"Yes, very funny. Laugh it up, Lila. Hilarious." Spencer said, sarcastically. "You and Zoe would really get along. My gun's wet. Great." He took his holster off and placed it on the side of the pool, not noticing Zoe watching, unable to look away. He looked down at himself and he actually laughed—a beautiful, beautiful laugh but it caused a small hurt in Zoe's chest that it wasn't because of her. "My clothes."

"You should have worn the suit." Lila flirted, getting close to him, and as apparently nothing less would cause him to get the hint, Lila placed her hand on the back of his head and kissed him and to his better judgment he started to kiss back. Zoe couldn't move. She wanted to flee. She wanted to do what she did best and run from her emotions but she couldn't move. Guess it was just the masochist in her.

Realizing how unprofessional this was, Spencer pulled away, "This is completely inappropriate."

"This?" She asked, "What this?  And she pulled him back in for another kiss, this one brief as he kept pulling away to protest yet continued to kiss her with every other word. "This is..." Kiss. "I can..." Kiss. "But I..." He gave up, running his hands through his wet hair and fully leaned in for another kiss, this one was open-mouthed which even Zoe could see from her angle which had shifted since she was now standing outside, watching solemnly for reasons she could not (or would not) understand for the life of her. Spencer cupped her face and deepened the kiss before he pulled away with another logical explanation why this beautiful woman was kissing him.

His first kiss with Zoe had been preceded by her drunkenly (while underage in America) telling him, it was merely for the purposes of him losing his kiss-ginity though Spencer had seen and still saw it as one of the best moments of his life as it continuously appeared in his more pleasant dreams, she had no memory of it and he still didn't want to embarrass her further.

"No, there's this thing called transference..." He insisted, apparently under the impression Lila was redirecting her feelings on someone onto him or it was just because he was supposed to be (and failing to do so) protecting her.

"You don't like me?" Lila frowned, completely unaware of Zoe frozen to the spot in front of her house as Spencer's head blocked her.

"What?" He asked, shocked she would even think that.

"You don't like me." She repeated.

"No. Are you cra—I-I-I do." He stammered.

"I like you." She told him.

"I like you too." He reassured her. "Just I'm a federal agent, you know, and I'm supposed to protect you." He explained.

Yeah. Right. With his aim? Said the sardonicism in Zoe's head.

"Then keep me close." Lila said, getting in close to him again.

"I'm just, uhm I'm a little bit worried." He said and she leaned in. "You know, we're..." She kissed him and he kissed back, not wanting to stop it, no matter what his words said, "we're in a pool." Another kiss. "and it's a—we're..." Another kiss. "Pretty much exposed. They kissed passionately some more before he pulled away and waited for her to answer.

"We have cops posted out front." Lila said, kissing him again. "There are coyotes out back. And right here, it's just you and me." Lila rested her head against Spencer's and they gently rubbed their noses but not in that nauseating couple way, but more of the we-were—just-making-out lips hovering above lips way.

"Ahem." Zoe finally managed to clear her throat, startling Spencer and he lost his footing and went back under the water before popping back up to see Zoe, looking as closed off as he had ever seen her, she wouldn't meet his eyes. How long had she been standing there? "If you're not too busy, trying to lose your virginity, Reid. We should get the target of the psychotic shooter inside now." She said with a noticeable icy cold sharpness in her voice. "We wouldn't want them to shoot her like they did her manager, Michael."

Lila seemed to be in a brief state of shock as Spencer's eyes widened.

"Zo..." Spencer looked at her and then back at Lila, "I was going to tell you. I swear I was."

She turned back to him, "How could you—how could you not tell me?"

"I was afraid you'd be upset." He said.

She started to get angry, "You...! You knew what you knew, and... how could you not..."

"I'm so sorry." He said.

Lila pulled herself out of the pool and Spencer swam after her. "No, don't-don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

Then she stormed off past Zoe back into the house, leaving Spencer in the pool and Zoe feeling guilty.

"Spen... Reid..." She struggled whether or not she should call him by his surname which she only did when she was mad at him or to call him by his first name to apologize to and comfort him.

"Why would you do that!?" He cut her off. "I get what I was doing was unprofessional but... you... she's really upset now. She cared about him!" He pulled himself out of the pool and continued to yell at her, "You know, this is the first time in my life a girl is interested in me." Oblivious. But they both were. She was oblivious to her own feelings for him. "And while I don't understand why she would be interested in someone like me, that gives you no right to chase her off. You're not exactly the most professional person here, you know! You were hired by your dad at nineteen. You're whole family's in the FBI. You're just... you always bring your own bullshit into this. You just bring it up, casually and ignore it when I try to talk to you about it because I'm concerned but you refuse to deal with it and then I'm left standing alone like a jackass! Sometimes you can be such a... such a..." He seemed to calm down and swallowed the insult he didn't mean at the hurt look in her eyes that mingled with the coldness.

"You think I got hired because of nepotism? You think Shyster was right?"

It just now hit him on what he had said. He could barely believe he had said them.

"No. I didn't say that." He backtracked. He was so bad as talking to women. Why? He grew up with one. He grew up without a father so why did he just act like a jerk. Why did he never know what to say?

"Little traumatized Zoe, still very much a child. Unable to move on from her past." She said with cold mockery in her voice, clearly deeply hurt and Spencer was aware people with ADHD usually had something called RSD or Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, meaning she didn't handle rejection or criticism well, especially not from people she cares about, feeling severe emotional pain when they feel they are shunned or criticized and according to a study he read one in three referred to it being the hardest part of living with ADHD, this was what likely led to her shutting down her emotions during her months of captivity along with the expected trauma, "So traumatized that she numbed herself of all basic emotions without her twin who very well could be dead but she hangs onto this absurd belief that she's still alive, no matter she was just starting to trust again. Trust a man of all things after what they did to me. I thought you were different than all the other boys but you're just like them all. You're willing to string along any girl who'll slip you the tongue and get into your virgin pants."

"No! That's not... I am different. I don't..." Spencer felt near close to tears at how badly he had screwed up and hurt her.

"Am I interrupting something?" Elle asked.

"No!" Zoe said.

"Yes." Spencer said.

"No. What do you need, Elle?"  Zoe said, sharply.

"Well, we found him in the bushes." Elle said, taking a towel and handing it to Spencer as Morgan brought a handcuffed Martinez to them.

"I told her she should cut those." Elle looked at Spencer, waiting for an explanation for why he was all wet. "I, uh, fell in."

"Yeah and I'm sure there's plenty of photos of it." Elle remarked.

Morgan pushed Martinez in front of them. "Stop shoving me, man."

He turned to them, "You're a suspect in the murder of Wally Melman, Natalie Ryan, and Jeremy Collins." Morgan said.

"Murder? What? Whoa! Whoa, whoa." Martinez said with his eyes bugging.

"Just shut up with the 'whoa'!" Morgan shouted. "We know for a fact that you have hundreds of photographs of Lila Archer and Natalie Ryan on the walls of your studio. You have Miss Archer's daily schedule on your desk. You've been stalking her."

"Look, guy, look, hold up." Martinez said, "Every paparazzi's a celebrity stalker. If you don't stalk them, you don't get the shot, and if you don't make the shot, you don't sell no pictures.

"You're not supposed to have that schedule or take dozens of photos of her in her personal home in her personal bedroom. That's not being a paparazzi, that's being a pervert." Zoe said in a rougher deadpan than usual. She looked at Elle. "Give me that."

Elle handed the camera to Zoe who looked at Spencer as he looked at her with sad puppy dog eyes and she ripped the film out.

"Whoa. That's just wrong."

"So is stalking, you pervert. Taking photos of people like that is a crime. You're trespassing and you're stalking and now..." She threw the camera on the ground and stomped on it, never breaking eye contact with the man.

"Whoa! Whoa! That thing's expensive."

She got closer in his face with an intense death glare in her eyes. "Should I bill your widow?" She growled and he gulped. "Get this ass out of my sight before I do some digging and find out what else he's done." She snarled.

"I'm still being locked up?"

"At the very least, you're trespassing." Morgan said and pulled him away. Zoe held up the film and handed it to Spencer, "You're welcome, Reid."

"Zoe..." He said with pleading eyes.

"I have to call my dad." She brushed him off and walked to the other side of the house, disappearing around the corner.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Spencer knew Lila would be easier to apologize to... he didn't even know how to apologize to Zoe.

"Lila?" He asked as she cried, mourning her agent's death, "Are you still... Are you okay?"

"Michael was like family." She cried.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's just so hard to trust people out here. You don't know who to believe." Lila said as Gideon entered the house from behind them, "Everybody wants something from you."

"That's why I thought you were different."

Zoe's words rang in Spencer's head. "I thought you were different than all the other boys but you're just like them all."

"I know I should have told you..." Spencer said.

"I told him not to." Gideon said, they looked back to see him as Alexander and Zoe reentered. Spencer immediately noticed, Alexander giving him the evil eye, like nothing would give him greater pleasure than to empty his clips of the many, many, many guns he had on him into Spencer and then beat him into the ground. "He was only following my orders." He patted Spencer's shoulder and walked off. Then he came back and pulled Alexander away before he actually did shoot Spencer.

"You know the last time I was able to fully trust someone was at Juilliard? Before I was a somebody."

"Lila, sorry, but did you just say Julliard?" Zoe suddenly asked.

"Yeah, why?"

Spencer saw she was looking at the college and he looked at it and he spotted something, a piece of what looked like the front of a street sigh name: Hous"

"And didn't you say you used to live on Houston Street?"

"What?" Lila asked.

"You were a waitress, you lived on Houston?" Spencer clarified.

"Yeah." Lila said and got up as both the young geniuses looked at the college.

"I need to take this thing apart."

"What?" Lila asked, still very confused.

"I'll-I'll put it back." He promised, "I think I see images of you."

"Guys!" Zoe called.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Zoe and Spencer took the college apart, spreading it on Lila's kitchen counter and put the strips of arts together, forming a full picture, all of which related to Lila's life, having several pictures of Lila in it.

"Lila, it looks like someone's been stalking you for years." Morgan said.

"Yeah, this tells your whole life story." Elle said, "Movie premieres, theater playbills."

"Everything since college." Spencer said.

"That's our country house. Right here." Lila said, pointing to a suburban house.

"Who gave you this collage?

"He did." Lila said, pointing to a picture of Spencer's high school semi-friend, Parker.

"This guy? Who is he?" Morgan asked.

"That's the guy I went to high school with, Parker Dunley." Spencer said.

Morgan took his phone out and called Garcia, "Garcia. Parker Dunley. E-mail me a sheet on him, all right?"

——————————————————————————————————————————————

The rest of the team went to question Parker while Zoe stayed with Spencer and Lila.

"You don't seem to like me very much." Lila said as she handed Zoe a mug of tea.

"It's nothing personal." Zoe said, "there's nothing wrong with you. I just have issues.”

"With Spencer?" Lila guessed.

"No." She said, sharply. "We're just friends..."

"Why are you here?"

"I know what you're going through." Zoe confessed.

"How?" Lila scoffed.

"When I was twelve, a serial killer held a gun to my head. He gets off on control and the fear he inflicts in others, and I knew that so I didn't show him fear. I was first person to not do that. It fascinated him. He kidnapped me for five days. I have no memory of what happened. But once he got what he wanted, he let me go... barely. I was comatose for a week and that when I got the first bouquet of flowers... white lilies. Every time I'm near that place, I get white lilies but for a while now, they're covered in blood. It's a taunt. I can usually manage to use their logic against them but not him. He's the only one who has ever had full control over me. He's gonna kill someone one day and it'll be my fault."

"I'm sorry." Lila said.

"Yeah." Zoe sighed and drank some of her tea. It was more bitter than she preferred but she just let it burn her tongue.

Lila wasn't a bad person. She was bold and independent. She didn't deserve this.

Across the room, Spencer's phone rang, and Gideon spoke to him without saying hello.

"We have a name. Maggie Lowe. She's the UnSub. She's on Lila's show. We're on our way."

Spencer hung up and turned to Lila and Zoe.

"Lila, do you know someone named Maggie Lowe?" Spencer said.

"Mags? Yeah, of course I know her. I've known her for years." Lila said, "I got her a job on my show."

Lila's phone started to ring, and she looked at it. Zoe looked at it too and looked at Spencer.

"What?"

"That's her calling right now." Lila said.

"Is she calling from a cell phone?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah."

"Lila, we think Maggie's the UnSub." Spencer said.

"The what?" Lila asked, being unfamiliar with the term.

"The stalker." Spencer clarified.

"No way." Lila said.

"Answer the phone." Spencer said.

"That's-that's crazy." Lila said, standing up.

"We assumed that the UnSub was a man but it's not unheard of that an erotomaniac stalkers are women. Both David Letterman and Story Musgrave were stalked by Margaret Mary Ray." Zoe said. "Answer the phone. Act completely natural. The longer we keep her on the line, the more likely we'll be able to trace the call." Lila looked at her. "I'm doomed with mine, he's going to torment me until one of us dies or I can redeem myself and help arrest him but I can still stop yours. Trust me."

"You can trust her." Spencer nodded.

Spencer went to call Garcia while Lila answered the call.

"Hello? Hello, Maggie? Maggie, is that you? What's wrong?"

Garcia picked up Spencer's call. "Oracle of Quantico, speak if you deign to hear truth."

"Garcia, I need an emergency trace on a cell phone call to Lila Archer's cell phone." Spencer said into his dinosaur phone.

"Sure. Go ahead."

"(323) 555-0129." Spencer recited Lila's phone number to her.

"Okay. Keep her talking. Keep her talking.

"Maggie?" Lila asked.

Zoe put Lila's phone on speakerphone so they could all hear it while Zoe went to Spencer to hear Garcia on the other end too.

"Oh, I am so tired." Maggie sighed.

"Tired?" Lila asked.

"There's been so much upset in the world really. I think it's just so tragic. All of it."  Maggie said, so far she didn't exactly sound stable which fit the profile, "I miss you. I just do."

"Mags, I saw you today." Lila said.

"It's never going to be the same as it was. It's just never going to be the same."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lila said, choking slightly as she started to realize that they could be right about Maggie being the "unsub".

"I'm talking about that time in college! When the heat in your apartment was off and the two of us stayed in my dorm room. Don't you remember?" Maggie asked, sharply as though angry that it wasn't as important to Lila as it was to her, "You were playing Ophelia on the mainstage."

"I remember." Lila recalled, uneasily.

"That was the happiest time of my life." Maggie breathed.

"Maggie, sweetheart, that was only for a weekend." Lila told her.

"The happiest time... And you don't know anything about me at all." Maggie's voice broke. "And I did everything for you."

"Reid, is Lila's address 6028 Pike Street?" Garcia asked

"Yeah."

"She's calling from inside the house. I'll get you two some backup." Garcia said.

"Oh, it's Black Christmas. 'The calls are coming from inside the house'." Zoe said and she took out her holster gun which altered from her usual preference of revolvers and was a Glock. A Glock 19 to be exact. Of course, she would be quoting a horror movie from 1974.

"Lila." Spencer whispered.

"You... you... YOU!" Maggie shouted and then there was a thud from upstairs that echoed through the phone as Maggie brought the phone down from her ear.

"How'd she get in the house?"

"She has keys." Lila said.

Zoe lifted her leg up and pulled her ankle holster gun. It was a revolver

"Alright, Lila, I'm assuming you don't know how to use a gun?"

"No."

"All right. This is Glock 19. It's easy to shoot. The most commonly bought gun. There's no manual safety, so all you need to do is push this secondary trigger and when she pull the main trigger it'll shoot. There's fifteen rounds plus one in the chamber. Careful, it's heavier than it looks. But as long as that secondary trigger isn't pulled, it won't go off, even if you drop it." She handed Lila her hip gun. "It's not my preferred gun but I always try to prepare for the unlikely. I figured worse came to worse, you'd need to defend yourself. Only shoot if Reid and I go down. Only then. You're not experienced, only as a last defense. She's sick but she's still a person. She's still Maggie. She's still Mags."

Spencer's eyes watched Zoe as she explained all this to Lila who tried her best to understand.

They crept through the house with Zoe taking the lead, both she and Spencer holding their guns up.

They crept into Lila's room but saw nothing but then Zoe spun around just before Maggie revealed herself, holding a gun to Lila's head.

"Why'd you have to bring these people?" She demanded.

"Hey, Discount Billy. The only reason we're here because you killed a bunch of people to help her career which could've gotten her arrested, you batty loon. Now we really should calm down before we get a new Agnes."

"Put down the guns or I will shoot her." Maggie growled.

"Maggie." Spencer said, lowering the gun as Zoe did the same.

"Don't call me Maggie. You don't know me. Come on, Lila, let's go." Lila stared at the two, shaking her head, pleading with her eyes. "We really got to go, baby."

"Maggie, don't hurt her." Spencer pleaded.

"You don't need to hurt her." Zoe said.

"Why? I saw the look on your face while these two were..." She growled. "This way I get her and you get him."

"I don't want him!" Spencer flinched at her cruel words, "But you don't get her. You can't force her to be with you. It's not real love. If you hurt someone you love, that's not real love. That's toxicity. That's obsession. That's abuse."

"You don't know anything." She turned back to Lila, "I would never do anything to hurt you." She brushed back Lila's blonde hair, "No. I created you."

"No, you didn't." Lila shook her head. Maggie narrowed her eyes, gesturing at Lila with her gun,

"Yes, I did! I know I did. God. You stupid... ungrateful.... God. I can't believe I loved you."

"Maggie..." Zoe started.

"SHUT UP, BITCH!" Maggie screamed, pointing the gun at Zoe. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"Maggie, Lila, she loves me now." Spencer said.

"What?" Maggie demanded, pointing the gun at him now.

"She told me so. We were in the pool. She kissed me. Now she loves me, okay?" Spencer said.

"No." Maggie said, pointing the gun back at Lila.

"Zoe saw. Tell her. Tell her Lila and I kissed in the pool."

"Yeah, they did. It was full-on making out. Closest he's ever gotten to a woman since he came out of one." Spencer gave her an offended look and his surrender turned into an exasperated come on gesture. "I mean, he's known her for like two days and he's a nerd. I mean, look at him. He graduated high school when he was twelve and look at his hair. He practically screams virgin. To him, that's practically confessing his undying love."

"Zoe!" Spencer hissed.

"NO!" Maggie shouted, pointing the gun back at Lila.

"Is it true? Are you in love?" Lila looked at Zoe and Spencer who nodded.

"Yes. It's true. We kissed. We-we're in love."

Zoe decided to both twist the dagger in Maggie's heart and add salt to the wound. "That's gotta sting. Years of friendship and you get outdone by a nerdy virgin who looks like he's twelve who's known her for forty-eight hours. I mean, come on."

"Stop it." Maggie growled as she walked backwards, pointing the gun at Zoe. Zoe was walking forth, "At least, Morgan's athletic, Reid looks like a toothpick.”

"Shut up!"

"Then why don't you do something about it, Mags. You never did anything. Never. You're all alone."

Maggie pointed the gun at Lila and shot.

"NO!" Zoe jumped in front of the bullet, hitting her in the chest, making her hit the floor.

"NO!" Spencer screamed, he lunged and grabbed Maggie, tackling her to the ground and taking her gun, pointing it at her as Lila hurried to Zoe who landed in front of her bed.

"Don't move."

"PLEASE! PLEASE KILL ME! COME ON! SHOOT ME, PLEASE! I'D BE SO MUCH HAPPIER, PLEASE!" Maggie screamed.

"Is she okay?!" He called to Lila, his voice cracking with fear.

"I'm okay." Zoe coughed out, getting up and sitting up next to Lila who was trying to assess the damage even though she had no idea what she was doing.

Spencer breathed in relief and uncocked the gun.

"We're gonna get you help. It'll be alright." Maggie started to sob and Zoe went to comfort her, soothingly shushing her.

"How..." Spencer asked her.

Zoe pulled at her plaid shirt, making it unbutton and revealed a bulletproof vest. "You didn't think my dad was going to just let me walk around here with a shooter on the loose with no protection, did you?"

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Bernard Shaw once said, "An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."

Spencer and Lila parted ways and Spencer sat on the plane ride alone. Just the day after, a magazine published a picture of Lila and Spencer saying goodbye with the oh-so original headline: A Mystery Man in Lila's Life? As opposed to anything about her almost being murdered or stalked. Old news, I guess.

Spencer looked at the magazine as work wrapped up for the day or rather night, most of the BAU had left.

"Night, Hollywood." Morgan laughed.

"Come on, man." Spencer sighed.

"You know, Reid, you're lucky they didn't get a shot of you next to the pool trying to dry your gun. You looked like a wet rat." Morgan teased

Spencer shook his head, looking down.

"Hey, I was playing." He reassured him.

"Did you know that she... uh... I kissed her in the pool? It's so weird. It doesn't even feel like it really happened, you know?" Spencer said.

"Sure, sure, she's a beautiful young actress." Morgan said.

"Yeah. Yeah, you know, I kept explaining to her about transference and the fact that, you know, she probably only liked me because I was there to protect her..." He said.

"Reid. You were her hero." Morgan said.

"I wanted to think that." Spencer said.

"No, no, no, don't go selling yourself short, kid. You took down an armed subject without firing a shot. You saved her life. It's pretty much a hero in my book." Morgan reassured him.

"Let me ask you this, have you ever crossed professional boundaries with a victim of a case you were working on?" Spencer asked.

"No." Morgan admitted.

"It's pretty bad, right?"

"There's some things you can't control even with that big old brain of yours. No harm, no foul." Morgan said and he turned to get his stuff. "Let it go."

"Hey, Morgan?" Spencer asked and Morgan turned back to him, "Has there ever been a girl that you wanted to be with for more than, you know, just one night?"

"Excuse me?" Morgan asked.

"I've never seen you with the same girl twice." Spencer said.

"What, are you calling me a dog?" Morgan asked.

"No, no, no, not at all. I'm just trying to figure out if this feeling I have is ever going to go away?" Spencer said.

"Reid, what we do for a living, it takes up all our time, and a relationship's hard enough even in the same city." Morgan said.

"So, I mean, you're saying it's probably wise that I don't call her, right?" Spencer asked.

"I can't answer that one for you. Here, I'll tell you what I do know. You don't need to come up with that answer tonight" Morgan said. "I'm out." Then Morgan went and started to leave.

"Have a good weekend." Spencer said.

"Yeah, you too, Romeo."  Morgan said before he left.

"Reid, no offense but Morgan's never had a relationship that's last more than twelve hours at most." Zoe sighed, making Spencer jump, he hadn't seen her in the darkness. "I wouldn't take his advice. It's not exactly fulfilling

"I know you're mad at me. But can I ask you something?"

"Sure." She said.

"Did you break up with J.D. because of the job?"

Zoe's jaw clenched. "No. It wasn't because of our job or because of the long distance with being not in America is as much as I can say and me flying around the United States every other week. It was what I pushed him into doing. Otherwise, we'd still be together. Long distance was most of the relationship, time-wise. I can do long distance. I can even deal with him being in prison for the rest of his life. Morgan's relationships are more about physical affection, sex, and fulfilling a temporary desire. J.D. and I... we met at a vulnerable time. It was about emotional connection, being understood, having someone to tell our trauma to, and most of all loyalty. It's why we're still friends. I couldn't cut him out completely. Not for me, but I couldn't do that to him."

"So, what do you think I should do?" Spencer asked tentatively.

"Just... think. Do you really see you and Lila going anywhere? Are you willing to wait for a day that may never happen?"

——————————————————————————————————

Gif Sources: @criminalmindscaps, @thisiscalmanditsdoctor, @onscreenkisses, @islandellis, @tobias-hankel

[softness-and-shattering]

About the Mean Girls musical movie

I know Ive had conversations before about the cultural context stuff, that it seems like the message was not as effective as the first movie when the stuff its talking about, how girls are wrong whatever they do and everything is up for criticism and filming, and you have to pretend to be sweet and kind fairy princesses instead of being allowed to be human. And Id have to go back and find those posts to see what I do and dont agree with now. Because I just saw the movie. And honestly, I liked it. A lot of the visuals were really fun and interesting, which I think is impressive in a movie that mostly takes place inside of a high school. Regina more than once looks like she's in a music video, and that works because shes so hyped, its like she lives in a reality where not only do people break into song, but she's always in a music video. She really sells the character, self-assured and in charge and perfectly manipulative, and even when she's being vulnerable you're like, but is this another deception? She's more villainous in this version, and by the end maybe more human as well. (also the costuming is phenomenal, that Halloween angel dress?? The entire Halloween Someone Get Hurts sequence might be my favourite. )

Also Renee Rapp, who plays Regina, is just incredibly hot. She also played Regina on Broadway so it makes sense she has the character down. Thats not film critique thats my personal admiration. Its almost a little silly with the "oh no Regina is gaining weight she cant fit her clothes" because she looks amazing. [Edit: She's also obviously - I was gonna say she seems older than the other "teens" but actually she's 24, so Im having a moment of feeling old. And she's actually the same age as Auli'i Cravalho who is a lot younger in my mind because holy shit Moana came out EIGHT years ago?? Angourie Rice/Cady is 23, Jaquel Spivy/Damian is 26, Avantika/Karen is 19, thats more the age I thought they were but not the cast seems to be mostly 23-26. Its so weird when times moves the same for people while your image of them in your head stays the same. So Rapp isn't older she's just a bit bigger (neutral/positive). And she's been playing the role for a long time. And Im allowed to find her hot because she's a goddamn adult and so am I. This paragraph is not critique it is me blogging on my blog. Now Im annoyed at myself for Caveats of Fear but Im gonna stop dwelling on that now.]

On that note, though I originally liked the musical quite a lot, the significant fatphobia in it soured it for me. And Im happy to say in the musical movie, they changed or omitted those lines. I was waiting to cringe and they just sang something else. So that was great. I think the only fat character was Damian (why does that suddenly look like a vampire name?) - Jaquel Spivy - and he seemed comfy and cool, no self deprecating fat jokes or anything. Generally the lines/jokes that were uncomfortable or a bit bigoted have been changed. Though there isnt any disability rep, and theres a random character the burn book claims puts alcohol in her inhaler, like a 3 second joke.

And the big thing is that a lot of the meanness is shown in montages of vertical video and comments - no-brand tiktok obviously - and I think thats pretty realistic, and also in the original theme of not being mean to peoples faces but talking all kinds of shit behind their backs. And I think the montage format is effective in mimicking that endless scroll eyes glazing over stuck in the doom scroll/stuck in the spectacle. The music was good. I really liked how they overlaid the Spring Fling/thematic music with the math competition. If anything, Cady is not as good of a character, her Plastic switch is basically overnight, the scene with Aaron at the party is still kinda of awkward, she doesnt get as much room to breathe, while almost everyone else comes off really well. Heck even the candy cane/glen coco guy did well, I was actually suprised at how differently and yet excellently the actors acted their lines, compared both to the previous movie and the musical. Auli'i is fantastic, scary Janis is *scary*. And I simultaneously want to be her best friend. (It certainly helps that her art is augmented with embroidery and she's carrying embroidery hoops in multiple scenes. Fiber arts my loves.)

When I first saw a trailer my thoughts were "ugh we dont need another movie of this," but I think Ive changed my mind. Its similar enough and different enough that for me its a good adaptation. Also - I almost forgot to say - Janis gets a girlfriend for Spring Fling. Its not a plot point, we're just montaging getting ready and Janis goes to pick her up (in the lavender suit), and Damian is taking photos with two other sapphic couples. And he gets a crush/admirer who again, is just there to be there and doesnt interfere with the main story. I might change my mind again once its had time to settle in my thoughts, but initial impression is that its a fun movie I would watch again. Maybe we want the social commentary to be more incisive than it is, and in the end it is entertainment that needs to not be too boring to hold peoples shortening attention spans. (also neutral). Maybe thats wishing for it to be a movie that its not trying to be, and thats always a recipe for disappointment and also not great or fair analysis. What a fantastic line to end on*.

[danggirlronpa]

Not the Pekoshima anon who originally talked about the ship, but I am so Invested in pekoshima my god, I have to talk about it. Okay so - with both Ultimate Despair's we see (discounting DR3 because. I don't like it), Nagito and Mikan, I find them very interesting. Mikan in chapter 3 obviously isn't behaving well - murder and all - but she also seems to recognize for possibly the first time ever that how people treated her was wrong (questioning why they treated her this way, acknowledging it wasn't fair, even calling the cast a bunch of bullies in scorn). Which is... such interesting characterization! It's one of the reasons I can't exactly buy how Junkan is presented in DR3 - in her FTEs, how people treated Mikan was normal to her, and she didn't seem to fully realize it was wrong. In the third trial, Mikan talks as if she knows how she was treated was wrong, and singles out Junko as being different, having forgiven her. In her final FTE, she says that Hajime has forgiven her too, implying to me that Junko did the same thing as Hajime did during their FTEs together, just with malicious intent (strengthening the Hajime/Izuru and Ryouko/Junko parallels and solitifying both Chiaki and Hajime in SDR2 as "the kindness the remnants never had" - kindness that ultimately leads to them triumphing over Junko this time). So in DR3, it didn't make much sense to me that Junko treated Mikan just as everyone else in Mikan's life has. Kicking her and berating her. Of course, with brainwashing she didn't need to be kind, but before DR3 came out, I always thought Junko operated more like... she would make you go one step forward, and two steps back. She would present herself as if solving your problems and helping you, but that was just to her own ends. We see this in Nagito too - when he's in DR:AE as a remnant of despair, his ideals have changed drastically from SDR2, and I'd go so far as to say what he preaches in DR:AE to be a better philosophy - though how far he's willing to go for it, still bad. So, the conclusion I reached was that every remnant would have some sort of ironic twist - something they improved upon, only for their other behaviors to be worse, like Nagito and Mikan.

So Hiyoko wouldn't be bully - but maybe it would be too much in the other direction, where she was obedient to a fault. Never talking without permission, sitting still like a doll, only doing what she was told.

Kaizuchi, perhaps, would no longer be obsessed with Sonia, someone who didn't like him back, and instead fixate on Junko, who welcomed his obsession...

And Peko, who used to think she was a tool... perhaps she would finally realize she was human. Perhaps she would realize this, and despair at such a fact.

Because it would mean she failed. She failed to become a tool for Fuyuhiko, and suddenly everything done to her wasn't "training a tool" but a tragedy. Her life was a tragedy. The very fact that she is human is despair, but that despair itself proves she is human. I imagine she could get very twisty and turny in her thoughts about this.

I also have the headcanon that Peko and Fuyuhiko during the despair times switches roles. Fuyuhiko always took on too much responsibility, and hey, here's your old pal Junko here to set you straight! You don't need to take so much onto yourself! It's painful, isn't it? Taking the burden of making choices. Being human. Who wants that responsibility? Why not give it to someone else? Oh hey, look at that, it's your old pal Peko! She'll take the brunt of responsibility from now on! From now on, Peko is the master and Fuyuhiko is the tool!

I just love the idea of Junko doing these ironic little twists. Helping them in some way only to fuck them over in others. Junko makes Peko realize she's human, and because of that, Peko cannot help but both love and resent her. Real toxic yuri shit going on.

(TW this gets a lil gory at the end)

This is a really good take on Junko's strategy!! My Junko analysis is similar but not quite the same. I've always viewed Junko as a monkey's paw. Whoever you are, she gives you exactly what you want, in its totality - but at the expense of your happiness.

Mikan's desire for someone to care for her becomes excessive dependency and blind devotion. Ryota's desire to become a successful animator who doesn't have to think about talking to others or existing in the real world becomes the complete destruction of that world, and his animated work as the most influential to ever exist. Nagito's desire to become a force which others can step on to find hope becomes Nagito ensuring the legacy of the greatest despair he possibly can, so that no 'fake' hopes can bypass his rigorous test - only a True Ultimate Hope can overcome and finally lead the world to victory.

Despair - for Junko - is the knowledge that you have succeeded, and everything is even worse than if you hadn't. Because Junko is Always succeeding, and she's Always in despair. Nothing challenges her. The only thing that she can't predict is pure dumb luck, which Makoto leverages against her both in THH and SDR2 to enable her defeat. Junko, like Izuru, is one of the most successful people to ever exist, and it SUCKS. So of course she is dragging people down the exact same way she herself is dragged down. Of course she shows people obvious, glowing success, in such a way that it tears down the entire world they once knew. Because this way - if one day unimaginably, they break their bonds - they will never, ever experience true hope again. Because their hopes are what destroyed them. Their hope brings about despair.

So from that perspective, I think you're dead on the money with Fuyuhiko, who loathes his position and wants to be free of the burden of responsibility (wouldn't it be easier, to be a tool, too? Aren't you tired of telling people to die? Shouldn't you take responsibility yourself, if there's killing to be done?). But Peko's desire is to be a tool. Rather than teaching Peko how to become her own person, I personally think that Junko would put Peko through the paces of both physical and psychological torture to turn her into a complete unfeeling instrument, exactly like Peko wanted. Once you've been in a 1-foot cell with no other people for a week, once you've been given Pavlovian training to receive an endorphin rush when holding your own spilling viscera in your hands - affection, agency, memory all fade away. There's just the next order. Exactly like Peko wanted.

[natashasfilms]

Chapter Two - Compulsion

Summary: FBI agent Leila faces a profound life change after giving birth to a baby girl, supported by her loving husband. Despite the challenges of motherhood, Leila returns to her role as a dedicated agent a few months later, ready to confront gruesome and haunting cases with the BAU team.

Pairing: BAU!Fem!OC x Male!OC , EVENTUAL Aaron Hotchner x BAU!Fem!OC (Like much later)

Warnings: This story contains mature themes such as sexual content, strong language, violence, mentions of alcohol and drugs, blood, gore, and death. All the usual Criminal Minds stuff. And there is NO CHEATING.

Note 1: I imagine Leila Kade as South Asian but I have decided to let you, the reader, imagine her appearance, hence the reason why I have not given her a face claim. However, her race does not affect the story, whatsoever. You, as the reader, are free to imagine her however you want. If you don't see her as South Asian, then that's fine. It won't affect the storyline. I also imagine the OC!Male as South Asian, but again, it won't affect the storyline.

Note 2: The team will consist of the main cast (Emily, Derek, JJ, Spencer, Penelope, Aaron, and Rossi) but will also include Elle Greenaway and Jason Gideon because they were some of my favorite characters and I wanted to include them with the rest of the team. Basically, Elle and Gideon never leave when Emily and Rossi join.

Note 3: There will be multiple time skips throughout this series. For example, the first chapter will begin on the first season and episode of the show but then there will be a time skip to later episodes (because there are obviously way too many episodes to write this series on and I wanted to include specific episodes that would help the plot of this story). This means that this series will be a slow burn romance but I believe it to be better this way. This will also stray from the actual show a lot, so don't expect it to follow the plot precisely.

Series Masterlist

Season 1, Episode 2

Sitting in her office, Leila heard a knock on the door. She looked up from her paperwork to see a familiar brunette. "Elle, hey. How can I help you?"

Elle walked inside, looking around her office. "Cool office." She said, her eyes landing on the photo of her, Zaid, and Jasmine on her desk. "Like much cooler than Hotch's."

Leila laughed, amused at her comment. "Of course mine is cooler. Aaron's way too boring." Elle chuckled, agreeing. Leila's eyes followed Elle's, landing on her family photo, and her heart instantly warmed at the sight. "Oh! Did you need something?"

The brunette hummed in realization, turning to face her again. "Oh, no. I just wanted to come up here and chat. I just talked to Gideon and went back to my desk, but then I felt kind of bored."

"What? Tired of Reid's random fact of the day? Or Morgan's attempt at flirting?" Leila said jokingly, ushering the chair in front of her desk for Elle to sit. She complied, pulling out the chair to sit down.

"Just a tad bit." Elle replied, holding out her hand to indicate a small gap between her thumb and pointer finger. "Thought I'd see a fresh face who isn't in the cubicle. So why not check up on the only other woman profiler?"

Leila grinned, pushing aside her paperwork to give Elle her undivided attention. "Well, you came to the right place. I can only assume it gets much boring down there with just guys."

Elle raised her eyebrows in agreement. "Oh, yeah. You're lucky to have your own office. How come though?"

"How come I have my own office?" Leila asked.

Elle nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I understand Hotch because he's Unit Chief and Gideon since he used to be Unit Chief and now he's Senior Agent, but—" Elle stopped. "Wait, that sounds wrong. I didn't mean for it to sound like I'm questioning your qualifications."

That made Leila laugh. "Oh, no. Don't worry. I completely understand where you're coming from." Leila told her. "I'd honestly have the same questions if I were in your position, so don't feel bad for asking."

The brunette smiled, relieved that she wasn't taken the wrong way.

Leila paused for a moment, a fond smile crossing her face as she recalled the past. "Funny story, actually. There was a time when Gideon had to take a temporary leave, and I stepped in as the interim Unit Chief. It meant having my own office for a while, and when Gideon eventually returned, he insisted that I keep it. He said that since I've been a part of this team for so long, I've become a trustworthy and valuable member, so I deserved to have my own office."

Elle nodded, intrigued by the story. "That's pretty awesome. You earned it, though."

Leila's smile widened, appreciating the support from her colleague and new friend. "Thanks, Elle. It's been my little sanctuary ever since. Gives me a bit of space to think and work."

Elle leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Well, I must say, it suits you. And it's a nice change from the cubicle chaos."

Leila chuckled. "That's for sure. So, tell me…" She began, leaning forward and crossing her arms on top of her desk. "How have you been managing with the team, so far? Anyone giving you trouble? Cause if so, I can take it right up to Aaron and Gideon. Unless it's Aaron or Gideon who's giving you the trouble."

Elle waved a hand, laughing. "No, no, no. Everyone's been so kind. I feel like I was able to fit in so quickly. You all are such great people and the environment is super friendly."

"I'm glad to hear that." Leila replied. "You've been a great agent and team member so far, and you've been doing pretty well on the cases, so I have no worries about you."

Elle opened her mouth to speak, hesitated for a moment, and then decided to share her question. Leila gave her a reassuring look, indicating that she was all ears. "I have a question." Elle began.

Leila raised an eyebrow, interlacing her fingers and resting them under her chin, inviting Elle to continue. "Go ahead." She prompted.

"The Footpath Killer. Why did he stutter?" Elle asked, her curiosity evident in her tone.

Leila couldn't help but grin, finding Elle's curiosity endearing. A chuckle escaped her lips as she responded. "I asked Gideon too, but he wouldn't tell me." Elle sighed, clearly eager to know the answer. "Did you ask the others?"

Elle shook her head. "I wanted to hear your take on it first before asking them."

Understanding her reasoning, Leila nodded and rose from your seat. "Alright, then let's go find out together." She suggested, exiting her office with Elle.

As the two women descended the stairs, Elle couldn't hold back her curiosity any longer. She directed her question to the guys at the cubicles. "Question for you."

Derek glanced up, his eyebrows raised in interest. "Shoot."

"The Footpath Killer." Elle reiterated, coming closer to Derek and Spencer, with Leila walking alongside her. "Why did he stutter?"

Derek reclined in his chair, a knowing smile on his face. "Come on, Elle, we've all asked him that, but he won't tell us. He wants us to figure it out."

Leila perched herself at the edge of Spencer's desk, laughing. "The number of times I've tried to get it out of him, he simply wouldn't tell me."

"Well, okay. I'm up for a challenge." Elle said, settling at the edge of her own desk.

Leila observed a familiar blonde approaching, files in hand. "Good. Because these go to you." She said, placing the files on Elle's desk and offering a handshake. "Special Agent Jennifer Jareau. JJ if you like."

"Elle." She responded, reciprocating the handshake.

"Greenaway." JJ nodded with a friendly smile. "Highest number of solved cases in Seattle three years running. Specialty in sex offender cases."

Elle's eyes widened, impressed, and she glanced at the rest of the team. "Not bad."

JJ then explained her role as the unit liaison and her expertise in untangling bureaucratic knots. "You'll probably be talking to me a lot. My door is always open. Mostly because I'm never in my office. So just call me on my cell. Okay? We'll talk." With that, JJ headed upstairs towards Aaron's office.

Leila was on the verge of speaking when Aaron's voice called out, beckoning the team to gather in the conference room. "BAU team, can you meet me in the conference room, please? I need to show you something."

Without hesitation, the team swiftly rose from their seats and made their way upstairs, situating themselves around the conference table. They eagerly awaited the unveiling of the new case as JJ distributed the files, and everyone delved into the contents.

"This is from the Phoenix office. Bradshaw College in Tempe. Six fires in seven months." Aaron explained, the team listening intently as they searched through the files of the new case.

"Who recorded it?" Gideon asked, pointing towards the video on the TV screen that had yet to be played.

"A student with a digital camcorder." JJ responded, looking at everyone. "He was watching a fire in the building across from their dorm. The other person you'll see is his roommate, 20-year-old Matthew Rowland."

A video began playing on the large screen, captivating the team's undivided attention. The chilling footage showcased a horrifying act of arson, where a college student was set ablaze after the unsub poured gasoline under the crack of their dorm room door.

"There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist." Spencer chimed in, absently fiddling with his chess figures. With urgency in their movements, the team settled into their seats on the jet, knowing they needed to reach the college as quickly as possible to prevent further tragedies.

Elle continued to provide answers. "Loss of job, loss of love."

"When was the first fire set?" Derek inquired.

"March." Aaron responded. "The next one was in May. And the third one wasn't until September. Then, two weeks later, there were three in one night."

Leila raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. "He's speeding up; the fires are becoming more frequent and closer together."

Derek typed on his computer, briefly looking at Spencer before turning back. "Hey, Reid, you got a statistic on arsonists?"

Spencer immediately knew the answer. "Eighty-two percent are white males between 17 and 27. Female arsonists are far less likely, their motive typically being revenge."

"Sounds like our boy's a student." Derek remarked.

"Oh, don't be so sure," Gideon responded, looking up at Derek briefly. The seasoned profiler continued to look through the file. "You rely too much on precedent, you never allow for the unexpected. If he went from setting one fire to three in two weeks' time…"

"Rapid escalation." Aaron interjected.

"He's gone from the power to damage a building to something far more satisfying." Gideon continued, and Leila had a feeling she knew what he was going to say next. "The power over life and death."

The jet finally touched down, and the team swiftly made their way into the waiting SUVs, headed straight for the college. As they arrived, they exited the vehicles, with Gideon striding purposefully ahead.

"No badges." Gideon insisted firmly, walking with urgency. "I don't want to satisfy the UnSub's need for attention by letting him know he got the FBI here. Try not to look official."

The team paused, glancing at one another and adjusting their attire as soon as Gideon's words registered. Clad in all-black professional suits with sunglasses shielding their eyes, they looked ready for action.

Gideon cast a quick glance back at them before resuming his path. "Try to look less official."

After making an effort to appear "less official," the team shed their suit jackets and sunglasses, determined not to play into the unsub's desire for attention. However, Aaron still chose to keep his jacket on. They caught up with Gideon, who was engrossed in conversation with the headmaster of the college. She seemed adamant about evacuating the entire campus in response to the ongoing fires.

"You may not want to do that as it could bring in even more problems." Leila suggested as they continued walking. They reached another building, Gideon and Aaron opening the doors for them all to enter. "If you evacuate the campus, you might evacuate the arsonist as well."

"When the case goes unsolved, the campus is re-opened, but the fires start up again." Elle added.

"Wait, Hotch, Gideon. Hold on a second." Derek said, causing them to all stop. He turned to the Fire Inspector, Zhang. "You said the chemicals went missing today. It says here that one of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the grounds-keeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire set?"

The headmaster's eyes widened in realization. "One day."

Upon hearing this revelation, Aaron and Gideon exchanged a knowing glance before walking away together, engaged in a serious discussion about the new information they had just received.

Leila, Elle, and Derek strolled around the campus, discreetly observing the students and taking in the overall setting.

"I just don't get it." Elle admitted, the three of them descending the stairs. "Why start fires when you can't even watch them?"

Leila pondered for a moment before responding. "Maybe the unsub gets a thrill from the screams without having to witness the actual devastation. But it still doesn't entirely add up."

"And why is he escalating so rapidly?" Derek chimed in, and Leila nodded in agreement. "The fires used to be months apart, and now there are multiple on the same day."

"God, he could ignite another fire any time, and we might not even notice until it's too late." Leila exclaimed, stepping off the last few stairs when suddenly, the fire alarm blared to life.

"You were saying?" Derek quipped, prompting the three of them to dash towards the smoking building.

Leila sprinted as fast as she could, with Derek and Elle trying to keep pace. Her background in martial arts and high school track made her an agile and swift runner.

They urgently shouted at students to clear the way as they charged into the building. Inside, Leila spotted Gideon wielding a fire extinguisher, attempting to douse the flames. Derek swiftly moved to restrain him, fearful that the fire would escalate further.

With combined effort, they managed to pull Gideon away from the dangerous situation, though he resisted fiercely, still shouting to be released. "He was a teacher!"

"Just let it go! He's already gone." Derek implored, keeping a firm grip on him.

Leila glanced back at the burning building, her heart pounding in her chest at the tragedy that had unfolded. It was as if she had predicted what would occur, even before it happened.

Elle diligently captured images of all the students outside, their eyes fixed on the blazing fire. The team meticulously scrutinized the photos, hoping to identify anyone who appeared suspicious. However, it proved to be more challenging than they had anticipated.

Leila leaned back in her chair, putting on her glasses she rarely used, aside for detailed examinations and paperwork. Letting out a sigh of frustration, she set aside the photo she was holding and took off her glasses, gently massaging her temples to try to alleviate the growing headache caused by the intensity of the case.

"Look at these expressions." Derek exclaimed, a tinge of irritation in his voice. "We've got fear, a touch of horror, even a little bit of panic. But where's the guy getting off?"

Spencer interjected with a crucial piece of information. "When asked about his motives, Peter Dinsdale said, 'I am devoted to fire. Fire is my master.'"

Derek moved closer to the crime board, brandishing a lighter. "Okay, so who is our boy's master? Ten-thousand-plus students, and one has a serious fascination with fire."

Leila hummed thoughtfully, bringing her hands down from her face and crossing them against her chest. "Fire-starting is one-third of the homicidal triad, an early predictor of adult dissociative criminal behavior."

"I think if we looked into his childhood, we'd probably find all three." Elle added, nodding in agreement with Leila's earlier statement. "Bed-wetting and cruelty to animals."

"Absent or abusive father, trouble with the opposite sex, chronic low self-esteem." Gideon elaborated, pacing around the room. "MO will be dynamic. Evolving. As fire-setting escalates, they thrive on panic, fear. It's just the standard profile of a serial arsonist."

"Based on hundreds of interviews." Spencer added.

"Based on precedent." Derek chimed in.

"Everything the UnSub should be according to research." Leila sighed.

"But we're off the mark." Aaron said, his expression filled with concern.

"Because of two missing elements." Gideon answered.

"Sex and power. The two motives that drive a serial arsonist." Derek responded.

"And without them, we do not have a profile." Gideon stated, leaving them all stressed and worried.

Leila, Aaron, and Spencer made their way to the chemistry lab to speak with the students who claimed to have knowledge of how the unsub created the fires. As Leila entered the lab, she carefully examined all the equipment and chemicals, trying to gain any insight into the arsonist's methods.

Aaron approached Spencer and suggested he take the lead in the conversation with the students, considering he was closer in age to them and might establish a better rapport.

Spencer looked up, a little nervous, but he cleared his throat, ready to talk. "Hi guys. My name is Doctor Spencer Reid. I am an agent with the BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, which, it used to be called the BSU, the Behavioral Science Unit, but not anymore. They changed it to the BAU. It's part of the NCAVC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is also part of this thing called the CIRG, the Critical Incident Response Group and—"

Leila could tell he was getting anxious, causing him to ramble. She stepped in, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder and giving him a small smile before taking over. "What Doctor Reid is trying to say is that we would love to know how you can help us."

The only guy from the group of four stood up, walking up to Spencer, pointing at the lightbulb. "May I, please? Thank you." He took the lightbulb and held it up for them to see. "See this? Drill a hole in the side, fill it with gasoline, or whatever is good and flammable, turn the light on, boom." They all looked at him, and Leila made a mental note to do a background check on him. "That is what went down, didn't it?"

"This stuff's all over the Net." One of the girls spoke, causing all of them to turn their heads her way. "Wanna know how to make a Molotov cocktail that sets itself on fire?" She held up her hand, counting the items on her fingers. "Potassium, sulfur, and normal sugar. Sugar. Sugar, which is—"

"Not exactly plutonium." The guy said, cutting her off. "You could get the stuff anywhere."

"Sugar from the supermarket."

Leila and Aaron glanced at each other before he spoke. "But you don't need to be a chem major to know that."

"Do you think it's a chem student?" Zhang asked the students.

"You wanna know what I think?" the guy asked. Leila looked at him as he walked up to Spencer once again, holding the lightbulb over his forehead before giving it back to him. "I think it would be a good time to take the semester off."

With that information, the three decided it was time to leave the lab. The guy offered to take them to the elevator, and they all entered as Aaron pushed the buttons.

"Hold on, you need a key to get it moving after 10:00PM." The guy told him, inserting a key.

"So what are you still doing here?" Leila asked him, her arms crossed.

"I can't leave. We've all got projects. You know how to solve the three-body problem?" he inquired.

Leila, Aaron, and Spencer all looked at each other, some ideas already swarming in their heads.

They received an audio recording of someone speaking, the voice distorted. The recording sounded like someone was saying, "I do this for Karen," however, it was difficult to decipher what the person was saying.

Derek asked Penelope to filter the audio to get it as close to the real voice. Leila paced around the room, trying to think about what they could be missing. She usually needed some alone time to think, as it helped her relax and clear her mind. Excusing herself from the team, they all understood she needed to be alone to think.

The person in the audio sounded like they were saying they did it for "Karen," but Leila knew it was a bit of a stretch. There were hundreds of Karen's on the campus, but the audio sounded much more like it was a different word.

She paced around the empty room, thinking of words that started with a K sound, similar to Karen. After a few minutes of pacing, her eyes widened slightly as she went over all of the evidence in her head. Suddenly, a realization struck her, and she quickly ran back to the team in the other room, noticing Gideon running in as well.

"Charown." Leila and Gideon said at the same time, Leila furrowing her eyebrows but not surprised that Gideon figured it out too.

"Charown?" Spencer questioned, turning to look at the two.

"'I do it because of Charown.'" Gideon repeated.

"That's Hebrew."

"It's God's burning anger." Leila explained.

"Yeah." Spencer acknowledged, as the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place.

Elle walked up to them, furrowing her eyebrows. "The motive is now religious?"

Gideon began to write on the whiteboard while Spencer explained the connection between religions and fire. "Well, you know in a lot of religions, God is related to fire."

Aaron chimed in. "Agni is fire in Hinduism, and the Jews see God as a pillar of fire. Christians also worship God as a consuming fire."

"Okay, so we're looking for a theology major." Derek suggested. "Maybe he's punishing the other students for their sins."

"What's the most sinful place on campus?" Elle asked, searching for potential targets.

"Come on, Elle, when I was in college, it was everywhere." Derek responded with a hint of humor.

"Fraternity?" Aaron questioned.

"Campus bar?" Elle suggested.

Leila shook her head, looking at them all with a thoughtful expression. "No, because that's not consistent with the previous targets."

"What about the idea of baptism by fire?" Derek added. "Aren't we all supposed to be tested through fire in Revelations?"

Gideon turned away from the whiteboard, facing them all once again. "Look, it's good, it's good. But, listen, please do not jump to conclusions. Religion might be a part of it, but it's not necessarily the prime compulsion."

Elle and Derek responded a bit angrily back to Gideon, claiming they were running out of time to figure this out.

Leila closed her eyes, thinking back to the video they first saw of the three fires in one night. "I need to see the video of Matthew again."

Spencer looked at her, nodding his head. "I'll watch it with you, I need to see something."

Leila and Spencer played the video in another room, trying to examine if there were any clues they may have missed. They replayed the video over and over again, but Leila noticed something strange. "Hey, wait. Zoom in on the door knob."

Spencer pressed one of the keys to zoom in on the door knob and played the video once again. They noticed how the door knob twisted three times.

"We need to see any other signs of three during the other fires." Spencer stated, and the two of them rushed to Professor Wallace's office, the teacher who died in the fire, and checked his schedule. He was in office number three.

"Tuesday, three o'clock." Leila mumbled, showing Spencer.

The two of them immediately went to the team to inform them about what they discovered. Spencer closed the door and began speaking. "Leila and I know why the profiles never fit. You were right to tell Morgan not to rely on precedent. The fires thus far have been completely task-oriented."

"So once they're set, the unsub is done?" Aaron questioned Spencer.

"Exactly. The UnSub is not a classical serial arsonist. He's someone who uses fire because of a completely different disorder." Leila explained, grateful that they finally understood why the unsub was doing what he did.

"Which is?" Gideon tilted his head.

Spencer began to explain. "An extreme manifestation of OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. He does everything in threes. And if we're right, he'll have to kill again."

Leila and Spencer showed the video to Aaron and Gideon, zooming in on the door knob. As Spencer talked, Leila thought back to the girl in the chemistry lab.

"Aaron, remember that girl from the lab?" Leila asked him, and Aaron turned to look at her. "Clara, I think was her name?"

Aaron nodded his head in realization, who furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. Gideon looked at him. "What is it?"

"I think I know who it might be. And it's not a he, it's a she." Aaron said. "Clara Hayes. When I was talking to her and her classmates, I noticed something. A ring on her finger and she kept turning it."

Leila pointed at him, nodding her head. "I noticed it, too. She turned at intervals of three."

"And she counted off the ingredients of a light bulb bomb." Aaron continued.

"And the word sugar." Spencer realized.

"Yeah, and she kept repeating it. Once she started, she couldn't stop."

Leila hummed, fiddling with her ring on her ring finger. "Mhm, I have OCD. I always have to do everything in even numbers or else I'll be uncomfortable."

"I've always noticed that." Spencer said, looking at her. "You always keep everything so organized and do everything in an even set of numbers. It's like you have to do it."

Leila tilted her head, smiling. "It gets a little annoying."

The fire alarms went off in the campus, all of them searching for Clara Hayes. Leila got ready to find Clara, along with Aaron.

Gideon looked frantic, about to rush out of the room when Aaron stopped him. "Jason, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Clara Hayes is very likely a good person. Someone who never wanted to do anyone any harm, like any other rational person. But there's nothing rational about obsessive-compulsive disorder."

"Research suggests OCD involves problems in communication between the frontal part of the brain and the orbital cortex. Plus deeper structures, the basal ganglia." Spencer explained OCD.

"You can't reason with her because you can't reason with a physiological problem." Leila continued, while Gideon looked confused. "She's not setting these fires because she wants to, but because she has to."

"What are you trying to say?" Gideon asked, eyebrows scrunched.

Leila looked at him, her gaze stern. "Don't try to convince her to stop. Because you won't be able to."

Leila and Aaron ran to the third floor, where they found Clara kneeling on the ground in front of the elevator, holding a torch. "Clara." Aaron said aloud, causing the girl to gasp quietly.

"I have to do this." She told them, breathing heavily.

"You know it's not rational, Clara. You were trying to tell me."

"God chose me to be tested." Clara insisted, a tight grip on the torch. "And now he's chosen them. If I don't do this, something terrible will happen."

Leila quickly tried to stall her. "What will happen, Clara? Is it a flood? An earthquake? What is it? You know this isn't rational."

Clara squinted her eyes, her face in concentration. "I know, I know, I know."

"Then resist." Aaron told her.

"I can't! They must be tested. God's wrath."

"Clara, you told me it was a chemistry student." Aaron pressed further and you slowly walked closer to her while he distracted her. "You left the message about Charon."

"Charon, Charon, Moloch."

"You want to stop."

"Father, Son...Holy Ghost." Clara inched forward and was about to throw the torch into the elevator when Aaron shot her leg, making her drop it onto the ground. As she was close enough, Leila quickly stepped onto it before it fell into the elevator.

Gideon ran up to them, looking at Aaron. "I thought you said not to reason with her?"

The team made it back to Quantico, entering the BAU building as they all were ready to head back home. Leila walked up the stairs, opening her office door when she saw two people.

Her eyes widened in surprise but then she squealed, running up to them. She took her little girl into her arms, spinning her around.

"Wow, and I don't even get a hello?" Zaid crossed his arms, only sarcasm laced in his voice. "After everything we've been through."

Leila scoffed, turning back to him. "My little Jas is the most important person in my life, it isn't even a competition."

Zaid laughed, wrapping his arms around her body, careful not to squish Jasmine in the process. "If that isn't the truest thing I've heard all day."

Leila looked up at her husband, grinning. She leaned into him, initiating a kiss to which he obliged quickly. "We need to go home right now. I'm so tired."

Zaid hummed, grabbing your bag from when you dropped it onto the floor. "I cooked your favorite. Thought you'd be hungry."

She grinned in excitement, planting another kiss on his lips before she started rushing out of her office. "I'm starving." She looked at Jasmine, who started giggling as her mom ran down the stairs. "Yeah, baby? Let's go home, okay?"

The team looked over at the three, warm smiles on their faces as they watched them leave.

"That's so cute." JJ said, who came up to the team once they arrived. "They look so happy."

The team nodded in agreement, still grinning even after the elevator closed behind the three as they got on it.

[caernua]

PLEASE drop the Arcana opinions

WHY THANK YOU FOR INDULGING ME ANON i will drop some of my hot takes

under the cut bc i went a lil crazy and this is very long (sorry)

i don't really like how much they sanitized the game, i feel like they just made an effort to make everyone much much nicer and agreeable than they initially were especially in the prologue, which is okay (don't get me wrong we love positivity and growth), but at the same time there were moments where i felt like. it was a lil much and a little juvenile. like... it's okay for the main cast to have dislikes between eachother and i was kinda feeling like they eliminated that at one point? it was okay for asra and julian to be bitter, it was okay for nadia to be more hard-hearted and commanding. it was okay for lucio to be liked by his people and not the butt of every joke, it got to a point where he's not believable as a villain or a threat (but tbf muriel's route kinda fixed that) and i definitely think they did that bc of the backlash. a lot of people were saying asra is shady and toxic to julian and nadia is too commanding but ... so what? they looked sexie while doing it so what's the problem??? oh and come to think of it the magic system kinda played into that? i'm not a huge fan of the magic system in the arcana it's very wishy washy and oh everyone can do magic now actually it's within ✨all of us✨. i think it's just not well done

i actually think the earlier chapters and the prologue are overall much better than the last few ones for the main 3 and that includes the cgs. the first few cgs are so beautiful??? the later ones look so weird and uncanny to me?????? i know they had different artists on the team obviously and i think the earlier cgs i'm referring to were moreso done by dana rune and veronica liwski (who by the way deleted their artstation. wild. this is what i mean when i say this is a WASTELAND) and it's a shame how little that is out of the full no. of cgs. dana rune the way you draw asra aaaaaaaaa

i think the way they went about the endings is so, so CLEVER. the choices you have to make are quite subtle, i remember we were wracking our brains as the chapters were coming out to discover what exactly were the good/bad choices and what they could lead to. i like that some of those choices are so subtle that they're pretty much impossible to catch. (for instance. in lucio's first chapter when he tells you to hurry up with the spell you can reply with 'shush/be patient.' those answers are almost the same but they lead to two different endings!!! wild!!) and i think there's a very good balance between 'hard to catch' and 'pretty obvious' choices! and the fact that they went about creating bittersweet endings rather than 'bad' endings is wonderful. i think it's ten times more impactful to have an ending where yes, you are with you love interest and all is well, but not quite. that gnawing feeling of 'what did i do wrong?' sticks to you and urges you to analyze the main characters and it's such good characterization!! i just adore how they went about the endings, it's not too obvious, not too subtle, not too heartbreaking, not too drastic, it's just RIGHT!

i'm really gonna try not to make this next one a novel but asra's route is one of the most beautifully told, gut-wrenching, soul-crushing, utterly devastasting love stories i came across in any media ever. i'm moreso referring to the set-up itself so the prologue + the earlier chapters + everything that happened beforehand. i think his route is underrated just in the sense that. the prologue itself is comically superior when it comes to asra's route, and yea that's bc he's the only one the mc has a preestablished relationship with. but UGH! the fountain scene is probably my fave scene in the game, i love how they mirrored it later on with the roles reversed, it was PERFECTION. they said 'let's take idiots in love' but make it actually make sense and a tragedy. and let's make it the most devastating reason we can think of. it's amazing. the pining, the heartache, the suffering. the mystery being revealed to you little by little (because otherwise the mc goes catatonic, so asra has to be patient, patient, patient) and being flooded by the questions of what were they like before all this?? so interesting to think about. i think it's very important in games like these to stimulate the player into trying to think of a backstory and let their creative juices flow and asra's route does that so well! paradoxically it's also true that they take some of your freedom away as a player because you do find out that there's a bit of history there whatever route you are playing but. the fact that it hardly matters bc he loves mc so much that he would never take their freedom away is amazing. just realizing the amount of love he has for mc, the restraint he has had all those years and how painful it must have been, holy shit. GUT-WRENCHING!! this is why everytime i play another route the second asra shows up and says something even remotely tied to the past i gotta close that route and go back to him kfdhgkjfhdg. this quote in lucio's route is particularly making me scream shit vomit: 'he looked like my first memories of him. kind, but weary, and so very sad.' bitch what the FUUUUUCK

and just. the vibes and the writing of this route overall hoooo bitch. 'why must he go where i can't follow?' 'do i remember? how could i ever forget? i love him, i have to tell him, even if it kills me'. when they kiss for the first time and asra doesn't even dare move because he has held back for so long, and he's physically shaking (bitch me too the fuck). 'i feel it radiating off of him. i want you. i need you. i miss you so much' that insane orpheus and eurydice parallel in the early chapters which also serves as foreshadowing!!! 'i dug until my fingers bled'. 'i try to stay away from you but my heart keeps pulling me back' THE WHOLE DREAMS AS A VESSEL BETWEEN LOVERS TROPE (this shit kills me personally everytime) 'everyday my love for you grows brighter and brighter until it consumes me'. just. this idea of 'a thousand life-altering things happened to part us, but even when i have no idea who you are, i will sooner or later fall in love with you, simply because you are you and i am me and it's bound to be like this, you are my home and i am yours'. INJECT ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT 💉💉💉 I PLAYED THIS GAME WHEN I WAS 19, NOW I'M ALMOST 25 AND I'M STILL READING HIS ROUTE CRYING SHITTING THROWING UP AND KICKING MY LEGS IN THE AIR. i'll be a senile 90 year old lady in the old folks' home playing this stupid mobile game on my home crying and thinking 'damn bitch i need to get myself a gemini like that what the fuck'

not that it's a hot take but dorian sucks ass

[gunsatthaphan]

no one asked for this but here are my thoughts on the announced shows from today (in order of announcement, BLs are marked with a 🏳️‍🌈, personal favorites are marked with a 🌟):

Enigma: The days where I’m genuinely intrigued by a plot about a mysterious school are over. I’m not a fan of neither Win or Prim so I’m gonna pass on this one.  .

A Boss and a Babe (🏳️‍🌈): I did not expect ForceBook to come back twice next year lmao but I’m not upset. This would be the first series I see with them since I didn’t see Enchante but I really like their chemistry. I’m not a fan of boss-employee romance plots but I will give this a shot. Also the rest of the cast is amazing. Thumbs up!  .

Find Yourself: I did not see the original so I can’t say much about it but the trailer did not intrigue me. next.  .

Double Savage: This looks like a tragic but very interesting story I think, also Ohm and Perth seem to be an S-tier casting choice for this. These characters in this setting fit them extremely well imo. It’s a bit too much violence for my taste but I will take a look nonetheless.  .

Hidden Agenda (🏳️‍🌈🌟): FIRST HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY!!!!!! This looks absolutely amazing. The cast is A+++ and I’m SO excited that JoongDunk are actually coming back. I was hoping they would. The story is right up my alley and it definitely fits them. Joongs character seems very similar to Kluen but I’m okay with that lol. These are the kind of roles that fit him the best. Also we’re finally getting AouBoom 🥺 And is PoddGuy gonna be a thing too? If so then sign me up even more lmao. So excited for this one!!!!!! 💜  .

23.5 Degrees (🏳️‍🌈🌟): I cannot put into words how happy I am about this. We’re not only finally getting MilkLove but we’re finally getting a GL. This couldn’t be better. This looks so precious and so endearing, also GeminiFourth as the sides definitely makes this the most adorable project out of all. I absolutely love this. This is huge. Thank you gmm 🥺  .

Because You are My First Love: DewPrim seems to be a good match but I’m not really feeling it. Next.  .

Cooking Crush (🏳️‍🌈🌟): WELL WELL WELL. What do we have here. Still can’t believe it lol. I love shows about cooking and this looks fun, but to be completely honest I’m not sure how I feel about OffGun bl no. 5 lol. I love them but isn’t it time to move on lol. Also why did they say they were done. Idk. Obviously I’m gonna watch it but I think I would’ve preferred seeing Gun with Tor. Just to shake things up a bit. But oh well. Not complaining anyway ✌🏻  .

Wednesday Club: This looks like a messy version of Club Friday lmao. Not sure. Could be interesting but could be a flop. I think I’ll pass. Next.  .

Last Twilight (🏳️‍🌈): Hmmm..... If I took my glasses off I would probably think this was Vice Versa season 2 lol - I’m hesitant when it comes to shows portraying disabilities so I’m a bit reluctant about this one. I love JimmySea and I really hope they get this right. But I’m not 100% convinced.  .

Loneliness Society:  This looks boring, unoriginal story and a meh cast. Next.  .

Only Friends (🏳️‍🌈🌟🌟🌟): FUCK. ME. UP. This looks amazing. I was hoping for a Jojo series in the style of friendzone and my prayers have been answered. And not only that but with my babes FirstKhao???? And ForceBook and NeoMark????? Christmas came early this year lmao. I absolutely love that FK are going into a completely different direction for their second project. This looks spicy and messy and chaotic - exactly my cup of tea lmao. BRING IT.  .

Faceless Love: The plot around the face blindness is a very interesting concept but I’m not a fan of the main couple. Not sure.  .

Dangerous Romance (🏳️‍🌈🌟): YES I LOVE THIS. I wasn’t feeling it the first time I saw it but after rewatching it a few times I’m really into it. Yes, it’s yet another school setting (sigh) but I’m very much digging the PerthChimon pairing. I didn’t think they would actually get their own show but I’m happy. The trailer is giving Bad Buddy and 2Gether vibes which I hope won’t dominate the actual series lol but I’m intrigued nonetheless. Yay!!!!! .

The Jungle: Sorry but this looks awful. The cast is good but the story seems so weird to me. Hated every second of that trailer. Next.  .

Midnight Museum: This looks,,,,, interesting? I’m a bit creeped out lmao I was expecting to get TorGun and I’m not sure if they will actually be a pair here but we shall see. It looks very abstract which is intriguing but also has me a bit hesitant because it’s giving slight The Blue Hour vibes. But we shall see. Gun and Tor are gonna slay either way.  .

Cherry Magic (🏳️‍🌈): I have no words for this lmao. Like what---. I did not expect TayNew to actually make a comeback and I sure did not expect them to adapt THE cherry magic lmao? I generally find adaptions interesting but I’m not sure if this will work. TayNew are highly experienced so I guess they will do these roles justice but idk. cherry magic is so fundamentally different from thai bls which is one of the reasons why it was so phenomenal so I’m curious how they’re gonna do this. But for now I’m not putting it on my favorites list.  .

Our Skyy 2 (🏳️‍🌈🌟): YES I’m excited for this one!!!! Never in a million years would I have thought that there would be another season to this show lmao but here we are. I’m taking this as a final goodbye to these pairings which is a bit sad but I think it’s a good way to end these eras. I’m excited to see what they have in store for each of them!!!  .

Beauty Newbie: Absolutely hate this one. I’m sick and tired of these shows trying to sell me the idea that beautiful girls are ugly and then some handsome dude comes along and tells them otherwise like what century is this??? Win fits in there though because his characters are almost exclusively conservative snobs. No thank you. .

The Interest: Couldn’t care less about this one lmao. Bye. 

conclusion: 2023 seems to be the year of comebacks lol which I’m not mad about since I love all these pairings, but I do wish we had gotten more new ones. Also I was expecting to see more new faces (besides Title and Great). A few surprises like the ones we got last year would’ve been nice. However I am happy with what we’re getting, especially the fact that MilkLove is finally happening. Incredible. I’m glad they toned it down a bit with the number of shows and also that the event was shorter. A lot of their big shots were either absent or merely booked which was surprising; I was expecting to see people like Bright more frequently but maybe that’s for the best. 

My personal highlights are Only Friends, 23.5 Degrees, Dangerous Romance and Hidden Agenda. 

Can’t wait for 2023! 💜 

xxx

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2023 Movie Journey #8: The Menu

the menu. i’m glad i decided to watch this one. it wasn’t originally on my list, because i only knew ralph fiennes was in it and it’s about food--neither of those are specific draws for me. i had heard it involves class issues, it was being compared to glass onion in headlines i skimmed, so i wasn’t totally opposed to it, i just wasn’t sure either way. but then i saw john leguizamo talk about his role in an interview, and i hadn’t realized he was part of it; that made me reconsider. and then my favorite movie podcast put out an episode where they discussed m3gan--which i am desperate to get someone else’s opinion on since i saw it alone--BUT the episode also includes discussion of the menu. so i figured if i was ever planning on watching the menu, i had better do so soon, and then i’d be able to enjoy that podcast double-feature. (which now i can, yay!)

but my impression of this movie was definitely wrong, i’ll start by saying. i didn’t know it was really a horror movie--i knew there was some violence or gore, but i honestly thought for some reason that it was a movie about cannibalism, where the menu involved killing and cooking the customers. i have no idea where i got that idea, since it is not true. so now i’ve already watched more horror movies this year than i have in the last several combined, even if this one was by accident. and since i’m about to watch scream 5 (because i never did when it came out) in order to decide if i want to see scream 6 in the theater, i’m starting to reacclimate to horror and that’s a surprisingly nice feeling. in real life, i prefer to avoid violence always...but i’m okay with being desensitized to it in media because i don’t get to choose which stories include violence (so many!) and those stories can hold a lot of value for me otherwise.

anyhow, this movie really was good, and i’m not sure i have too much to say beyond that--the cast is great, from personal faves like judith light and nicholas hoult to reliable talents like ralph fiennes and anna taylor-joy. i didn’t realize before watching this that ralph fiennes is a jkr defender, so obviously that sucks, but he was hitting all the necessary levels in this--terrifying, sad, obsessive. and anna taylor-joy was another actor i didn’t even know was in this, which is pretty funny since she’s the real star. she makes an excellent final girl and as somebody who couldn’t get through the queen’s gambit i am thrilled to now know more of her work. i adore her thanks to this movie alone.

i did engage my newly-implemented horror rule of looking away when i need to--there are multiple suicides in this, for example, but most of the deaths were telegraphed well in advance so i didn’t have to see them. and because of my relationship to food, tbh there were some times when i looked away that didn’t involve any violence at all. this movie is simultaneously a love letter to food and a takedown of foodie culture, as much as it’s a takedown of wealthy restaurant customers and the way that restaurant culture destroys the workers that pour their lives into crafting food. because i’m so detached from food, i mostly enjoyed it as a well-told story rather than relating to any of it. 

i will add though that this is a fucking weird movie. that was my first immediate impression as i was watching it, so i shouldn’t just say i liked it without adding that. it is incredibly dark and twisted. but it so clearly knows what it wants to be doing that i was happily along for the ride. there’s something really enjoyable--at least for me--about a movie that’s completely committed to its premise, no matter how intense or specific (or bizarre) it may be. 

oh, also i liked the soundtrack to this one a lot. it wasn’t exactly all that special, more of the ‘classical with a modern twist’ that i love whenever i encounter it...but it made it fun for me to let the credits play to the end, because i enjoy that style of music all the time.

in conclusion, i would recommend this one if you like the cast, are interested in commentary on fine dining and the people that create it, or enjoy modern horror movies (especially ones that justify murdering the wealthy). i liked it a lot more than i thought i would.

[centuryberry]

@peachshadows / @terrible-leviathan Uh-oh, Peng meets the kids. Wonder how that goes…

The Golden-Winged Peng sneered down at the pile of Celestial warriors who dared to challenge him for his position. None of them stood a chance against his spear and golden talons. Peng didn’t know why they even tried anymore. The age of Celestials was long over. Demons ruled the Three Realms now.

Peng hopped gracefully off of the pile of bodies and narrowly avoided the growing puddle of blood.

No matter. If they bled out, they bled out. The servants were used to clearing away dead bodies at this point.

Truly, the Celestial Realm was filled with so many weaklings. No wonder it fell so easily under the might of the Brotherhood. Even the Jade Emperor crumbled when faced against the imprudent little chimp.

Well. Not so imprudent or little now.

Emperor Wukong ruled the Celestial Realm with an iron fist. Peng was almost impressed by how ruthless and bloodthirsty his sworn brother turned out to be after he took his seat on the Jade Throne. Such a long way from the little comedian who entertained them at the dinner table.

Peng had dared to think that Azure was a fool for pining after someone like Sun Wukong in the past. Now, he conceded that his sworn brother simply had a keener eye for quality than he.

Azure deserved to have a powerful Emperor as his mate.

(Azure deserved to be an Emperor and have a powerful mate.)

Yes, the Emperor already declared his Empress and stubbornly rejected all ideas of a harem (that unsuitable fool), but Azure was obviously favored among the court. The Celestial Lion bided his time and waited for an opportunity - and what many opportunities did the current Empress offered them with his unpopularity in the court, his loud arguments with the Emperor, and his failure to provide heirs.

The last one was the greatest blow. Having many heirs was what a harem was for. So what use was a lone Empress who spent most of his time in the Mortal Realm instead of in his Emperor and husband’s bed? The highest cruelty was that it was Wukong himself who designed this scenario.

Many sang songs about the Emperor and the Empress’ love, failing to see how they chipped each other down and dulled each other’s shine.

What a waste, Peng would always think with disgust when he regarded the pair of them. Their greatest potential would always be out of reach as long as they were tied together.

The Brotherhood was doing both of them a favor, honestly. They’d see when Wukong flourished and shined with Azure at his side, bringing him and the Three Kingdoms to greater heights.

And Macaque?

Well, he’d be cast aside into the shadows, of course. Abandoned, forgotten, humiliated, and perfect for Peng to sweep down on and take as his own. Because who else would be more suitable for the role of Liu’er Mihou’s mate than the Golden-Winged Peng?

The tiles were all lined up, ready to topple the Empress from his unsuited seat. But then, the revelation of two Royal cubs came into light and shattered everything they worked for. Ever since then, nothing went right.

Peng’s beak clacked in irritation as he recalled how Azure had been humiliated by the youngest. The story had spread like wildfire throughout the Celestial Realm.

The Great Azure Lion mistaken for a mere house pet.

Azure had taken it all with good humor, of course. “An innocent mistake,” he’d chuckled to his outraged sworn brothers. “You should meet them. Wukong’s blood runs strong in both cubs. It would be good to make up for the lost years apart by being there for them now, don’t you think?”

And so, Yellow Tusk and Peng were assigned to get closer to the Royal Children. While the current Empress did not trust them by any means, his eyes and ears would be trained mostly on Azure, giving them far more flexibility and opportunities.

“Allow me to approach the Princess, Peng. Being young, she might need a more…softer touch,” Yellow Tusk had suggested gently when they were alone. At that, Peng scoffed but didn’t argue. He knew he had a tongue as sharp as his talons and short patience for those who couldn’t endure either of them. Yes, it was best that he was left with the full-grown cub.

Regarding his first meeting with the eldest, Peng was unimpressed. His posture outside of fighting was abysmal, his knowledge in courtly politics was close to nothing, and he was needlessly kind to everyone he met. Even the servants. Especially the servants.

The blundering youth’s only saving grace was how he took Peng’s harsh yet thorough dressing-down. Instead of bursting into tears or running to complain to his parents, Prince MK took every criticism with only the slightest of winces and actually took the initiative to ask more questions.

“Thanks for your advice, Uncle Peng!” MK had said at the end of it all. Catching Peng’s startled expression at his genuine gratitude, the young monkey demon’s smile turned a little wry. “I mean, you were super mean about it, not gonna lie, but I really needed the help. No one really sat me down and explained it all to me, y’know?”

After a few embarrassing moments of not being able to properly vocalize his thoughts, Peng had finally spluttered, “Don’t ever reveal your flaws like that out in the open ever again if you want to survive in Court.” Then, “we are going to your mother.”

And went to Macaque they did. What followed were sharp and acidic words exchanged from both sides about the Prince’s safety and what should be the definition of it. If Peng hadn’t been so aghast about the state of the cub’s imperial education, he would’ve appreciated his Empress’ creativity in his threats on Peng’s person. He always did like how Macaque’s angered tone sounded so sweetly as he delivered his venom.

But not then. Not when, once again, the potential of someone promising was being squandered in front of his eyes.

Perhaps he allowed himself to get too passionate, but something changed in Macaque’s expression as Peng ranted about the dangers of allowing someone as disgustingly earnest and horrendously gullible as the Prince to remain untrained and unprotected. The defensive hatred that usually burned in his eyes whenever he regarded Peng simmered into something speculative and considering the more he spoke uninterrupted.

“Fine,” Macaque had cut in, interrupting Peng mid-rant. “You brought up good points. If you feel so strongly about this, you teach my son.”

And so, Peng became the Prince’s tutor.

It should’ve been a victory. Peng had thought it was a victory. He had the Prince’s ear and the ability to mold his mind as his tutor.

But that wasn’t what happened. Yes, Peng had access to the Prince’s mind, but the Prince and access to him too. Much to his frustration, Peng found himself shifting and changing in response to his unexpected student’s many inquiries and needs. (Strange inquiries that sometimes wandered into subjects pertaining to space and possible different dimensions beyond the three realms. It frustrated Peng that he didn’t have the answer. That was more of Yellow Tusk’s expertise.)

The cub did not learn best in a classroom setting. Peng ended up having to bribe him with lessons in fighting in mid-air and stories about the Brotherhood during their youth for the slightest scrap of concentration. His attempts in influencing the Prince - “just MK” - were long-forgotten in favor of actually teaching him. If Peng didn’t know any better, he’d think that Macaque was manipulating him through his son.

Even more frustrating was how it was working too.

(There was so much Wukong in MK. So much instinctiveness, so much emotion, so much everything. Peng should hate that.)

(He didn’t.)

And Peng wasn’t alone in this strange phenomenon. On the other side of things, Yellow Tusk became a frequent playmate of the Princess from what he heard in the grapevine. Not surprising. Yellow Tusk may be a heavy-hitter in the battlefield, but he was as soft as they came when children were involved.

But then there was talk about how the Princess would drag DBK of all demons into tea parties and Azure into hair-braiding sessions.

Just what sort of spell craft were these cubs capable of to render the strongest into childish playmates? Peng couldn’t understand. The mere thought of it threw his mind and heart into a disarray.

Even with the blood of the imprudent celestials fresh on his talons, it changed nothing. Not even the sting of fond exasperation he felt at the sight of the Prince changed when his unruly student came late to their lesson.

“You’re late,” Peng stated, voice as dry as the desert.

“I’m SORRY!” MK cried out. “I have a really, really good reason!”

“Hello!” A small voice chirped from his student’s arms. And that was how Peng met Princess Xiaodan for the first time.

The rumors about the resemblance between Macaque and his daughter didn’t do her justice. She was his mirror image, aside from her soft pink face markings. It didn’t help that her little dress was most-likely modeled after the Empress’ own hanfu.

She was also…tinier than Peng expected.

“Maca - Mom was called away for something and couldn’t bring A-Dan with him,” MK explained hastily. “I promise she’ll behave, so can she sit in today’s lesson? I even brought paper and crayons to keep her busy.”

Peng allowed it. At worst, he’d just have to cut their lesson short and make up for it in another day if she acted up like bored children tended to do. To his surprise, Princess Xiaodan behaved well - perhaps even better than her older brother. She concentrated completely on drawing, only occasionally peeking up at Peng from time to time only for her gaze to dart back down when his attention turned fully to her.

It was odd to have Macaque’s face not look at him with suspicion and thinly-veiled contempt. Peng didn’t know what to do with a Macaque who wasn’t ready to fight him at every turn.

At the end of the lesson, Princess Xiaodan finally mustered up the courage to come close enough to Peng and hold out the paper she has been working on throughout the entire lesson.

“Is this for me?” Peng surprised himself with how gentle he managed to make his voice sound.

The Princess nodded.

Next to her, MK stiffened and Peng couldn’t blame him. He would critique and tear apart inanimate objects if their performance was subpar. Still, not taking the offering would hurt the Princess, so he took it and looked it over.

“It’s hideous. The colors are all wrong. You didn’t even fill it in properly. Is that supposed to be me? Well, someone isn’t going to be an artist,” he could imagine himself sneering. Cruelty was second nature to him.

But those words never left his beak.

“My, is that me? And you got the colors of my feathers perfectly. Thank you for this gift, Princess.”

At his praise and thanks, Princess Xiaodan covered her burning face and jumped into her brother’s shadow with an adorable squeak.

“A-Dan is happy that you liked it, Uncle Peng!” MK hastily spoke for his sister. “Thank you,” he mouthed with gratitude shining in his eyes. As if his praise didn’t come out unexpectedly from Peng’s beak before he could think them.

“Shadow magic already at this age? Our Princess will be as talented as her mother in no time at this rate,” Peng complimented because apparently he was saying nice things now. He didn’t know if this was permanent. He hoped not.

“So you have met Princess Xiaodan,” Yellow Tusk said knowingly when he saw the piece of paper in Peng’s hands after the Royal cubs left to return to their parents.

Peng didn’t let his embarrassment show. He refused to. “I met Princess Xiaodan, yes.”

“You weren’t harsh with her, were you? I remember that you were very upset with her concerning Azure.”

Peng bristled, “I was not-!” He stopped himself and took a deep breath before continuing. “No matter how bright everyone says the Princess is, she is still very young.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “I…may have been too brash when casting judgment on such an innocent mistake.”

Yellow Tusk patted his shoulder consolingly. “I see the Princess has gotten you too.”

“Oh, shut up.”