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cherrylng · 17 days

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WOTP Dom Howard Interview [INROCK - Muse (October 2022)]

Unparalleled rock trio Muse release first new album in four years, Will of the People.

"We don't want to do a best-of album or a compilation because we're going to keep making new music."

Dominic Howard/Muse INTERVIEW: AI ANAZAWA

Muse have released their new album ‘Will of the People’, their first album in almost four years since ‘Simulation Theory’ (2018). The band has always been big on the soundscale, but this time they've pushed each of the songs to their full potential, making the rock songs harder and the ballads more dramatic, creating what might be described as the ‘strongest’ album yet. The album was self-produced without an external producer due to the Corona disaster, but as you would expect from a seasoned artist, he knows his identity and what he needs to do now. Dominic, who agreed to be interviewed by Zoom, was relaxing in the sunroom of his London home with his dog.

—I saw a picture of you at a recent festival where you were playing drums in a full face mask, is that a new image for the new album ‘Will of the People’? Dominic Howard (dr.): We start the show with ‘Will of the People’ and we also appear wearing the masks that the main characters and groups that appear on the album cover and video wear. It's the opening song.

—Oh, I thought it was hot in the summer (laughs). Dominic: (laughs). I can hardly see anything when I'm wearing that. I can barely see the drums in front of me, so I think Matt [Matthew Bellamy, vo. keys g.] and Chris [Wolstenholme, b.] have an even harder time. They'll be playing while trying to keep an eye on the fretboard. Plus, it's a full face, so it's hard to breathe. And there's a burning ‘Will of the People‘ logo right behind me, so my back is burning hot. But, you know, I'll do anything for rock‘n’roll (laughs).

“I was careful to avoid abstractions, and I was also very conscious of keeping it tight.”

—This album is especially Hard Rock, isn't it? A lot of albums made during the pandemic have been released one after another, but I have the impression that many of them are introspective because of the production environment, but this album is the complete opposite of that (laughs). Dominic: Yeah, it's a heavier, harder rock sound, less introspective… We were definitely working on some of it during the lockdown, though. I think everyone tended to be more introspective back then, and people were making music that sounded a bit more light-hearted, maybe not as bombastic as ours. Anyway, that kind of thing (introspective, light music) is not really our thing, it's more outward expression, more outlandish. Yeah, we haven't done an album as heavy as this one in a really long time.

—I read that you started this album as a response to a label proposal to release a best-of album, but why are you against the idea of a greatest hits album in the first place? Dominic: Realistically speaking, best-of albums aren't what they used to be, are they? Nowadays, a person's top 10 favourite songs on Spotify are their best releases, right? Labels want to do best-of records because they want to promote the band, but we've always been against it because we feel like a best-of record is kind of the end of your career, you know (laughs). We don't want to do a best-of album or compilation because we're going to keep making new music. The labels might have come up with the idea in discussions to see if there was anything they could release during the pandemic, but we've always said no, let's make new material instead.

—I see. Matt describes the album as “best of new songs” and “a montage piece packed with the best of Muse.” Was that the band's goal or perception in the making of the album? Did you actually discuss such things? Dominic: Hahaha, we talk about it all the time. The whole time we were making it. But I don't think it was ever our concept. I'm sure Matt said that because we like the album that much and we think it's like our best album. I think he wanted to say that it's like a collection of the best parts of the band's old sound. It's got the heavy side, the pop side, the acoustic ballads like ‘Ghosts (How Can I Move On)’, it's got the best of what the band has always done. Well, whenever you're making an album, you always think: ‘This is the best album ever! Every song could be cut as a single!’ (laughs). I don't want to release it, or even finish it, unless I'm proud of it as an important representation of the band as it is now. In fact, we were very conscious of only including stuff that we felt was appropriate to be on the album. We didn't want to do anything too experimental… That's a bit of a misnomer. We were careful to avoid abstraction, to keep it to the point and concise, to know where to put the songs on the album, and to keep the production tight.

—There are only ten songs on the album. Do you have any regrets about not being able to keep it tighter on previous albums? Dominic: No, not really. When it's been a year or so since we put out an album, I do think ‘I should have done that’ or something like that, but I wouldn't really call it a regret. We've done some very experimental and abstract albums in the past, because that's what the album needed, especially the first three albums. The second album (2001's Origin of Symmetry) is longer and more experimental. I'm not saying that I want to get rid of that aspect of ourselves, I'm just saying that we've become more conscious of making tighter albums. And I've always wanted to make a 10-song album. We've had instrumental songs that made it 11 songs, so this time we decided to make an album of just 10 songs with songs on it (laughs).

—The content of the song this time is all very depressing, just a little bit… (laughs). Dominic: The lyrics (laughs)?

—Yeah. It's as realistic a fiction as you can get. Are these socio-political and environmental issues always something that comes up in the band? Or is this all about Matt's political views? Dominic: Mostly the latter (laughs). I think the surreal, political fictional world is where he's most comfortable writing. I guess it's easier to write about very personal things than to express them frankly. Of course there are parts of the album that touch on personal things, but I haven't done a lot of songs that are about personal things. Matt's style is to write about the emotions of what's going on in the world and apply them to an imaginary world. Naturally, we would talk about the topic and the direction we wanted the song to go in. But the music always comes first. Then the lyrics (by Matt) can take quite a while, but whatever idea it's based on, the three of us take it and put it into music, and eventually it's something we enjoy playing. The lyrics come after that, so it can be influenced by the vibe and feel of the song's source material.

—Oh, really? Dominic: So it's not the lyrics we talk about the most, it's the music (laughs).

—I see, the three of you live in different parts of the world. How did you make that music during the pandemic, especially during the lockdown? Dominic: It was tough. Especially in 2020, there were months when we couldn't do anything. But we still did things like exchange ideas virtually. Once we were able to get together, we started working in the studio in Los Angeles. Chris doesn't live over here, but we still had him come to LA, and when that wasn't possible, we continued working remotely. In the spring of 2021, we got together in London and we were able to work on it at Abbey Road [Studios]. It was a lot of work, but we found a way to work not only on music, but also on these things (Zoom interviews), and also on business, virtually, without having to move from place to place, didn't we? I think it's actually become more convenient for a lot of people.

—Did you produce this album yourselves because of the restrictions of the Corona Disaster? Or was it a reaction to the fact that your last album, ‘Simulation Theory’, involved a lot of producers? Dominic: It was probably both. It was a pandemic, so from the beginning Matt and I were in the studio alone, trying out different ideas, and we were comfortable with that. Then Aleks (von Korff), the engineer, joined us in the studio and the three of us were in what you might call a bubble (laughs). Of course we had to take coronavirus checks every now and then and be careful while working, but we got comfortable in that situation, and it felt different to invite other people in there. It would be a lot of work to bring someone else in. And we like production work too. We've always co-produced, even when we've had a producer, and we rather like the time-consuming, detailed work.

—Please tell me how did you decide to end the album on a hopeless note with ‘We Are Fucking Fucked’ (laughs)? Dominic: It's interesting to hear other people say the title of this song (laughs). It was the only song we had at the end of the album. If we'd put ‘Fucking Fucked’ anywhere else, it would have given the piece a weird vibe. It's a sarcastic, depressing type of song, after all (laughs). So I think it was right to put it at the end. At first I was thinking of putting ‘Verona’ at the end. That song has a fantastic, relaxed, outro-like feel to it. But I still think ‘Fucking Fucked’ is the right one.

—Which is your favourite song of the day? Dominic: It's hard to pick just one song, I feel bad for the others (laughs).

—Let's limit it to this morning's then (laughs). Dominic: Well, we've been playing ‘Kill or Be Killed’ live recently and it's a lot of fun to play live. Maybe there's a heaviness to it that we haven't ventured into before? It's pretty metal. And I really like ‘Won't Stand Down’. When we were working on the album, I was telling Matt that every song had to make the listener feel something, and we had to make the songs make us feel something, and he asked me what I meant, and I said that sometimes when we listen to our past albums… I actually listened to all our previous albums before we started making this album. Some of them were okay, some of them were a little bit terrible, but they still conveyed what we were feeling at the time. So I had a strong feeling that every song on this album had to make me feel something. ‘Kill or Be Killed‘, when you get into the chorus, it makes you feel it. I like everything else on the record apart from those two songs. And ‘Liberation’ is a lot of fun to play. We haven't done a piano song like that for a while. Is it reminiscent of ‘United States of Eurasia’ (2009's “The Resistance”)?

“What I really want to do is to go around to different sized venues here and there and stay in Japan for two or three weeks.”

—I also like ’You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween’. And it touches on the serious issue of domestic violence. Dominic: Yes, it does. It's a very fun song, but the lyrics actually touch on emotional abuse in the home. It's the same with ‘Won't Stand Down’. We know people who have been through that, and it's a very real issue that sometimes people don't realise they're going through it. It's such a serious thing with a very pop sound.

—Will you be touring the world after a few shows in the UK in October? Dominic: Yeah, we'll play some smaller theatres in the UK in October and then maybe next year we'll tour overseas, including Japan. We really want to go to Japan. What I'd really like to do is spend two or three weeks in Japan, doing a few more shows here and there at different venues of different sizes. The last few times I've been here, I've been limited to a few cities due to time, schedule and production. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the creative side and the fun side of it.

—You have the authority to do what you really want to do, so by all means make it happen. Dominic: Well, yeah (laughs). Anyway, we'll find a time when it's possible and we'll try to fit it into the schedule.

—By the way, there is a sign of a dog from earlier. Dominic: This is Olive, a Boston terrier (he says, showing me the dog stretched out and relaxed in front of him). He's very clever. Where's Floyd? Maybe he's upstairs. They're both very clever.

—Who's going to look after them while you're away from home? Dominic: Actually, I tend to take them with me. Olive is just over a year old and I only got her last year, so she's not ready yet, but Floyd has been all over the place, he's been on a tour of America with me, he's been in Europe. He loves it. He's always happy to play with all kinds of people backstage. Olive likes people too. When the show is over, she jumps in the car and goes to the hotel with me, and every night when she gets into her new hotel room, she jumps up on the bed with great joy (laughs). So I take her with me when I can, otherwise I ask family or friends.

Recorded on 20th July, 2022 in London.

Translator’s Notes: If you’ve noticed it, then you might’ve wondered why the Japanese journalist and the article itself doesn’t use the words “Covid-19” and “pandemic” (other than Dom himself). As I’m not a Japanese native, I don’t fully know the answer either, but I did pay attention to Japanese news over the years to pick up on information. In Japan, the government and the people do know and use the word COVID-19, but unfortunately the name that COVID-19 took in Japan was this: 新型コロナウイルス感染症 / Shingata Coronavirus Kansenshou / new coronavirus infection.

As you can see, that is a whole mouthful that no one has the time to say all of that out loud -even including the word Covid-19 itself- so they shortened it to just using ‘コロナウイルス / Coronavirus’ and ‘コロナ / Corona’ instead.

So I got used to seeing that whenever an artist or celebrity in Japan was confirmed infected by Covid and had to cancel events, they just announce on their blogs and on X [formerly known as Twitter] that they got Corona. And some of these words became familiar to me as well.

コロナ禍 / Korona-ka = Corona Disaster / Covid-19 Pandemic コロナ緊急事態 / Korona kinkyuu jitai = Corona Emergency / Lockdown

BTW, I wasn't sure what Dom's other dog's name was. I know of Floyd, but I can't remember the second dog's name. Was it Olive or Oliver?

#Matt Bellamy #Dom Howard #Chris Wolstenholme #Muse #Will of the People era #Will of the People #INROCK magazine #my scan #interview #translation #I actually already finished getting this interview translated days ago #I wanted a break from the STYLE Series after having to translate each and every Manson guitar that Matt owns up to 2010 #and his amplifiers and pedals #my brain hurts trying to understand the parts that make up an electric guitar so I decided to post WOTP Dom interview instead

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pocfansmatter · 2 years

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Flashing Lights

Title:

Author:

Rating: Teen

Tags: Dunbar/Theo Raeken Corey Bryant/Mason Hewitt Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Liam Dunbar Theo Raeken Corey Bryant Mason Hewitt Derek Hale Stiles Stilinski Scott McCall (Teen Wolf) Rafael McCall Lydia Martin Allison Argent Isaac Lahey Matt Daehler Jennifer Blake Jackson Whittemore Brett Talbot Kira Yukimura Erica Reyes Thiam Reverse Big Bang 2022 tw elements of non con Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models Alternate Universe - Human Background Relationships Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Theo Raeken is Liam Dunbar's Anchor RivalsEnemies to Friends to Lovers Rivals to Friends to Lovers But its one sided - Freeform Past Liam Dunbar/Brett Talbot I don't know how the modeling industry works but let's pretend also pretend models are as big as celebrities TMZ Cameras Photos magaizines Teen Wolf Good Theo Raeken Creeper Matt Daehler Stalker Matt Daehler thiamrbb22 tw drugging tw blackmail

Warnings: TW mentions of non-consentual pictures. TW Blackmail. TW drugging (mention)

Summary:

Liam Dunbar has anger issues a mile wide and most of them are focused on his rival, Theo Raeken.

Theo has a dark past and a bad reputation that can either help or ruin Liam's image.

Now they have to work together to make sure they both don't sink.

Thiam Model AU.

Just then another model sits beside Liam to also get ready. A quick look in the mirror shows the infamous Theo himself.

“Dunbar,” he smirks, and Liam can’t help the sneer he lets come over his features.

“Raeken,” he replies. “I guess Lydia just lets anyone walk her show huh?”

Theo laughs finding the younger male amusing.

“I heard you got the cover of next month’s Teen Vogue, congrats.”

Artwork by: @arewordsenough

Submission for the 2022 Thiam Reverse Big Bang

@officialthiamlibrary

The thing that got him is the sunglasses, the effortless way Theo held them in his grasp while appearing calm but serious. That got GQ too apparently because they choose that cover over Liam’s hunched-over and boyish pose for the November issue.

“Don’t worry bud we still can get used of this picture, it’s a great picture and I have teen Vogue itching for it already give me a couple of days,” his manager Stiles reassured.

“Teen Vogue? I don’t want Teen Vogue; I am not a child!”

“You’re acting like one,” Stiles teases.

“You promised me more mature work when I left Jackson’s company for yours!”

“I know I did and the fact that I even got you a shoot with GQ was hard but you gotta meet me halfway here bud, you can’t expect mature work when you still look like you’re posing for a high school yearbook.” Liam deflated at the criticism, Stiles was right, he started modeling when he was 14 and was struggling now at 21 to break away from the teen magazines and wanted to do runway and pose for more mature publications.

“I just, why did it have to be him?”

“Yeah, I know it bugs you when Theo gets the job but hey, I think this rivalry is good for you, it makes you work harder.” Stiles clicks on his laptop for a moment before pulling out a file for Liam.

“Anyway, forget GQ for now, Scott called you about Lydia’s show, right?”

“Yeah,”

“Good, here’s the details, make sure you arrive on time and your best behavior. Lydia’s guestlist is stacked, and the Editors of GQ, Vogue, and Esquire are confirmed. You walk good, I’ll get you the cover of a mature magazine.”

Stiles’s phone rang then, and he waved Liam off in dismissal. With a sigh, Liam took the file and put it in his side satchel before heading out into the busy California streets home. He opens his phone and sees a text from Manson asking to get lunch.

He agrees and calls an Uber to the restaurant.

“Anyway, I heard Theo got the cover, I’m sorry man.” Mason apologizes.

“Ugh, don’t remind me, hey are you walking in Lydia’s show?”

“Nah, I gotta do Erica’s music video remember?”

“Oh yeah, that’s great man, I’m happy you’re doing the crossover from model to actor.”

“It’s just one video dude, not a Netflix show chill,” his best friend laughs it off, but Liam knew it was a big deal for him.

“Whatever, it’s gonna suck having no one to hang out with in New York though.”

“Corey will be there!” Mason reminds Liam of his better half walking the same show, normally Liam would be ecstatic to hang out with him but there was one issue.

“Yeah, but you know he’s gonna be hanging out with Theo.” Liam spits out the name like it’s a curse.

“You know he’s not so bad…”

“Yeah, like the dentist isn’t ‘so bad,’” Liam scoffs.

“Seriously you should just hang out with them both. Corey will be a great buffer and you don’t have to wander NYC alone this weekend.”

“I’ll think about it,” they change the conversation after that to a much simpler subject and Theo was once again pushed to the back of Liam’s mind.

Kira pushed Liam into a chair and quickly did his hair. People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Shows were always this hectic. Another woman Liam didn’t know started on his makeup while Kira slathered product onto his head. Just then another model sits beside Liam to also get ready. A quick look in the mirror shows the infamous Theo himself.

“Dunbar,” he smirks, and Liam can’t help the sneer he lets come over his features.

“Raeken,” he replies. “I guess Lydia just lets anyone walk her show huh?”

Theo laughs finding the younger male amusing.

“I heard you got the cover of next month’s Teen Vogue, congrats.” Liam takes a deep breath and is glad he remembered his pills today.

“Thanks,” Liam grits out and is thankfully done with makeup and hair and can leave the conversation to get dressed.

The show goes great as far as Liam is concerned. The crew opens a bunch of champagne bottles, and the models are sprayed with alcohol. Lydia and the more famous models are being interviewed, Liam tries not to feel too bitter that he sees Theo on camera answering questions in the smug way he always communicates.

An arm finds its way across Liam’s shoulders, and he turns to see Corey smiling wide at him. He can’t help but smile wide in return and wraps his arm around his waist to squeeze the man in a hug.

“Dude! Are you ready to party in the city that never sleeps?” He asks in excitement and Liam laughs and nods easily agreeing. He feels on top of the world and even a night with Theo cannot ruin his mood. “You, me, Theo, and Brett Talbot;” okay that might ruin it though.

The 4 young models find themselves at some fancy restaurant and Corey seems blissfully unaware of their awkwardness. A waiter comes and they order drinks before browsing the menu.

“Should you be drinking on your medication?’ Brett asks and Liam stiffens, Theo looks confused, and Corey awkwardly sips his water.

“Should you be drinking on your diet?” Liam shoots back and Corey chokes on the water.

“My 8 pack doesn’t disappear that easily,” Brett laughs and Theo smirks beside him.

“So how has Stiles been?” Corey switches the subject, Corey, Theo, and Brett were managed by Hale Industries.

Derek had tried to recruit Liam when he was still with Jackson, but he ultimately decided to go with Stiles instead because his client list was smaller, and he offered Liam more attention. There was no bad blood though considering Stiles and Derek were married so the money all ended up in the same place. Why they didn’t just make a joint company no one knows but Scott thinks the competition spices things up in the bedroom for them.

“Great, he’s getting me a lot of opportunities I didn’t have before.”

“Lydia’s show for example,” Brett comments, and Liam sighs, this was gonna be a long night.

“I heard your friend Mason is doing that music video with Erica,” Theo adds, and Corey gets a dopey grin at the mention of his boyfriend.

“Yeah, he’s really excited,” Liam answers right when the drinks finally arrive.

“You know Matt Daehler is looking for a model subject for his gallery show, maybe Stiles can get you that,” Brett offers.

Theo stiffens beside him, and Liam leans forward in interest. Matt was a big-name photographer in the industry and a shoot with him could help Liam make the leap he’s been itching for. Theo worked with him 3 years ago and he’s been a household name ever since.

“I don’t think Liam is the type to work with Matt,” Theo cuts in before Liam can question the details.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam argues annoyed.

“It’s just- Matt is… very particular on the type of people he works with.” Theo struggles to explain.

“Oh, so I’m not his type?” Liam spits out and Theo shakes his head.

“Liam that’s not what I meant I just think-“Liam stands up abruptly and announces he’s going to the bathroom.

He splashes water on his face and repeats his riddle to calm himself. He knew this night out would be a bad idea. Brett and Theo are ganging up on him and Corey is no help at all. After a few minutes, his heart rate lowers enough that he doesn’t feel the need to smash the bathroom mirror and he returns in time to see their food be set down. They eat in relative silence until Corey mentions this club he wants to check out.

They make their way back to their hotels at 10 pm and agree to meet in the lobby at midnight to go club hopping.

Liam takes a quick shower and decides to do some research on Matt while he waits to go out.

He sees articles confirming that all the current big-name male models worked with him at some point. It’s not long before his research leads him to Theo. He clicks on a video from 2 years ago of Theo, it’s an interview about Matt and a “collaboration” they did together, pictures of it are teased throughout the video. Theo looks… off, his normal arrogant smile is gone, a forced smirk in its place, his shoulders are hunched; he appears to be trying to fold into himself, his movements are sluggish and slow and nothing like the confident way Liam is used to him moving, and his eyes seemed red and dark with bags.

“So, my last question is, what is it really like to work with Matt Daehler?”

“I can honestly say… he’s nothing like anyone else I’ve ever worked with.”

Liam shuts his laptop and finishes getting ready for the night. Once he’s done a text comes from Corey telling him to meet them all in the lobby.

They hit a club and immediately make their way to the bar for drinks. While they wait some club promoters recognize Theo and Brett and instantly the boys are pulled towards the VIP area, Liam can feel himself making a face.

“Shouldn’t do that it’ll cause wrinkles,” Theo whispers to him and Liam drops the look but gets more irritated.

It takes a while and a few drinks before Liam manages to forget his annoyance and starts to actually have fun. He dances a lot and before long he wears himself down and makes his way back to their table to catch his breath. Theo’s already there talking and laughing with a few people he doesn’t recognize. Liam thinks about the video he saw earlier of Theo 2 years ago and how different he looks now.

“Liam,” Theo waves him closer and he hesitates for a moment before humoring the older model. A girl around their age is standing in front of him with brunet hair and big brown eyes. “This is Hayden, she’s a freelance photographer that has a job with Boys by Girls coming up and needs some models.”

Liam smiles at the cute girl and shakes her hand.

“I love Boys by Girls, it’s one of my favorite men’s fashion magazines.”

“Well, I have nothing to do with the creation of the issue I just take photos with whoever pays me to work,” she smirks, Theo laughs and Liam feels his face heat. “Anyway, Theo was telling me how busy he is and suggested you.” Liam felt a lot of emotions at that but pushes it down and grabs his phone.

“Maybe we could exchange information and I can have my agency call you about the shoot?”

Hayden pulls out her phone and hands it over before going back to her drink.

“Just put your agent’s number in under your name and I’ll call them later.” Liam does as he’s told, and the waiter comes with another round of drinks. Once Hayden gets her phone back, she hugs Theo and waves goodbye to Liam before disappearing into the crowd.

Liam just stares after her and ignores the eyes he feels on the side of his face.

“Thanks,” he finally mutters and finds Theo with a soft smile looking back at him. This weird fluttering feeling occurs in his stomach but before he could address it, he feels a hand grab his upper arm. He turns and finds an older man, probably mid-30s, with shaggy blond hair and a patchy beard.

“Hey, baby, how about we find a stall and have some fun?” He says close enough to Liam’s face that he could smell the alcohol.

“Get off of me,” Liam yanks his arm away and he feels his heart start to race, his vision starts to blur around the edges and his breathing becomes ragged.

“Come on Liam he’s not worth getting kicked out over,” Theo says suddenly at his ear, but Liam can barely hear him over his heartbeat.

The guy steps closer and Liam steps back.

“Fuck off man,” Liam growls, the creep towers over him but Liam’s muscles aren’t just for looks contrary to popular belief.

“Liam if we fight him, we get kicked out, can cause a scene, a scene could get filmed and sent around, tonight being Lydia’s show our faces may be recognized. Think about this and let’s walk away.” Theo explains calmly and Liam finds it a little easier to breathe. He nods once and both grab their drinks to walk off. That’s when an arm snakes across Liam’s waist and his anger comes back full force.

He shoves the stranger off and balls his hand into a fist lifting it before he pulls back though the guy’s head swings to the side and his body falls knocking the table next to them over. Liam blinks a few times in confusion before processing that Theo hit the guy first. Before he could protest Theo grabs his hand and marches him out of the club through a side entrance. Phones are aimed at them and luckily Brett and Corey follow the two out without complaint.

“What happened? Are you guys, okay?” Corey asks.

“Man, I was dancing with this hot guy and didn’t get his number yet,” Brett complains.

Theo explains what happened before they decide on a new club a few blocks away. Corey holds his hand and Liam spends the walk trying to calm down completely. Theo doesn’t explain why he hit the guy first and Liam doesn’t ask for one yet.

“I’m surprised Liam didn’t beat the guy bloody,” Brett laughs and Liam tries out his breathing exercises.

“He would’ve I just got to him first,” Liam can hear the smirk in Theo’s voice.

“Liam remember when you thought that guy was hitting on me and tackled him in an Ikea? Oh my god, that was so embarrassing.” Brett cackles and Theo stops short, Liam ignores them both.

“You guys dated?” Theo asks.

“For way too long,” Brett smirks.

“It was 6 months,” Liam explains.

“With you babe that feels like 6 years,” Liam ignores the sharp stab he feels in his chest at that, and Corey squeezes his hand in comfort. Thankfully the club comes into view then.

The next morning Liam groans in pain before grabbing the water bottle, he left by his bed and drank half in one swig. He grabs his phone to check the tie and there are dozens of notifications the most alarming are the missed calls from Stiles, Scott, and Derek. Why Derek would be calling him he didn’t know but he felt like he was being called to the principal’s office.

He opens the article link Stiles sends him first so he has an idea of what the calls will be about but honestly, he has a good guess. Reading the headline his suspicions are confirmed.

Men’s Fashion Bad Boy Theo Raeken Strikes Again! TMZ writes.

The article includes a video of last night’s incident. Liam watches as Theo punches the stranger from a different angle. The article reminds the readers of Theo’s troubled past. His history of drugs, his occasional tendency to wreck hotel rooms, and his habit of showing up late for work. All of which Theo and his reps claimed stopped after his rehab stint. Liam feels sick but this time not from the hangover and exit’s out of the article before returning Stiles’s call.

“What the hell happened?” Stiles says in place of a greeting.

Liam explains the story and tells him how it wasn’t his or Theo’s fault.

“All right, give me an hour to write up a statement, I’ll talk to Derek because we’re going to collaborate on the best way to handle this press-wise. Just stay put, all four of you are grounded. I’m talking DoorDash food and drinks, do not leave the hotel, do not post on socials, do not pass go and collect 200 dollars grounded until you get back to California and we have a game plan for you and Theo.” Liam groans and says goodbye before tossing his phone. He finishes his water and is about to get more out of the mini-fridge before it rings again. It’s Corey.

“Hey.”

“Hey, since we’re all on lockdown you wanna come to our suite? We’re ordering food and drinks and we’ll probably watch a movie or something.”

“Sure, send me your number and I’ll be there after a shower, order me a burger and Gatorade.” They say bye and Liam grab some sweats and a t-shirt since no one important is going to see him and he wants to be comfortable.

When he gets to the room Corey is digging into his salad, Brett already has a beer, and Theo is sitting off to the side with his laptop faced away from them. He greets all of them and sits on the couch next to Corey. The suite is big, he sees two rooms. One with 2 beds and the other with one. Where they currently are in the living room area with a huge flatscreen, a couch, a recliner, and a chair with a desk that Theo occupies.

“Can’t believe we have a weekend in New York and can’t enjoy it,” Brett complains, and Liam rolls his eyes knowing he’s going to get blamed for this.

“Brett, we hit enough clubs last night for a whole summer it’s fine,” Corey comforts and Theo is silent while he reads something on his screen and grabs his phone as it rings.

“Hello,” he says then waves to the group dismissing himself and walking to the room with 2 beds to talk privately. Then Liam’s phone rings.

“Go to my room,” Corey points to the other room knowing it’s important.

“Hey,” Liam greets as he shuts the door.

“Okay I’m sending a statement to your phone, it’ll be posted on your Instagram feed and Twitter after you give me approval.” The tone of voice tells Liam he doesn’t actually need his approval he’s just saying it to be nice. “It’s the same one Theo will post, Derek and I both agreed, and their PR came up with it. Monday at 9 am I need you to meet me at Hale’s office building, I’ll send you the address later. We’re meeting with Theo because this is going to take a little more than just a notes app apology to go away.” He hangs up after goodbye and Liam instantly gets a screenshot of the apology to be posted.

Hey guys, last night after work I went out with a few of my friends to celebrate the great show we put on with Lydia Martin showcasing her newest collection. Unfortunately, a drunk patron at one of the establishments we attended started to harass me and Theo Raeken. When we tried to walk away the stranger got physical with me and my friend Theo reacted without thinking and hit the man to defend me. We immediately left after. It was stupid of us to do something like that, and I promise to be more aware of my surroundings in the future. I also apologize to anyone who was upset by the video. That is not the person I want to be perceived as in the media. That is not the person Theo is either and we are both saddened by last night’s events and plan to find alternative solutions to resolve conflict in the future.

With love always, -Liam

Liam ignores the fact that Theo is called his friend and approves the post. Stiles won’t let him change it anyway and has his passwords to do the rest. He goes back to the living room and finds Theo already there, with no laptop, and off the phone.

“I don’t need to see your post to know we probably have identical apology notes,” Theo smirks but it doesn’t reach his eyes like before.

“We have a meeting Monday,” Liam answers instead.

“I’ve been informed.” Theo sighs and turns off his phone, Liam follows suit and grabs the container Corey hands him which he assumes has his food.

"You, okay?" Theo asks while Liam slowly eats his fries, he was caught off guard by the question.

"Yeah, are you?" Theo smiles softly but once again it doesn't reach his eyes.

"This isn't my first rodeo."

"Okay, can we pick a movie or something now, I'm bored?" Brett interrupts.

After a couple of horror movies, it’s late afternoon and Brett suggests a drinking game since they all now had alcohol.

“Never Have I Ever, but you drink when you have.”

“Ohh fun, I’ll go first,” Corey announces. “Never Have I Ever… Had sex with a girl.”

Brett and Liam take shots and then it’s Theo’s turn.

“Never have I ever… hooked up with a celebrity,” Brett drinks and Liam rolls his eyes not caring who it was but knowing Brett is itching to tell.

“Never have I ever… had a one-night stand,” Liam adds, and only Brett drinks again.

“Never have I ever got us kicked out of a bar,” Brett says, and Liam feels his hackles rise.

“Brett,” Corey warns, and Theo takes a drink.

“Liam…” Brett antagonizes him because he doesn’t drink.

“I took the shot because I got us kicked out not him.” Theo defends and Liam stands up and heads for the door.

“It’s getting late, our flight is early so I’m going to bed.” He says before retreating to his room.

Monday comes quickly and Theo is sitting beside Liam in some kind of conference room. Stiles and Derek are across from them.

“Alright as you may or may not know your apology post came with mixed reviews,” Stiles explains. Liam did know, he saw a few comments before deleting Twitter and Instagram off his phone to take a break. Some fans pointed out that they thought Liam and Theo hated each other, which they do. Some kept saying that Theo hasn’t changed at all as he claims, and some were calling Theo a hero for defending Liam and oddly the last ones made Liam feel the worst. He didn’t need Theo to “save” him. “To really nail in that friendship angle though you guys are gonna be spending a lot more time together.”

“Wait what?” Liam asks.

“Stiles and I have organized some joint photoshoots for you two with Calvin Klein. Also, you are going to go to a few charity events together, you’ve already been emailed the details. The more you two are seen hanging out and being close the more believable the apology and the more likely Theo looks as well as the more exposure Liam gets.” Derek explains to the point unlike his husband Stiles.

“See it’s a win/win for everybody,” Stiles says and Liam disagrees.

“Do we get a say in any of this?” Liam protests and looks to Theo who has his head down and shoulders hunched, he has a flashback to that interview he watched in New York.

“Not if you want a viable career.” Stiles answers and Liam accepts defeat.

“We’re done here, don’t look like you are being punished boys, this is really good for both of you,” Stiles smiles and Derek doesn’t glare which Liam assumes is the closest he comes to smiling.

Liam watches the hairstylist in the mirror and tries to control his breathing. He should be thrilled; a Calvin Klein photoshoot is a huge step in his career but Theo’s easy smile and effortless way he flirts with the makeup artist is getting on his nerves. Theo in general gets on his nerves.

“Stop sneering,” he hears beside him, and he shoots Theo a look. “Come on Liam this will be good for you, this is just the kinda gig you wanted remember?”

“How do you know what I want?”

“Because this is what every model wants. It won’t take long don’t worry…”

It’s not long before Liam and Theo are in front of a white backdrop in the signature white tight boxer briefs. Liam closes his eyes and feels a calm warmth settle over him. This is his element, in front of a camera, not even Theo can take this away.

“Alright boys think best friends or Derek Hale will have my head,” Isaac Lahey, up-and-coming photographer announces. It made Liam feel a little better knowing he wasn’t the only one new to the Calvin brand here today. As expected, Theo modeled for them twice already. Once the jeans and the other in a commercial. “Alright, kids show me friendship!”

Theo immediately throws his arm across Liam and ducks his head close like he’s gonna tell Liam a secret. Liam smiles carefree while Theo smirks and the flashes start. Liam playfully shoves Theo away and he laughs.

“Hey Liam, your shoes are untied,” he jokes, and Liam rolls his eyes so hard he gets a headache and Theo throws his head back and laughs.

“Is that really the best you got?”

“Did you hear about the claustrophobic astronaut?” Theo starts walking closer to Liam again. “He just needed a little space.” He smiles cheekily showing his perfect teeth and Liam can’t stop the laugh he lets out.

“Wow… don’t quit your day job,” Liam jokes while playfully punching Theo’s shoulder, Theo grabs the waistband of Liam’s boxers in lets go of it quickly making it snap against his skin in retaliation, when the older male pulls his hand back Liam quickly grabs his wrist and yanks him towards him. Theo is caught off guard and Liam uses this to wrestle Theo into a headlock and starts to rub his knuckle on Theo’s head successfully messing up his spiky hairdo.

“Uncle! UNCLE!” Theo shouts throw laughter and Liam lets go, his cheeks sore from his smile.

“Good stuff,” Isaac shouts in encouragement, and Liam is surprised for a moment. He honestly forgot they were working.

“Hey Lee, is that a mirror in your pocket because I could see me getting in your pants,” Theo winks and Liam flashes hot, he doesn’t know if it’s from the nickname or the cheesy pickup line.

“I’m not even wearing pants,” Liam waves him off and Theo laughs hard again, butterflies erupt in his stomach, and he ignores it. It’s not much longer until the shoot wraps up.

Once the pictures are posted online and set to be in the next Vogue issues Liam goes up a few thousand followers. He stares at the two pictures they went with. The one where Liam has Theo in a headlock. You can see Theo has a smile on his face and Liam wears an identical playful smile on his features. The next picture was taken right before the first. It shows Theo’s finger in the waist of his boxers, the Calvin Klein name hiding the digit, it looks like Liam is being reeled in by the older male instead of the waistband snap that occurred in real life. Theo has a smirk that can only be described as wicked on his face and Liam has a small smile the look in both their eyes make Liam’s stomach hurt honestly. Stiles sends a text about how he’s posting the photoshoot to Liam’s Instagram and doesn’t wait for a reply before Liam see’s it on his feed. It takes a minute for hundreds of comments to come through and Liam goes through them curious about what people think of the shoot.

“I guess they are friends”

“Historians will call them close friends…”

“What in the homoerotic is going on here?”

Liam’s stomach feels weird again. The only thing worse than people thinking Theo and him are friends is people thinking they are dating. Just then his phone rings.

“Hey Scott,” he greets.

“Hey Liam, I just got a call from Hayden Romero, she wants to work with you for Boys by Girls magazine,” Liam’s cheeks hurt from how wide he smiles.

After Scott discusses the deal and Liam confirms he wants it he says he’ll send him an email about all the details and soon Stiles is calling him.

“I just emailed you the details but you’re on the guest list for Allison’s show this weekend, You and Theo will go together and get dinner at Nobu after,” Stiles jumps right into it.

“Well hello to you too, why exactly am I doing this?”

“It’s part of your good press to fix the fight in New York, also that photoshoot has people talking so we’re riding this wave until it lands you enough gigs to be a household name.” He hangs up after and Liam knows it’s nothing personal he’s just in work mode.

Liam felt a lot of different emotions, from seeing the photos to getting a shoot for Boys by Girls, to now having to hang out with Theo more. Liam can’t help but wonder if he would have to do this if he just punched the guy himself. Why did Theo do it? Given his past you would think he would work hard not to be seen as the same bad boy he was before. But maybe he liked that persona, Liam can’t really judge given his diagnosis he still remembers the reputation he got in elementary and middle school before his parents homeschooled him for modeling in high school.

He checks his email and sees that he has an appointment with a stylist for Allison’s show tomorrow and after he looks over the details for the Boys by Girls photoshoot. He’s excited that he’s getting to work with them and has a page in Vogue’s next issue, but he can’t help but feel it’s tainted by the fact that he got both jobs with Theo’s help. He wanted to get his name out there on his own.

Liam waits for the car in the lobby of his apartment; he’s wearing a black short-sleeved button-up with powder blue slacks and some black boots. They are all name brand and worth more than his rent, he knows because the stylist threatened his manhood if he ruins the clothes since he would have to return them after tonight. A Black SUV pulls up and Liam knows it’s for him, he exits the building and hops in the back to find Theo already there in a powder Blue long-sleeved button-up shirt and black slacks.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Liam groans and Theo laughs.

“Hey, I had nothing to do with this,” he specifies.

“I know, is it really necessary we match too?” Liam complains and Theo shrugs.

They arrive at the show and the paparazzi are already there hounding everyone who shows up.

“Just relax and try and have a good time,” Theo instructs before the door opens.

“This isn’t my first time,” he shoots back before placing an easy smile on his face and stepping onto the carpet. He waits for Theo to step out and they walk the carpet together. Derek and Stiles said they had to pose and act like best friends, so Theo throws an arm around Liam and they both pose, Liam with his hands in his pockets and a small smirk on his face, and Theo does a similar stance. The cameramen shout their names and try and get them to stare at them. After they look in a few different directions they continue walking into the venue where the show will take place.

They are seated off to the side in the second row by an usher and make small talk before the show starts, Liam would prefer to sit silently but there were a few paparazzi in the room that forced them to put on the BFF act. Soon the lights dim starting the show.

After the show people walk around and mingle for a bit, they say it’s to talk about the show but it’s really networking for their own career advancements.

Liam and Theo separate to say hi to old friends and make some new connections.

Liam is talking to an up-and-coming fashion designer and thinks he has a chance at walking at his first show if he plays his cards right. Just then Matt Daehler walks up.

"You're Liam, right?" The fashion designer excuses himself while Liam shakes his hand.

"Yeah, I'm a big fan of your work Mr. Daehler." Matt chuckles at this.

"Just Matt is fine. I actually saw your Calvin Klein shoot and I'd really like to collaborate with you on my next project."

"Wow, yeah that'd be amazing, let me give you my manager’s number." They exchange information and before they part Theo walks up. What happens next can only be described as a stare-down. Matt breaks the moment by smirking.

"Good to see you, Theo," he says before walking away and Theo doesn't say anything just watches him leave.

"We should get going." Liam for once doesn't argue. He doesn't know what the weird moment between them was about, but he didn't want to ask.

They left after that.

There’s already paparazzi outside of Nobu when they arrive which is a surprise to neither of them since Nobu is one of those places where you go only to be spotted not to actually enjoy. They keep their heads down but are still visible, so they have that “not trying to be spotted” sheepish look but are still very spotted because they actually want to be spotted. Just another dumb industry thing they try to do to seem important. They are seated and asked for drinks. Liam orders a soda like Theo. Liam looks over the menu and they sit in silence for a moment.

"Are you gonna ask?" Theo asks.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Not really...."

"Then no," Liam says right as their drinks are brought. They order some food and Liam sighs.

"I don't recommend you work with him." Theo finally says.

"I didn't ask." Liam shoots back.

"Let’s just enjoy dinner," Theo sounds exhausted and Liam is reminded of how his mother would be with him as a child and he doesn't like it, so he drops it.

"What did you think of the show?" Liam tries instead.

"It was good," Theo sounds lighter and Liam isn't sure why that makes him happy.

By the time they order their food the topic of Matt has been long forgotten.

"Lacrosse huh?"

"Yeah, it was actually really helpful for my uh... issues at the time." Liam feels his shoulders tense at that admittance.

"Hey, I'm not here to judge, God knows I can't..." Theo comforts.

"It's called intermittent explosive disorder... it’s a behavior disorder. I tend to overreact to certain situations."

"Overreact how?" Theo leans his elbows on the table interested in the conversation.

"Violently... but it’s calmed down a lot since I was a teenager. Thanks to sports, therapy, and medication."

Their food arrives and Theo leans back in his seat, Liam feels a sense of loss.

"That’s what Brett meant by his medication and drinking comment."

"Yep," Liam pops the p and takes a bite of his food.

"I can't believe you dated that guy..." Liam laughs

"Yeah, me either... but in his defense, he wasn't like... a dick to me before. That started after we broke up and his teasing is mostly harmless. We actually had a lot in common. He used to play lacrosse in high school too."

"Why did you guys break up," Theo asks.

"I don't know, he says it had nothing to do with my I.E.D. but I don't know. I'm pretty sure he couldn't handle my outbursts."

"I'm sorry Liam," Liam waves him off.

"It’s whatever, it was long enough ago I don't care anymore."

"What about you? Any model ex I should know about?" Liam jokes.

"Wow, exes talk on a first date?" Theo smirks and Liam feels his face heat up and knows he's blushing. "Uh, I haven't dated a model, it’s kind of embarrassing but the last person I dated was in high school... I uh, just been so focused on my career, to be honest."

For some reason, Liam thinks Theo is lying but doesn’t argue with him.

“What about you? Any sports?” Liam asks instead.

“Nah, well I used to skateboard but not like competitively or anything. How did you get into modeling anyway?”

“Oh God it’s so cliché,” Liam takes a bite of his food to buy himself time. “I uh, found an agent in a mall,” he confesses.

“Oh my God… you told me cliché, but I underestimated you.” Theo laughs.

“Hey, shut up! What about you… what’s your story?”

“There’s not much to tell to be honest. I kinda stumbled into it because I needed a job, but I was way too young to work any regular jobs legally. Fast food places required you to be 16. I saw a job listing for a teen model to advertise some clothes for a local boutique. My old agent Jennifer saw it and signed me.”

“How old were you?”

“14,” he answers quickly.

“Why did you need a job at 14?” Theo sighs.

“I just… didn’t like home too much and modeling afforded me an income to leave and never look back.” Liam didn’t pry too much after that, he couldn’t imagine trying to make enough money to leave his mom and dad so young, but his parents were awesome, and he was aware not everyone is as lucky as him.

“Hey umm, I got that shoot with boys by girls…” He isn’t sure why he tells Theo this, but he felt like he should.

“Congrats!” Theo smiles sincerely. “I knew you’d be perfect for it,” and Liam smiles shyly back.

“I don’t know…”

“No don’t doubt yourself now, I know it’s hard making that leap from teen heartthrob to mature modeling, but it’ll happen for you soon, it already is.”

“The Calvin Klein shoot doesn’t count it was a PR setup.”

“Of course, it was, everything we do is PR Liam, we’re models. It’s our job to be walking billboards! But even if there was an ulterior motive for that shoot Calvin doesn’t give a shit about the fact that I punched a guy in New York. They gave us the shoot because they like our look. So did Vogue or they wouldn’t have approved it for the upcoming issue. You have to have a little faith in yourself kid,” Theo sits back and takes a drink and Liam smiles wide.

“You do have a point… Hey, should we get some real drinks? We are supposed to be having a night out, why not make it real?” Theo laughs and something dangerous dances in his eyes that pulls Liam in.

“You’re gonna get us in trouble Dunbar,” he says while lifting his hand to flag down the waitress.

Their a few shots in and nursing their drinks when Theo sits on the same side as Liam.

“You trying to get cozy Theo?”

“It’s easier to hear you this way,” he says, it did get crowded and louder since they first arrived.

“You have pretty eyes,” Liam blurts without thinking and Theo’s eyes widen slightly before he laughs loudly.

“You’re not too bad yourself Dunbar,” he smirks and Liam flushes.

They stare at each other in silence and Liam feels himself move forward a tiny bit. Theo glances down at his lips for a split second and starts to move too.

“Can I get you 2 anything else?” The waiter interrupts and Liam jumps back.

“Uh, just the check thanks,” Theo answers and goes back to his seat before.

Liam feels the loss of Theo’s body warmth but says nothing to stop him.

“I’ll call the car,” Liam offers while the bill gets squared away, Hale Management is paying for the bill and Theo has a company credit card. Why a model gets a company card Liam doesn’t know and doesn’t ask. He assumes it’s for dinners like these.

___

“Hey Liam, first proud of you for the show you put on last night, people keep tweeting about you and Theo and even making fan edits. It’s adorable but also free press. Second, you got a call from Matt Daeher, he wants to work with you on his next project if you’re interested.”

“Of course, I am, yes! Tell Matt yes,” Stiles laughs at Liam’s enthusiasm.

“Okay, I call him back and iron out the details and get back to you, until then just make sure you prepare for Hayden’s shoot. You have to meet with wardrobe beforehand so they can make sure everything fits.”

“I know I got it on my calendar.”

“That’s my boy, all right I’ll let you recover, you looked really drunk in some of those photos, how did you manage to make it look so real?”

“I’ll talk to you later Stiles bye!”

Liam grabs his phone and heads to Twitter.

“I know we aren’t supposed to ship real people, but Theo and Liam are really cute.”

“Yo between the CK photo shoot and that night out I’m convinced Theo and Liam are dating in real life.”

Liam blushes and sees a notification from Theo. He clicks on it and sees a photo from a random Twitter, it’s of Liam and Theo and has a bunch of hearts edited onto the photo with the caption just #thiam.

“We have a couple name I guess,” Theo writes, and Liam bites a smile back.

“Why does your name get to be first?” He texts back.

Theo responds with a laughing emoji.

“Maybe you should tweet the suggestion Leo instead?” Theo responds and Liam replies with a thinking face emoji before locking his phone and getting something to eat.

The Vogue issue with Liam and Theo is out and the Boy by Girls shoot is being edited by the time the details for Matt’s project come in. He’s free until next week when Matt wants to have a sit down to explain the project in detail to him, that was new. Usually, Liam’s job was to show up, stand there and look pretty but Matt wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to collaborate. With everything happening Corey and Mason demand to take Liam out for drinks to celebrate. He meets them at a dive bar close to his apartment so it won’t be too loud, and they can all walk back to his place after.

"So, you and Theo seem real cozy in this Vogue." Corey teases holding the magazine up as if Liam hasn't seen it, hasn't been staring at it since it dropped.

"Our managers set it up," Liam tries to downplay it but he feels himself blushing and knows Mason can see through the truth.

"It's okay to change your mind about people Liam," he says softly and Corey nods.

"Yeah, and I've been working with Theo for a while now and he's a good guy. Way better than Brett. Not that Brett is a bad guy but..."

"He's a dick," Mason and Liam say in unison and Corey laughs.

"So, tell us about your date after Allison’s show?" Mason probs.

"We weren't on a date... I told you it was a PR stunt."

"Oh, come on, you’re a model, not an actor, those pictures were spicy," Corey argues but has a small smile to take the edge off.

"I.... he's easy to talk to," he offers while he sips his mixed drink.

"Come on it’s us, we won't tell him," Mason says while Corey crosses his heart beside him.

"I don't know, I don't hate him as much as I thought I did okay and I'm still trying to figure out what that means."

"Liam, you’re allowed to let people in. You’re not the same angry kid you were in high school and even if you were you still deserve love," Mason explains and claps his hand on his best friend's shoulder.

___

Two days before Liam is supposed to meet with Matt, Stiles calls an emergency meeting at his office.

Liam walks in to find Derek sitting next to Stiles behind his desk and Theo sitting in front of it.

"Hey, what’s going on?" Liam asks and Theo shoots him a small smile, but he could see how forced it is making the uneasiness in his stomach grow.

"Hey Liam, have a seat." Stiles orders and Liam obeys. "There's no easy way to say this so I'll just do it quickly... I canceled the Matt shoot."

"Wait what?" Liam sits up in his chair and immediately feels that bubbling in his stomach and his heart racing. Stiles shoots a look at Derek who gives the tiniest of nods for him to continue and at the corner of his eye he can see Theo staring at the carpet and refusing to look elsewhere.

"It has come to my attention of some inappropriate behavior on Matt's part and as your manager, it’s my job to protect you-"

"As my manager, it’s your job to get me work!"

"Liam, our job isn't just to get you work and make you money it’s also to protect you, your brand, and your image, and trust me working with Matt will do you way more harm than good," Derek explains calmly.

"I can't believe this... do you have anything to do with this??" Liam turns to Theo who finally looks him in the eye before nodding once then turning to both their managers.

"Can you give us the room?" Derek stands first and waits for Stiles before grabbing his hand and they leave closing the door behind them. Liam jumps up and starts pacing. If he doesn't let the energy out soon, he may break something or someone.

“Why do you insist on butting into my life and career!” Liam’s chest heaves as he finally lets out the burst of anger, he’s been holding about Theo like he’s been wanting to for years.

“I’m just trying to help!”

“No, you aren’t, you’re trying to sabotage me! First, you get the glory of punching out that guy and making me the damsel in distress. Then you get me in Vogue but you’re right there with me and oh yeah, everyone thinks we’re a couple, and now! Now you try and talk me out of working with Matt, the one photographer who could actually change my life! The one who changed yours, you wouldn’t be where you are without working with him! Why can’t I do things on my own?”

“Goddamnit, Liam I’m trying to protect you!” That shuts Liam up, Theo takes a few deep breaths and calms himself enough to speak again. “You wanna know why it’s not a good idea to work with Matt? Because he’s a fucking creep. He’s a predator, Liam. He… likes to take pictures without people’s permission. He invites you to a shoot and offers you water, it doesn’t take long before you fall asleep and you wake up confused,” Theo gets a faraway look in his eye but continues the story. “Then he shows you these pictures, pictures you didn’t consent to, and he uses them to control you. Then you go from wanting to work with him to have to work with him because he uses those pictures to blackmail you. I didn’t handle that well obviously. I got heavy into pills to cope. I lashed out whenever I could, trashing hotel rooms, punching paparazzi. It didn’t help that my old manager, Jennifer Blake basically implied she didn’t care. Finally, I got tired of it all and I had two options, kill myself or go to rehab. When I was there, I dropped my old team and reached out to Derek Hale which was a shot in the dark. My career was at its peak, but I was marked as a liability in the industry at this point. I told him everything and he basically scared the shit out of Matt to get him to back off. The bad boy persona didn’t do me any favors, I had to start my career at the bottom after rehab. Do you know I got half of what you were paid for the Calvin shoot?”

“What?” Liam asks in surprise.

“Yeah, I have to work twice as hard for half the pay now. Just because people know my name doesn’t mean they respect me. I am still seen as a liability and so the only way I can keep getting work is by taking less than I should be. If I never acted like that, I would be making much more by now. I punched that guy because it’s easier for me to write off a slip-up than to let you fall down that hole I am just starting to climb out of. Liam, I have done nothing but try to help you.” After his speech, Theo grabs his jacket and leaves Liam in the office.

Stiles comes in alone after a couple of minutes letting Liam process this information alone no doubt.

"Derek and Theo left, it’s just us now."

"I don't... why didn't Theo go to the police?" Liam finally asks taking a seat.

"He probably felt like he had no support, I mean he didn't then. Jennifer Blake is an amazing manager but a shitty person. Theo... doesn't talk to his family. When he reached out to Derek, he didn't want anything to do with Matt. Pressing charges would have reopened the wound he was probably already healing in rehab. Plus, my dad’s a cop and sex crimes are the hardest to convict. On top of this industry... sex sells, and predators hide in plain sight. Reporting something like that could cost you, your career which is... fuck up but the truth. There are probably a shit ton of reasons he didn't report it. I didn't ask and before you do, I had no idea about Matt until last night when Derek told me with Theo’s permission because Theo was concerned about you."

Liam's head was spinning but that familiar burning anger was still alive in his chest. That anger begged him to destroy something or hurt someone.

"What exactly did you say to cancel the job?" Liam finally asks and Stiles gives him a puzzled look.

"I got to say, Liam, I was surprised to hear back from you after your manager canceled," Matt explains while walking Liam into his studio.

It’s a wide loft with huge windows letting in a lot of natural light. There are still big camera lights set up though with a white backdrop. The room is mostly empty but there’s a kitchen in the corner that’s blocked off by a counter and Liam can see more equipment in the bedroom. He knows this apartment is only for work not lived in but there’s still a couch in the "living room" area.

Liam walks towards the kitchen and asks if he could sit his bag there, Matt waves him off, and after Liam takes a seat on the couch and the older man sits beside him.

"Yeah, well Stiles and I had a difference of opinion concerning my career, so we are no longer working together," Liam smiles and Matt returns it.

"I don't blame you; Stiles is married to Hale and... well let’s just say I don't recommend his management either..." he chuckles darkly.

"We should discuss the project," Liam laughs uncomfortably.

"Yes, of course, I'm doing a new gallery show and I want you to be the subject Liam, I've worked with other models before you know, and it’s always a collaborative effort. I want your input as much as my own but before I get into any details do you want something to drink?" Matt has a plastic smile on, similar to one Liam used to see on his 1st-grade teacher whenever she was losing her patience with him. He felt like he swallowed a rock then.

"Yeah, I'd love some water, hey can I use your bathroom really quick?" Liam stands.

"Of course, it’s in the bedroom over there," Matt points also standing to head to the kitchen.

Liam walks to it and sees a mattress on the floor it makes his stomach hurt, and pictures of other models on the wall make him feel nauseous.

He steps into the bathroom and takes a moment to breathe. He waits a minute before flushing the toilet and then splashes some water on his face, he looks at himself in the mirror and sees bags on his eyes, he hasn't been sleeping much since the meeting with Derek, Stiles, and Theo. He dries his face and then exits the bathroom. Matt is waiting on the couch with his water ready to go and a cup for himself too.

"Thank you," Liam sits and glances at his bag sitting up on the counter still before meeting Matt's eyes again.

"So, about your project-" just then Matt's phone rings, he stares down at it and frowns, glances at Liam, and makes an apologetic face.

"Sorry I got to take this really quick." He steps into the bedroom and closes the door.

As soon as the door clicks shut Liam jumps up and grabs the glass. He takes it to the sink and pours it out. He rinses it for good measure and grabs the water bottle in his bag. Once he refills his cup and returns to the couch Matt opens the door to reenter the living room. Liam takes a big gulp of water and places it down in front of him as Matt sits.

He smiles at him, and Liam swears he sees a gleam in his eye.

"Everything okay?" Liam asks and Matt nods.

"Yeah, it was Stiles can you believe it?" Matt chuckles and Liam wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"My old manager Stiles? Huh, that’s weird..."

"Yeah, anyway back to what we were talking about..." Liam leans back into the couch getting relaxed. "So, the theme I wanna go with is loss of innocence..."

"Wow, that’s an interesting theme," Matt laughs again.

"Yeah, I guess it is, Liam I know you're just making the transition from teenage modeling to more mature jobs which is why this project is perfect for you," Liam starts to squint like his eyes are droopy and he blinks slowly as if he's tired. "Think about it," Matt starts to lean closer and Liam leans back to where he's almost laying down. "You get to shed your innocent persona and step into a much older one while I record that loss. We both get what we want..." Liam blinks a few more times before letting his body go completely limp and eyes shut. His heart is racing but he repeats his mantra over and over in his head while focusing on his breathing. He remembers his meditation ritual and falls into it easily enough to remain calm.

"Liam?" Matt pauses. "Liam?" He says a bit louder before patting his cheek. Liam doesn't respond or move.

He feels Matt stand and hears his footsteps leave and return. Liam hears the familiar click of the camera but it’s not as comforting as usual. He hears a soft thud and assumes it’s Matt placing the camera down, he struggles not to take a peek. Next was the hard part: Matt's hands go to Liam's chest and Liam feels dread in his stomach but wills himself not to react. Liam's button-up shirt is undone, and he hears the camera being picked back up.

Another click happens and he repeats his riddle again.

What three things cannot long be hidden?

Click.

The Sun.

Click.

The Moon.

Click

And the truth.

Crash.

Liam’s eyes shoot open just as he sees the door swing and hit the back wall. Police officers enter in quickly one behind the other, guns are aimed at Matt. There's a lot of shouting and Liam sits up and buttons his shirt.

"Matt Daehler, you are under arrest for attempting to drug a victim to commit a felony. We also have a warrant to confiscate your computer under suspicion of Blackmail." Mr. McCall informs while handcuffing the freak.

"What the hell are you talking about? I know nothing about this! You got the wrong guy!" He starts to shout.

"No, I'm pretty sure I got the right guy," Agent McCall shoots back before reading him his rights. Liam stands and takes a deep breath. Another FBI agent he didn't know the name of claps him on the shoulder.

"You did good son; the bag was in just the right place to catch him putting something in your drink and seeing him take the pictures." Liam nods relief hitting him like a train. Just then Stiles walks in and takes 4 large steps to get to Liam who basically collapses in his arms.

"I got you, kid, you did so good Lee. You saved a lot of people and helped out the ones from before," he rubs his back, and Liam's eyes sting. He doesn't know when he started crying.

"Is he going away?" Liam sounds so small to his ears.

"Hopefully, I don't know to be honest. My dad said he could do 4 years for the drugging and 4 years for the Blackmail, that’s for each one they find on his computer. But that’s the max sentence and it’s not guaranteed but even then, once this goes public, even if he gets no time no model is gonna wanna work with him knowing what he did. So, you still stopped him and I'm so proud of you. Let’s get you home."

Derek pulls up the car and Liam is seated in the back next to Scott and Stiles of course goes beside his husband in the passenger seat.

They drive mostly in silence after Scott and Derek also praise Liam's actions.

"You hungry kid?" Derek asks while looking at Liam through the rearview mirror.

"Mason and Corey are waiting at my apartment and they got me food," Liam answers, and Derek nods. Not long after that, they pull into the parking garage and Scott walks Liam to the elevator.

Liam feels exhausted and leans onto Scott for support. He just wraps his arm around him and holds his weight like it’s nothing.

"Get some rest, Liam. My dad will keep us updated on everything." Scott explains and Liam just nods. He finds the energy to pull out his keys and Scott takes them from him opening the door. Mason and Corey rush to the entrance and Liam is being pulled into his best friend’s arms before he knows it while Corey talks to Scott.

"We'll call him tomorrow to check up just make sure he eats and sleeps yeah?"

"Of course, that’s why we're here." Corey walks him out while Mason walks Liam to the couch and slips off his shoes.

"We ordered pizza, and it should be here any minute. We're watching movies until we pass out 'kay bud?" Liam just nods and lets his 2 best friends take care of him

They do as promise and it doesn't take long before Liam is falling asleep in his bed next to Mason, Corey is sleeping on the couch because the bed is only big enough for 2.

The next day Liam wakes up to the smell of bacon and pancakes.

He walks in to find Mason in the kitchen cooking and Corey still passed out on his couch.

He smiles at the sight before going to his fridge and grabbing an orange juice.

"Need help?" He offers and his voice is extra raspy partly because he just woke up and partly because he didn't speak much last night.

"Nah I'm almost done anyway, thanks though." Before Liam can respond there’s a knock on his door. Liam and Mason look at each and Liam slowly walk over.

He looks through his peephole and sees Theo on the other side.

"Hey" Liam greets before stepping aside and motioning for Theo to come in. Corey manages to wake up at the knocking and is slowly catching up to the day. Theo greets both of Liam's friends before turning back to Liam.

"Uh, can we talk privately?" Theo asks and Liam nods.

"Yeah, let’s go to my room." He follows Liam into the bedroom and once Liam shuts the door and turns to Theo he immediately apologizes.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"For blowing up at you at the office the other day."

"Don't, you didn't know Liam don't worry l... I came to thank you. Derek told me about everything. I can't believe you went over there though I'm glad you did."

Liam shrugs unsure what to say.

"I just... I didn't want him to keep doing what he did to you to others. I also didn't want him to get away with what he did to you." Liam explains and Theo looks at him with an unreadable expression.

His head is tilted slightly, and his eyes are unbearably soft, his smile though is what gets Liam one side of his mouth twitches and pulls up slightly, not a smirk but in the same fashion: it’s so incredibly Theo it burns Liam's chest.

He feels frozen at the moment. He takes a deep breath to loosen the ache and Theo steps forward once before he's directly in front of Liam and cradling his face.

He tugs him forward and Liam puts his hands above Theo’s and falls forward into the older male.

Their lips find each other and it’s softer than Liam expects but he doesn't mind. Fire explodes in his chest and flashes throughout his body. It feels like one of his IED episodes. He waits for the anger to explode but it doesn’t. No, calmness settles over him as Theo’s lips move with his. They slowly pull apart and Liam just keeps his face close with his eyes closed. Liam likes this feeling more than the anger. Yeah, maybe he can convince Theo to be his new therapist. Whenever he feels like destroying something Theo kisses him instead, he could prescribe kisses and everything. When he opens his eyes, Theo still has that soft smile.

"Was that, okay?"

"That was perfect..." Liam whispers back neither wanting to break the silence.

A knock on the bedroom door does that.

"Uh, breakfast is ready if Theo wants to stay for that," Mason announces.

"We're also continuing the movie marathon if he wants to stay for that too?" Corey adds. Theo chuckles and looks at Liam with a wider smile that matches Liam's.

"Do you want me to stay for those?"

"I want you to stay forever," Liam confesses and Theo laughs heartily.

"I'd like that..." he confesses back before grabbing Liam's hand and pulling him out of the room.

Yeah, forever sounds pretty nice.

#thiam #teen wolf #ThiamRBB22 #theo raeken #liam dunbar #cody christian #dylan sprayberry #mtv #fanfic #model au #human au #rivals #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #rivals to lovers

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devilisln-moved · 1 year

Text

Of course I have my preferences when it comes to the grand mystery of Matt’s hypersenses and how he copes.You know, modern existence can be a sensory leaden hellscape even without absurdly heightened senses. Busy houses, screens akimbo, god it’s fucking weird and wonderful that we can watch anything we want on our fucking screens? You know I’m old and remember watching videos I uploaded on my Blackberry Pearl via bluetooth, squinting at a tiny scratched up screen on a bus. Shit I think I put movies on a Nano at some point? The ones with the “bigger”, colour screens. My point is, I need you to google that shit and understand that yeah, man phone screens are pretty fucking small but some of us were watching episodes of Torchwood on a screen about the size of a silver dollar piece in 2010 or whatever. My point is, we can pump ourselves full of sensory experiences. People make money by playing video games, watch videos, draw, cook, make music, being entertaining by doing so, and interacting with an active chat room. They’re not superhuman for being able to do that. They’ve just learned how to manage themselves or naturally function well with a lot of stimuli. I know I’m much more comfortable with something going on in the background when I’m writing. My rambling aside, I think when people talk about Matt’s hypersenses, or any character’s really, they don’t take into account that the brain is an amazing thing. There’s so much it does to order our perceptions.

Matt, as an adult, has always appeared functional unless his senses have been weaponized against him or other wise traumatic (like in intensity or volume). Psyloche, when trying read his mind or whatever, freaked out because she didn’t understand how it didn’t drive him crazy, the sheer amount of sensory input he took in. It’s generally used to back up some assertion of Matt’s brilliance. Which he absolutely is, but I don’t think his mind is like...automatically better because it probably had to essentially rewire itself just in order to adjust to the vast perception change, you know? I guess this has just been a long way to say, i think a lot of how Matt deals with his senses is both deliberate or an innate tendency to filter for the sake of sanity. Ofc, Frank Miller proposed that his apartment had sound proofing, which I don’t hate, either. Also I like the idea of someone installing sound proofing and remarking how weird it was that he didn’t have any recording equipment or lighting because they’re used to installing it for celebrities, influencers, and youtubers. ......although an entire apartment would be so expensive and Marvel has his economic situation perpetually changing. Like sometimes he’s a wealthy and successful lawyer, other times he’s barely scraping by. Honestly, I’m willing to say Matt is a more realistically written vigilante because it doesn’t just impact physically, emotionally, or his relationships. It affects him financially as well, and I respect that conceptually. It does make a big old question mark when it comes to his nice apartments and suits.I like to think his father set a fund up for him, and at least with that money, Matt’s more careful.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my stupid brain working through a thing.

#help i tried to articulate this as best I would but I feel like it's word salad #meta

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organic-guacamole · 3 years

Text

episode 209 spoilers below

I'm so late today but here it is

I love EJ, he's finally learning to be happy. I'm so proud.

Ms Jenn = every boomer during zoom calls, like jeez yes we can hear you stop shouting at me.

LOVE THE SUBTLE JOKE ABOUT QUARANTINE "these dark times" "you mean spring break?"

ah yes, remember when we thought covid was just gonna give us a longer spring break? good times

SEBLOS

damn the passive aggressiveness from Carlos and the absolutely over it tone from seb✋

CASWELL COUSINS!!!!! THEY'RE THE BEST!!!!

we needed more if this kind of goofiness for the first part of season 2 that only such an iconic duo can provide.

old old movies-

is it even that old, or is Nini being a gen alpha rn-

i choose to imagine EJ being scared of the movie and hiding in Ashlyn's shoulder while she keeps a straight face and then EJ pretending to be tough afterwards

aww redlyn are soulmates.... yknow, if gingers had souls

(please ignore me)

y'all saw how EJ's face *lit up* when Gina logged on? how dare you tell me he doesn't like her

ofc she's no damsel in distress, she's Gina porter, she's amazing.

so do we think she'd be the type to just glare at suspicious people? or bark at them

do they not know that Rini broke up? or is Ms Jenn just wanting Nini to suffer through her heartbreak to make her a better actress....

speaking of, why is Nini in the call? she's not in the show anymore. Unless she is, even after the rose and the song got cut, which would be so unfair to all those that auditioned properly before she even came back but whatever, she's the main character I get it 🙄

big red is a hero honestly, Nini better thank him for changing the subject like that

I can't-

i won't work you over the break-

this woman would 100% work her kids 24/7 if it was legal and idk how to feel about it.

YES GINA USE THAT CHARM

QUEEN

FRENCH QUEEN

SHE LEARNT FROM THE BEST (antoine obvi)

smh the airport lady, eavesdropping on Gina's call.

The way she was so happy to answer EJ's call, "eej"

I love them your honour.

EJ WITH PAINTED NAILS YES PLEASE

great now we need to see Gina, Ashlyn and EJ having a complete spa day and EJ getting really into it and Gina and Ashlyn take pictures of him when he's laying down in a robe with a mask and cucumbers on his eyes.

finally we get to see Gina's side of portwell

the way she considered it as flirting, this is the sign she asked for in episode 6 come onnnnn

no is Asher/jack really doing tiktok dances in an airport-

Ricky is me. I am burrito.

oh Lynne, sweetie, I'm sorry but the blonde hair is not it

is that even the same lady or-

THE BEAN

THE CHICAGO BEAN

THE BIG OLD METAL BEAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY 😭

jetlag is my go to excuse for anything... I haven't travelled in 2 years.

"welcome to the Lynne and Mike gossip show. where we talk about our depressed son that we both neglect in certain ways! And now a word from our sponsor, Nord VPN..."

SO MANY CANDLES

WHAT DEMON IS LYNNE TRYING TO SUMMON IN HIS ROOM-

is Nina becoming social media obsessed EJ from season 1? AND SHE LIED ABOUT HAVING SONGS TOO PLEASE WHY ARW THEY RECYCLING THE SAME PLOT-

Gina smiling at the picture of her family on Instagram makes me so happy, idek why.

EJ's nails are so pretty, we needed to see it more (unless he had it on for the rest of the episode and I just.... didn't notice🧍🏽‍♀️)

oh not the tiktok kid✋

yes ma'am end this strange mans whole tiktok career

sir take a hint and leave

GINA NO DONT SAY YOUR LAST NAME HE COULD BE A HUMAN TRAFFICKER

Ricky, walking in style✨

weird kid, ok then Lynne, can't you see he's this close to the edge?

not all your fault baby Ricky, Nini sucks a bit more

RICKY YOU DIDN'T COME DOWN HARD ON THE SONG-

YOU ASKED WHAT IT WAS ABOUT AND SHE SHUT YOU DOWN-

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF

ok but the deleting comment thing was very bad

still don't know if I like Jack honestly

hmmm so Nini's calling herself Nini instead of Nina in her little egg seat, while trying to write a song without inspiration.... Nini, honey, Ricky was your muse, he inspired you to write all those songs, even if it wasn't good for the relationship.

that doesn't mean you gotta get back with him, or that you can't write a song that not about him butttt it'll take some time

the rainbow sticker in her box and her rainbow shirt-

anyways wbk she's not totally straight

Jack are you a criminal?

quick, Gina, check his ankle for a tracker

THE YES AND PRACTICE STRIKES AGAIN

the way Gina wasn't into it in episode 6 but she's used the technique twice now

stole her grandma's Pomeranian-

Jack where the hell did you pull that out from-

the fake crying killed me, that looks like so much fun though

anyone wanna raid a first class lounge with me?

wait so is jack not gonna go in with her?

wouldn't he go in too? help look for the credit card? SO CONFUSED

the first class lounge guy was so into the drama though, watch his face when they start arguing 😭

sorry to break this to you Kourtney, but you haven't even blocked the second act yet soooo...

take that as you will

I love how all of them are totally dissing the dance off

that's the most realistic part of this show tbh

shouldn't Nini have asked how she knew....since the start? why is the fact that her best friend has knowledge of a North high secret now dawning on her...

Howie is sweet honestly, at least he's trying to help. but I stand with Kourtney, don't take him back just because he sang an amazing song, and is giving you a heads up on what's gonna happen...

KOURTNEY IS ME TRYING TO LEAVE AN ONLINE CLASS

I hate school

ooo Nini's writing a song about bad internet connection 🤩🤩🤩

I never lie, except when I do-

son that is the creepiest thing you could say to a stranger that you've been "helping"

2 truths and a lie👀

he's an Ariana fan 100%

called it.

OLDER BROTHER-

WHAT-

free spirit? damn so brother porter was in that horse movie

so has she been kissed or not?????????

I feel like she's moved more than 15 times though so possibly

but then if she's moved so much, and before east high she never opened up to anyone, she's never been kissed then?? damn

same though Gina so let's be besties please

heartbreak president is a great song title idea, give Nini a call rn

but wait

is the no strings attached feeling thing about her telling Ricky she liked him? she thought she was moving away so she thought it'd be no strings attached???

guys I think I figured it out insert the "I've connected two dots" meme

THE DUKE SWEATSHIRT

IS THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND'S

OMG I LOVE I LOVE

NOT THAT I KNOW OF???

ma'am did you just kill me

yes you did

Lynne and Ricky have such a weird relationship

YES IT DID SUCK

TODD SUCKS

LYNNE SUCKS

yeah I get that you wanted Ricky to like Todd BUT THAT WASN'T THE TIME

right so we already know that Ricky was so desperate to keep Nini cuz he didn't want to be like his parents, and now Lynne's talking about this-

Richard needs a long hug

yes Lynne, it is your fault. thank you for finally admitting it.

YES DYE YOUR HAIR

BLOND HIGHLIGHTS RICKY WILL RISE AGAIN

"sometimes the best, last thing you can do for someone you love, is let them go."

gotta admit I teared up at that point

not me thinking big red was calling ms Jenn cupcake for a hot second-

Carlos please omg, you're at the "beach" and they're leaving for the pool?

also, why not just do the call from the hotel room please omg

"don't ask me"

"Carlos"

OMG WHAT HAPPENED

big red wants the tea

O M G

SEB IS JEALOUS

JEALOUS SEBBY IS MY FAVOURITE THING IDC

I'm surprised ms Jenn knew how to give Nini permission to screenshare tbh

So lily's been stalking the East high kids and spending time editing this video while she's supposedly in an immersion trip.... right

EJ and Ashlyn's picture is so chaotic, what even is happening there

"slacking off" bestie its spring break, obviously they're confident enough that they'll get it done in time so why not focus on your own musical.

jealous seb = sassy seb

please what if those guys Carlos is posing with are his cousins or something and that's why he's so confused about Seb

6 YEAR OLD EJ I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM

Nini saying she's obsessed with her ex, that's not weird at all 👍

I can just tell Matt had a blast harassing Julia with those puppets.

Jack please dont be like that, "yet"

chances are you'll never see eachother again 🥰

(honestly sometimes I really miss those friends I made on trips and stuff when we'd spend the day or week together, only to never see them again....those were the good days though)

Ashlyn and Nini should write more songs..... something better than this one at least

Nini: "im good"

cue the Tia Mowry (please I can't spell) crying gif

oh I forgot Ricky was in the show for a hot second

1. where did Gina get to film this without people being around

2. did she just... randomly change her clothes???

ok but the transition between Carlos and EJ

*chefs kiss*

now everyone shut up, EJ's singing

oh i think I'm pregnant

HIS MUSCLES

YES KOURTNEY

I love how big red and Kourtney went from being "the best friends™" to the couple in season 1, to kinda close themselves and having their own plots

sebby makes me so happy

props to biggies editing skills honestly

PORTWELL BEING SIDE TO SIDE I CANT

AND SEBLOS OMG

big red lives for the drama

"wow" so true Ricky

no he is not cute, stop it

"holding" ok that's kinda cute

yeah EJ's a lucky guy😌

jokes aside, it's not that hard to exchange numbers-

keep in touch if you want

ok I really like Jack now

if he comes back in season 3, maybe have him be LGBTQ+ ?

like the only out characters they have rn are Seb and Carlos and they're like the sterotypes, yk?

I'd love to see jack kinda break the mold

Ricky's breaking my heart

that song just hurts

the only thing

now I don't hate Lynne????????

HOW DARE THEY WRITE IN A PROPER REDEMPTION ARC FOR HER

UGH IM SUPPOSED TO HATE HER FOREVER

I mean I don't live her now but she's good

but honestly

"mom can I show you something"

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL

THE PICTURE AND EVERYTHING OMG

I'm sobbing please help

Gina saying she's just waiting for the right guy and then EJ coming to the airport to pick her up late at night without her asking, offering to bring her back in the morning so she won't have to Uber, bringing her a granola bar (WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE FORGOT TO PACK) and without expecting anything in return???

ms ma'am you've got a keeper right there

her smile at the end was so heartwarming I really can't.

this episode was great.

it felt really short but I liked it, great character development for Ricky, Lynne and Gina.

Cant wait for next episode to see more of EJ being the ideal boyfriend /hj

#hsmtmts #hsmtmts s2 #hsmtmts season 2 #hsmtmts spoilers #ej caswell #ricky bowen #gina porter #seblos #nini salazar roberts #jack hsmtmts #carlos rodriguez #seb mathew smith #kourtney greene #big red #ashlyn caswell #caswell cousins #portwell will be the death of me #guac's episode text blocks :)

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leia-imogen · 3 years

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MORE aaron minyard headcanons ( relationship-focused )

okay so skater boy aaron!! i absolutely adore this concept and i can just imagine how freaked kevin would be bcs how tf did you just do that omg. he tries teaching kevin but as talented as our queen is on the court, he is absolute shit at skateboarding

he was class valedictorian! i have no idea how you find that out but you KNOW that aaron screams and nicky screams and tackles him to the ground in what was probably supposed to be a hug and neil just grins and fist bumps him bcs they're now totally ( grudging ) friends. andrew meets his eyes after he's escaped nicky's iron grip and he looks,, proud

aaron's still really good friends with katelyn even if it was a little bit awkward in the weeks following their breakup. he'd fought for her for a reason, after all. she's a lively, wonderful presence and he has no idea what he'd do without her. katelyn goes on to date and marry one of her fellow vixens ( we stan bi katelyn ) and they're super cute together

aaron and dan, weirdly enough, become like best friends. literally none of the foxes saw this coming, least of all them, even tho kevin and dan are basically siblings anyways

they always kinda had mutual respect for each other, like aaron admired dan for just being an all-around kick-ass captain and dan admired aaron for being able to juggle exy and pre-med classes so well. oh, and ofc the extremely grudging mutual respect that all the foxes have for each other for being survivors

so basically they're both animal lovers plus science nerds, which is a good combo. matt's an animal lover but not a science nerd, ya know? he adores them but doesn't really wanna read a billion articles about them

they can spend,, SO long at zoo exhibits. just trading facts about the animals and observing with huge eyes ( kevin and matt are looking so smitten behind them it's adorable )

aaron and renee are pretty good friends too. not renee and andrew close obvi, but aaron has always thought that renee was insanely cool

yeah her constant optimism is a little annoying at times, but it's also very refreshing, and tbh how could you not think renee is insanely cool

aaron and allison bond over their same taste in music. i saw this one post that mentioned both of them having an avril lavigne phase??

and idk why but i can totally see them watching glee together, with nicky too

ooh imagine aaron teaching allison how skateboard! she's the only one who wants to learn and he's like why not. she gets pretty good at it! like she can't do all the fancy tricks but she can go really fast and she totally fits the skater girl aesthetic too!!

aaron and matt also become surprisingly close. like they share a room and everything, and matt's super easy to get along with. aaron tries to learn to box once, but it doesn't go very well. he can't be good at everything after all, and matt's nice about it

also they play video games together and aaron beats him most of the time. ( sometimes matt gets lucky. ) i think we all seem to forget that aaron is a video game nerd

aaron and neil still hate each other's guts with the passion of a thousand suns, but like in a loving way. like i said, neil is constantly getting injured, and aaron michael minyard, future doctor, helps abby patch his dumb ass up way too often. oh and ofc the bonding over shitty moms who they shouldn't care about but still do

not gonna do the rest of the monsters, bcs i wanna make a separate post with cousins' relationship, and another about kevaaron!

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blueskrugs · 4 years

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Just Wanna Be with You | Matthew Tkachuk

surprise! my nolan fic is being mean to me, I’ve had a terrible mental health week, and I’ve been on a childhood nostalgia kick lately. so, uh, if anyone wants to have a disney movie marathon/cuddle session with me...

anyway, have a lil less than 1.2K words of cute Matty

length: 1.2k words

Summer was winding down in St. Louis. At least, that’s what the calendar said, not that it particularly felt like it, with the late August temps still in the 90s and the ridiculous humidity levels. Taryn had begged you to come over for a girls’ night before school got too busy for her and before you and Matt headed back to Calgary for the season. Really, though, it hadn’t taken much convincing on her part.

You both kicked Matt and Brady out of the basement, with firm orders to leave you alone for the night, and spread out on the couch with large bowls of popcorn and way more candy than was probably healthy. Taryn had most of the Tkachuk family movie collection stacked in front of her. You bickered gently for a while, each vetoing the other’s picks, for increasingly stupid reasons, until Taryn plucked the first High School Musical movie from the pile. Your face lit up.

“High School Musical marathon?” you asked.

“Absolutely,” Taryn said, already getting up to put the DVD in.

She dimmed the lights in the basement before settling in next to you as the movie started. Nostalgia hit you immediately, and it didn’t take long before you were both singing along and quoting every other line. Matthew, clearly still upset at being excluded, wandered downstairs during “Get’cha Head in the Game.”

“I could do that,” he said.

You and Taryn just snorted. Matt made a noise of protest, but Taryn threw a handful of popcorn at him. He tried valiantly to catch some in his mouth, but most of it bounced off his forehead. When you peered over the back of the couch at him, you were pretty sure a piece was stuck in his curls. Matt pouted at you for a moment, but you gave him a look, and he turned around and went back upstairs.

He didn’t bother you again for a while. You and Taryn were standing on the couch, singing loudly to “Breaking Free.” Taryn was using a TV remote for a microphone; you had a stray Switch controller. Taryn lost her balance and fell back to the couch cushions, and you landed next to her, both of you laughing breathlessly.

“What the fuck,” Matt said suddenly, a laugh in his voice.

He must have come downstairs quietly. You wondered how long he’d been watching. You stretched your arm over the back of the couch towards him, and Matt grasped it, bringing it up to his lips for a quick kiss. Taryn pretended to gag; you kicked her under the blankets.

Matt reached over and stole some of your popcorn then, leaning on the back of the couch to watch the TV. The last song of the movie was playing now. “I could do that, too,” he said, gesturing at the TV where everyone was dancing.

“Oh, yeah?” Taryn said, and Matthew had never been one to back down from a challenge.

He did okay dancing for about 30 seconds, until he tripped over his own feet and ended up in a heap on the floor. You and Taryn were too busy laughing at him to help him up, but you thought Taryn might have been sneakily recording all of that on her phone.

Matt spent the next five minutes convincing you two that he could be good, and that’s how you ended up with your back pressed to his chest from in between his legs as Taryn switched the DVDs.

“Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the second one,” Matt mused, loudly munching popcorn in your ear.

“Shh,” you hissed, reaching around and clapping a hand over his mouth.

He stayed mostly quiet, though he did jump over the back of the couch to grab a hockey stick and dramatically act out “Bet on It.” Taryn had definitely recorded that one.

“Never seen this before, eh, Matty?” you teased as he climbed behind you again. His arms tightened around your waist, and he buried his face in your neck as you and Taryn burst out laughing.

“That video gets out and I’ll kill you,” Matt mumbled.

“Uh-huh,” Taryn said, already busy sending the video out, you were sure.

“Is that Miley Cyrus?” he blurted later. Taryn threw an M&M at him. Matt just plucked it from the couch cushions and ate it with a smirk.

There was an intermission between the second and third movies as you refilled popcorn and drinks, and Taryn complained that her knees were getting stiff. Brady came downstairs, took one look at Matt sitting on the couch with a blanket around his shoulders, and just shook his head before heading back upstairs.

It was much harder to keep Matt quiet through the third movie. He kept interjecting with comments constantly. Things like:

“Why the fuck is she the only one standing now? So dramatic.”

“Ooh, a tree house!”

“Why are the clothes in this one so weird?”

“What kind of school has a whole-ass garden on the roof?”

“Oh my God, a powder blue tux! I need one.”

“What the fuck is going on? Why are they fighting a car? How are they fighting a car?”

He jumped up for “Scream,” though, eager to be dramatic all over again. He was halfway perched on the back of the couch when Taryn threw a pillow at him. It hit him in the face, and, surprised, he toppled backwards off the couch. When he popped back up, his curls were askew, and he looked disgruntled.

“If I’m injured for training camp, I’m blaming you,” he complained.

“If you’re injured, it’s because of your terrible dancing ‘skills,’” Taryn said, throwing air quotes around skills with a scoff and a grin. Matt flipped her off.

He pouted in silence for a while, but then, “Wait, wait, wait. The British girl is evil? The fuck?” You and Taryn lost it at that one.

“Aww,” he cooed when Troy announced what school he had chosen. You smacked him in the chest.

He nudged you during the last song. You elbowed him back. “You graduated high school. Was it really like that?”

“Yes.”

Taryn, half-asleep, giggled from her end of the couch. She stretched before getting up. “I’m going to bed. Good night, losers.”

You and Matt sat quietly in the dark for a moment. After the pillow throwing incident, he had ended up sprawled across the couch with his head in your lap. You absently pushed his curls back from his forehead.

“It was cute, earlier, watching you two sing and dance,” Matt murmured. His eyes shone up at you in the dim lighting. When you made a disbelieving noise, he sat up, nearly knocking your heads together. “No, really. I love that you and Taryn get along so well. I was also thinking about how much I love you, you dork,” he said, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose.

You ducked your head, feeling your cheeks heat up, but Matthew grabbed your chin, bringing you in for a sweet kiss.

“This doesn’t mean you can be invited to our next girls’ night,” you said, but you kissed Matt again anyway.

#brb having a hsm marathon #cait writes things #matthew tkachuk #matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk fic #matthew tkachuk fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey fic #hockey fanfiction #calgary flames

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dukeofonions · 3 years

Note

Sensing a pattern thanks to the critical fans' asks... I'm a professional producer who's attempted on numerous occasions (unsuccessfully) to secure Thomas for a part in a Broadway-bound musical. TL;DR: How he and his team -- not just friends, but "pros" -- "run their railroad" confuses the hell out of us, and is probably the biggest obstacle to his getting anywhere besides YouTube. Frankly, we now wonder if this is by design and not just typical lack of experience winning the race, as it were...

(Sorry it took so long to respond work has been killing me the past few days.)

Longer Version (1/?): We've been working on this musical for just over a decade, and after we discovered Thomas's long-form content and the singles he's released, we thought he was a good fit for it. Without going into detail, the show's always been kind of a long shot, for many reasons, but we (still) think it'd be a great showcase for his brand of talent. So we decided to approach him and to gauge his interest, since he'd discussed Broadway dreams before. And there, our troubles began...

(2/?) So, five years ago, we approached Thomas through his then-management, Reboot the People, a company that managed a *lot* of content creators back then. (Their remains still exist on Twitter @RTPfamily.) They may have been a little out of their depth when they heard our pitch, and wisely looped in his agent at the time, Ty Flynn at UTA, from whom we heard... nothing. Okay, maybe it wasn't his thing; we had other projects to pursue and we moved on but... we still kept an eye on his content.

(4/?) When we returned to the project a couple years later, Thomas was still a favorite for the part for which we had him in mind, and building a much bigger audience than before, so we decided to reach out again. The business fawsterdog email address, as I'm sure fans have discovered by now, is useless. No one there ever got back to us. More than that, when we tried to learn who was managing him now (at times pleading on Twitter and during streams for info), we kept hitting dead ends.

(5/?) We finally managed to obtain a lead when we watched the "NO ADDED SUGAR for a MONTH!" video, and someone described as Thomas's manager actually appeared on camera, Matt Hogen, the president of Direct Artist Management. Further Googling revealed Matt had apparently been his manager as far back as 2013, way earlier than we'd been directed to Reboot The People for business inquiries. To say this runaround was confusing as hell, *even for show business*, is the understatement to end them all!!!

(6/6) At that point, after all that confusion, we just gave up!! If we have to chase someone's representation to the ends of the earth, only to find out there was one person we should have been talking to the whole time, it's probably more convoluted behind the scenes, and we don't need that extra stress in our lives. Watching the recent storms unfold, and wondering how true to life the "Putting Others First" video is, we can only assume he likes the *idea* of career more than really having one...

(I lied, 7/7) Bottom line: he presents a picture of unreliability and a lack of professionalism both to his fans and to industry people, and -- assuming there's *any* autobiographical truth to Sanders Sides content -- it may be because he's deliberately not taking this seriously. If losing out on big opportunities is the price he pays for keeping his mental health and well being in check, that's fine. But it's not how you succeed in this business... in any business, really. I wish him the best...

Wow, that is a lot.

Well for starters (and I hope you don't take this the wrong way) I am the tiniest bit skeptical about this story being true. I mean I can definitely see it happening giving Thomas and the team's track record, but there are just a few things that make me hesitate.

For one thing I'm surprised that a professional producer found their way onto my blog (which I try to keep out of the open) and took the time to read through some asks then send an ask of their own. Not that it's impossible of course, because here you are. But you know anyone can claim to be anyone so I hope you don't mind my skepticism here.

And admittedly I'm not entirely sure how the producing world works along with agents, especially when it comes to getting someone cast for your show. I can't see Thomas turning an opportunity down like that unless he just wasn't interested or never knew about it.

Which, honestly, if you did try getting into contact with his agent and he was told about it and wasn't interested then ya know, the least they could do was tell you so you could start looking for someone else.

I did also find the Twitter account for Reboot The People and yeah, it's long since abandoned and I'm wondering how you even got directed there in the first place when he had a manager already (if I'm understanding the time line right)

I do kinda question the whole asking for answers in streams bit (since Thomas rarely if ever does public live streams and I don't think he did much back then the only streams he does consistently now are for patreons) and he never leaves them up anyway so it's not like I could go back and look through the chats (not that I would because I ain't got time for that) but again, it's not impossible for that to have happened. Just a tiny detail my brain got hooked on.

Even if I'm still somewhat doubtful about your story (again please don't take it the wrong way I just like to be sure before I 100% believe something) I do agree about Thomas and the team's lack of professionalism, just look at the Story Time Madlibs situation, and they continue to make decisions (especially within the patreon) that just continue to baffle me.

I mean at the end of the day no one knows what's going on behind the scenes. And as it stands Thomas has found enough success with YouTube where he's stable enough to make it his full time job and can go months or even a year without posting a video.

But he even brings this point up in one of his Sanders Sides videos that YouTube isn't a stable job, and you never know when everything can suddenly flip and before ya know it the job ain't as stable anymore, and at that point you've gotta have some kinda back up plan for if things go south.

Because eventually (and I've already seen it happening) people will just get bored without new content or just grow out of it and they'll move on. Even if they've got nothing against the creator, that's just what happens. Some will stick around but even then no one's bound to last forever. Especially when there's always new stuff to be found.

But hey, he's good where he's at for now so I guess one might as well enjoy it while they can. I would like to see him succeed in actually securing a bigger role (whether in a film, Broadway, or even a TV show) because I think he'd do really well and he has been contacted by Disney before to be in one of their shows so who knows?

#dukeofasks #long post #maybe its just a matter of time #but then again if no one can ever get ahold of the guy i can't see that happening any time soo #soon #is what i meant #i aint typing all that again im on mobile

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snowonthebeachftlana · 3 years

Text

July 2016

Jul 3rd - Taylor's 4th of July festivities kick off at her Rhode Island house. Guests include Tom Hiddleston, Abigail Anderson, Matt Lucier, Claire Winter, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Karlie Kloss, Josh Kushner, Austin Swift, Ruby Rose, Harley Gusman, Halston Sage, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Britany Maack, Ben LaManna, Martha Hunt, Jason McDonald, Uzo Aduba, Chioma Aduba, Jordan Masterson, Kesha, St Vincent, Ed Sheeran, Cherry Seaborn, Rachel Platten, Kennedy Rayé and the Haim sisters. (x) (x) (x) (x)

This is the day Tom wears the infamous 'I <3 TS' tank top while they're all at the beach. (x)

Jul 4th - The online mockery for the 'I <3 TS' shirt is quick to pour in. Daily Mail commenters are yet to shut up about it in 2021.

The party continues with a giant inflatable waterslide, body painting, karaoke, charades and fireworks. (x) And also Kesha and Haim getting tricked by Cara, Uzo and Ruby into thinking they heard scary noises in the night, and trying to call the police but not knowing their own location. (x) (x)

Jul 5th - The day after the party, when all the guests post their photos online.

Britany posts a photo of her & Ben, Blake & Ryan, and Taylor & Tom. (x) The internet has a field day with Ryan's unimpressed facial expression. (x) (Ryan later says that it's just his resting bitch face as he wasn't aware a photo was being taken. (x))

Taylor posts several photos to Instagram of her celebrating the 4th July with friends, but doesn't post any pictures with Tom. (x)

Claire Winter posts a bunch of Polaroids, including one of Taylor and Tom kissing. (x)

Abigail posts a photo to Instagram showing the banners Taylor put up to celebrate her engagement to Matt and the anniversaries of Cara & St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) and Ed & Cherry. (x)

Jul 6th - Taylor and Tom fly out of Rhode Island (x) and arrive at LAX that evening. (x) They then get on a plane to Australia.

Joe attends the Warner Music Group summer party in London. (x)

Rumours are swirling that Tom is no longer in consideration to be the next Bond, due to his relationship with Taylor. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Jul 8th - Taylor and Tom are flying on a commercial Quantas flight so someone is able to take a pic of them on the plane. (x)

According to another passenger on the plane, Taylor plays Scrabble during the flight (presumably on her phone because nobody takes big physical board games on commercial flights and the creepshot of Hiddleswift on the plane suggests she wouldn't have had anywhere to put the board anyway). In hindsight, knowing how Taylor and Joe play lots of Scrabble together including online Scrabble aka Words With Friends, and how they stayed in touch largely via texting that summer, it’s very possible she was playing against Joe.

Taylor and Tom arrive in Sydney, where Tom is about to start filming for Thor: Ragnarok. (x) Aussie media, including daytime TV, goes nuts over Hiddleswift's arrival in the country. (x)

Flying from LA to Australia involves crossing the international dateline, so they would have left the US on the 6th July local time and arrived in Sydney approx 15 hours later on the 8th July local time.

Calvin's new song Olé, written for John Newman, is released. There is speculation that it's a Hiddleswift song, written from Tom's perspective and containing lyrics implying that Taylor cheated on Calvin with Tom. However, sources also told multiple outlets that the song was written and recorded months earlier, and its supposed links to Hiddleswift were just for publicity. (x) (x)

Jul 9th - Tom goes out for a run (x) and avoids answering questions about Taylor. (x)

Jul 10th - Taylor and Tom go out for dinner to Gemelli Italian restaurant in Broadbeach on Australia's Gold Coast. (x)

Jul 11th - Taylor is named as the highest earning celebrity on the 2016 Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $170m mostly due to the 1989 World Tour. If she and Calvin had not split up, they would have been the top-earning celebrity couple. (x)

Jul 12th - Taylor visits Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane. (x)

Jul 13th - Us Weekly makes a wild claim that Tom is planning to propose soon, and Taylor is going to say yes. The magazine cover also claims they're already talking about babies. (x)

TMZ claims that Taylor wrote TIWYCF, and that Calvin disrespecting Taylor following its release was the reason for their breakup. (x)

Taylor Swift really is the creative brains behind Calvin Harris' monster hit "This is What You Came For," and their relationship fell apart because he disrespected her when the song was released ... this according to sources connected with Taylor.

It's a fascinating story. We've learned an early fan rumor about the song is true, but to a deeper extent than anyone suspected. During their relationship, Taylor wrote the song, sat down at a piano and did a demo into her iPhone. She sent it to Calvin, who loved it. They both went into a studio and did a full demo with Taylor on vocals and Calvin doing the beat.

They both knew the song would be a hit, but Taylor wrote it for Calvin and both agreed it was a bad idea to let the world know they collaborated as a couple ... it would overshadow the song.

So Taylor, who kept the publishing rights, used the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg on the credits.

The problem in the relationship came the day the song was released. Calvin appeared on Ryan Seacrest's radio show and Ryan asked, "Will you do a collaboration with your girlfriend?" Calvin responded, "You know we haven't even spoken about it. I can't see it happening though."

We're told Taylor was hurt and felt Calvin took it too far.

It was a quick downward spiral from that point. One source called it "the breaking point in the relationship." The Met Gala was several days later, when Taylor danced with Tom Hiddleston.

Tree confirms to People magazine that Taylor did write TIWYCF under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Calvin also confirms that Taylor wrote TIWYCF and goes on a Twitter rant:

Katy Perry tweets a gif of Hillary Clinton with a smug/'told you so' expression. (x) She also retweets an older tweet from May 2015 which reads, 'Time, the ultimate truth teller.' (x)

#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trends on Twitter (x) (x) and Taylor's Instagram comments are spammed with the snake emoji. (x)

Following Calvin's tweets, TMZ publishes another article claiming he is downplaying Taylor's involvement in the song as she wrote the melody in addition to the lyrics. (x)

Jul 14th - Taylor goes out shopping in Gold Coast. (x)

Tom mentions Taylor in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: (x)

You're in the middle of a cultural frenzy right now because you're dating Taylor Swift. How would you respond to people who claim that you're involved in some sort of publicity stunt?

(Laughs.) Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is — look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we're very happy. Thanks for asking. That's the truth. It's not a publicity stunt.

Martha says at a Pepsi/World Emoji Day event that Taylor and Tom are 'both happy and free together. It's amazing, I'm all about people being happy in love.' (x)

Kim talks about Taylor and the Famous controversy in a clip from an upcoming episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. (x)

“I never talk shit about anyone publicly, especially in interviews. But I was just like I had so had it,” Kim says in the clip to her sister Kourtney. “I wanted to defend him in it. She legitimately quote says, ‘As soon as I get on that Grammy red carpet I’m gonna tell all the press. Like I was in on it.’”

“And then she just didn’t like the reaction?” Kourtney says in response.

“Yeah, and you know just another way to play the victim,” Kim replies. She then brings the infamous VMAs moment from 2009 by saying, “It definitely got her a lot of attention the first time… I just don’t think he should be punished for it still to this day.”

Jul 17th - Kim posts an edited recording of Kanye and Taylor's phone call. In it, they discuss the 'I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex' line and Taylor says, 'Go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That’s really nice.' However, nowhere in the Snapchat video does Kanye consult her about the line, 'I made that bitch famous,' which is the line Taylor insisted she had never approved. (x) The other Kardashian sisters retweet and support Kim. (x)

(The full recording of the call, leaked in 2020, confirms that Kanye never told Taylor he was going to call her a bitch. It also shows her reminding him that she sold 7 million albums before he had even heard of her, in response to him suggesting the lyric, 'I made her famous.')

Kim takes to Twitter to call Taylor a snake.

Taylor posts a statement on Instagram responding to Kim's Snapchat video. (x)

Selena tweets, 'There are more important things to talk about… Why can’t people use their voice for something that fucking matters? This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh' (x)

Katy Perry tweets, '#RISE above it all' and links to her new single. People interpret it as a dig at Taylor. (x)

Martha Hunt tweets, 'It's pathetic how quick our culture is to sensationalize a fabricated story...' (x)

Jul 18th - #KimExposedTaylorParty spends the day trending at number one worldwide on Twitter. (x) To the point where 0.8% of all tweets posted in the entire week from the 18th-24th use the hashtag. (x) (Assuming that 1/7th of the week's total tweets were posted on each day, that means more than 1 in every 20 tweets on the 18th used the hashtag.) #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty also returns.

TMZ claims to have a copy of a letter from Taylor's lawyer, dating back to February, demanding that Kanye destroy the recording of their phone conversation and reminding him that it is a felony to secretly record a phone conversation in California. (x)

Taylor changes the name on her writing credits for TIWYCF on the BMI songwriters database. She is now listed as Taylor Swift instead of Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Camilla Belle, the subject of Taylor's 2010 song Better Than Revenge, posts a quote to Instagram which reads, 'No need for revenge. Just sit back & wait. Those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves & if you’re lucky, God will let you watch.' (x)

Abigail tweets against Kim and Kanye, saying, 'May God forgive you & your wife for doing to others the very things you pray are NEVER done to your daughter.' She deletes the tweets after receiving death threats but leaves a tweet which reads, 'Guys…I will always stand by my best friend. There's no point in fighting over that.' (x)

Joseph Kahn (director of many of Taylor's music videos) defends Taylor on Twitter. (x)

The aunt of Dinah Jane from Fifth Harmony tweets, 'I always knew @/taylorswift13 was a SNAKE! Trying 2 break up my girls & use @/camilacabello97 as her protégé bitch bye you’ve been exposed!’ (x) The tweet is soon deleted and she claims her account was hacked. (x) (Camila quit the band at the end of 2016 and has since said that Taylor had nothing to do with her decision to leave.) (x)

Paula Erickson, Taylor’s former publicist from 2007 until 2014, likes a two-and-a-half-week-old tweet dragging Hiddleswift for being a badly executed bit of PR by Taylor and Tree. (x)

James Corden spoofs the recorded phone call on the Late Late Show. (x)

Calvin is rumoured to be dating Tinashe. (x)

Jul 20th - Todrick Hall defends Taylor, saying, 'She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life.' (x)

Uzo Aduba says Taylor is 'a beautiful person and strong' and that she will overcome the Kimye drama. (x)

Paula likes another tweet shading Taylor and Tree. (x)

A graffiti artist creates a mural in Melbourne 'in loving memory of Taylor Swift' (misspelled as Smith). According to the artist, they are then contacted by Taylor's lawyers and threatened with legal action. (x)

Jul 21st - Taylor's Wikipedia page is vandalised with insults. (x)

Taylor and Tom fly back from Australia into a private airport in LA, and are seen out and about. (x) (x)

Jul 22nd - Fergie, who had Kim appear in her M.I.L.F. $ music video, says she thinks the Kimye-Taylor feud was planned and 'they’ll probably all come together at the MTV Awards or something.' (x)

Taylor goes to the gym in LA. It is the first time she has appeared in public since Kim posted the edited video, and her phone screen is now shattered. (x)

She also returns to Instagram to wish Selena a happy birthday. (x)

Jul 23rd - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Tom is at Comic Con in San Diego. (x)

Calvin lip-syncs to Kanye's song That Part in a video posted on his Snapchat. (x) He also attends J-Lo's birthday party and is photographed with Kim. Apparently they have a friendly chat. (x) A source claims to E!, 'When Kim walked in Calvin saw her and stood up. He was clearly excited to see her and said 'hi' to Kim backstage.' (x)

Jul 24th - Taylor blocks the snake emoji from her Instagram comments section using a new Instagram feature. (x)

Tom is seen at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills with members of Taylor's security team. (x)

Jul 26th - Tom flies back to LA from NYC, where he has just spent a couple of days. On the same day, Taylor's plane arrives back in LA from Nashville, where she has spent a couple of days. (x)

VMA nominations are announced. Taylor is not nominated in any category, despite Out Of The Woods and Wildest Dreams being eligible, leading some people to think she has been snubbed. Gossip Cop, an outlet widely used by celebrity publicists to quietly squash rumours, says that Taylor did not submit any videos for consideration this year. (x)

Jul 27th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

John Newman, singer of Calvin's song Olé, jokes, 'Supposedly we had a holiday where he was movin’ on from his ex-missus,' referring to the trip to Mexico to film the music video, which involved girls and a yacht. He also says he doesn't think it's his place to say what inspired Calvin to write the song. (x)

Taylor and Tom go for dinner at Hillstone restaurant in Santa Monica. One source claims they 'seemed to really be enjoying each others’ company.' (x) It is the last time they are papped together.

Kanye makes a surprise appearance at Drake's concert in Chicago where he responds to Kim's Snapchat video for the first time, saying, 'All I gotta say is, I am so glad my wife has Snapchat. Because now y’all can know the truth. And can’t nobody talk shit about ‘Ye no more.' (x)

Cara appears on James Corden's show and talks about how she, Uzo and Ruby pranked Kesha and Haim at Taylor's 4th of July party. She mentions consulting Taylor and Tom first so that security knew what they were up to. She also says that Taylor and Tom got woken up at one point by all the noise they were making, and came upstairs together to find Cara and Uzo still making ghost noises. (x)

Jul 28th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Jul 29th - Sources close to Calvin deny rumours that he is planning to collaborate on music with Kanye. (x)

Abigail likes E! News' Instagram photo of Tom and Taylor going out for dinner on the 27th, which has a gushing caption about them. (x)

Jul 31st - Taylor is seen entering her gym in LA through the back door. (x)

A fan sees Tom and Taylor at The Church Key restaurant in LA. (x) The outing is not papped.

Intro // February // March // April // May // June // July // August // September // October // November

#taylor swift #hiddleswift #tayvin #swiftwyn #jaylor #toe #taylor swift in 2016 #timeline

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my-one-true-l · 4 years

Note

Hey luv!!🖤 Can I order a microfic for wammy's boys by taking their child trick-or-treating on Halloween with his parents? Hope you have a good time this Halloween! 👻

Hello My Darling Anon! I put a rush order on this one to get it ready in time for Halloween! I hope you have a good one as well!!!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Come on Daddy! Let’s go!” The tiny child dressed all in black with the oversized cat ears and velvet tail dragging on the ground behind them tugged on L’s sleeve, trying with all their might to yank him towards the door. “If we wait much longer, there won’t be any candy left for me!”

L pressed his thumb to his lip, a smile growing beneath it as he looked at them lovingly. “I’m sure there will be no shortage of treats. It isn’t even dark yet.”

“Granddaaaad!” They whined at Watari, their huge greyish-blue eyes pleading up at him. “You’ll take me, won’t you?”

“Patience, child.” Watari’s grin widened under his moustache. “Your mother and father will take you in just a moment.”

“What about you Granddad? Aren’t you coming with us?”

“Someone has to stay here and hand out candy to the children that come here. We wouldn’t want them to be disappointed by trick-or-treating at an empty house.” He handed them a pumpkin-shaped pail before straightening the pointy cat ears.

“Just don’t give it all away, ok?”

“Little One, you will have plenty of candy of your own when we return home. There’s no need to be greedy.” L gently took their hand in his.

“They remind me of someone else when he was their age.” Watari patted L on the shoulder kindly.

“So you’re blaming genetics?” L smirked at him.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” Little One’s mother hurried into the foyer, also donning cat ears on top of her head. She squatted to be eye-level with her kitten and whispered, “Everything is ready for Daddy’s birthday party.”

“Even the cake?” Little One’s excitement rang out a little too loudly.

“Mhmm. Even the cake.” She stood up and took their hand, pumpkin pail dangling between them. She gave L a little wink, who had no doubt heard what they were planning. “Ready to go?”

“YES! I’ve been ready since this morning!” Little One pulled them both towards the door.

“Sounds like someone else I know.” She smiled playfully at L.

L sighed as they stepped into the cold night, together as a family. “Apparently I’ve made quite the reputation for myself.”

“That’s ok Daddy.” Little One squeezed his hand a little tighter. “I’ll share my treats with you.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“That’s it. Let’s have them.” Mello frowned down at the tiny biker that stood before him, leather pants and a tattoo of a dragon drawn in marker on his arm made them look even more like thier father.

“I wasn’t going to use them. I just wanted them, you know. In case.”

“Mells, are you shaking our kid down for their chocolate?”

“No, but I might have to do that later.” Mello’s scowl softened when he spoke to her. “Look what our little darling decided to bring trick-or-treating?” In Mello’s hand was a half-used can of shaving cream.

“Did you really think it’s ok to vandalize someone’s house?” Their mother asked sternly.

“Only if they don’t hand over the good candy.”

“That is not ok. Your mother and I taught you better than that.” Mello turned to his Love. “There’re some eggs in their pillow case, too.”

“I thought I bought more than what is in the refrigerator!” She held her hand out to them. “Give them over.”

“You don’t want that. They broke when they set down their treat bag.”

“And it ruined all my goodies.” They yelled angrily at their parents.

She sighed and looked to her husband. “We really raised a mini-Mello. What are we going to do?”

“I think you should-“

“Your mother wasn’t talking to you.”

She closed her eyes for a second to clear her head. “This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go get you a clean pillowcase and we’re going to try this again. We’ll go door-to-door as a family. You’re too young to be going trick-or-treating alone anyway.”

“And tomorrow starts your grounding. Two weeks. No T.V, nno video games.” Mello doled out the punishment. “And I get half your chocolate.”

“HALF?!” They growled at their father before his eyes grew wide. Mello didn’t need to say anything. His kid knew he meant business. “That seems fair.”

“Now that’s settled. Let’s go. And I don’t want to catch you pulling something like this ever again, you got that?”

“I sure do. Sorry Dad.”

“You know that’s a bunch of crap, right? They’re just like you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mello lowered his voice to keep the words between him and his wife, a smile making his scar even more beautiful. “Is it bad I’m a little proud of them?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“It’s alright sweetheart. Go knock on the door.”

The little vampire hugged their mother’s leg, peeking around the woman with wide eyes as they stared at the stranger’s door.

“There is nothing to be afraid of. Pumpkins are not frightening and the spiders and bats are merely decorations, made of plastic in some factory.” Near reassured his child the only way he knew how.

“But I’m scared.”

“That’s ok. Halloween can be scary, but if you’re really brave and go to the door, you can get candy.” She stroked her child’s hair, still clinging to her leg.

“What are you dressed up as?” Near asked his child, twisting his hair around his finger.

“I’m a vampire.” Their voice shook the response.

“Are you an actual vampire or is it pretend?”

“It’s pretend.”

“As are these decorations.” Near held his hand out to his child. “Now let’s not be frightened of something that is pretend. I will go with you if it will give you courage.”

The little vampire with the flaxen hair nodded at their father, taking his hand and stalking toward the door, cape pulled up over their nose. Near’s Love couldn’t help but giggle at the sight. They looked like Dracula from all the old movies.

Together, Near and his child walked up the porch steps, between the cotton cobwebs and glowing pumpkins, the baby vampire building courage with every step before ringing the doorbell.

The door opened and a kindly older woman smiled at them.

“Trick-or-treat.” The tiny vampire could barely speak the words.

“Oh, aren’t you adorable! Such a cute little vampire.” She plopped a handful of chocolates and lolllies into their pail before turning to Near. “And what are you supposed to be? A ghost?”

Near frowned at the woman. “I’m a detective. Thank you for the treats.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*

“Alright, on our Trick-or-Treat bingo, we have skeletons, pumpkins, spider webs and bats all checked off.” Matt held the card in his hand, crossing out the words in purple marker as he read them aloud. “We need those eyes that are peeking in the bushes still…”

“And something inflatable. Oh and we need a house that is playing scary music.” The small Yoshi excitedly chimed up at their father. “Oh, this house has purple lights! Cross it off dad while I go to the door!”

“Haha, alright. Go get them. Make sure to say thank you!” Matt called after them before turning to his Love. “You did a damn good job on that costume.”

“Anything for my two favorite gamers.” She smiled proudly at him, never telling him it took her the last 6 months to perfect it.

“Mom! Dad! I got M&Ms and a Reese’s peanut butter cup! Your turn mom, cross it off.” Their face beamed from where Yoshi’s mouth should be. “Did I get Bingo yet?”

“You are one Milky Way away from getting candy Bingo.”

“And you need Orange Lights and you will have it on the decorations one.”

“Alright! I’m on it!” They ran to the next house, green and white tail waddling behind them as they hopped up the steps and knocked on the door.

“So what are we going to do when they win?”

“10pm pizza and scary movies until they fall asleep on the couch?” Matt grinned, proud of the prize at the end of the game he created. “I think they will love that.”

She smiled softly at him. “I think all three of us will love that.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hey Dad! Check me out!”

Beyond’s child bound towards him, rubber butcher’s knife sticking out of their head, red corn syrup running down their face with eyes ringed in black, which Beyond was not fond of. It reminded him too much of someone he had tried hard to forget.

“Wouldn’t you rather go as the murderer than the victim?” Beyond hated even the slightest hint of his offspring being weak, even if it was only a Halloween costume.

“I’m not a victim. I’m a scary undead dude.” The excitement fell from their face. “You’re no fun sometimes. You don’t know how much work it was to look like someone you’re not.”

B knew all too well how much effort that required.

“On second thought, I think you look quite scary.” Beyond’s compliment brought the smile back to their face. “I think you’re going to get a lot of candy this year.”

“I think so, too!” The sweet voice of the child’s mother announced her entrance into the room, standing at B’s side & whispering in his ear, “I hope you don’t mind I let him use that old stage makeup you have hidden in your drawer.”

Beyond fought back a frown. “Of course not. Why would I have a use for that? I don’t even remember why I have that.”

“Mom? Dad? Can we get going please? I don’t want all the blood to dry up before I can collect my candy.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Beyond mustered a smile, letting a bit of the corn syrup drip on his finger, sucking the sweetness from his nails. “It’s terrible once the blood dries on.”

#L Lawliet #Mihael Keehl #Nate River #Mail Jeevas #Beyond Birthday #Death Note #Ask #Request #Answered #Anonymous

39 notes · View notes

dalishious · 4 years

Note

not da but I'm getting into Canadian music, I think you've mentioned before you like the tragically hip, what do you think of sloan? any other bands and artists to consider?

There’s a reason The Tragically Hip is so beloved in this country. Their songs aren’t just songs, they’re poetry. If you want to check them out, I recommend starting with the album Yer Favourites, which is a collection of their top songs voted by fans. And also I’d like to give a special shoutout to what I consider to be an extremely underrated album: We Are The Same. Most people will tell you Fully Completely is their best one, but there isn’t a single song in We Are The Same that I don’t love. (Especially Country Days, The Depression Suite, Coffee Girl, and of course, Now The Struggle Has a Name...)

Sloan has some good ones, and I’d be a poor Nova Scotian not to say that lol. If you like any of The Hip’s songs that have a more pop-ish vibe, you’ll probably like them.

Anyway, some more recommendations, only English unless you’re open to some French as well, let me know:

MATTHEW GOOD. MATTHEW GOOD. MATTHEW GOOD. (Before going solo, Matthew Good Band.) One of my all time favourite artists. I recently shared my playlist of my favourites on my main blog if you’re interested. Also just like The Hip, his lyrics are more often than not very poetic, and I love that. Especially given a number of them come from personal places and I’ll just say if you have any mental disorders yourself there’s a good chance you’ll be able to really feel when he sings about his own. Anyway, my two favourite albums in particular are Hospital Music and Avalanche, with Moving Walls and Underdogs (Matthew Good Band) close behind.

Our Lady Peace is fantastic. I recommend starting with the albums Gravity and Clumsy.

The Stanfields are a fun mix of what they call Folk’n’Roll. Check out their albums Vanguard of the Young & Reckless and Death & Taxes for sure. (Oh fuck, also check out the video for Afraid of the World because the end of it gets me every time... white woman walks around scoffing at all the pumpkin heads, then goes home and puts on her pumpkin head.)

If you’re interested in another really great mix of Atlantic Folk and alternative rock, I suggest Joel Plaskett / Joel Plaskett Emergency. Start with either the Joel Plaskett Emergency album Ashtray Rock, or the solo Joel Plaskett album Three. Also the album Solidarity he did with his father, Bill Plaskett, is beautiful. The Next Blue Sky is one of my favourite songs ever.

Matt Mays is one more Atlantic Folksy rock guy. Once Upon a Hell of a Time and Twice Upon a Hell of a Time (acoustic versions of Once) are a perfect starting point in my opinion, though most fans of his would tell you to start with the album Coyote, which is also great!

Arcade Fire is... I’m not really sure how to describe Arcade Fire. I like some of their stuff, but they are something of an acquired taste, I think. Try the album The Suburbs.

If I tell you I adored Avril Lavigne and Billy Talent growing up, would you judge me? Because I did, and I still do. If you’re willing to keep an open mind, try Avril Lavigne’s albums Under My Skin and Let Go, and if you’re in a real angsty mood, try Billy Talent’s albums Dead Silence and Hits. (I would especially recommend trying Billy Talent if you like bands like say, Green Day and MCR.)

Okay, some more classics... Rush, The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO), and April Wine are all great. They all have greatest hits / best of albums, so just start there.

Oh shit, I almost forgot Bryan Adams, AKA the Canadian Bruce Springsteen. Though you’ll have trouble finding one of my favourite songs by him, so here it is.

I also feel like I needn’t even bother mentioning Neil Young since I’m assuming you him before, but... yeah. Neil Young, obviously.

EDIT: AAHHH forgot Great Big Sea! Check out their album Play.

EDIT: Yes I love Nickelback too. Sue me.

EDIT: I forgot, Alanis Morissete is Canadian. Listen to her Jagged Little Pill album if you’ve never done so before.

EDIT: I had no idea Three Days Grace was Canadian??? One-X and Human are my favourite albums by them, but Life Starts Now is also pretty up there. (Similar vibes to Bily Talent, but I’d say even more angsty lol)

I also wanna give a particular shoutout to at least some albums from my fave Canadian Indigenous artists:

Shawnee deserves so many more listeners please check her out. Her only full album as of now is Let It Burn, but she’s also got a bunch of released singles.

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Medicine Songs and The Best Of

Jeremy Dutcher’s Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa... I know I said I’d limit reccomendations to English but I can’t help it.

Susan Aglukark’s This Child

Adrian Sutherland is a newbie, but I am begging everyone reading this to check out his song Politician Man. Needless to say, I look forward to hearing more from him.

#not da #music #Anonymous #ask

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d-criss-news · 4 years

Text

Royalties Soundtrack Listening Event | Darren Criss Chat (July 7th, 2020)

Darren Criss 18:02:04

wait ha

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Darren Criss 18:02:08

sorry yall

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Darren Criss 18:02:12

this is confusing me of course

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Darren Criss 18:02:29

this is new for me too friends

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Darren Criss 18:02:45

well i'm here but I can't hear shit so gimme a sec

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Darren Criss 18:04:00

well I'll just keep typing here guys

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Darren Criss 18:04:04

bro

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Darren Criss 18:04:07

wilma

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Darren Criss 18:04:15

i'm tryin

Darren Criss 18:04:57

21kxuv372ubcprrbpiefadt6i

What was your favorite song to write for the show?

They each were really fun so that's hard to say but Hate That I Need You surprised the hell outta me

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Darren Criss 18:05:30

bettic72

darren non capisco un cazzo

anchio pero sti cazzi siamo qui

Darren Criss 18:05:49

genevievephillips

point and laugh at darren

yes let's laugh at him

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Darren Criss 18:06:18

2162bkuccm7xje6yfgmuzrnyq

You inspired me to write my own songs 🥺👉🏼👈🏼

thanks for writing the first positive thing I've seen on this. That's wonderful! I hope to hear them!

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Darren Criss 18:06:43

clo :)

i love that we are all grandparents when it comes to this

thank you for using the appropriate WE pronouns ha yeah this shit is confusing

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Darren Criss 18:08:44

zcvmtsgee5mom80oxeesa4v11

Darren how do you deal with stage fright .... i’ve been preforming in front of people for a while and i i still get scared . Does it ever go away ?

i guess it depends on how big the crowd is. everybody's different but I will say any kind of fright means you care, which is a good thing! Also the thing people forget about performing, for the most part, is you can't SEE the audience, most of the time they're in the dark. That's why performing for friends or in a small space where you can see everyone is much more nerve-racking

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Darren Criss 18:08:57

Dana

Darren can we have a royalties tour once rona is over???

wouldn't that be fun!

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Darren Criss 18:09:15

emilybutcher30

darren can you start streaming on twitch please haha i love you

ha can't compete with King Urie man

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Darren Criss 18:10:06

jake2000w

Darren, I know it’s all weird right now, but do you have any idea when we might see Nerdy Prudes Must Die?

what a good question. I have no idea but I've been wanting to see that show for almost as long as I've wanted to make Royalties. The boys have been talking about that one for a while now.

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Darren Criss 18:10:16

jesiqseigle56

Can you like respond .

like yeah

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Darren Criss 18:10:27

abbyforsmark

has Darren even said anything on this?

nope nothing

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Darren Criss 18:12:39

u6iczx4gua0att2g4kd2vdzwe

Did you write each of the songs with the performers in mind or did you cast them afterwards?

great question. Except for "Also You," which was written with Jackie Tohn for Jackie Tohn, we had no idea who would sing each song. I did the demos for almost all of them and then we had to pitch actors/artists to see if they'd be interested... which wasn't as hard (luckily) as seeing if they were AVAILABLE... which many weren't given the short time we had to make the show. Hopefully we can get some of those folks on for the next season IF THEY'LL LET US HAVE ONE!

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Darren Criss 18:13:52

delfi

darren royalties is so good i'm fucking proud of you

thanks for watching it, truly. I know the Quibi thing is strange for people so I appreciate you giving it all a chance : )

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Darren Criss 18:14:04

Caitlyn A :)

if you see this kick your shoes off

I would but no shoes

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Darren Criss 18:14:27

t59glm18dkw84n64l72jcuvpc

come to the uk challenge

god i wish.

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Darren Criss 18:15:39

damn someone said "travel to UK challenge" and I meant to respond "find a vaccine challenge"

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Darren Criss 18:17:08

i can't hear any of these songs but I"m just gonna start saying random shit about them

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Darren Criss 18:17:16

first off, i really wanted a theme song

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Darren Criss 18:17:23

that was a whole thing

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Darren Criss 18:19:18

Had to cut through a lot of red tape to make sure we had that silly song in there. We were already in the middle of post production when I finally got it approved, but it had to be under 15 seconds. I wrote 3 diff versions. So glad it ended up working. Theme songs accomplish so much in such a short period of time. Establishes tone. Gives the audience an almost Pavlovian response to the familiarity of the characters... I'm happy with it

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Darren Criss 18:20:12

also the "doo doo doo" lyrics are meant to sound like "scratch vocals" when songwriters record vocals with temporary gibberish lyrics with the intent of filling them in with real ones later

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Darren Criss 18:22:29

Just That Good was a concept that started the entire 1st season, and it was one of those instant-songs where Nick and Matt told me the title and I immediately had the hook just from those words. That only happens every once in a while and I was so happy it did for that song. The tricky part was writing the rest of it, but the back half of the song with the chorus repeating that one refrain over and over- that was the melody from the get go

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Darren Criss 18:23:08

I'll get back to Break it In, kick your shoes/let your hair, and kong later... i'll just go off on this one

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Darren Criss 18:23:48

so I wanted to nod to the grandeur of everyone's favorite vampire elf, Jared Leto

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Darren Criss 18:24:05

not HIM specifically, but 30 seconds to mars' very BIG music videos

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Darren Criss 18:24:29

i dont jared is a buncha self centered nutcases like our guys in SWITCHBACK JACKET

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Darren Criss 18:24:37

* i don't think Jared...

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Darren Criss 18:25:38

anyway yeah "so much better..." comes from a lot of the 90s alt rock that I grew up on, and the mix of that sound with a bit of electronic production was an effort to contemportize it as much as possible

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Darren Criss 18:26:26

but the rhythm guitar, lots of power chords and high octaves were all harkening to my fave bands like Lit and Eve 6... but put through a strange bizzaro nickleback/creed performance filter

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Darren Criss 18:26:55

"make you come true" is obviously a very salacious play on words

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Darren Criss 18:28:27

so the only way to make it feel earnest is if we made the track itself sexy as possible. A lot of the songs, even without being written, leant themselves to a certain genre just by the title, and this one was kind of a no-brainer. Sexy mid tempo r&b. And I didn't even know we'd get Jordan Fisher to do it- who SMASHED the vocal.

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Darren Criss 18:29:42

lauraacampbell-12

DARREN CHORDS OR LYRICS FIRST WHEN WRITING A SONG?

it's different every time but for this show specifically it's always title/idea first, and then the song comes from there. But that's because we're writing a show, so we have the luxury of getting to write from a specific place. It's much harder to do that in your own life when you just want to pull a title/idea from your own experience of life. I commend people that do that all the time.

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Darren Criss 18:30:06

what's NUTS about prizefighter is...

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Darren Criss 18:30:24

it was originally a song called LONG RANGER that BONNIE MCKEE sang, who I wrote the song with

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Darren Criss 18:30:38

and in the video we had CHRISSY TIEGEN lipsynching

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Darren Criss 18:30:44

it was bananas

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Darren Criss 18:31:26

we ultimately couldn't use the song because of some complicated writers shit- not too dissimilar from the things we explore in our own show, which is just totally ironic.

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Darren Criss 18:32:56

we were so bummed that we couldn't use the song but I'm actually really really happy with PRIZEFIGHTER. I love the song, and I love how it turned out production wise. I love how much of a massive influence latin x rhythms have had across the entire spectrum of mainstream music, so I wanted try my own hand at nodding to it!

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Darren Criss 18:33:08

Lara :)!

Ahhhhh so was that the pilot song you were talking about last week?

that's the one

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Darren Criss 18:33:45

hbz3jctrg5rwwma640hahffvt

You have inspired me to learn piano I already know how to play teanage dream now

you can thank Bonnie Mckee aka Kimmy Kelly for writing that song!

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Darren Criss 18:34:01

ok then there's the k pop song

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Darren Criss 18:34:08

honestly i had no idea where I was gonna start on this one

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Darren Criss 18:34:22

full props to the brilliant CJ Baran who I wrote this song with

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Darren Criss 18:34:39

we were just toying around with very industrial-sounding samples

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Darren Criss 18:35:21

and I started singing Edvard Grieg's "in the hall of the mountain king"

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Darren Criss 18:35:33

and he was the guy that was like YEAH JUST PUT IT IN THERE

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Darren Criss 18:35:46

and i realized, oh yeah, that song is public domain

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Darren Criss 18:35:59

and kinda ties perfectly to the nature of Elia Peck and his songwriting... huh.

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Darren Criss 18:36:05

So we went for it from there.

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Darren Criss 18:36:17

based the lyrics off of what the Neals say in the room.

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Darren Criss 18:36:34

and then just wrote a bunch of ALMOST nonense lyrics about things that you could HATE that you NEED

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Darren Criss 18:36:40

things like available wifi...

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Darren Criss 18:37:01

artistinal mai-tais.... yeah I guess if you really really liked those you could HATE that you NEED them...

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Darren Criss 18:37:04

etc etc

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Darren Criss18:38:16

but the idea was to have Mariam Hale's character hardly do ANYTHING on the track, since she, as the audience sees, doesn't really have much to offer... so we just built it around this huge track with crazy lyrics that just tees up a tag for her to say without even having to sing: I HATE THAT I NEED YOU

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Darren Criss18:38:43

2235n5s2qk5hjsujbhk5ilpva

I have classes in 10 minutes, and I'm not leaving until you dedicate a Royalties song to me.

looks like you're gonna miss calss

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Darren Criss 18:39:09

"calss" ha. which is like "class" but like... different.

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Darren Criss 18:39:32

alrighty PERFECT SONG

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Darren Criss 18:39:38

i really love this song as well

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Darren Criss 18:40:02

the reveal of this song is that they keep talking about this "perfect song" they've written

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Darren Criss 18:40:26

in other words we're teeing up a pretty big expectation of what a perfect song could possibly sound like

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Darren Criss 18:40:36

the reveal of course is that the song itself is in fact just called "perfect song"

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Darren Criss 18:40:43

which is ABOUT a perfect song

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Darren Criss 18:41:07

and about TRYING TO WRITE a perfect song, and how that's not necessary when you have someone that IS the perfect song

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Darren Criss 18:41:20

when we wrapped our heads around that idea, I really loved it

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Darren Criss 18:42:10

you'll notice we reference a lot of incredible songs, almost citing them as perfect songs themselves

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Darren Criss 18:42:14

ain't no mountain high enough

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Darren Criss 18:42:55

of course leonard cohen's seminal Hallelujah

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Darren Criss 18:44:05

and of course Britney's Oops I Did It Again ha ;)

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Darren Criss 18:45:00

the Oops being a layered joke of being annoyed with oneself that they AGAIN unwittingly wrote a lyric for already massive song, but in doing so citing yet ANOTHER already massive song... if that makes any sense

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Darren Criss 18:45:27

sorry for the typos yall i'm moving fast, i'd never let this shit slide if it wasn't a casual chatroom vibe

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Darren Criss 18:46:37

emzlolly1234

Did you know you wanted there to be a romantic thing between pierce and Sara?? :))))

yes that was actually our original "pilot presentation" episode. the one with the song LONE RANGER and Chrissy Tiegen. It was a longer version of what would become episode 7. We THINK it's a romantic thing but you realize that Sara is just playing Pierce to get the song she needs. That was always the premise yes.

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Darren Criss 18:46:51

luzmargotramos

if you reply with a single dot I'd probably die

then I better steer clear of any dots

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Darren Criss 18:47:04

ALSO YOU was an amazing lightning in a bottle moment

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Darren Criss 18:47:09

FULL CREDIT TO JACKIE TOHN

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Darren Criss 18:47:22

i always enjoy giving credit where credit is due

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Darren Criss 18:48:24

and I came in pretty hot for most of the songs- concepts, chords, style... but this one literally was a simple as Jackie Sitting down and just playing "It's you I love but also you and also you and also you."

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Darren Criss 18:48:37

we all just looked at each other going, welp, yup, that's it, jackie you fuckin rule

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Darren Criss 18:49:28

the song would have ended up very differently if she hadn't brought that to the table. the original episode and song was "one true loves" which isn't nearly as good of a gag/title as "also you"

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Darren Criss 18:49:50

i ended up squeezing "one true loves" into the bridge, but of course, kept ALSO YOU as the main event

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Darren Criss 18:50:02

i will say I was also trying to spoof my brother's old band, FREELANCE WHALES a little bit

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Darren Criss 18:50:26

if you guys know the song "generator first floor" where they sing ay ay ay ay ay a lot...

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Darren Criss 18:50:35

... as a lot of bands and songs had featured at the time...

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Darren Criss 18:51:00

i wanted to put them all in one joke. where a band sang not only hey hey hey but ay and EE and AYE and OH and basically all the vowels

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Darren Criss 18:51:10

which was where the joke of,

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Darren Criss 18:51:20

a, e, i, o, and also u

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Darren Criss 18:51:21

came from

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Darren Criss 18:51:32

which i'm particularly proud of

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Darren Criss 18:51:56

ok let's talk about BREAK IT IN

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Darren Criss 18:54:16

lxucxthxrxnx_

I’m a musician myself (not that great lol) what was it like coming up with the melodic side did you play any instruments for the songs?

i played instruments on all the songs except Break It In and I Hate That I Need You, since those were all electronic. That's not to say i played EVERY instrument but I definitely played AN instrument of some kind for the others.

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Darren Criss 18:55:34

as for break it in... anyway... yeah that was a blast. Nick Lang and I collaborated with my buddy Kendo who goes by the artist name KingJet.

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Darren Criss 18:56:54

Kendo has worked on a lot of legit songs in the hip hop space. For each song I wanted to make sure there was a level of authenticity to what we were doing. I didn't wanna SPOOF the songs. I wanted the songs to sound rock solid and that it would be the LYRICAL CONCEPTS that would be the source of satire. So Kendo was a great guiding light to keep the track as authentic as possible.

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Darren Criss 18:59:47

We explained to Kendo the whole joke concept of the song, which is basically just turning the idea of toxic masculinity on its head, and he was on top of it immediately- when we told him that there's this guy that's really concerned that people think he "fucks too soft" he immediately started spitting out lyrics like the hilariously defiant "I'm the KING OF THE HARD FUCK"

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Darren Criss 19:00:35

which just killed me and Nick. It was just so juvenile that it was adorable to me

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Darren Criss 19:00:57

emzlolly1234

Darren you’ve been here for an hour? That’s the length of royalties man xxx

yeah aint it great

Darren Criss 19:02:21

sophie :)

i personally think you should try your hand at writing a drill song, a british genre of rap that centres around rapping unrelated lyrics in front of chicken shops, personally think it has the right tone for the show for a season two

drill would be siq. I mean, opening the incredible pandora's box of UK based hip hop in general is its own magical wormhole of nuance and history and regional culture. it's amazing. i'd really have to do some homework if I wanted to pull that off!

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Darren Criss 19:02:49

cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs

he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay

ok sorry i'll stop

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Darren Criss 19:02:51

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Darren Criss 19:03:03

cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs

he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay

kidding!

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Darren Criss 19:03:39

fsheldens

when darren actually cares about us 🥺

awww i always do! I just wasn't built for internet stuff.

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Darren Criss 19:04:20

alpermehdi

speaking of nick how was it to work with nick??

the best. Nick is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

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Darren Criss 19:04:51

chloe :)!

what would be ur karaoke song choice from the show?

mighty as kong

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Darren Criss 19:07:32

isa.kowo

How much music theory goes into your songwriting? And did you learn all of it from playing the violin? In what way does it go into your songs?

all GREAT questions. I mean, music theory isn't something you CONSCIOUSLY employ when writing something, it's just that it really helps to know the rules or music when shaping it and trying to maximize its production. And as a matter of fact, yeah, I DID learn most of it playing violin. But when I was playing violin I was ingesting music from the perspective of a student ingesting information, not as a proactive creator putting anything of my own out into the world.

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Darren Criss 19:08:07

Honestly I really didn't start UNDERSTANDING music theory until I started writing music for other people, and noticing certain things and chords and shapes had names and that they could be manipulated to accomplish certain things

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Darren Criss 19:08:35

so most of my academic musical knowledge came in my 20s when I tried to start doing it professionally

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Darren Criss 19:08:52

Nick

first instrument you ever learnt?

violin

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Darren Criss 19:09:07

andyruiz080

I'm castin' my love net wide And fillin' every hole in my schedule

ha love that line

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Darren Criss 19:09:29

missweggy

Darren are you a big queen fan ( the band lol ) 😂

is the pope catholic

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Darren Criss 19:12:00

ChloeOmelia

Now its available, would you change anything?

jesus so much. but such is the nature of creating stuff. there's a great Hayao Miyazaki quote about always having to make new stuff to escape the woe of all the mistakes you made in your last thing... I mean, that's a bit extreme, I feel like we did the best we could given the circumstance but I totally get where Miyazaki is coming from. And in many ways that's everything we do in life. Do your best, know what you coulda done better and carry on

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Darren Criss 19:12:36

dj._.quackers

who or what was your biggest inspiration growing up

the beatles. the uk. the 60s.

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Darren Criss 19:13:02

Astriddd

Your first original song was "Not Alone". I'm right?

no it was actually a song i wrote in the third grade when I got a guitar for Christmas called "Save The Whales"

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Darren Criss 19:14:29

hiiqsbo9358wvfkcjcsgsu4lb

Darren I need an answer it’s been annoying me for days. So was everyone fucking everyone in Pierces old band or was she just fucking everyone seperately??

ha that's a really great question. I figured she was just fucking everyone individually, which is why the band was so contentious but then again I'd rather let your imagination run wild...

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Darren Criss 19:15:29

jphxxk5wjnaqnhuv806wmohdt

Darren, I love your taste in music. You should share your personal playlists ... bc everybody needs to know phantom planet 😉

if i actually shared my tastes in music, or actually shared the amount of stuff in my brain at the rate that I want to share, I would never work on or create anything because i would constantly be on the internet and you'd all be over me if you weren't already

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Darren Criss 19:16:01

But yes, thank you for saying that, I love me my phantom planet oh so very much :)

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Darren Criss 19:16:18

juli.nuttini

could you please answer me I don't speak English and I'm putting ALL my effort into asking you questions I'm going to cry

wow your english is actually pretty great

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Darren Criss 19:17:08

I'd like to write a song with Howard Ashman

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Darren Criss 19:17:23

dancebaby218

Was kick your shoes off inspired by your Hedwig shoes?

nah cuz that shit was actually comfy

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Darren Criss 19:17:55

12169199549

i skipped my clarinet class because of you for the third time :) what can i say to my teacher?

that Darren says you should have gone to clarinet class!!!

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Darren Criss 19:18:34

qalektvmexab6gfwibfihwu6b

Could you please answer me. We’ve supported you for years from the uk and we’re staying up for this but it’s totally worth it because you’re amazing!! Molly x

I wish so bad I could go to the UK!

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Darren Criss 19:20:01

FUCK someone asked about Sam Farrar and I wanted to answer it but it disappeared... Sam is a homie. one of my very first songwriting sessions was with him and a very famous member of the pop universe... who if I get a season two, I'm putting in the show.

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Darren Criss 19:22:00

9nc1yow3iwnp9p3fs4gcvdnsf

what other instruments would you like to learn in the future?

i just need to spend time trying to get better at the ones I've plateaued with. I feel like I got as good as I'd ever get on the guitar when i was like 19. So I've been trying to get better during the Quarantine. Picked up my violin and dusted off that Vivaldi, started doing drum rudiments on my drum pad, and started learning new licks and scales for guitar. Stuff I never got round to doing.

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Darren Criss 19:22:27

harefraz

mr. criss sir, what is your top quarantine activity?

playing music

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Darren Criss 19:23:26

actually lies. top quarantine activity is learning Japanese. 30 minutes a day. And it's been several months. Almost got Hiragana down, still got a few characters I'm questionable with but with any luck I'll start up on Katakana in the next few weeks.

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Darren Criss 19:23:40

224abi6avvottcsacto7vx46a

What about working with Mark hamill ? Insane right

you said it

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Darren Criss 19:23:54

t7sxis7855cd329gaa6iyty8v

Any updates on American Buffalo? 🥺👉🏼👈🏼

it's opening next year!

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Darren Criss 19:24:09

for the record this is really fun I'm enjoying this guys

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Darren Criss 19:26:26

Rachael

How different is it doing a show like Royalties where you're heavily involved in the creative process compared to other projects you've done in the past?

i'd say night and day but that's an understatement. When I did Glee all I had to do was act in scenes, record songs, and go to dance rehearsal. With Royalties, it's that AND casting, doing pre production, post production, notes, meetings, notes, writing and producing songs, location scouting, blah blah blah lots of the stuff that you don't have to worry about if you're not a creator. But make no mistake I absolutely love it.

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Darren Criss 19:27:41

Aisha

learn spanish

I'll get there. I already speak a bit of Italian so I wanted the challenge of learning something that didn't use a writing system I already understood.

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Darren Criss 19:28:23

rosieellenxx_

I take Music Technology as a subject at school and we have to make a whole song with the sole sample of glass breaking...

sounds fun. loads of things you can do with that.

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Darren Criss 19:28:48

21ynx6niidf2amx5nzilihsga

What are your goals for once quarantine is lifted?

hopefully to feel like I used this very strange time well.

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Darren Criss 19:29:14

Ok I should probabl get outta here right?

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Darren Criss 19:29:41

I've talked a lot about mighty as kong in other places

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Darren Criss 19:30:00

so I'll just leave you with a story about "Let Your Hair Down"

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Darren Criss 19:30:14

which was the very FIRST song we wrote for the show

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Darren Criss 19:30:37

I had a meeting with an artist at a dive bar in the middle of the afternoon

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Darren Criss 19:31:10

let's just say I showed up to that very first writer's session very late

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Darren Criss 19:31:17

and sober ENOUGH

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Darren Criss 19:31:41

wktusw4mcjn910r3eq91zg4k5

darren did you watch hamilton??????

duh last night. so fun.

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Darren Criss 19:32:17

anyway I was so relieved that we left with that song at the end of the day. The intent was always to write two songs with the exact same concepts just with different titles

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Darren Criss 19:32:50

the chords are the same, just slightly different voicings played on slightly different instruments

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Darren Criss 19:33:29

and the idea was that whichever song was funnier, or at least whichever song would be more fun to see in a music video... would be the one that Pierce & Sara write

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Darren Criss 19:34:08

"Kick Your Shoes Off" ended up feeling more like a full music video than "Let Your Hair Down" but I LOVE that first song, and hopefully people get to hear the whole thing on Spotify since you don't get to hear the whole song in the episode

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Darren Criss 19:34:51

with lines I love like "see my cheekbones, show off my clavicle, I bet you've never seen a ponytail to magical..."

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Darren Criss 19:35:39

emilybutcher30

i love that u spelled it sara not sarah

thank you. if you don't already know it, check out Ben Folds' "Zak and Sara"

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Darren Criss 19:36:01

OK i gotta get going

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Darren Criss 19:36:12

but thanks to everyone from all over the world for joining

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Darren Criss 19:36:17

i see you and i say hi to you!

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Darren Criss 19:36:23

happy birthday to all the bday kids!

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Darren Criss 19:36:33

thank you for spending a little bit of your bday with me

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Darren Criss 19:36:39

thanks for checking out Royalties

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Darren Criss 19:36:46

hope you enjoy the music

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Darren Criss 19:36:53

and hope there gets to be a season 2!!!

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Darren Criss 19:37:08

xo to all of you. stay safe, stay inspired. - Darren

#darren criss #royalties ost listening event #spotify #royalties #july 2020 #posting as text since it's soooo much easier than posting screencaps #royalties bts

79 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years

Text

Nightmare Time Episode 1 Review: The Hatchetfield Ape-Man/Watcher World

I take a look at the first episode of Starkid’s new show Nightmare Time! Starkid, returns for a zoomcast, bringing back the casts of both Hatchefield plays for an anthology series of science fiction double feature picture shows! This week’s tales of terror:

The Hatchefield Ape-Man: A british heiress gets romanced by a shaved bigfoot with the help of everyone’s favorite kooky college professor. Forgotten fiances, murder and described nudity naturally insue.

Watcher World: Bill and Alice return as Bill drags his daughter to a kitschy theme park for a day of family fun, which Alice enjoys and is as respectful about as much as you’d expect. As you’d also expect given Bill’s general luck, things take a turn for the Shining real quick. Spoilers and full review under the cut.

Well this was a nice suprise. With the ongoing pandemic I genuinely did not think Starkid would be back anytime soon. Having just gotten back into them this years after several years of forgetting they existed via the Hatchetfield plays, I was pretty bummed, if understanding. So last week’s announcment of not only this series but a full scripted series from their sister production company the tin bros was a HUGE shot of happy I needed in this troubling times. Still need to watch spies are forver love the soundtrack nto important.

Point is the Lang Brothers and their merry band of actors found a way to continue on via format I didn’t realize existed outside of table reads but is a nice way to do things: The Zoomcast, basically a podcast done live on zoom, with the actors in plainclothes for the most part, with one person, in this case Nick Lang, reading out descriptions of what’s going on. Being a starkid production this also has musical director Matt Bohm playing accompaniment and pretaped if still via the actor’s own camera musical numbers. Overall while i’ts an understandably cheap production, only what costumes the actors have on hand and most props mimed, it WORKS, allowing for way more elaborate set pieces than the stage would allow and is anchored by Lang’s impeccable descriptions and the cast’s amazing as always acting really making the stories pop. So things worked on a technical level despite having the barest of bones to work with. But did it work on a story level? Well yes, but if I ended my reviews with just that i’d have less than the 3 or 4 fans I do have, so without further ado, it’s nightmare time! The Intro:

Now normally in my reviews I don’t talk about the intro because I come in mid way or because I just didn’t think to. This is an exception since

A) I should be doing that anyway or at least when I cover a show’s first episode since intro’s are sometimes one of the most memorable parts of a show

B) It’s a full musical number that’s been stuck in my head since the trailer for this series and has now set up an apartment there. C) This series is a musical, if not to the same degree as the two plays before it, so it’d be weird NOT to talk about it’s signature song.

So with that out of the way the intro.. is fucking impressive. Seriously taking disparate videos with probably as much as the directions “Sing this part of the song and be kind of creepy or alluring or whatever” and making it really flow? Good work, both to the starkids for bringing their a game to it as always and to Nick and Matt really did a good job editing this together, musically and visually to be an abolute jawdrop. And somehow finding utterly stunning stock image animations that none of us realized were stock footage but still fit the tone perfectly. Just great stuff. Some stray notes: Mariah is absolutely stunning in both voice and apperance in this, John Matheson’s bit as paul was great, and Jeff Blim of course got a great bit with his always astounding hair blowing in the breeze with him at full high pitch. Just an utterly great intro, and for Starkid’s first series in over a decade, and really ever but semantics, they really brought it. Good stuff. Onto the actual episode content.

The Hatchetfield Ape-Man: Lucy, a british heiress played by Angela Giarratana, was saved by the legendary “Hatchefield Ape-Man”.. who apparently has a hyphen like spider-men because while sasquatches can do that. Point is she’s come back every year in the hopes of reuniting with her savior but has so far failed. But as Lucy prepares to leave from this year’s failed expedition, an old friend finally gives her what she needs... old friend to us to her she’s just some grey haired lunatic who showed up out of the mist. Which while accurate, dosen’t quite quantify everyone’s favorite playwright/college professor/murderous psychopath/composer.

Yes at long last Professor Hidgens has returned! I honestly didn’t expect the anthology to bring in such a huge fan faviorite so soon. I mean I expected returning characters, mostly because the project allows old faviorites to come back for their own stories or for the stars of the musicals to get a chance at a much happier ending... there’s a lot of potetial there. That and let’s face it “Jane’s a Car” is a pretty dead giveaway it’s going to be about Tom’s dead wife and Tim’s dead mother coming back in horrible mash up of christine and my mother the car. Maybe. I could be wrong. I also doubt many of you know what my mother the car is and to that I say it’s an old sitcom i’m honestly suprised I know exists and know nothing about other than the title and it being about a son’s mom’s ghost possesing his car apparently. Well that and it was the basis for this.

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Point is, while I expected some returns, I wasn’t expecting one this large and this bombastic so soon, but BOY was it welcome. So getting back on track after all that, HIdgens seemingly takes Lucy to meet her ape man, who goes by the name Klonk, played by everyone’s faviorite sexy caveman Joey Richter. Also it’s adorable he and Lauren share a streaming screen. I know practicality and all that but their engagment is genuinely a sweet thing to hear about at a time when the world’s going down the toilet fast. Fun Fact: I pegged the Ape-Man was either going to be Jeff or Joey, leaning towards Jeff, though given my love of Joey I wasn’t disapointed with him, especially with the twist... but I was EXASTIC to learn the answer was basically “Both.. kinda?”. But yeah Lucy soon bonds with the ape man, with HIdgens encouraging her since it’s more than he’s gotten out of Klonk in 11 months of looking after the guy, and this way they can get him to learn enough to decide what he wants for himself.

So a few months, and some romantic bonding between woman and ape-man, pass but a wrench is thrown into Klonk’s wooing and attempt to tell lucy he loves her: Jonathan, Lucy’s just now mentioned fiance and royal dickhead played by Kurt Mega. And credit where it’s do whlie he clearly didn’t have to dress up, he did have a nice 50′s monster movie british person suit he put on. Lucy is now conlficted and what not even though Jonathan is kind of an asshole who just wants to drag her back home. And i’ts not like Lucy didn’t keep in touch: she sent him texts and probably called, so i’ts not like he didn’t know she was here. He’s also a hunter for extra dick points as if he needed them. Naturally when meeting his romantic rival he’s a dick.. but raises some valid questions: While Hidgens claim he shaved Konk due to lesions, there’s no mark of lesisons or the shaving. But his natural dickheadedness shines through and Jonathan talks about shooting Klonk before lucy takes his ring off and throws it and Jonathan goes after her. Annnnd yeah turns out the disposable dickhead fiance for once is RIGHT. In a twist I did not remotley see coming but damn if it wasn’t clever, Klonk.. is Ted from TGWDLM and the plan was to seduce lucy with this con, marry her and then bump her off. It’s a hell of a twist and cleverly hidden since Joey’s such a starkid mainstay, it’s not a huge suprise he was Klonk and thus easily hid the fact he was also Ted. It’s clever stuff and pivots the story nicely.

Ted is naturally a douchey as ever, going along with Hidgen’s plan to have him marry lucy then kill her and take her dough for themselves.. and unsuprisingly, so Hidgens can get Workin Boys off the ground. Granted there are easier ways to do this with the same scooby doo scheme: Just have HIdgens plan working boys casually, have Klonk really love it and being the sweetheart she is LUcy would fiance the thing just to make them both happy. I mean he can still marry her and ted can still have direct acess to her money if they want, it’s just an easier way that dosen’t shine supscion on the caveman who looks exactly like a local douchebag who everyone he’s met would testify against him. I mean would Paul and Bill REALLY be that suprised that Ted did this?

Exactly. Then again neither of our “heroes’ Here is very bright, and this scheme only works because Lucy is clearly very sweet, very naive, and very much wants a romantic evening with an ape man after all this time and effort searching, so she wants to believe him. So the fact the best they could come up with is something out of Scooby Doo is unsuprisng but still great. However things take a turn for the

Pretty quick as Hidgens takes disposable british douche fiance hunting.. then kills the guy after freely admiting he’s a fraud in what’s an INCREDIBLY chilling scene. Seriously it’s amazing how Robert takes a character as loveably redicilous, even his evil and murderous plan during TGWDLM was still hilariously rediclous, and makes him UTTERLY TERRIFYING. Even when dropping my fair lady refrences. Amazing stuff. So the next day, after Konk “asks” what an engagment is and what not, we then get Lucy wondering just WHERE jonathan is and we get the second biggest laugh of the night as Hidgens gives us the iconic line of “Oh he left... said something about you being crazy and going back to london and basically to go fuck yourself. “. Naturally Lucy has followup questions and goes to find out while Ted, also naturally, isn’t exactly pleased when he finds out his partner in crime did a murder on someone.

Ted may be a sleazy dickhead.. but even he sees maybe murdering a rich british person who just came here, went basically ONLY to this one location, and whose probably got many people who will misss him, one of whom is their primary target, is kinda dumb. Then again this is a plan that hinges on someone who could easily be identified, as he has or at least probably had an office job and three coworkers who know him, assuming a false identity to marry someone for their money. But again we’re dealing with a guy who thinks working boys is marketable to anyone who isn’t a starkid, and a moron who soon says he does his best thinking while erect. They only got this far because their target REALLY wants to fuck a sasquatch, is sweet but naive and well Ted IS still joey richter, and no longer has the porn stache so there you go. Ted decides to cut Hidgens out of things.. partly because you know, he killed a person, and partly because instead of killing Lucy, Ted realized he honeslty has a LOT to gain by simply marrying her and staying married. He gains a hot rich wife (his word’s not mine, but angie is genuinely beautiful so fair point), a mansion, and while Hidgens points out the obvious, he has to stay Konk.. that’s actually appealing to Ted as he feels better as Konk, not just because he impresses an attractive woman for doing basic stuff, but because he feels better as Konk. This is.. an intresting turn for Ted i genuinely like. It shows that Ted may, as much as he presents with bluster and ego, actually LIKE the kind of shithead he knows he is. I mean looking at his life he has two workmates who calling them friends is a bit of a stretch, and one who he’s having an affair with but seems detemrined to make her doomed marriage to an even bigger asshole work. He really dosen’t have much as ted so it’s easy to see why being Konk is better: He’s a better person as him who actually has someone who cares about him. Naturally Hidgens takes this as well as you’d expect and when Ted/Konk tries proposing he goes with the logical option for taking the fourtune for himself:

Yes really. Hidgens strips naked, and swings his arms around like an orangutan to try and convince Lucy he’s the real hatchetfield apeman. Sadly this dosen’t mean we get a shirtless robert manion as he needs to keep the turtleneck on for later, but the mental image.. I had to pause the video for a good minute to laugh over it. Just everything about it from it somehow being a dumber plan than his scheme this episode, to the orangutan swaying to just.. everything. It’s fucking genius. But Higdens has more than a mighty penis to compete with Ted.. he reveals ted’s phone and Ted ends up revealing himsef by telling Hidgens to go fuck himself. Naturally Lucy is distraught and tries to leave and the professor pulls out his shotgun to threaten her into financing his musical because of course it’s about workin boys. Lucy tries to run, Hidgens tries to shoot.. and ted , doing the first good thing in his entire life, takes the bullet. Lucy gets ted out of there then locks the door behind them, and we get the SCARIEST bit in this segment as Hidgens leans into the camera, simulating the peep hole of the vault door to the ape man inclosure and begs her to let him out. It’s some real Jack Nicholson in the Shining stuff and it’s utterly terrifying, but it’s also an amazing bit of acting. Nice job Rob. So ted bleeds out, as much as Lucy wants to save him he knows he’s not going to make it and prefers to die as Konk, finally happy with himself. And I just realized everyone at Paul’s job is horribly miserable. I mean good god, Paul himself has serious depression issues judging by “Let it Out”, Ted clearly hates himself, Charlotte is in a horrible marriage and Bill just got out of one and has a strained realtionship with his daughter we’ll get into more in a bit. I mean honestly, Mr. Davidson is the only one of them who really dosen’t need therapy.. he just needs to tell his wife he wants her to choke him while he jerks off. For as ungodly hilarious as that line is he’s probably the most well adjusted person there. Go figure.

Naturally being already insane, Hidgens breaks out, still naked mind, and chases after Lucy. Also noticable is apparently some people thought hidgens was manipulated by the blue shit hive mind in TGWDLM. Which.. no. I do love the guy dont’ get me wrong.. but it was very obvious both from the way his musical number was done compared to the rest of the ones in the musical, and his actions that was entirely him, and his playing the music was so he could join, especially since we don’t see the hive mind use any mind manupluation on anyone else. Regular manipulation sure as seen with you tied up my heart and not your seed, manipulating charoltte into freeing her asshole husband so he could infect her and torturing bill for funsies. Just something to get out of the way. Point is he was always crazy we just now have him chasing an innocentish woman with his dong hanging out to prove it. He eventually catches her as Lucy catches herself in one of his bear traps when she hits the woods, because he had those for some reason.. and he has a resonable way out: Just give her the 30,000 dollars he needs for his musical. Thing is she dosen’t have the money.. or hardly any. She spent all of it trying to find the ape man and was marrying jonathan for his money and him for her title. And while it is a bit skeezy, it’s very clear both were using each other and likely knew it, and Lucy still comes out the most moral of our cast here.. granted it’s not a big stretch as hidgens is criminally insane, ted’s a skeeze and Jonathan.. well he’s just a diiiiiiccckkkk. It’s not hard is what i’m saying.. much like hidgen’s dick flopping around in the rain. But yeah he dosen’t take it well, Lucy goes up a tree, which is apparently something Becky did once. But before Lucy can die at the hands of a naked thespian, the REAL Ape-Man shows up and tears Hidgen’s arms off, taking lucy in his own arms afterwords and revealing he remembers her. The two hit it off instantly, it turns out his name is chumby in an excellent gag as that was what Hidgens wanted his fake ape man to be named but Ted froze, and go off into the night together. Awww.. what if a naked ape man played by my boy jeff blim and a british person can’t work who can?

We then close out the segment with a cameo appearance by Jamie Lynn Beatty, who while not part of the cast for this double feature, does get a fun showtune about the ape man. Also fun fact that i found out here on tumblr: That costume is from something Jamie did in HIGH SCHOOL. As in well over a decade ago. Like holy shit, good for her. She looks great in it. But yeah it’s a fun song and a nice way to close it out. Final Thoughts on the Hatchetfield Ape-Man: This was a great way to start things off. This one was more in line with starkids pre-hatchetfield work, a goofy story with some hidden depth inside. And like the guy who didn’t like musicals it was utterly terrifying in spots so yeah good stuff ,utterly hilarous and a great way to bring back some old faviorites while giving us a neat new protaganist. Good stuff.

Watcher World:

Now from a mostly comedy with a horrifying ending to just.. pure unfiltered horror and depression! It’s Watcher World! Bill and Alice are back! And given I love Mariah Rose Faith and Corey Dorris, I was exastic to find this was what the second segment was about.. mostly because I had no idea Starkid had teasers for the episodes on their instagram, or I would’ve known Hidgens was coming. I wouldn’t of known he’d be stark naked for the last third of his story but still, pleasant surprise.

So Bill and Alice are spending the day at Watcher World, a run down amusement park on the edge of town. It’s Alice’s last weekend before College so Bill’s trying to reconnect with her by cramming a good old fashioned family vacation down her throat. Alice is less than enthused, both because she clearly resents her dad in general, and because Deb is throwing a huge rager on the same night. My honest interpretation of that is that Deb fully inteded for her girlfriend to come but Bill sprung this on Alice at the last minute and being pretty oblivious and hating Deb, either didn’t care about taking alice from one last night with her friends and girlfriend or didn’t generally think that through. I mean don’t get me wrong normally i’d side with a parent not wanting their daughter to attend a huge teen rager on their last weekend together.. but it’s also Alice’s last weekend in town for some time, and it’s likely a saturday.. so he has another day, and presumibly had friday before this and while things with his ex wife are tense, fighting for an extra day with her would be understandable and i’ts not like Alice, even if she hates Bill, would really fight him on getting an extra day in the town she didn’t want to leave.

But that’s what I really like about this one that it’s layered. While Alice is slightly more in the right, she’s still shutting her dad out, refusing to let him follow her on instagram (though he does agree with her keeping it private as he dosen’t want Ted perving on her, which tracks, or Ted’s brother doing it which.. wait what?), and being on her phone the whole time to very clearly spite him and rub how much she dosen’t want to be there in her dad’s face. She dosen’t WANT to be at watcher world but instead of trying to talk to her Dad just wants to complain and apparenlty has on all their vacations.. it’s easy to see why Bill is annoyed by his daughter at times and thinks he has to FORCE HER to have fun with him, because otherwise she’d gladly ignore him for their entire weekends together for Deb. She’s so determined to punish her dad for the divorce, that she refuses to see on some level he IS trying, and is just sad about her leaving, and possibly leaving him forever and alone with nothing else in his life but his buddy Paul, whose getting married next week so that’s probably not helping. On the other hand the reason I say Alice is more in the right is that well.. Bill’s a grown ass men. And while, speaking for himself, grown ass men don’t always make the right decisions, and not speaking for myself neither do fathers... Alice’s acting out is understandable coming from an 18 year old whose been through hell over the last year, having her parents divorce being forced to move, loosing her friends. Bill however just kind of uses her age and angst as an excuse to undermine and belittle her feelings. Because he doesn’t like deb for the very stupid reasons of she does pot, instead of assuring her that Deb wouldn’t cheat on Alice with Deb’s former crush Zigg, starkid’s first non binary character in a nice show that Nick Lang wasn’t just covering his ass when he said there’d be more representation in starkid, which in his defense I didn’t doubt him on but it’s still nice he did so at the earliest opportunity and very clearly plans to use Zigg if he can find a nonbinary actor for them.

But yeah instead of assuring his daughter, Bill is just like “well sometimes relationships don’t work out” which while true is clearly his self serving way of trying to get Alice to break up with someone he dosen’t like. INstead of supporting her in her dreams of writing plays, one of which was good enough to get her a scholarship, he tries to act like she has no plans for her future and get her to be a doctor for more security, even though having a secure job has done.. no one at his office including him favors. I mean again, the most stable and happy person at the office is the guy in charge, and even he can’t tell his wife he wants her to choke him out at night. He wants her to choke him, he wants her to choke him while he jerks off, he wants her to choookeeee himmm while heeeee jerrrkssss offfff.

While part of this seems to be that Deb plans to be a starving artist who can mooch off her parents in a pinch, Alice GENUINELY seems to have a full plan for her life. I do get his worrying about her future.. but she’s a smart kid. A bit of a brat but she knows what she wants clealry and clearly has talent. He’s just projecting his own fears on her. He also refuses to accept any responsibility in the divorce.. his hating his ex wife IS valid, as she took his daughter away, uprooted her life a year before graduation and spends gobs of money on impressive outings, the latter two seemingly just to spite him when honestly, it’d of made more sense for Alice to stay with Bill for the year before she graduates and been better for her. However, Bill still doesn’t take responsibly that he too is shoving fun down her throat to try and win her over, hates her girlfriend and refuses to treat her with any respect, and really DOSEN’T know Alice all that well. As we learn during their fun day she has anxiety, and he never knew about it. And the divorce isn’t really an excuse when he had years before that. It’s the real problem of their relationship: Bill feels ENTITLED to a good father daughter relationship, but isn’t working at it and blames his ex wife or Alice for it instead of himself. While Alice isn’t an innocent as i’ve made clear, putting up walls and not telling dad things, given bill ignores her when she DOES try to tell him about her life, it’s easy to see she’s just given up. If he won’t listen why bother. Which yeah i’ve found myself there with my own dad from time to time. Bill’s not a bad person, he genuinely loves Alice, as he says “to the moon and back”, but it’s very clear from this outing he still loves the little girl who loved him unconditionally and not the complicated and mopey adult sh’es become, and dosen’t WANT to adapt to that and fears once she leaves for college she’ll avoid him for good, which isn’t unfounded. It’s a good, complex rich dynamic. Naturally with.. all this I covered up front instead of sprinkling it throughout, the day doesn’t go great, with Alice utterly miserable most of the time, and ending up in a goofy novelty t-shirt due to a log ride. She also has an unsettling encounter with park mascot Blinky, our newest adorable abomination, who not only shows up the moment she does something bad on camera but also stares at her ass, which.. Paul you mind coming back for a second?

Thank you. They end up at the Watch Party, a cheesy kids show musical because Bill apparently equates this with his daughter loving musicals. I mean granted cheesy kids stage shows can be rad just listen to this.

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But I get Alice’s annoyance here. Thus we get the return of the sniggles, who apparently serve whatever eldrich deity is around this week and our first song of this segment, The Blinky Song. Which is catchy as hell as well as hilariously dark (”I’m so hungry”), and uses the stock footage well, as I could buy a cheap theme park ran by an eldtirch eye goblin using stock footage. But yeah it establishes Blinky as always watching and kinda fucked up. Also the sniggles are now clearly the smurgs with Angie’s now being named Sniglette, Jeff being papa Sniggle and James being Snigglotts. However Sniglette considers leaving with another song with a long string of words. Then, things get.. dark as the rest of the sniggles don’t want her to leave and try and mob her, and then Papa Sniggle accidently wings her with a mallet and apparenlty injures the actual performer, before everyone’s ushered out and the usher pretends nothing happened. Good mind screw horror stuff.

Alice and Bill then bicker a bit with my above point being made as Alice TRIES to get Bill to accept some respoinablity but he refuses and blames her mom. It’s now time for the Tear-Jerker, the reason they came. Bill’s buddy Paul says someone died. They also find three other people waiting in line and when one goes to the bathroom the other two start making out which.. yeah, dosen’t help Alice’s worry Deb’s going to cheat on her. So she takes the first single rider pass she can, with Bill worming his way in as to not let her get away. The two naturally end up fighting on the Tear-Jerker before it stops up high, and ends up stalled, with the gloriously returning Nerdy Kid played by Joey from Black Friday being as helpful as usual. Seriously bless them for bringing him back. Man in a Hurry also showed up again, bless him too. Alice picks this time to reveal her fear of heights and anxiety, and an approaching storm isn’t helping. So Bill.. steps up. He helps ease Alice down taking her phone for her, if loosing it due tot he rain and helping her stay calm. It’s a REALLY nice portrayal of an anxiety attack, with Mariah herself apparently having them and thus portraying it really well. As someone who has them myself it really hits home and Bills calm attempts to help her are really heartwarming, getting her to describe her musical for him and the two bonding. It’s genuinely sweet. But.. it can’t last, as Alice freaks out about her phone and Bill for once is in the right, as .. he was you know.. trying to save his daughter having a panic attack, and really stepped up given he was obnovious she had anxiety in the first place, and managed it well. He then gives the utterly heart stomping line “I love you to the moon and back, but sometime’s it’s really hard to like you. “

Just damn. So Alice runs off and both find their way to the fairway. Bill tries winning a doll for Alice, getting into a test of strength where he fails repedatly and is constantly mocked by the barker, played by James Tolbert who also played Blinky..

That should be Tolbert’s twitter handle. Anyway point is, Bill keeps trying even as he wracks up 400 dollars in credit card debt, for a 49.95 doll, before eventually the barker and hte crowd’s jeers get to be too much and he does smack it hard, thinking of all of his pent up rage towards alice.. just as the bell at the top takes the shape of alice’s head and explodes. Bill is naturally horrified by this by the barker assures he loves him.. and that he should totally hobble his daughter misery style to make her not leave him and use the mallet for it. Meanwhile Alice is at the shooting Gallery not wanting the blinky doll she wins, just blowing off steam when she runs into an old crone played by Lauren Lopez. But this Crone has her phone... which suspiciously has a ton of instagram photos of Deb and Zigg making out while sharing a toke. Granted Deb COULD’VE cheated, but given Alice is insecure, and her phone was given back to her by a witch working for an eye goblin.. yeah maybe just maybe Deb was loyal, and if she wasn’t wouldn’t be dumb enough to put it on instagram. But given Alice is already worked up it’s easy enough for her to beliive that her relationships in danger and if she gets there in time she can stop it and oh look her gun is now a real gun and can help her get the keys. So yeah it’s time for a creepy as hell Shining-esque showdown, but if both sides were possesed instead of one. It’s.. a CHILLING as hell scene, not helped by Alice wielding a gun again as both fight. I was gripped the entire time and don’t have much to say utter than HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AS TERRIFYING AS IT WAS RIVITING.

But a crowd gathers as the fight continues.. all with purple eyes which ave been seen on and off, watchers with a thousand eyes.. and with Blinky, now revealed NOT to be a costume probably, above them all. We also get one hell of a line. “This is an amusement park but not for YOUR amusement.”

So yeah I love this sequence.. and Blinky as a villain. While it’s vague if he and Blinky are the same entity.. I’m going with not. It’s not a stretch that like Cthulu, Wiggly has brothers in the black and white, with their own motives, methods and ability to get into our world. Unlike Wiggly.. Blinky’s already here and has no real ambition other than to find people to mentally tear apart and set loose on one another for his own amusement. He doesn’t have grand plans of burning the world.. he just wants to be entertained. It’s an interesting and chilling motive and I hope we see him again eventually. I also believe those at the park are trapped there bound after their own day there and trapped doing whatever Wiggly needs. Except maybe squeaky voiced teen. He probably just complains about cleaning up so much blood. But yeah Blinky is very happy as the fight escalates into the hall of mirrors and Alice looses her gun.. with Bill now poised to strike down his daughter as the mirror reflects the various workers at the park, all encouraging him to kill her... it’s utterly terrifying as Bill’s eyes take on a purple tint.. and we get a POWERFUL use of the score and the “why does it hurt to love you’ bit from TGWDLM.. as Bill sees himself and what he’s about to do, sees his daughter understandably having a panic attack.. and calms her, his eyes returning and the two reconciling. Of course Blinky isn’t happy about this “sappy bullshit” and brings htem into his domain, charging at them. But kinda missing that giving a pissed off teenager a rifle she knows how to use when you have a giant target for a face isn’t a good idea and she shoots him, with him bleeding a flood of purple goo that sends them out. While I doubt Winky’s dead, he is done with them. Our story concludes on a sweeet note as the two find their car, and they finally make as tep forward, Bill having seen almost too late how selfish and controlling he was being and accepting his daughter on her phone.. and Alice realizing her need to open up and after checking Instagram, likely finding out those photo’s weren’t real, she throws her phone in the back.. but not before accepting her dad’s request, letting him in. Sure the road ahead is rough.. but the two have made a good first step towards repairing things and loving one another again in a healthy manner. and all it took was bill nearly murdering her and allice shooting an eye goblin int he face and getting covered in his blood. Cue the credits, a beautiful song called “One Thousand Eyes” with Jeff Blim fucking nailing it. A great way to send off this bit. Final Thoughts: This was the best one of the two. While Ape Man is really good too, this one took the darker tone of black friday, but with a tighter narrative. By focusing on a smaller cast, the darker elements really played better and the conclusion felt more satisfying.. though it helped that BOTH of these tails ended without everyone dying, and while I doubt EVERY story will have a happy ending, it makes things more interesting knowing that the heroes can get a happy ending this time around instead of an apocalypse.

Overall Thoughts: This double feature was great, I’ll be getting a ticket to the next one if I can afford it, and if not i’ll see it presumably in December or next year when it comes on YouTube. Really excellent stuff. So this was a first for me but if you’d like to see more starkid stuff from me, let me know in the comments or my askbox, commission me to review one of the musicals via dm, and if you liked how I did this review follow this blog for weekly ducktales and loud house coverage, and amphibia coverage when that returns, among more fun reviews. And until next time.. don’t blink. Play us out Jeff.

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I really hope this is the ending theme for the series.

#nightmare time #hatchetfield #the hatchetfield ape man #watcher world #ted #professor henry hidgens #Bill Woodward #Alice Woodward #Lucy Stockworth #halloween #halloween havoc #paul matthews #jeff blim #team starkid #starkid

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spnreactions · 4 years

Text

15x16: Drag Me Away (From You)

The time has come!!

Let’s get some questions answered and see some young Sam and Dean! I’m pumped!

Oof. I can tell this episode is still gonna be pretty plot heavy just based on this “then” alone.

AHHHH my baby crying again. :’( :’( :’( :’(

Okay quick side note on Cas’s reaction to what Jack tells him: I read something from Matt Cohen that said he just kept the camera rolling for unusually long takes during that scene to see what Misha would do with what Jack was saying, and that, in the process, he totally saw a touch of Misha’s fatherly side when it comes to his own kids. I completely agree, and that is a hardcore acting point for Misha and a definite directing point for Matt.

YEAH CAS! TELL US!

UGH! Since it’s a MOTW, we have to wait and watch someone die in the first five minutes before we get resolution. Gosh darnat.

Also this is a very interesting music choice? XD

My Mom: “Doctor’s orders.” Do you think that means his shrink told him to go there?

Oof. “Long time ago.” Suspicious.

Nice cinematography. Cool shot of this hallway.

I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say that something happened in that room forever ago that traumatized him.

Wow. That is a swanky hotel room. (My mom and I said basically the same thing at the same time. XD)

Whiskey. Great start.

Ope. Music changed. Dude’s gonna die.

Hey, for future reference, if you’re trying to convince yourself it wasn’t real, it was probably real.

UMMMMM

LOOKS PRETTY REAL TO ME TRAVIS!!!

Wait a second...that’s one of the kids from the promo videos?? Isn’t that young him? As a...ghost?

I’D SAY THAT’S PRETTY REAL TRAVIS!!!

Jesus...

Okay finally! Resolution.

Ummmm...this doesn’t look like resolution!!!

Dude did not slit his own throat, but okay then.

Ummm...you have a lot to do??

Oh da**it...THIS AGAIN??! REALLY DEAN??!! DIDN’T WE LEARN FROM THIS BACK IN SEASON 9?? (No, of course we didn’t, because these two never learn anything.)

LIAR!!

Wait wait wait. Can we talk about the fact that Sam’s first thought was that Cas left because he and Dean got into a fight? *cough cough* The Destiel is real *cough cough*. XD XD XD

SAM YELLING AT HIM FOR TEXTING AND DRIVING OH MY GOD I’M DEAD!!!

ALSO THAT TEXT FROM CAS HOLY FRICK!!! “Did you tell Sam yet?” I’M LAUGHING SO HARD RIGHT NOW!!!!

Because the thing is, I can totally imagine Cas just SAYING that, knowing full well that Dean probably didn’t tell Sam, and I read that text with so much sass and scolding in it and I’m dying laughing oh my god.

And no, of course he didn’t, because WE DON’T GET TO KNOW WHAT IT IS!

But also...if Dean hasn’t told Sam yet, this is making me think that Cas didn’t tell him about the Empty, but rather about what Jack told him...which means I was wrong.

Unless I wasn’t. But if it was about the Empty, why wouldn’t Dean tell Sam?

Although, actually, if it is about Jack, WHY wouldn’t Dean tell Sam?

DEAN JUST TELL YOUR BROTHER SO WE CAN HEAR WHAT THE IMPORTANT INFORMATION WAS GOSH DARNAT!!!

Also tell your brother because we should know by now that lying doesn’t get us anywhere.

Anyways. Moving on.

God that texting and driving interaction. XD XD

Ooh! Nice transition!

When do I get the backstory?? I want the flashbacks! If this is our last flashback episode, I want to revel in it gosh darnat!

OH WAIT HERE IT IS!!

LITTLE SAM AND LITTLE DEAN AHHHH!!!

DEAN’S WEARING THE SAMULET OH MY GOD!!!

I know it’s, like, not a surprise, but it’s BEEN SO LONG since we’ve seen him wearing it!! It’s SOOO good to see it back!! It’s such a subtle little detail, but man it’s a good one.

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.” XD XD EVEN AS A KID, SAM HAD SO MUCH SASS OMG!! XD XD

BROTHERS! XD XD

The way that actor just said victory was SOOO Dean omg. The casting on this show is INCREDIBLE. This kid is already ROCKING the Dean personality and he’s only been on screen for two minutes.

Young Sam’s actor is nailing it too, for the record. ESPECIALLY with that sass.

...ouch. That was rude Dean.

Very Dean (at least at that time), but still rude.

That music. Yikes.

DUDE THAT’S THE SAME SOUNDTRACK USED IN SWAN SONG DURING CHUCK’S NARRATION OH MY GOD!! THEY 100% DID THAT ON PURPOSE BECAUSE SAM’S TALKING ABOUT GOING TO COLLEGE AND IT ALL CONNECTS BACK TO WHERE THIS STORY STARTED AND IT’S OUR LAST FLASHBACK EPISODE AND OH MY GOD I LOVE THE SUBTLETIES OF THIS SHOW!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

This small scene is so poetic wow. Between the music, and Sam setting down the college book to pull out his hunting gear...just...wow. Well done Supernatural. Well done.

THERE’S FLANNEL IN THAT BAG! It really is a Winchester trait!

...dude WHAT? I wanna be able to do that.

YEP! YOUNG TRAVIS!

Okay so...a monster who imitates their victims...as their younger selves? That...Sam and Dean have fought before? I’m just gonna let them tell me lol.

Dean has always been suave with the ladies. XD

Do...do kids of cleaning crew people usually stay in the hotels that their parents work in? Cause I didn’t know that was a thing, but okay. XD

HA! Yeah, these two were 100% a thing, even if it was a small thing.

Alright, I like her. She’s fun.

OOH! Nice transition into older Caitlin, with young Caitlin echoing in the background.

Okay something about those hugs just made me “awww” out loud. I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t seen them hug anyone in a while or what, but that just felt so sweet. <3

I would be too, girl. :(

WHAT DID HAPPEN?! (I know they’ll tell us, but I’m impatient.)

Oof. See, in most cases, I am all for immersion therapy, because I think it can be useful, but when it’s a monster we’re talking about, that is a hard pass.

Also my mom just said “ha! Called it.” about the shrink thing. She is significantly better at predicting things in this show then I am...sometimes anyways. XD

Wow. I loved their reactions with that. Dean knew, probably because he was older, but Sam seem confused. Plus, that change in music was great. It was just the right amount of dramatic.

She needs you to hunt it.

WHY DO YOU THINK, SAM?!

WHO IS “SHE”??!! Someone please tell me. The suspense is killing me. XD XD

Awww...poor Travis.

Ummmmm....

JESUS CHRIST!! HOLY FREAKING...

My mom and I both just screamed! AGH! WHAT THE FRICK IS THAT??!!

Yeah this episode is definitely digging into this show’s horror roots.

“You okay, kid?” is one of the most Dean lines to ever Dean.

Yeah okay I can understand how that could be traumatizing enough for him to need therapy.

Yeah that’s what they all say.

I mean, I believe you, because I saw it, but...

EVEN AS KIDS, SAM AND DEAN GAVE EACH OTHER THEIR LITTLE NODS I LOVE THEM!!! <3 <3 <3

The talk--simplified.

THE FAMILY BUSINESS! <3 <3

Also Sam not being old enough to be included in the hunting business yet, but old enough to know about it is a big oof.

Sam backing up his big bro. <3

Watching young Dean try to ask questions in order to figure out the hunt is great, because you can tell he’s super inexperienced compared to now in the way he says it, but also that he definitely knows what he’s doing and I love it.

Oh. Maybe that nod is just a general sibling thing, because Caitlin and Travis just did it lol. It’s still the best when Sam and Dean do it though. XD <3

Huh. Yeah, I’d call that pretty weird.

That was a great shot. Down the line like that. I’m really digging this half of the season’s cinematography.

THAT WAS SUCH A GREAT TRANSITION OH MY GOD! And it just proves how well that young Dean actor (Paxton Singleton) is doing, because young Dean and older Dean’s expressions matched EXACTLY. <3

Dean do you just not want to admit that you might have not actually killed it?

Oh. That makes more sense. The lore doesn’t line up. Okay.

...okay maybe it’s also him being a little overconfident.

NICE TRANSITION AGAIN!

I KNEW THAT PROMO PHOTO WAS OF ALL OF THE KIDS HUNTING!

Welp. That’s it then.

“Got a knife, got a gun. I’m good.” That is so Dean, and also so dumb.

“Dad wouldn’t like this.” “Dad’s not here.” Haha I love them. XD <3

Awww...Dean still protecting his little bro. <3

Goonies reference. XD

He does not got this. Calling it now.

Dean don’t get hurt.

Either Sam or Caitlin is gonna show up. Calling it.

Probably Caitlin, ‘cause Sam still listened to him at that age lol.

YEP.

Also the way he pointed that gun at her omg. Have I mentioned that Paxton Singleton is doing an AMAZING job as Dean? Because WOW.

Ha! Yeah these two totally had a thing. A small thing, but a thing.

Ha! Okay, I like her sass. She’s cool.

My mom is not digging the high-pitched tone that’s attached to this music lol.

Yeah okay this episode is scaring me (in the best way lol). I’m loving it! We haven’t seen a horror-based episode in a while. It’s good to have one.

Awww...little bros bonding.

“Whatever it is, my brother will kill it.” He’s always had so much faith in him. <3 <3 <3

Although...the fact that they’re showing us the two boys back at the motel pretty much tells me that the monster isn’t where Dean and Caitlin are, but where Sam and Travis are. So...that’s great.

Ha! Too true.

Nice shot with the flashlight and the cobwebs.

Okay, now your optimism and chattiness is a little unnecessary, girl. Dean’s scared because he knows what could be out there. So shush.

But also I like your sass. XD

Oh...frick. What’s under there? It looks like the stuff from the kids.

YUUUUP. Called it. The monster is with them. Friiiiick. Sam still knows...how to hunt, right? He can handle this, right?

Remains? Mangled bodies? Something like that I bet.

Wow. Dean you hid that panic REALLY well. He really has been burying his emotions for years. No wonder he’s so good at it.

FRIIIIICK.

FRICK FRICK FRICK!!

*screams* *jumps*

Yep. Horror based episode. Lots of jump scares. But it’s AWESOME.

...okay, that young Sam actor (Christian Michael Cooper) has been doing really well, but that “Travis!” shout was really bad acting...

FRICK! DO SOMETHING SAM!

Dude I LOVE how that just went down. Sam rescuing Travis even if it meant putting himself in harm’s way and Dean immediately coming to his rescue. It’s very characteristic of them.

Oh...so it has...fingers. That can be cut off. Which means it isn’t a ghost like I thought it was all this time.

Also great shot with the slicing off of the fingers.

Nice Dean!

Sam holding a protective arm in front of Travis I love it.

Oh frick. It’s the ring. That’s why she’s back. (And hey! We know who the she is now! Still don’t know what she is, but we’ve seen her.)

Wait a second...wasn’t Travis wearing a ring on his necklace? Could it be the same ring?

That’s...that’s weird though. Why would he have kept a ring from the most traumatic moment of his life?

I love that Caitlin’s a hugger and runs to her brother.

That look that Sam and Dena share there is awesome.

OOH! GREAT TRANSITION AGAIN!

Dean, why on EARTH would that have been Sam?

Okay yeah, so this monster is manifesting itself as younger versions of its victims.

Hey Dean, just a thought, but I’m feeling like your instinct that it wasn’t back is the wrong instinct.

OOOOOF.

Ummm...excuse me?

HEEEEEEEY HOLD ON!!!

WHERE IS SAM??!!

SAMUEL WINCHESTER COME SAVE YOUR BROTHER!!!

DEAN STOP!!!!

DEAN!!!!

OH THANK GOD!

HOLY FRICK THAT WAS TOO CLOSE!!

Wait..what? The knife...wasn’t even...real? And Sam didn’t see the monster at all...does this thing make you hallucinate? Cause that’s terrifying.

Yeah no DUH.

My Mom: Well, there’s only one of it, and it can��t imitate them both, so as long as they stay together, they should be fine, right? Me: Yes, theoretically, but when do they ever actually stay together? My Mom: True.

Ummm...our visual just cut out? All we’re seeing is the CW logo. We can hear it though.

Oh shoot it’s starting again. Hopefully this fixes itself soon. At least we can still hear it?

Feelings/hunches are valid, Caitlin. Especially with this kind of thing.

Dean that’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself. I can hear you blaming yourself.

Oh good. Visual’s back. Phew. I was getting nervous.

“She’s scary.” Me too girl. XD

She 100% plays with people.

“Lore?” XD That’s hilarious. I’ve gotten so used to them saying it that it doesn’t even occur to me as a weird thing, but that’s a good point that normal people wouldn’t understand what he means. XD

Ope. That’s what he saw.

Yikes...though gotta admit, that was a little less gruesome than I was expecting it to be. Still sad and scary though.

Awww Dean. :( :( :( :( :( :(

God he really has been shoving feelings down all his life. That’s super not healthy, Dean.

Awww...poor Dean! :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

“We used to keep a lot of secrets from each other.” USED TO? Sam where have you been for the last fifteen years? XD XD

Or is he just referring to this season? Because in that case, that’s a good point. There hasn’t been a lot of lying this season. Well, excluding the fact that Dean is hiding whatever Cas said to him from Sam....

Welp. I can already see that parallel...so you better come clean, Dean!

“Cause I know my brother’s gonna ask”.

HA! Me too, server lady.

BILLIE! JESUS!

“Working a case? Now?” HA! I said the same thing!

...hoh boy. That’s not good. They’ve spent so much time talking about how close he is to being done, but now he’s actually done. That’s...super not good.

Yeah no Billie. We’re not doing that.

So it WAS about Jack! GOOD! Then they’ll all know and they can all stop it! (So Dean tell your brother already.)

YES! Dean is upset about it!! That’s a good sign! Screw you and your plan, Billie!!

HEY!! HOLD ON A SECOND BILLIE! Are you telling me, that you’re the one who put that thought into Jack’s head?? WTF??!! SCREW YOU!!! THAT IS SO NOT OKAY!!! HOW DARE YOU!!! I don’t care HOW badly you want Chuck dead! That manipulation was NOT the way to go!!! I didn’t hate you, but now I do. Now I really really do. Screw you. We’ll find another way.

Yes. You were wrong.

...Dean you better tell her she was wrong.

HA!

Gotta be honest, I can’t believe we’re still having the conversation about Sam and Dean being normal--especially Sam. I mean, I can believe it, because it makes sense, but at this point, it’s just so hilarious to me. Like, “yeah no, that ship sailed a LONG time ago. Sorry girl, but there’s no way Sam’s getting out of it now.” XD XD

Awww... :( :(

Ummm...say what now?

SERIOUSLY Billie??!! SERIOUSLY??!! You’re just gonna...set up our beloved kid to be a bomb and then walk on out?? Wow. Yeah okay I’m really mad at you now, I don’t care if you brought Jack back. Not if this was the endgame. Screw you.

“One Messenger of God’s Destruction right here.” XD XD

YES we have a problem! TELL HER WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!

DEAN!!!

GOD DA**IT DEAN!!! It is not worth sacrificing your SON!! DIDN’T WE ALREADY GO THROUGH THIS??!! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO NOT LETTING ANYONE KILL HIM??!! TO THAT BIRTHDAY PARTY??!! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FORGIVENESS?? TO FAMILY!! HE IS YOUR SON GOSH DARNAT!! ACT LIKE IT!!!

Jesus Christ. This show is making it harder and harder for Dean to be my second favorite character...

He better not let it happen in the end. It better be like what happened with Season 14. No matter how mad he is, he can’t lose Jack. It better stay that way, or I’m gonna be super pissed at him all over again, just like in 14x19.

YOU HEAR ME DEAN?! STOP IT!! DON’T BE AN IDIOT!!

HA! Billie saw RIGHT THROUGH YOU Dean.

Welp. Now I know why Dean hasn’t told Sam. Because Sam is not gonna like it.

You know what Billie? Screw you. Shut the f**k up.

He doesn’t have his house in order. There’s conflict there, and it’s not gonna happen. Shut up, Billie.

Please Dean. Please help me out here. Don’t let your son die. :( :( :( :( :( :(

Wait wait...Baba Yaga? As in...that witch that that security friend dude Kurt is so afraid of in Ant-Man and the Wasp? (Look at me, mixing my fandoms. XD)

So that’s a yes then.

I CALLED IT! I KNEW IT WAS THE RING! (I mean, they kind of made it obvious, but still.)

Oh friiiiick. That’s why she disappeared for a while, but then came back...in time to kill him.

...she’s gonna go get the ring. She must have it.

But also TAKE SAM WITH YOU CAITLIN! ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!

Ummm....

...where’s the ring?

FRICK!

I TOLD YOU TO TAKE SAM WITH YOU!!

She dead.

SAM!

FRIIIIICK!

Oof.

My Mom: NO! Don’t split up! Me: I told you! They never learn. My Mom: They really don’t.

Alright, let’s take bets. Who’s gonna get attacked? Sam, or Dean?

Ope. Looks like it might be Sam.

CALL YOUR BROTHER FIRST GOSH DARNAT! Seriously. You two are the worst.

Oh! Never mind. XD XD

My mom just burst out laughing. XD XD XD

Okay yeah, that was a good comedy reveal. XD XD XD

So...it’ll be Dean then.

Better find your bro quick, Sam.

Oof. The vending machine. Original attack. Must be close.

Dean don’t roll your eyes and act like you never watch (or do) that kind of thing. XD XD

“I’ve seen this movie before.” PROMO! CALLING IT!

YES! I was right! XD XD

I love him.

Okay, so I’m mad at him for the Jack thing, but I still love him okay? He’s just too great. XD <3 <3

DEAN DON’T GO IN ALONE ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!

You literally saw it coming.

YEP! EXACTLY!

Okay wait what??

...that’s not what I was expecting.

Wait...hallucinations, right? So that must be what this is.

But...I think he found her nest.

Oh yep. Definitely a hallucination.

One of my favorite things about this show is that any time Sam or Dean has a bad vision/hallucination/nightmare caused by a monster, the other brother is always dead in it. Like, it makes perfect sense for their relationship, and as sad and scary as it is, it works beautifully.

Wow. Yeah I can totally believe that that gave Dean nightmares for the longest time just on that acting alone. Now Dean was terrified even re-living it a little bit. :(

Oof.

Ummm...you know what she is, but CAN YOU KILL HER?

...welp. Guns don’t work. What’s Plan B, Dean??

EEP!

That feels very Pennywise yikes.

HURRY SAM!!

SEE?! THIS is why you shouldn’t split up!

Welp, at least their fighting is loud.

Yep. Hallucination.

Oh. Caitlin isn’t dead. That’s good.

Sam to the rescue.

YES DEAN!

WOW! Now THAT was awesome. The way he smashed that ring, and the shot--it was all beautiful.

WHOA! Green fire. That was cool.

Okay. I liked that monster, and how it went down. Very cool.

Ha!

“You tell the truth more because you know that lies...they don’t make anything better.” My Mom: I have never, ever heard anyone say that about getting older. XD

Yeah I’m with her on this one. Not a great line, but it was definitely in there intentionally to make Dean feel guilty about not telling Sam the truth about Jack. Which means...he’s going to tell him, RIGHT?!

Awww! A sweet little hug again!

THAT TRANSITION!!

I knew she was holding a business card in that promo photo!

...oof.

Yep. Dean’s definitely gonna tell Sam. They showed that scene of him lying to Sam as a kid about the bodies, and they keep talking about how he’s changed. He is definitely going to tell Sam before this episode ends. ...and I bet it’s not gonna go well.

“That I handled it.” XD <3

“WITH A LITTLE HELP!” <3 <3 <3 <3

AWWW DEAN!!! Still being a supportive bro!!

“We do make a good team, right?” “Yeah, we do.” I’M SERIOUSLY ABOUT TO CRY OH MY GOD!!! :’( :’( <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Awww...we don’t actually get to see a version of young John. Just an arm from a stand-in lol.

Nice shot of Sam, though.

AWESOME transition.

Ope. Here it comes.

OOOF!! Dean you better say something, or Cas will!

THERE WE GO!! FINALLY!!

Oooooh...this is gonna be rough.

Ummm....okay. Good start.

THERE YA GO!

Well...okay then. Just...come out with it I guess.

Dean...doesn’t sound happy about that. And he doesn’t seem to be handling it well. I really really really really REALLY hope he doesn’t let it happen. I’m gonna be really upset if he does.

Ope. Here it comes.

Uh-oh...Sam is mad.

Oh FRICK. Wrong answer, Dean.

Dean I’m with Sam on this one.

Oh god...this fight. :’( :’(

DEAN!!!

NOOOOO NO NOOOOOOO!!!!

Oh my god...the way Sam just yelled at him. :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

That was even worse than I thought it was gonna be holy frick....

“Just drive.” :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

...well....

God. That was a TERRIBLE ending, Jesus Christ. All the bonding and family teamwork that’s been happening this season just went out the window with that fight.:’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

I‘ve always loved Dean, obviously, but Jesus Christ dude. Ugh. This better resolve itself. :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

GOD! Could SPN please STOP with the emotionally charged endings that are hurting my heart! Because this was a DANG GOOD EPISODE, and then they just HAD to do that!! :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(

Welp...my heart hurts, but review here we come.

I really really loved this episode. I mentioned it already, but I’m really glad we got to see some of Supernatural’s elements of horror in this episode. It was genuinely terrifying at several points in time, and we haven’t had an episode like that in a while.

Also, as I often do, I loved the flashback scenes, and all the subtleties that came with it. One of my favorite things about flashback episodes is getting to see just how close Sam and Dean have always been, and I really love seeing them at different times in their life with how their relationship has changed over the years and how it compares to how they are now. It’s nice to see how much they’ve grown, but also how much about their relationship has stayed the same in the sense of that they still love and care for each other and have such a strong bond. It’s a beautiful thing, and this episode conveyed that really well.

Paxton. Singleton. Oh my god. What. An. Actor. I don’t know if he watched episode after episode of this show before being in this episode, but WOW did he NAIL Dean Winchester. I pointed out several specific instances in my reactions, but seriously, his interpretation of Dean was incredible. I was totally able to believe that that was a younger version of Dean, easily. It was amazing. This show’s casting team will always impress me.

All of that said....let’s address that ending.

Holy frick. God that hurt. First of all, as if I haven’t made this clear enough, I really really need Dean to acknowledge that he loves Jack and can’t lose him so that we don’t lose my precious baby, okay? That’s a thing that definitely needs to happen.

Second of all, I do not at all blame Sam for the way he reacted. In fact, I’m actually really impressed with how upset he got, because it plays so much into what’s been going on this season and what’s bound to come.

At the end of Season 14, our team was divided. Between Dean and Cas’s fight over Mary’s death, Sam and Dean locking Jack in the box, and then Sam and Dean fighting over Dean wanting to kill Jack, our boys were a mess. Then, Jack was dead, and Sam and Dean and Cas were grieving, which meant taking things out on each other and being angry and distraught. But within the first several episodes of Season 15, they started to latch onto each other again, and they stayed that way and only progressed further. For the majority of this season, we have seen them bonding and being a family again. We’ve barely seen them fight, and the only exception to that was Dean and Cas’s tension with each other. However, once they made up in 15x09, everything changed. That’s when the OG team was really back. And then when Jack came back, everyone was together again. They were all starting to learn to be a family and work together to take down their enemy. And, I already analyzed this, but after Last Holiday (15x14), even Dean and Jack’s tension was released, to a degree. Sam and Dean and Jack got to bond, and it felt like everyone was ready to take on the enemy together. And then SPN hit us with this.

With Jack and Cas’s emotional turmoil--Jack feeling like the only way to ever have Sam and Dean forgive him was for him to sacrifice herself. Cue the divide between Cas and Jack.

And then this. Dean hiding something from Sam again. After everything they’ve been through this season, after trusting each other more than anything, learning to communicate with each other again, and having each other’s backs every step of the way with no secrets...Dean hid something. And it tore them apart.

Our team is broken again, and right when we need them to be together the most.

And as much as it hurts my heart and made me break into tears and scares the heck out of me for what’s to come, it makes perfect sense, and it’s beautiful.

Because the next episode is called “Unity”. And that’s exactly the opposite of what we have right now, but the hope and the thought is that, when it comes down to it, they’re still a family, and they all still love each other, and they’re all going to be there for each other, and they’re not gonna let anyone go down without the rest of their family’s support.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

And maybe I’m over-analyzing. Maybe I’m being too optimistic or hopeful for my boi Jack’s future. But honestly, I feel like I’m right, because I feel like this is exactly what the writers are going for. And I’m excited to see it.

So, obviously, I loved that episode. It had horror, it had great representation of Sam and Dean’s brotherly relationship, it had flashbacks (our last ones :’( :’( :’( :’( ), and, at the very end, it had some very intense feels. But it was a great set-up, and beautifully done, and I absolutely loved it.

My Rating: 10/10

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