#me fuckin too seymour

[philhoffman]

Attention PSH community why haven’t we agreed to constantly use this as a reaction image yet

#for some ungodly reason it’s his profile photo on the official blu-ray website #??? #haven’t a clue where it came from but every time I see it I lose it #me fuckin too seymour

[insomniamamma]

Circle, Circle: Dieter Bravo X f!reader

A/n: written for my @yearofcreation2023 Year of Kisses. This prompt was a kiss for comfort, and a whole lot of real life happened between when I started this and now. This is a love letter to the theater nerds I knew in high school and the theater nerd I became later in life. This one turned out different than I thought it would. This story refused to be smutty. This story refused to be sexy. I don't make the rules. Inspired largely by this.

warnings: drug and alcohol use, angst, implied fatphobia, insecurity, cuddles and fluff, being dieter's best friend implies it's own warning.

You saw the clip. Annika belting Dieter in the chops in the middle of some posh party while Kate looked on with the kind of face you make when your drunken best friend barfs in a potted plant at your parents house. You never loved me! You never loved me at all! Dieter's hands thrown up in self defense, grinning at the cameras as security goons hook their arms around Annika's waist and pull her out of the shot. Day in the life.You saw the clip and knew what was coming. Dieter fuckin Bravo.

You've known D since middle school, gravitating towards each other because no one else wanted anything to do with either of you. The girls called you stupid and fat and ugly. The boys called him faggot. So you'd banded together, smoking cigarettes you stole out of your Gramma's dresser, smoking shake-weed out of pop-can pipes at the edge of school grounds, right under that stupid sign that read 'drug free school zone' and then kicking it into the tall grass when some terminally bored teacher's aide came to round up you and D and the rest of the burnouts. Nobody ever gave you more than the cursory straighten up and fly right speech. Neither of you were actively failing so no one cared. Then, in high school Dieter discovered the theater program and so did you.

You saw the clip and knew your phone would ring eventually. Or buzz rather. Coming home, he texts. Can you pick me up? Sure. What time? Knowing exactly what will happen. He'll say he won't be any trouble, that he'll book a room at the holiday inn and you'll tell him no and invite him to stay. Because you always do. Because home has turned on him for getting out. He's won an Oscar out in the world, but here? He's sneered at, deep well of contempt for those who strike out and fail and come home licking their wounds. Who does he think he is? Who do you think you are? Hurts less for you because you never tried to leave as much as you wanted to.

You should try out, you told him. If I'm trying out you should too, he told you. Little Shop of Horrors. He was gunning for Seymour so you learned Audrey, so you could practice the songs with him. I can't try out are you kidding me? You can, D told you, you sound...rested his hand on your upper arm the way someone might touch a live nuclear warhead. You sound good. We sound good together. You know that right? And inside you do. The way his voice weaves through yours, the way you can let go when it's just the two of you. His garage or your basement, singing over the piano track the music teacher made.

He's a mess. He looks about four days out from his last shower, his curls sticking up in greasy quills, his eyes are red-rimmed, from drugs or crying, you can't tell. This is how it is for him. He fucks up spectacularly and then he comes slinking home. No one cares here. No one gives a shit about his Oscar here. Just that no good Bravo boy limping home like a kicked dog. But you care. Dragging his carry-on along behind him, broad shoulders slumped, you feel that unwilling, unwitting spike of pity lodge in your chest.

They'd laughed. At the audition. When you and Dieter took your positions on stage, a bit of rough blocking you'd worked out between the two of you. Not loud braying laughter, snickers and titters of girls expecting a debacle and you feel your chest constrict and your eyes burn--

"Lift up your head Wash off your mascara Here, take my Kleenex, wipe that lipstick away Show me your face, clean as the morning I know things were bad, but now they're okay--"

But Dieter has you, grips your chin with finger and thumb just like you practiced, those big brown eyes terrified and deadly serious hold yours as he draws you to your feet. Audrey's lines pour out of you in a rush, the accompaniment a hair slower than the recording, I blew it, I blew the song and then you find the tempo, you find your voice and it rings out like it did all the times you and Dieter ran it together, belting it over the cast recording, rings out into the dark auditorium, the way you've heard it in your head this whole time, and you feel your skin prickle as Dieter's voices threads through yours like a grounding touch, and you finish together, singing into each other's faces.

The accompaniment stops and there's polite applause.

"You saw?" "Everybody saw--" "Fuck."

He smells like stale beer, fast food and no sleep. "You knew it wasn't gonna last with her right?" You keep your eyes on the road, but you can feel D bristle in the passenger's seat. "How do you mean?" "Come on, man, she's, like, half your age. Even if you hadn't cheated on her with Kate--" "Hey--" "You and her have nothing in common other than being trapped in that weird quarantine bubble," you say, "That's not love, that's fucking Stockholm syndrome." "You're probably right." "I'm always right. Haven't you figured that out by now?"

"This is some bullshit!" Dieter jabs a chipped black fingernail at the list of names tacked to the bulletin board outside the auditorium. "Your name is nowhere on that list. We sounded so good together! They--" "Dieter it's fine," you say. "They cast Emmy Lancaster as Audrey! What the fuck?" "Emmy's fine. She's got a nice voice." "Yeah, but she's not you! How'm I gonna do it if it's not you?" "D! Stop it!"You grab him by his upper arms and shake him a little, and those big brown eyes lock onto yours and he looks like he's drowning. "You've got this. I know you, dude, you're gonna be great." His eyes flick back and forth like he's searching for something. "Will you still run lines with me?" "Of course I will, you asshole."

"You hungry?" "Starving." "Mabels?" "Mabels."

"Oh, man, I forgot how good this is."

You and Dieter order the same thing as ever, garbage omelets with and order of biscuits and gravy split between you. D slathers his plate in hot sauce and you wrinkle your nose like you always do. And the question comes up as it always does. Can I stay with you? Just for a little bit-- and the answer is always yes, because D is a disaster but he's your disaster.

He's held your hair while you puked, you babied him when his girl dumped him right before senior prom. You ran lines together, even though you couldn't act with him. You don't have the right look for Audrey, they told you, but we do need a stage manager, and you threw yourself into it even though it hurt, because what where you expecting? And you had a knack for it, which surprised you and everyone else. The Audrey Two puppets were rented, but everything else had to be built and you found that you loved it, sketching out the sets, figuring out how to make the pieces light enough for you and the half-dozen other nerds you'd press-ganged into being stage crew to lift easily. We can do most of it with scrims, paint right on the fabric and then light it on from the back, or we could project the images right on them, like what Nine Inch Nails does. We can get with the AV club, see what they think.

"You can always stay with me, Dieter." You reach across the sticky table and wrap your hand around his forearm, "You know that right?" And there's a flicker across his face that says no, and it feels like a spike in your belly--

"Everyone's saying-- Christ. It's like everything I touch turns to shit."

"C'mon, that's crap and you know it, Hunger Strike--"

"That was different!" He surges forward and takes your hands in his, a bit of coffee sloshed between you, turned ears and cocked heads of the few patrons haunting Mabel's this time of night. "I had something there! It was like, something entirely outside of me--"

"Like catching lightning in a bottle?"

"Exactly like that!" And he smiles, brilliantly, the real one, not the cool little smirk reserved for the red carpet, for the press junkets, the smile that lights him up, the one you remember from way back when the lights came up and the orchestra played the main theme, the cast linked arm and arm, ready to take their bows and Dieter broke ranks, deviated from what you'd done in the previews, running the show for a cadre of bored teachers who'd rather be doing just about anything else, he sees you in the wings and catches your eye, waves you out two handed, a huge clownish gesture that requires a response, so you and the tech crew pour onto the stage, while the actors slide down to make room for you and you dip your outstretched hands to the orchestra and raise them again to the soundboard and spot operator the way you've seen every night this run and then everyone links arms and bows in a wave and suddenly Dieter's arms are locked around you, releases you and then turns to the crowd, raises your hand and his together, as the applause comes up.

"Do you know how that feels?" And you remember the way you and him sounded together, how Audrey poured out of your lungs like she had always been there-- "Yeah, D, I do," and his eyes flicking back and forth across your face still and hold yours, his hands warm in your grasp.

"Yeah," he says, and squeezes your fingers in his, "Yeah, I think you do." And you stay like that a beat, hands folded together across the sticky table, ancient cigarette smoke and old coffee and hand sanitizer. The waitress brings the check. One of Mabel's spray tanned granddaughters. You draw your hands away like you've been caught.

You've kissed Dieter exactly once, under the much-graffitied overpass, neon slurs and pentagrams and pigeon shit, both of you drunk on Wild Irish Rose, him smelling of weed and his mouth was warm, tentative against yours, and you'd laughed about it afterwards, circle-circle dot-dot now i've got my cootie shot, and you'd leaned together with your arms around each other, warm and solid against each other.

During tech week you'd pulled double duty, running lines with Dieter because outside of the auditorium Emmy Lancaster wouldn't even look at him, rolled her eyes all through rehearsal as if she was doing the world a favor by being there. She wanted nothing to do with him outside of scheduled rehearsals and Dieter was scared. The tech crew you'd rounded up was a different story all together, the lights are down and they can't see us so go nuts, so backstage you'd gone full goth, all black and dramatic makeup, and some of the others had followed suit, a little bit of rebellion behind the curtain where no one could look at you.

After one particularly grueling night, you and Dieter find yourselves side by side on the futon in your basement. Your bedroom proper is upstairs but your folks have let you build a nest down here so won't bother the rest of the house. They've mostly given up on you but that gives you some freedom.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he says, looking up at the crappy drop ceiling and glow in the dark stars that you've decorated it with. "Emmy hates my guts. She thinks I'm a creep. How'm I supposed to make this work?"

"Pretend she's me."

"What?"

"Pretend. She's. Me. You're good singing and running lines with me, so just imagine it's me and not Emmy fuckin Lancaster up there with you."

"Will that work?"

"Dude, I don't fuckin know, but you better figure it out quick. We open in a week."

The ride home is silent save for the scrape of windshield wipers, low, warm spit of rain, winding back roads and Dieter's fallen asleep, head turned away, slumped against the window, comes blearily awake at the sound of your tires on the gravel driveway.

"Hey, D, we're home." He stretches in the passenger's seat and yawns hugely.

"I can still get a hotel. I don't want to be a problem--"

"Too late. C'mon."

You fall asleep under fake plastic glowing stars and wake to find you and him wrapped together, his forehead pressed to yours, your arms tucked around his ribs, his hand folded over the curve of your hip, his breath warm against your face, and you're not sure how this makes you feel, because you've never been close with someone quite like this and you're not sure what might happen next, but at the same time this is Dieter and you've known each other for what feels like a million years and he looks so different asleep, face all slack like a little kid who's zonked out in the back on the car on some long road trip.

"I'll take the couch." "The fuck you will. I know the wire-work on Cliff Beasts 6 tweaked your back." "Was it that obvious?" "I could tell." "You can always tell."

"D. Hey, D." You try to squirm out of his grip without waking him, but you haveto resort to a good hard poke in the ribs. His eyes fly open and the two of you launch up and out of bed and away from each other like two magnets forced pole to pole.

"hoooomygod. Oh shit I'm so sorry, I didn't mean--" "Dude, it's okay, I didn't mean either-" "I was just so tired holy shit," his eyes are wide and his cheeks are fire engine red and you can feel the embarrassment and anxiety pouring off him like radiation. You start laughing. You can't help it. "What?" "You remember that scene from Planes, Trains & Automobiles?" Dieter brays laughter and the embarrassment flicks out like a candle flame.

You offer your hand and he takes it. You lead him upstairs. You need to get cleaned up. You smell like the floor of a taxi-cab, and Dieter laughs, a small one that just barely touches his eyes, his big be-ringed hand folded around yours, stroking your knuckles with the pad of his thumb, eyes down-turned.

"You always let me come back to you. No matter how bad I fuck up. You don't have to- you shouldn't--"

"Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do Dieter Bravo. You can always come to me. Unless you become a serial killer. Which seems unlikely considering how squeamy blood makes you."

Dieter laughs, a real one this time, that dimples his scruffy cheek and crinkles his eyes closed, and he knows you're talking about the time in Mrs. Wilson's home economics class when Lola Stevens sliced her thumb opening a can of peaches to make cobbler and Dieter got one good look at the running blood and slithered bonelessly out of his chair, eyes rolled up to the whites.

He laughs and pulls you into a crushing hug, his arms banded around your back, pressing you into him and it catches you off guard and you stumble against him, sorry. I didn't mean, and you don't give him space to elaborate, tuck your face into his neck, wind your arms just as tight around his middle. He smells like skunk weed and whiskey sweat and fast food and exhaustion but also like home, like those fevered days leading up to opening night, like when your first serious boyfriend had dumped you, like when he'd held your hair while you puked in the weeds by the side of the road, walking back home from a kegger that he cops broke up, the two of you creeping into the basement, got you a big sweating plastic tumbler of water in the ugly yellow light from the range hood, his eyes big and dark and serious, afraid of waking the rest of the house, and laughter had come bubbling up silent giggles that he caught like the plague, did you see the way Greggie ran?-- shut up you're gonna get us caught--

"Christ I missed you." "Missed you too, D, but you really need to shower." "That bad, huh?" "Yeah, that bad."

With some coaxing Dieter sleeps beside you, curled away from your nightstand lamp. Can't ever sleep without reading a little first, a horror yarn you've read a half-dozen times, plucky hero and damsel in distress threaded through with Dieter's even breath. He looks oddly frail in the soft light, back hunched in and knees tucked up like he's cold. You kill the light and slide the book under your pillow. You already know how it ends.

You kill the light and tuck yourself against his broad back, slide your arm around and his hand finds yours, folds your fingers into his, tucked against his chest. He smells like your soap and your shampoo because his toothbrush and a hair-clotted razor were the only toiletries that made it into his tangle of luggage. Walmart, you think, need to go anyway. You feel him soften, relax into your embrace, his weight settling against you, press your lips to the back of his head before tucking your face into the warm join of his shoulder.

His voice, sleep heavy and slurred-"Did you just kiss me?"

"Circle-circle, dot-dot"

#year of kisses #year of themes 2023 #better late than never #dieter bravo x f!reader #dieter bravo best friend imagine #dieter bravo #pedro pascal

[choppedupnotkilled]

Flora Man Chapter 7 (Little Shop of Horrors fanfic)

A Cabinet Man (Lemon Demon) inspired Little Shop of Horrors AU where Seymour and Twoey are two halves of a whole and ultimately fuse physically on the night of Seymour's proposal to Audrey. Content warning for some mature themes. I should've mentioned this in the fic itself, but Seymour/Twoey grew more slowly in this AU and is about the size he was in Feed Me (Git It!). Rated T.

Audrey distractedly flipped through the stations of the shop's ancient but somehow still standing radio, attempting to direct her attention towards it rather than her past awkward conversation with her ...I guess we're friends now? Or were, anyway... Patrick Martin or the one that lay in her future with her fiance and the assailant of an admittedly annoying CEO. Although 'conversation' might be too generous of a word for what that was... 'storming off with an alarming amount of limping' might be more accurate... Lemme just... She managed to mostly bring her attention back to the radio with a concerted effort. "Just ask the lonely, they know the hurt and pain of losing a love you can never regain, just ask the lonely-Beloved radio host Wink Wilkensen is being held for questioning after a man was found de-'Cause there's a tiny fuckin' nerd that she knew in this land, and I placed a claim to him on her sweet hand-Hey if I don't find work tomorrow, it's gonna be (gonna be) heartaches 'n' sorrow-There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us"

...There wasn't for them… still, we could both use some nice calm music like this right now. Audrey reversed her orientation on one of the shop's chairs so that she was now facing Seymour, who was hanging his head slightly in guilt and stress. And then didn't say anything for several seconds. What am I even supposed to do here, this is... quite the unusual situation. I mean, a guy's never fought for me before, besides him. But this isn't like with Orin, Patrick hasn't done anything wrong, well, nothing wrong enough to make aggravated assault necessary anyway... She took a deep breath. "Seymour..." She quickly trailed off as he desperately wrapped a vine around her wrist multiple times, nearly pulling her off of the chair, before tapping out "I'm sorry Audrey, I'm just so sorry, it's just that he was making moves on you with his fancy company and real relationship with a parent and ability to provide for you and actually walk to a door, I could just hear this voice telling me you'd be walking out of it with him if I didn't put a stop to it and surely a guy who's been hounding you for weeks isn't deserving of you-"

His vine relaxed slightly, and his head settled into a more comfortable looking resting position. "That would be yours truly, the first part anyway. Someone's gotta speak the truth around here, that you'll take off with a guy who can actually fu-" He annoyedly trailed off as he was interrupted by the radio switching songs. "What will this day be like? I wonder. What will my future be? I wonder." Audrey scrambled to turn it off with her free hand without turning around and somehow managed to do so without slamming it off the table entirely after several attempts, and Seymour shook his head slightly and retightened his grip on her, completing the transfer of power from any residual anger she still held towards him for assaulting a friend of hers And definitely just the one, no others besides him to a pained, aching love for him.

She struggled to find words momentous enough to roughly approximate the depth of her feelings, only speaking after aiding the process by embracing him as well as she possibly could given their unusual circumstances. "Seymour, no, don't say anything like that ever again, I love you so much, I could never live without you by my side, you're my everything, my… home… I didn't just say that for the sake of Jane's article, you know, I really and truly meant it." Seymour, having long since leaned into her touch, tilted his head slightly. "I lo-" He suddenly dipped his head in an almost jerking fashion. "...Didn't you say you'd be exaggerating things for the interviews?" Audrey stroked his vine with her fingers reassuringly.

"Yes, but what I'm exaggerating is how similar my situation is to a grieving widow's, not her love for her husband. People're still going crazy over Tony and Maria's love story even though it's been a few years, myself included, and I figured the combination of something like that with Dr. Bennell's peculiar situation would be a winning one, if not a very strange one." Suddenly, Seymour jerked his head backwards offendedly. "Hey now, wait just a minute little lady, those lameass body snatchers ain't nothing in comparison to me. Besides, if anything that little twerp is the body snatcher, not me-" He jerked his head downwards and shook it violently. "I didn't ask for this! I never wanted this, you or… fate or karma or something did, I don't know…"

Audrey felt a wave of sympathy for him and stroked his vine reassuringly. "...Seymour, do you remember when something in the shop kept making a strange noise and we joked about how it must be a ghost?" He perked up slightly at this. "Yeah, what about it?" Audrey moved closer to him from her perch at the edge of his pot. "I think there really was a ghost, and it was Kafka's." Seymour laughed slightly as if attempting to suppress his new voice as much as possible, and Audrey smiled in response. He laughed again, but mockingly this time. "And what exactly did Samsa's family end up doing? Oh, that's right, they-" Seymour jerked his head upwards slightly before defeatedly lowering it to the ground.

Seymour, no… poor guy, his plant half's hounding him worse than I've ever seen… I wanna help him so bad, I just don't have any experience with truely alien natures to do it with… some a the guys at The Gutter came close though… and sometimes much more than close unfortunately… maybe like with them the right path forward is to appeal to it, learn their language so you can speak it back to them and get a certain universal language associated with green in return before the month's rent is due, although in this case I'm aiming for a different universal language that's green, at least to me, and I'm trying to give it to him… and help him learn how to foster it for himself as well… in addition to the plant's. Audrey looked around for a sharp object, frustrated for the first time at the fact that most of the ones in the shop had been removed by Seymour to prevent them from triggering certain unpleasant memories of hers, before deciding that nothing could possibly be more appropriate for the job that she had in mind than his teeth.

Sitting on the floor and pressed up against him, Audrey nicked her wrist against the edge of one of his teeth and held it there, letting her blood flow into the space between his teeth and lips. I should probably be concerned, considering that that didn't hurt much… Her trust in him remained unshaken as he parted his jaws and hesitated for a few seconds before turning his head towards her slightly, releasing her wrist. Audrey quickly wrapped a towel from the floor around her wrist as she felt a wave of affection towards him… as well as a hint of dizziness. "Now do you see how much I trust you? How much you mean to me?" Seymour leaned into her, holding the tip of his vine over her other wrist as if he was about to say something, and instead wrapped several vines around her in an embrace, which she quickly returned with her arm that wasn't currently bleeding.

Lyric credits:

Ask The Lonely (The Four Tops), (Just Like) Romeo and Juliet (The Reflections), Somewhere (West Side Story), I Have Confidence (The Sound of Music)

#proship #proshipper safe #lsoh #little shop of horrors #seymour lsoh #audrey lsoh #twoey lsoh #patrick martin #seymour/twoey x audrey #audrey x patrick martin (one-sided) #lemon demon #cabinet man #tw crying #tw injury #tw sex abuse mention #tw blood #lsoh fanfic #fanfiction #writing #personal post

[steve-two-phones-mackabee]

The Tudors

I wonder if Jonathon Rhys Meyer’s jaw ever hurt from all that scenery he was chewing. Talk about over the top.

I question if it was a good idea to watch this right after the Spanish Princess. I mean, both play kind of fast-and-loose with historical record (Like Katherine performing some kind of samurai episiotomy on Bessie Blount? WHAT WAS THAT?), but overall, I found this series will just throw entire human people out the window.

Why, oh why, oh why did they decide to smush together Henry’s two awesome sisters into one shrewish wine-mom (Also, both Mary and Margaret were younger sisters, so why does.. um.. ‘Marygret’ look like she’s in her late 30s?).

Characters I loved:

William Compton. That guy just made me happy, whenever he was on screen. He was just smiling all the damn time (with the exception of when he like, had the plague and died)

THOMAS MOTHERFUCKING MORE. Way to stick to your guns and go out like a CHAMP. Who says martyrdom can’t be sexy as HELL?

Jane Seymour. I loved her, she was just so good and pure and was kind to Henry’s daughters and respected Katherine’s memory and was just gone too, too soon.

Charlie ‘Man-Slut’ Brandon, and later Charlie ‘I-am-too-old-for-this-shit” Brandon. All hail Henry Cavill’s ability to imply a perpetual facepalm without every bringing hand to head.

Characters I hated:

Henry VIII: We all know the history, he was not a nice dude. And to be totally honest, I’m not sure I could have made it through four seasons of JRM Shatnering his way through Tudor England were it not for the supporting cast.

Katherine Howard: I know she was supposed to be 15 in real life, but Gord she was annoying.

OTP

Call me a weirdo, but I really, really wanted Princess Mary to hook up with Eustace Chapuys. Nothing graphic, I just wanted them to kiss or something. They had really great chemistry in their scenes together and I could really feel how fond the two characters were of each other.

Characters I loved to look at:

Mark smeaton, that fiddler guy. Also, Charlie Brandon. and the King of France.

Characters whose presence I questioned:

Sir Dirtstache, the guy that seem to be there only for the sake of writing music, fucking Sir William, and generally looking like that one guy from Workaholics. (Tell me I am wrong).

Characters whom I thought were going to turn out way different than they did.

Joan Bulmer. I really thought she was going to be a schemer, a power-player, when she showed up and talked Katherine Howard into a place at court. Joan, however, wasn’t a schemer. Joan was that friend from college who asks you to get her a temp job at your new firm, then proceeds to tell your co-workers about your drunken vacation in Mexico. Well-meaning, but can’t read a room.

Stray Observations

- This show really liked to introduce characters and then just kind of kill them or disappear them (e.g. Sir Dirtstache, Eyepatch Pirate Guy, the Boulongne Bromance Duo) without a word.

- While Henry VIII was famous for all his wives, why wasn’t he more famous for his vendetta against guys named Thomas? Wosley, More, Cromwell, Culpepper...It got to the point where if a character was named Thomas, I was like “Welp, that guy is going to fuckin’ DIE.”

- Speaking of Thomas Culpepper? What was with the weirdly out-of-place rape scene? Why set the guy up as a villain in such an obvious yet out of place way, only to not actually make him a convincing villain? I mean, wasn’t him sleeping with George Bolelyn’s widow while plotting to sleep with the queen enough to say “Hey this guy is a bit of a douche?”

- Speaking of the Lady Rochford.. did she honestly think it was more plausible that her husband was sleeping with his sister than it was that he was just gay?

Unofficial Ranking of Queens from best to worst:

Jane Seymour, Katherine of Aragorn, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Parr, and Katherine Howard.

Faces I recognized: Henry Cavill (The Witcher), Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Orphan Black, Outlander), James Frain (The White Queen, Orphan Black), Peter O’Toole, Max Von Sydow (Game of Thrones), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), David Bradley (Game of Thrones)

Historical Drama Watch List

#the tudors #tudor england #historical drama #henry viii #anne bolelyn #catherine parr #katherine howard #katherine of aragon #anne of cleves #jane seymour #mary tudor #elizabeth tudor #thomas more #thomas cromwell #jonathan rhys meyers #natalie dormer #maria doyle kennedy #henry cavill #bbc #jeremy northam

[closeencountersoftheworstkind]

did i mention how fitting i think the last verse of the song “eve, the apple of my eye” is for canon ending seymour and audrey because oh my GOD it’s exactly as crushing and devastating as one would expect. fucking. FUCKING. auhgh i can’t emphasize enough how much the stage musical/director’s cut ending really cements in your mind the tragedy of loving someone you can never have. of being in someone’s embrace briefly, briefly, before they slip through your fingers and you know you’ll never see them again. to me lsoh is a tragedy, and it’s a damn efficient one, too. and i will never get over the fact that seymour and audrey could have had so much ahead of them, too, yknow? like ive already talked at length about how much it fucks with me that seymour never knew that audrey really loved him for him. but like, was it the same in audrey’s case? because i always had this idea in my head that even if audrey loves seymour—even if she trusts him more than anyone else—it’ll take her a long time to really, truly trust him. i always wondered, if they did have a life together—would she be perpetually worried that this was just the honeymoon phase? would she fear that, eventually, things would get bad again? would she mask her fear or would she address it? we don’t know. we’ll never find out. just as seymour never gets the comfort of knowing that he’s valuable, audrey never gets the comfort of knowing that she’s safe. and i feel like that safety that they could have found in their relationship being ripped away from them—that’s what fuckin gets to me, man

for the record the last verse is

“And I lie behind you

And I cradle you in the palm of me

And I pat your hair down

I think, will we sink or swim?

‘Cause we could do either on a whim”

to me, i always think of this as representative of when audrey is dying and seymour is desperately clinging to faith that he can save her or that they can still have a normal life together. he can’t say for certain that they’ll make it, but by god, he wants to. i have so much to fucking say here that i don’t know how to say it’s just [rotates little ship in my mind]

#lsoh #little shop of horrors #analysis #seymour krelborn #audrey fulquard #music

[boleyn-falcon]

Six but as what thier Fursonas would be because fuck you

Aragon - a maned lioness with a little crown cause she’s just classy like that ; has normal natural colors except some good mane highlights

Boleyn - a weasel and no not for the reason you’re thinking. A dark grayish brown with a white underbelly, wears a leather jacket for some reason?? With spikes?? Random green patches of fur cause she’s extra, annnd the reason I made her this is cause they fucking dance before killing something and I find that hilarious (and for a another reason that becomes relevant later on)

Seymour - a polar bear but with a few light grey patches on her chest that look kinda like a heart? She also just has very fluffy arms and a black scarf for god knows why

Cleves - a wolfdog because she’s just a badass like that~ ; but yea cause of her whole hunting thing and hounds n shit ; but she’s a dark amber color cause it’s her ✨ aesthetic ✨ with a ton of gold things like pericings and jewelry

Howard - I bet you could never fuckin guess in a MILLION YEARS- a cat lmao ; more specifically a Manx cat (a cat with a naturally bobbed tiny ass tail ) thats calico, but has a fuckin neon pink dyed bang or something- like a tuft of longer fur on her noggin that’s fuckin pink ; also has a bedazzled shiny pink collar with her K on it

Parr - a SQUIRREL!! Okay let me explain-

Squirrels are smart as HELL, and yknow, they fluffy too lol ; but she’s a normal looking Squirrel, but with reading glasses and a blue hoodie

Maggie - a FERRET!!! Okay this is obviously framed around the west end cast and Amy Shaw looks like a damn Ferret In the BEST way possible-

She is also the reason Anne is a weasel! Cause weasels and ferrets are in the same family!! But she’s a white Ferret with a black spot over one eye! She has a little fur Mohawk and it’s great- she also wears a Metallica shirt cause she’s a Metal Ferret

Maria - a lioness! Not maned, but just has really curly neck fluff 🥺 and she’s also normal colored like Catalina is, but just has a little gold sweater and a cross necklace

Joan - a fucking SHEEEP!!! But not JUST a sheep!! A cat-sheep!! Cat ears, tail, fur, and paws, but sheep wool, eyes (cause they have big ol cute eyes) , tiny horns, and hooves

Bessie - okay I saved the most extra and complicated for last cause Bessie is just LIKE THAT ; so she is part Rat, opossum, vampire bat, and goat 🥺

Goat hooves and horns - bat wings and teeth - rat tail and hands - and opossum whiskers

But it gets kinda complicated here - her face shape is like a mix of the opossum and bat - her fur is an almost black with a white muzzle and belly - her ears look like a bat’s , but are long and floppy like a goat’s

She very fluffy

#six #six musical #six the musical #liw #catherine of aragon #anne boleyn #jane seymour #anna of cleves #katherine howard #catherine parr #joan on the keys #bessie on the bass #maggie on the guitar #maria on the drums #ladies in waiting headcannons #six the musical headcanons #six headcanons #ladies in waiting hcs #six the musical hcs

[t4tseymourandaudrey]

Who would you cast in your dream production of LSoH?

AH I literally JUST remembered I've had this ask sitting in my inbox for SO long ahskdhskhdkdhdks

& Honestly,,, smh @ myself for thinking I was gonna come up with anything other than my initial gut response

Which is just like. Pasadena Playhouse cast + Levi Stubbs as Audrey II

Absolutely NO disrespect whatsoever to Amber Riley, her Audrey II was So Incredibly Good- I think I was a little off put at first by a lady voice actor, to be honest, just out of sheer "going into pasadena knowing very little about the cast" but once I got what she was going for?? MAN it was good. I'm fuckin. I'm still, after all this time, REELING over that interview where she said that she thought the plant would want to manipulate Seymour from the standpoint of him not having a mother figure of any sort. I really really really wish that would've been a tad bit more obvious in the show, but it still makes a HUGE impact on the character, which I adore.

The reason I did say Levi Stubbs was 1) I'm biased because I saw the movie before any musical version and his Audrey II singing is still my favorite out of any because of how expressive it is and 2) The thing about Amber Riley's Audrey II was that it's possibly one of the least conventional Audrey IIs out there. It's not that it's bad, but it's incredibly different than we're used to seeing, you know?

Like. For example, "Audrey II = Drag Queen" is a very obvious set of progression. Like. We all know how a decision like that is reached. But like?? "Audrey II = Bright pink, possible hallucination depending on how you view the show, plant that acts as Seymour's mother figure in order to more easily manipulate him into killing"????? Now THAT!!! That is the kind of Inspired Take I love about Pasadena Playhouse!!

(This is lowkey just a Pasadena Playhouse lsoh stan account at this point)

& As for the rest of the cast, I'll jot down reasons I'm going with them again:

• MJ Rodriguez, as I've mentioned in a different post, brought so much to this role to me. I had always looked at Audrey's character and made all these points (especially on the trans Audrey side of things) only to think that I was reading too much into it. But when I saw MJ play Audrey, I saw all those things and more come to life, and it wasn't like she was "just reading into it," but it was like she knew the character inside and out (Also I just gotta say I adore Pasadena & her for not playing up "haha Audrey Stupid")

• George Salazar as Seymour was just, the PERFECT Seymour. Once again, not only did it feel like he knew the character inside and out, but it felt like he brought entirely new elements

• I forgot,, all the other actors' names. because it is 12:30 AM. but. the other actors and actresses (The URCHINS are so GOOD bless) are very very good

Anyway professionally filmed Pasadena Playhouse challenge

Edit: I might eventually make just, a whole post analyzing Amber Riley's Audrey II cause 1) I don't think I did her performance justice here and 2) once again, that concept is SO COOL

#lsoh #little shop of horrors #pasadena playhouse #thank you so much for sending this in!!! #apologies it took five to ten business months to answer #also YES this was just a single stream of consciousness #I have no idea if it's comprehensible #im usually not up this late

[hypnotixstorm]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* characters *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Okay SO this is everyone I’ll write for and their respective fandoms! Also, as a side note, I’ll pretty much write for ANY female in ANY fandom, both platonic and romantic! I’m bi so my blog and I are a safe, loving place for E V E R Y O N E!

Naruto

Kiba

Deidara

Itachi

Hidan

Kakashi (mf’in D A D D Y)

Shikamaru

Genma

Bleach

Ichigo

Grimmjow

Shuhei

Toshiro

Byakuya

Renji

Blue Exorcist

Rin Okumara

Mephisto

Shima

Suguro

Haikyuu!!

Hinata

Nishinoya

Kuroo

Daichi

Sugawara

Kageyama

Full Metal Alchemist

Mustang

Greed (pre-Ling or GreedLing)

Ling

Edward

My Hero Academia

Kirishima (fuckin’ love him)

Dabi (him too fUCK)

Bakugo

Kaminari

Aizawa

Overhaul

Black Clover

Zora

Yami

Asta

Finral

Durarara!!

Izaya

Shizuo

Kinnosuke

Masaomi

Egor

HxH (2011)

Chrollo

Hisoka

Feitan

Attack on Titan

Jean Kirschtein

Levi Ackerman

Eren Jaeger

Final Fantasy

Squall (FF8)

Zell (FF8)

Cloud (FF7)

Reno (FF7)

Seymour Guado (FFX pls don’t hate me I think he’s really hot idk why ;-;)

Code Vein

Louis

Yakumo

Seven Deadly Sins

Ban

Howzer

Meliodas

Gilthunder

Harlequin (King)

Kenichi; The Mightiest Disciple

Takada

Akisame

D. Gray-Man

Kanda

Lavi

Tykki Mikk

Allen

Link Howard

Yu Yu Hakusho

Kurama

Hiei

Shishiwakamaru

Yusuke

#aot #attack on titan #7ds #seven deadly sins #bnha #mha #fmab #fma #black clover #bleach #naruto #akatsuki #my hero academia #boko no hero academia #full metal alchemist #blue exorcist #hxh #hunter x hunter #durarara #durarara!! #durarara!!x2 #final fantasy #ffx #final fantasy headcanons #yu yu hakusho #kenichi the mightiest disciple #kenichi #d.gray man #fairy tail #anime

[mythgirlimagines]

Anon-Correct Quotes: PM Seymour Edition! (Part seven of many)

Nerd: What’s wrong?

Fancy: I dunno, man. I need to make some hard decisions and I feel people won’t like them.

Nerd: Well, listen, man. It doesn’t matter what you do. People will not like you or be mad. That’s just how shit is. You need to do what you think is right and what makes you happy.

Fancy: Thank god! Now I can change my name legally to Kirito and make all my friends watch Sword Art Online with me-

Nerd: *presses gun to the back of Fancy’s head* No.

—————————————————————-

Eldritch: Coca-Cola is a health potion. Pepsi is a mana potion.

Curious: What’s graped soda?

Purple: IT’S FUCKIN’ PURPLE BAYBEE!

—————————————————————-

Wet Sock: Cool scenario: what if a disgusting little gremlin lived in your house and he said, “A kiss on the cheek and I’ll leave you free. Away from your house I shall be!” – Would you do it?

Nerd/Scar/Fusion: *speaking simultaneously* Depends on what cheek.

Wet Sock: Ahahaha-you catch on too quick.

—————————————————————-

Egg: So, how did I do? Think I got a shot at this job?

Future Foundation Employee: No, actually, that was the worst interview in the history of interviews. I have to fire you before ever hiring you. I have to DOUBLE FIRE YOU.

Egg: *gasps* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo!

—————————————————————-

Wyre: I will make your bones share the same x-axis.

Wet Sock: …okay, I get a lot of whimsical threats, but this one just slaps ass!

Sparkle: I thought Wet Sock didn’t have any bones!

Wet Sock: I have like, a whole credenza full!

Fusion: *concerned* Are they your bones?

Wet Sock: Legally speaking: probably!

—————————————————————-

Nerd: It’s a nice day out. I could play video games with the window open or take a walk somewhere.

Nerd: …

Nerd: I’m going to argue with someone on the internet.

—————————————————————-

Janon: Yo, why do we sacrifice people or animals to Satan? We should just sacrifice things no one likes instead.

In Hell…

Wyre: Are those Ngages?

—————————————————————-

Fancy: *jamming to an anime opening*

Scar: You’ve been listening the the same freaking anime opening for the past four hours.

Fancy: *still jamming*

Scar: YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY’RE SAYING.

Fancy: Yeah, but I feel it in my kokoro!

—————————————————————-

Myth: MonoAnon, I’m going to be 100 with you, chief. I don’t think watching a live execution would be good for me like you say. In fact, I think it will be detrimental as I disagree with your statement on how watching death makes you appreciate life.

MonoAnon: *dead silent*

Myth: Damn. Fine. I guess we out here about to watch someone die.

—————————————————————-

Fusion II: Where the fuck is Iris?

Dream: *sighing in defeat* She drank 1300MG of caffeine and thought the hummingbirds outside were talking shit about her.

Iris: FIGHT ME, I AM SOUND!

—————————————————————-

Sparkle: *playing with fidget spinners*

Eldritch: *walks in* Dude. Are you still playing with fidget spinners? It’s 2020. In 2020, we got-

Eldritch: …

Eldritch: I guess all we got in 2020 is conspiracy theories and a feeling of impending doom.

—————————————————————-

Scar: Who are you and what are you doing here?

Egg: Don’t you recognize me? You know why I’m here.

Scar: *raises gun* You’re not getting your tonsils back.

Egg: *raises gun* Glorp glorp.

—————————————————————-

Wyre: I get angry that hewwo is now a word, but then I remember that squeegee is a word and has been for a century, so humans have always been awful.

Fancy: Hewwo Miss Squeegee!~★

Wyre: I’m going to find you, and I swear by the moon and stars I will make you bleed.

—————————————————————-

Made sure to include each Anon at least once this time! Hope y'all like it!

---

Very nice!!!

#submission #anon #my evil twin #fancy anon #egg anon #anon scar #eldritch anon #sparkling anon #iris anon #dream anon #fusion anon #fusion anon ii #anon nerd #just anon #curious anon #purple anon #wet sock anon #i speak #incorrect quote #swearing

[thecomicsnexus]

A Strong and Loving World

WATCHMEN #12 OCTOBER 1987 BY ALAN MOORE, DAVE GIBBONS AND JOHN HIGGINS

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Midnight, November 2, 1985.

Most of New York City has been devastated by the psychic trauma caused by the instant death of Ozymandias' "alien."

Dr. Manhattan and a heavily distraught Laurie arrive in the city too late as they tour the devastation. After they have seen enough, the two teleport away to the South Pole, to follow a trail of tachyon particles that Dr. Manhattan senses will lead to the source of the disturbance. Before they left, Laurie picks up a gun from the deceased Detective Steven Fine.

At Karnak, Ozymandias continues to detail his plan to Rorschach and a disbelieving Nite-Owl. He explains he cloned the brain of the dead psychic Robert Deschaines and having it augmented and programmed with horrible visions and concepts of aliens, so that the mental transmissions given off at its death would affect anyone around it who managed to survive the initial psychic blast. Thus forcing humanity to cast aside their petty enmities and focus on a common alien enemy. But to ensure this plan to work, Veidt necessarily eliminated anyone involved in his plan. Although Veidt admits he hasn't any ideas what he will do with Rorschach and Nite-Owl.

Manhattan and Laurie soon arrives to Karnak, where Manhattan confront Veidt. Veidt hinders Manhattan with a tachyon generator that interferes with Doctor Manhattan's ability to see the future, and then disintegrates him in an intrinsic field subtractor at the regrettable cost of Veidt's pet Bubastis. This act is witness by Laurie, who then shoots Veidt with Fine's gun. However, Veidt use his newfound, and untried, ability to catch the bullet. After subduing Laurie, Veidt begins to lecture the costumed heroes that their "obvious heroism" is redundant and that their failure to prevent "Earth's salvation" will usher a new era for humanity. But his speech is cut short when to Veidt's surprise, Manhattan restores himself. Before Manhattan could pass judgement on Veidt, the world's smartest man make one last trick by showing everyone news broadcasts of the aftermath of the disaster in New York, which has cost the lives of over two million people, which has prompt an end to hostilities between the U.S. and Soviet Union and calling for peaceful cooperation against Veidt's faked alien threat.

Veidt revels in his victory for bringing Earth into a "utopia" and convinces almost everyone present that exposing the truth would bring a permanent end to world peace. Manhattan, Laurie, and Dan reluctantly agree to concealing Veidt's truth. But Rorschach refuses to compromise with keeping the secret and proceed to leave despite Dan's pleas. Veidt is seemingly unconcerned of Rorschach being a "reliable witness" before retiring to meditate in his ornery and offering Dan and Laurie a stay in his home. Laurie and Dan found a private room to reflect on their decision and they settle down to make love.

Outside, Rorschach tries to start up his hoverbike but is stop by Manhattan. Rorschach takes off his mask, knowing that Veidt's new utopia is to be protected with the cost of his own life and prompts Manhattan to reluctantly disintegrate him. Manhattan walks back inside the retreat, where he finds Dan and Laurie asleep together and smiles at Laurie's newfound love and happiness and walks out of the room to meet Veidt. The two discuss about Veidt's well-intention reasons for ensuring world peace at the cost of millions of human lives. Veidt is surprise that Manhattan regained interest in human life, to which Manhattan suggests that he may "create some [human life]" in another galaxy that he will be travelling to. But before Manhattan could go, Veidt ask him if his plan worked out in the end. Manhattan smiles and enigmatically replies that "nothing ever ends." Veidt is left totally confuse by Manhattan's words and appears to be in doubt as to whether or not his plan was successful.

Sometime during Christmas, Laurie and Dan, who have assumed new identities, visit Sally Jupiter. Laurie tells Sally that she knows Edward Blake is her real father. She explains to her mother that she understands the complex relationship between Sally and Blake and that she has comes to terms with that. Laurie and Dan soon leaves while indicating that they would continue to adventure, although Laurie expressed the wish for a better superhero identity, a more protective leather outfit, a mask, and a firearm much like The Comedian.

In New York that which has been recovering from the disaster, the editor at New Frontiersman, Hector Godfrey, complains about having to pull a two-page column about Russia due to the new political climate. He asks his assistant Seymour to find some filler material from the "crank file", a collection of rejected submissions to the paper, to write. Sitting on top of the pile of discarded submissions is Rorschach's journal.

CRITICAL RECEPTION (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

Watchmen was first mentioned publicly in the 1985 Amazing Heroes Preview. When Moore and Gibbons turned in the first issue of their series to DC, Gibbons recalled, "What really clinched it [...] was [writer/artist] Howard Chaykin, who doesn't give praise lightly, and who came up and said, 'Dave what you've done on Watchmen is fuckin' A.'" Speaking in 1986, Moore said, "DC backed us all the way [...] and have been really supportive about even the most graphic excesses". To promote the series, DC Comics released a limited-edition badge ("button") display card set, featuring characters and images from the series. Ten thousand sets of the four badges, including a replica of the blood-stained smiley face badge worn by the Comedian in the story, were released and sold. Mayfair Games introduced a Watchmen module for its DC Heroes Role-playing Game series that was released before the series concluded. The module, which was endorsed by Moore, adds details to the series' backstory by portraying events that occurred in 1966.

Watchmen was published in single-issue form over the course of 1986 and 1987. The limited series was a commercial success, and its sales helped DC Comics briefly overtake its competitor Marvel Comics in the comic book direct market. The series' publishing schedule ran into delays because it was scheduled with three issues completed instead of the six editor Len Wein believed were necessary. Further delays were caused when later issues each took more than a month to complete. One contemporaneous report noted that although DC solicited issue #12 for publication in April 1987, it became apparent "it won't debut until July or August".

After the series concluded, the individual issues were collected and sold in trade paperback form. Along with Frank Miller's 1986 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns miniseries, Watchmen was marketed as a "graphic novel", a term that allowed DC and other publishers to sell similar comic book collections in a way that associated them with novels and dissociated them from comics. As a result of the publicity given to the books like the Watchmen trade in 1987, bookstore and public libraries began to devote special shelves to them. Subsequently, new comics series were commissioned on the basis of reprinting them in a collected form for these markets.

Watchmen received critical praise, both inside and outside of the comics industry. Time magazine, which noted that the series was "by common assent the best of breed" of the new wave of comics published at the time, praised Watchmen as "a superlative feat of imagination, combining sci-fi, political satire, knowing evocations of comics past and bold reworkings of current graphic formats into a dystopian mystery story". In 1988, Watchmen received a Hugo Award in the Other Forms category.

OWNERSHIP DISPUTES (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

Disagreements about the ownership of the story ultimately led Moore to sever ties with DC Comics. Not wanting to work under a work for hire arrangement, Moore and Gibbons had a reversion clause in their contract for Watchmen. Speaking at the 1985 San Diego Comic-Con, Moore said: "The way it works, if I understand it, is that DC owns it for the time they're publishing it, and then it reverts to Dave and me, so we can make all the money from the Slurpee cups." For Watchmen, Moore and Gibbons received eight percent of the series' earnings. Moore explained in 1986 that his understanding was that when "DC have not used the characters for a year, they're ours." Both Moore and Gibbons said DC paid them "a substantial amount of money" to retain the rights. Moore added, "So basically they're not ours, but if DC is working with the characters in our interests then they might as well be. On the other hand, if the characters have outlived their natural life span and DC doesn't want to do anything with them, then after a year we've got them and we can do what we want with them, which I'm perfectly happy with."

Moore said he left DC in 1989 due to the language in his contracts for Watchmen and his V for Vendetta series with artist David Lloyd. Moore felt the reversion clauses were ultimately meaningless because DC did not intend to let the publications go out of print. He told The New York Times in 2006, "I said, 'Fair enough,' [...] 'You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again.'" In 2000, Moore publicly distanced himself from DC's plans for a 15th anniversary Watchmen hardcover release as well as a proposed line of action figures from DC Direct. While DC wanted to mend its relationship with the writer, Moore felt the company was not treating him fairly in regards to his America's Best Comics imprint (launched under the WildStorm comic imprint, which was bought by DC in 1998; Moore was promised no direct interference by DC as part of the arrangement). Moore added, "As far as I'm concerned, the 15th anniversary of Watchmen is purely a 15th Anniversary of when DC managed to take the Watchmen property from me and Dave [Gibbons]." Soon afterward, DC Direct cancelled the Watchmen action-figure line, despite the company having displayed prototypes at the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con International.

LEGACY (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

A critical and commercial success, Watchmen is highly regarded in the comics industry and is frequently considered by several critics and reviewers as comics' greatest series and graphic novel. In time, the series has also become one of the best-selling graphic novels ever published. Watchmen was the only graphic novel to appear on Time's 2005 "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels" list, where Time critic Lev Grossman described the story as "a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium." It later appeared on Time's 2009 "Top 10 Graphic Novels" list, where Grossman further praised Watchmen, proclaiming "It’s way beyond cliché at this point to call Watchmen the greatest superhero comic ever written-slash-drawn. But it’s true." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly placed Watchmen at number 13 on its list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, describing it as "The greatest superhero story ever told and proof that comics are capable of smart, emotionally resonant narratives worthy of the label 'literature'." The Comics Journal, however, ranked Watchmen at number 91 on its list of the Top 100 English-language comics of the 20th century.

In Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History, Robert Harvey wrote that, with Watchmen, Moore and Gibbons "had demonstrated as never before the capacity of the [comic book] medium to tell a sophisticated story that could be engineered only in comics". In his review of the Absolute Edition of the collection, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times wrote that the dark legacy of Watchmen, "one that Moore almost certainly never intended, whose DNA is encoded in the increasingly black inks and bleak storylines that have become the essential elements of the contemporary superhero comic book," is "a domain he has largely ceded to writers and artists who share his fascination with brutality but not his interest in its consequences, his eagerness to tear down old boundaries but not his drive to find new ones." Alan Moore himself said his intentions with works like Marvelman and Watchmen were to liberate comics and open them up to new and fresh ideas, thus creating more diversity in the comics world by showing the industry what could be done with already existing concepts. Instead it had the opposite effect, causing the superhero comic to end up stuck in a "depressive ghetto of grimness and psychosis". In 2009, Lydia Millet of The Wall Street Journal contested that Watchmen was worthy of such acclaim, and wrote that while the series' "vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate", that "it's simply bizarre to assert that, as an illustrated literary narrative, it rivals in artistic merit, say, masterpieces like Chris Ware's 'Acme Novelty Library' or almost any part of the witty and brilliant work of Edward Gorey".

Watchmen was one of the two comic books, alongside Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, that inspired designer Vincent Connare when he created the Comic Sans font.

In 2009, Brain Scan Studios released the parody Watchmensch, a comic in which writer Rich Johnston chronicled "the debate surrounding Watchmen, the original contracts, the current legal suits over the Fox contract".

In September 2016, Hasslein Books published Watching Time: The Unauthorized Watchmen Chronology, by author Rich Handley. The book provides a detailed history of the Watchmen franchise.

In December 2017, DC Entertainment published Watchmen: Annotated, a fully annotated black-and-white edition of the graphic novel, edited, with an introduction and notes by Leslie S. Klinger (who previously annotated Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for DC). The edition contains extensive materials from Alan Moore's original scripts and was written with the full collaboration of Dave Gibbons.

THE FILM

There are three versions of the Watchmen movie. The theatrical (that I watched several time at cinemas, including IMAX), a director’s cut (includes an extra half hour of movie) and the Ultimate Cut, which includes all the Black Freighter scenes.

I would recommend the theatrical version. I recently watched the ultimate version and the Black Freighter scenes do not work with the movie and also do not work with its altered ending. Hollis Mason’s death scene also feels even more disconnected to the story.

But even the theatrical version... I would say... I do not recommend you to watch it if you haven’t read the novel. The movie is a piece of beauty, visually, but the script feels a lot like they tried very hard to keep the original dialogues, and every time they change something you notice, because something feels out of place (even if you are watching it with fresh eyes).

REVIEW

What else can I add?

As a fan, I find it uneasy that only Gibbons can enjoy the credit for this story in all the adaptations, as Moore does not want to be mentioned in any of those (instead, they always say “co-created by Dave Gibbons”). It makes me feel dirty for buying the book a couple of times, and watching the movies (also V for Vendetta).

But beyond that, this is a piece of art, a very sophisticated piece of art. It’s what comics should aspire to be. Not every comic-book should... but I would love seeing something like this more often.

The series was made with great level of detail. To the point where you can spend minutes on pages or panels, finding things. In this last issue, the first look at New York, after the peace accord, is a whole new world full of details that tell you a story. This is why Watchmen is the perfect graphic novel, and has so much problem being adapted to other mediums or even having prequels and sequels. It was designed in a way that makes sense in these 12 issues of visual entertainment, where writing and art tell a complete story, but wouldn’t be the same if you had a novelization of it.

It was made for comic-books. You could do an adaptation to film with the same level of detail, but you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it, pausing to find all the details in every frame. Instead, they would have to find a new way of adapting this highly detailed and three-dimensional world.

I recommend buying the “Watchmen Annotated” edition as well, as a supplementary book to the regular one (or absolute, depending which version you have).

I give Watchmen a score of 10, and you should read it at least twice before you die.

#alan moore #dave gibbons #john higgins #dc comics #comics #review #1987 #modern age #doctor manhattan #rorschach #nite owl #silk spectre #ozymandias #bubastis #world war iii #new frontiersmen #vertigo comics

[dunkjrk]

oblivious i

pairing: don x y/n

word count: 1.5k (part one is v short yikes)

warnings: slaughterhouse spoilers, cursing, sex references and mentions of suicide

a/n: hI hELLO uHHh heres my attempt at writing for don bc wHATTA BEAN,, i hope i did his character justice!! if anyone’s read hades! michael you might recognize he recycled description of finn bc i can’t write descriptions for sHiT whoopS anyway,,, this’ll probably be up long after it’s been out but the spoiler warning still stands :)) also for anyone who doesn’t know what upper sixth is it’s the equivalent of a senior x

When the clicking of Mrs Wallace’s heels had drowned out, y/n was quick to jolt out of Don’s bed, clearing her throat.“Right, um I should probably get going too.” She mumbled, fiddling with the edge of the skirt hanging from her hips, and ignoring the heat rising on her cheeks under his intense gaze.“No!” He said, his voice raised slightly in protest as it cracked slightly due to his sudden shout, startling her and stopping her right in her tracks. “I mean, uh you should stay! Yeah you should stay, I’ll need someone to show me how to get to the main hall anyway.” He continued, trailing off with a sheepish grin.Y/n briefly glanced up at him, barely making eye contact before averting her gaze anywhere else but his. The faintest of smirks shadowed his lips at her actions, feeling a strong endearment towards the girl pretending to be oblivious to his stare by playing with the hem of her skirt. “I mean, that’s what I’m here for but don’t worry, I think she fancies you too.” Will interrupted with a wink. A knowing smirk playing on his lips as he took in the scene unfolding before him.

or

y/n has a small crush on the new boy 

She spotted him before he spotted her.

It was safe to say Y/n’s first meeting with Don didn’t go as smoothly as she would’ve hoped, and much to her dismay (and her best friend’s delight), Will relentlessly teases her about it.

Y/n knew full well she wasn’t supposed to be in the boys’ half of the dorms, let alone comfortably spread out in a deep sleep on the spare bed in Will’s room. It had never crossed her mind that the new term would most likely bring someone new in the use it, hence why she was woken up with a rough jab to her side, with a harsh whisper of ‘are you dead or something, fuckin’ wake up!’

Four sets of eyes watched her jolt from the bed, barely escaping slipping off the edge as she did. In her typical fashion, y/n had no only messed up again, but messed up on her first day back of school. A new record. Y/n had told her mum that this year she was going to put her head down and focus in school and starting sixth form seemed like the best time to put this into practice, but given the current circumstances, y/n couldn’t help but wonder how she’d convince her mum to overlook her being caught sleeping in a boys dorm.

“Miss y/n,” Mr Houseman sighed, a look the read ‘fed up but not surprised’ etched into his features as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would you care to explain what your duty is in Mr Wallace’s bed?” The older man enquired, leaning against the door- conveniently covering Seymour’s name plaque placed next to Will’s. Sneaky bastard. Being Will’s best friend, y/n was his shoulder to cry when Seymour killed himself, and so naturally she was aware of the situation. Mr Houseman’s snarl of ‘I thought I told you to take that down’ didn’t go unnoticed by y/n, though she was too preoccupied with staring at the boy next to him to even bother to see Will’s reaction.

The boy’s face was unfamiliar, and had it not been for Will’s obnoxious cough she would have been able to analyze him to her heart's content, but the expectant look he sent her way made her swallow her inhibitions and clear her throat.

“Uh, sleeping?”

An eye roll and a quick snatch of the ‘Seymour’ plaque off of the door was the only form of a reply he graced her with before leaving the room, the clicking of his shoes fading down the hallway being the only sound that prevented the atmosphere slipping into an awkward silence.

“So, are you Don’s roommates?” A voice spoke up, presumably his mother. She wore an inviting smile, the type y/n couldn’t help but feel comfortable around. It vaguely crossed her mind as to whether her son had the same smile. His features were striking enough, something she’d been able to gather from the few moments she’d stolen a glance at him. The boy that stood before her was clad in the charcoal grey uniform she knew all too well, topped off with a yellow tie highlighting his forest orbs. ‘House Sparta’. The ash brown waves of locks on his head lay perfectly in place, apart from the single strand of stray hair that caressed his right cheekbone. He had a somewhat diamond shaped face, with defined and sturdy features; and of course a jawline sharp enough to cut the tension growing in the room.

Fortunately for her, Will’s quick reactions saved her from her potential future mother in law judging her (y/n was quite the hopeless romantic).

“Yeah, uh yes Mrs Wallace. I’m Willoughby Blake, I’ll be your son’s roommate for the rest of the year.”

Don’s eyes flitted to the girl, now sitting up but still snuggled up in what he assumed were his sheets. From Mr Houseman’s comment, he inferred she was y/n. A smile worked its way onto his face at the idea of the girl currently doing everything in her power to avoid his gaze being his roommate, it even eased the idea of being stuck in an unfamiliar school full of prestige middle class children for the next two years, and if anything Don could even say he wouldn’t mind it if he could be around the doe eyed girl for the duration of his sixth form experience.  

“Lovely to meet you Willoughby. Uh, I should get going then. Be good, you, and I’ll see you at the end of the term.” She told her son, pecking him quickly on the cheek and sending a friendly smile in Will’s and y/n’s directions before making her way down the hallway, leaving a growing silence to fall over the three teens.

When the clicking of Mrs Wallace’s heels had drowned out, y/n was quick to jolt out of Don’s bed, clearing her throat.

“Right, um I should probably get going too.” She mumbled, fiddling with the edge of the skirt hanging from her hips, and ignoring the heat rising on her cheeks under his intense gaze.

“No!” He said, his voice raised slightly in protest as it cracked slightly due to his sudden shout, startling her and stopping her right in her tracks. “I mean, uh you should stay! Yeah you should stay, I’ll need someone to show me how to get to the main hall anyway.” He continued, trailing off with a sheepish grin.

Y/n briefly glanced up at him, barely making eye contact before averting her eyes anywhere else but his. The faintest of smirks shadowed his lips at her actions, feeling a strong endearment towards the girl pretending to be oblivious to his stare by playing with the hem of her skirt.

“I mean, that’s what I’m here for but don’t worry, I think she fancies you too.” Will interrupted with a wink. A knowing smirk playing on his lips as he took in the scene unfolding before him.

Will was very blunt. For y/n, it was either a blessing or a curse. There were times when she was very thankful for his quick tongue, such as a instance in year ten when y/n had ran into a year eleven in a clumsy rush to get to sixth period. Unfortunately for her, it was Clemsie Lawrence and her clique, the single most loved student in the school. Fortunately for her, her best friend was Willoughby Blake, the single most outspoken student in the school. It was a genuine mistake, y/n and Will had three minutes to get to Latin because he had insisted on stopping to eat a cookie, and now the pair were essentially legging it down the ancient corridors in hopes of getting to class on time. Their hopes were cut short however as they turned a corner, and y/n slammed straight into the blonde year eleven. Various sneers of ‘Watch where you’re fucking going’ echoed through the nearly empty corridor as the younger of the students attempted to mumble a spew of apologies. Apologies that seemed to fall on deaf ears however, which was to be expected really, seeing as year elevens considered themselves to be superior to the rest of the school- especially when they're Clemsie Lawrence or one of her associates. “I uh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking and-” “No y/n it wasn’t your fault.” Will spoke up, a faint grin of reassurance being sent her way before he averted his gaze to the group of girls watching with disgust. “If anyone here should be apologizing it should be you.” Y/n was quick to tug at his sleeve when he was met with blank stares and even a few giggles. She knew as soon as one of Clemsie’s friends opened her mouth they were in for it. “You know, when I was in year ten, I wouldn’t dare to speak to a year eleven, let alone like that. Before your girlfriend nearly ran us over and you decided to get brave, I didn’t mind year tens, looks like you fucked it up for your whole year.” Y/n gulped. Even if Clemsie hadn’t actually spoken herself yet, it was clear from the way she was staring down at her, she had definitely landed herself in the school sweetheart’s bad books. Though that being said, he seemed unphased, and without missing a beat Will replied. “Funny you say that, because I was pro life before this run in, but you, too are making me questions my beliefs.” He sighed, feigning disappointment whilst turning away and gripping the shorter girl’s hand who was now biting back a smile. “Oh, and,” He continued, pausing his walk and turning to the group with a sickeningly sweet smile. “ I’m gay.” Ever since that literal run in, y/n was right to assume she and Clemsie hadn’t been on the best of terms.

Their faces fell at his comment. Don looked pale, his eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost. Y/n looked on the verge of tears as she watched Will laugh with frantic eyes.

“Calm down, bloody hell you two I’m joking! I’m gay, what do I know about straight messes.” He snickered, patting Don on the back before heading out.

Y/n cleared her throat, hastily heading for the door, “I uh, we should probably go.” She barely even whispered, practically running down the dorms corridor after Will, leaving Don to fend for himself as he watched with a fond smile. For a gay boy, Will truly was spot on about this straight mess.

#yE BOI #ITS V SHORT BUT!!!!!! #finn cole #slaughterhouse rulez #don wallace #asa butterfield #willoughby blake #peaky blinders

[purplolart]

O k, i’ve been plaguing myself for days about this… A Sanders Sides / Little Shop of Horrors AU. SEE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EASY, BUT LIKE… I CAN’T DECIDE WHO WORKS BETTER AS WHO. Just… read the notes below if you want to, I just. I need help. please.
(here they are in no particular order) (Oh, and Little Shop of Horrors Spoilers??? Does anyone even know Little Shop anymore? I hope so…)
Virgil
Okay so, realistically Seymour makes the most sense to me. Maybe its because his only character trait I can think of is ANXIOUS but you know, whatever. 
I guess technically he could be Audrey too? (not audrey two, though I’m labeling that planti boi as ‘Twoey’) She’s this shy character that won’t bring herself out of a relationship that’s… well bad. But I can’t see virgil willing to wear any of those ‘skimpy’ dresses.
I guess third choice is either mushnik or twoey (aka the plant). I don’t really see him as anything else, and HELL to the NO HE AIN’T GONNA BE ORIN.
Roman
Audrey is my optimal choice for him for three reasons. 1) She herself is a dreamer, even having the Somewhere That’s Green daydream song. 2) She is a less than optimal relationship which could be a tie to the Nostalgia video where he didnt want to let go of a long dead relationship. And 3) … i just really like prinxiety and ro in a dress, okay?
Theoretically he could be anybody (if this was them doing a stage production) 
Sadly, next up is a tie between Twoey and Orin, mostly cause of their singing roles and sass towards Seymour (Who is most likely gonna stay Virgil), but still. 
Seymour and Mushnik don’t really work for him as a character, niether sharing any traits with him. If the sides themselves were putting on a production though, he would 1000% be Seymour because Main Character Drama.
Logan 
I think Logan would do well for any male character, just not Audrey. She is SO not him,
I feel that Mushnik works well for him and his general lack for anything not logical. Mushnik worries, sure, but he is more business oriented. Plus his deduction skills during ‘Suppertime’ would be highlighted as the Logical one of the group.
Seymour works too, but only because I feel like he’s the only one to have a ‘strange plant hobby’. Also, he’d be the only one.. dare I say it, dumb enough to feed a plant blood, just to see what happens. 
Also there’s a line where the plant calls Seymour ‘Sherlock’… so how could I not???
Orin could also work as Logan since he’s - again - business oriented. He puts pride into his work, even though he lacks the emotion outside of it. 
Twoey works… but it’s funnier to see him as a joke and giving him Crofters instead of blood. Just like, “This isn’t what I asked for!” “oh wait shit nevermind, more o dis pls.” 
Deceit
Okay, obviously only bad guy roles for Deceit. Maybe this will change if he gets a redemption, but for now… N o .
Twoey and Orin are tied for me, and hands down they have the coolest friggin designs to work around. Twoey is a trickster by nature, and Orin just straight up gives me Deceit vibes with how he handles patients and Audrey. It works well for them both… BUT WHO IS BETTER?!
Mushnik is a solid third since I would hope to have Deceit as someone else, but Mushnik is pretty deceitful himself, getting Seymour to sign adoption papers so that he can have money. That Schmuck…
Yeah, no fuckin’ way he’s being Seymour or Audrey.
Patton
Patton works well as anyone except Orin and Twoey, but like… I like him as Twoey.
I think of Twoey as what it is, a Venus fly trap. The irl plant attracts prey in with a sweet smelling/tasting substance between it’s jaws. So I’ve always entertained the thought of a sweet Twoey, luring people in with it’s candied thoughts of what the future will be… then devouring ones that fall for its sweet appearance
… Okay, I just like evil Patton and I had no one else drawn as Twoey at that point. get off my deeyeck.
Audrey and Seymour seem to work well as they are both kind, forgiving, loving characters. Seymour nursing little Twoey and not having the courage to stand up to it until its too late seems reasonable when you’re morality. Same for if he’s Audrey and can’t get themselves out of an abusive relationship, maybe a connection to Nostalgia pt 2 again with him not wanting to let go of the past good times.
And mushnik… technically he doesn’t work, but it’s cute to think he would really want to call Seymour his son. And he’d wear his dad cardigan for heckin’ sure.
Did anyone ask for this? No. But now it’s here, please help me. 
(Oh and the omnipotent urchin people would totally be Joan, Terrence, Valerie, and/or Tayln, because why the fuck wouldn’t they be?)

#little shop of horrors #lsoh #sander sides #AU #lsoh!au #art #my art #my au #send help #paragraphsssssss #yaaaaaaaay #notes #logan sanders #virgil sanders #prince roman #roman sanders #patton sanders #deceit sanders #spoilers???? #puerple's art #sander sides au #ss theater production au #ss!theater production #sanders sides

[lettersfromleslie]

mournin me corners / bats & ghats / & yes, the existence of mysteries!

Righto, long time no pitter patter. Howya been?!

Once again there’s been too much in between to cover in a post and I’m sorta scratching my head wondering where to start. I just got back from a monthlong trip with Ariel and I meant to just go into that, but I guess we’re gonna have to start earlier. Last left off in August, for God’s sake… Right, and so when we got back to New York there was a period with a lot of hard work and administration and very little on the creative side. A move, too - moved apartments in September, that was a whole thing. And all the kickstarters and print proofs and mastering studios and venue haggling and spotify metrics and budget goals and facebook promotion and opening acts and venue shares and profit margins - and a whole lot of fuckin busking - yeah, and by the end of all that I felt a lot more like a salesman than a musician, I reckon. What a busy boy! Could’ve sworn I went into all this before, though.

Wait, I see - okay, so I DID write ye before I left - in fact all this time I had a nice grim post drafted and ready to go. Seems I just never got around to hitting “post”. I must’ve been busy. Anyway, look, it was all this sorta thing:

“I’ll say this: I’m sick of the grind. Writing songs, singing them - I like that. Everything else, it makes me want to flip the board. It seems I have explored every angle of the corner I’m in. It’s not a bad corner; it’s comfortable, I’m well-fed. But it’s a corner, by god, and knowing the confines of your existence is one of the most deadening things there is to know. Being familiar with the shape of the hours you have to spend. Is this what all you workin’ joes out there feel like day to day? My friends tend to make fun of me for these complaints. “Almost like having a real job, huh?” they smirk. Well, I’m not numb to it yet, so I’m running off into the jungle a while. All this time since releasing the new album I’ve been doing what you’re supposed to do as an independent musician, but it’s not what I’m supposed to do, and when you’re untrue to yourself, when you do things you don’t want to, you add to a deficit - and as that deficit grows you become more unlike yourself. And you catch yourself doing things with bad flavours - things that are harsh, rigid, proud, hurtful. This damn corner. What a sad and familiar corner. I know every nook and cranny and no mysteries. Enough. I need those mysteries. I need ghosts, I need bats in the brain. I can’t breathe without a feeling that something unasked for might happen at any moment… Okay, so find a place to be. There’ll have to be a great escape at some point, but for now we’re putting it off with a small escape. To the jungle! Take the money and run!”

Whew, poor fella. Glad I’m not me. Anyway, the verdict’s still out on whether or not it worked, but I feel a bit better, and a lot poorer, so hey, on to the next thing. And I reckon now’s as good a time as any to figure that out. Got the tail end of the winter to ride out, the sparkle of the new album’s starting to fade (though I still have plenty o records left to peddle), and all the other loose ends seem about to get tied up (notably the ill-fated Jackson Bollocks, which ended in tears after two years of preparation and only one concert). Aside from some goofy songs about sad animals I haven’t written a damn thing since god knows when and it’s high time I got back on the horse. As to ideas, I dunno. I think I’ll just turn the tap open and see what gurgles out. One idea I have been flirting with, though, is a small European tour this fall, and I’ll have to be getting on that now. You’ll always hear it here first, folks. I like you long form types. Thoughtful lot, you all are. Time on your hands. Not scrollin too hard.

The trip, the trip… Egh. Maybe I just won’t go into it. Nothing more boring than hearing about the holidays of others. Bit like how hearing other people’s dreams tends to be more boring than you’d expect. Gotta be a real doozy of a dream to hold the attention, even when it comes from someone you’re dying to understand. I reckon it’s because dreams and holidays have that parenthetical quality, existing outside of the main plots of our lives. Besides, it was all me and me lady love, and you know how yucky couples get when you leave em alone too long. Oh - that’s not true, we actually linked up with the famous William Seymour-Jones in Hanoi for a while. Hadn’t seen him in years. Still his same self, maybe even more so. Don’t wanna jinx it or anything but I worked on him a while to come to New York and I think he might even try and do it. I owe a lot to that guy.

Certain places do change ya. Varanasi was one of them. Didn’t spend enough time in India to get more than a taste, really, but there were moments of real awe. It’s such a gift to feel awe again after a long jaded spell. New ways of dealing with the dead. The sensation of a place testing you and unfolding slowly, not giving everything away, more personal than expected, being recognised by strangers, being discussed and folded in.

Anyway, the holidays of others, what? I’ll try and put it into the songs. The nifty thing about a song is if you write it right you can make it so everyone who hears it goes somewhere different. Got some notes from when I was all zonked on bhang lassi ramblin the ghats: “good song shouldnt tell clear story but give access to mysteries”

I like that! I like mysteries!

[ayearofpike]

Thirst No. 3: The Eternal Dawn

Simon Pulse, 2010 478 pages, 26 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-1317-7 LOC: MLCS 2012/41874 (P) OCLC: 651759027 Released October 5, 2010 (per B&N)

When we last saw Sita, she was brain-traveling back in time to kill the first vampire before he was ever born, thus ending the line of eternal bloodsuckers forever. Little did we know that this was simply her way of writing herself out of Seymour’s life. She is very much still immortal. But Sita is learning that there is more to her family, both found and genetic, linked to an even older power that is bound to destroy her. That is, if the multinational trillionaire corporation that happened into some kind of crazy mind control doesn’t do it first.

Check out that fake boast on the cover: “long-awaited new book.” Um ... no? You ended the series, asshole, we weren’t long-awaiting SHIT. But we all know that the new expectations of the genre are that everything is a series, and so the publisher no doubt did more business by linking these books together even though there’d been no previous expectation for another Sita book before the reprinted bind-ups showed us Pike was at it again.

And there’s a lot going on in here too. The Eternal Dawn opens a door to a whole new world of vampire fighting with all the things it introduces. Sita, long a loner, now has a whole cadre of friends and assistants and hangers-on that connect her new world to the old world, and even to the ancient people that she’s just starting to learn about. Again, I get it: teens want to read about popular kids, or at least popular among a small select group. They don’t want a total loner, which actually has become troublesome in itself as school shootings become more regular and publicized and railed against. And also, we have a precedent of Team Vampire from those other popular sparkly vampire books that came out just before this. 

But this doesn’t really work for me. Sita has always been that strong solo artist who didn’t want to rope people into her fold, as much for their own safety as because they couldn’t do stuff as good as her. And yet by the end of this book there’s like eight people all living together. Yes, circumstances change, we’ll get to that, but for someone who read the original Sita books in 1995 and was expecting a story along the same lines, this part feels like a betrayal of her character.

Ugh, I’m already tired of writing about this book and this is only the introduction. Let’s see how fast I can power through the summary.

So for some reason Sita has relocated to Truman Village, Missouri. Well, we learn the reason pretty quickly: Teri Raine, a freshman runner at Truman College who has no idea that her ancestor is still alive and watching out for her. In fact, the first thing Sita does is straight murder a dude who’s raped other girls and now has his sights on Teri. But not just by draining him of blood, which she no longer needs after Kalika: she drinks enough to weaken his heartbeat and then crashes his car into a lake, where he drowns in terror. Holy fuck, Sita, you got even darker.

Back in town, she introduces herself to Teri as a budding writer who wants to hire her as a research assistant. She sets up a meeting with Teri at the club where her boyfriend is playing later that night. Then she goes home, where she feels suspiciously watched, and it turns out there’s a couple driving up to ask what she knows about IIC. This, it seems, is a huge multinational corporation with a penchant for privacy that has an extensive file on one Alisa Perne. Which ... come on, dude, it’s been twenty years, why are you still using the same alias? But these two are curious and suspicious, not just of Sita but also the company, where the woman happens to work even though she’s not totally sure what she actually does. But she does know that her boyfriend was looking into it, just before he mysteriously disappeared.

So Sita says she’ll stay in touch and then goes to her meeting, where she immediately gets all of the boners for Teri’s boyfriend. He’s super talented and totally hot and gives off this aura of worldliness and experience, all of which is like catnip to our eternal vampire. She hasn’t been intimate or even interested since Ray, or I guess Arturo technically. So all of this stuff that happened before was real, but up to this point Sita hasn’t really explained how it got written down or why she’s doing it herself now instead of using a muse like Seymour. She is, in fact, a published writer, and the story she shows her new ... kids? is Pike’s token acknowledgement of the vampire/werewolf dichotomy that you can’t ignore if you’re writing a vampire book in 2010. It’s enough to get Teri to agree that she’ll work with Sita, and they all shake hands and part ways.

But back at Sita’s house, shit is exploding. Like, she pulls up to the garage and bullets start hitting everything. She finds a weapon of her own and dashes out into the woods, where she encounters an unusually strong and skilled man with a Gatling gun. She disables him, but before she can learn who he is and why he’s after her he whispers something in ancient Egyptian and then is consumed by terrible fire. Is this related to the whole IIC mystery?

Who knows? First we gotta drool over Teri’s boyfriend in the pool. Sita wants to help him get this bread (or whatever the kids are saying) with his musical talent, but he isn’t ready for the spotlight. They talk a little more about Sita’s writing and the different pen names she employs, and now the boyfriend is starting to get some feelings that Sita is more than who she claims. Which, why wouldn’t he, she’s not exactly being subtle or cautious in throwing all her wealth at these random kids.

There’s a quick side trip to Fairfield, Iowa, to track down and extract information from the contract killer IIC hired to take out the employee’s boyfriend, and here I had to pause and do some Google Maps. According to the book, Sita flies to Cedar Rapids and then drives 90 minutes to Fairfield, but Truman College is in northeast Missouri. Does this make sense at all? No! There’s no such thing as “Truman Village” or “Truman College,” but there is a Truman State University in Kirksville ... which is already a 90-minute drive from Fairfield. In fact, to fly to Cedar Rapids from Kirksville, Sita would have to connect through St. Louis AND Chicago. How fuckin’ long does this impatient immortal want to travel? Does she not own a globe? There is a public municipal airport in Fairfield; it would have been more believable if Sita had literally flown herself. And guess what? I caught this easily avoidable flub because we’ve seen the hour-and-a-half drive from Cedar Rapids before. Not counting on someone with a master’s in English analyzing your shit, are you, Kev? Or, like ... a map?

But anyway, the killer gives up his next contract, which is a young Indian girl living in San Antonio. Sita flies there and meets the girl, who has been hideously scarred by having acid thrown in her face upon backing out of an arranged marriage. She copes with the pain and partial loss of eyesight by praying to Krishna, which resonates with Sita, obviously. The girl has contract work with IIC, basically answering weekly questions over the phone with yes or no, so it’s unclear to Sita why she’d be a target. But she arranges for the girl to be protected and then takes off for LA, where IIC is headquartered.

Once there, Sita waltzes right into the joint and asks to speak to the CEO. While she’s waiting, a creepy little girl in the waiting room smashes a vase, and Sita helps clean it up. But then she goes into the office, where she immediately feels oppressively observed, and also kind of intimidated that the boss isn’t scared. She (the boss) makes it clear that IIC did not send the fire killer, and Sita was pretty sure already, since the dude in Iowa wasn’t in the same league. She does offer to help Sita protect herself from this mysterious group if she joins up with IIC. But we already know Sita isn’t a joiner, unless it’s a group she can form herself with some random college kids who get her horny.

Instead, she goes to find the couple who tracked her down, but the dude is obviously dead. Well, not obviously, but someone with Sita’s senses can smell the amount of blood that’s been washed down the bathtub. She tracks down the woman and gets her the hell out of town, all the way to ... Barstow? An hour and a half? Seriously? Like, I get it that to someone from the city Barstow probably feels like a middle-of-nowhere armpit (and it is kind of an armpit). But haven’t we already learned that this company can reach people anywhere?

But then Sita leaves and waits to follow the boss home ... only she doesn’t go home for like two days. And when she does, she leaves everything unlocked. There’s another encounter with another creepy little girl, but then the boss is just sitting on the couch watching TV, easy pickings if Sita just wanted to take her out. Only she can’t. In fact, she suddenly finds herself unable to move, act, or even think on her own. The boss somehow manages to compel Sita to stick her gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. But at the last second, Sita thinks of Krishna and ends up shooting the TV. So whatever IIC is, it’s got power that isn’t easily resisted.

Sita ends up taking everybody back to her house in Missouri: the IIC employee, the scarred girl and her uncle, and of course Teri and her boyfriend. Easy pickings, right? Especially now that Teri is running in the NCAA championships, and the strongest performers will be considered for the Olympic team. So Sita, true to her pattern of non-involvement and letting things play out their own way

Just kidding. She totally meddles and gives Teri some blood to make her feel stronger and run faster, but not enough to actually turn her into a vampire. So she wins the championship, and now everybody is going to London for the Olympics.

But Sita’s not done making Club Vampire yet. She has to track down Seymour. Wait a second, didn’t he die? No! It turns out that he got the right medication to treat his AIDS in time, and now is a successful writer living in New York City. However, he’s never shown anybody the weird vampire series he wrote in high school and keeps locked in a desk drawer, so he’s freaked out that Sita knows so much about it. But he does pretty quickly believe her and tag along with the group.

So they go to London (yes, the entire fuckin’ squad) and Sita gives Teri more blood. The boyfriend knows that Sita’s doing something, and he’s highly against it and a little pissed, because Teri would never take a performance-enhancing drug but that’s essentially what this is. Sita gives her more blood, and Teri yells out the name of the original vampire in her sleep, which ... how would she possibly know that? But she turns it on right at the end of the race, winning the gold medal and earning an invitation to party with the president of the United States at his hotel.

And then Sita hears some heartbeats. Four of them, all strong and powerful like the fire killer’s. She knows she’s the target, and figures she’ll be safer if she goes to the president’s party and hides out behind the secret service detail. But the four assassins show up anyway, and Sita ends up going full Matrix, blowing away two at close range and then leaping the height of the ballroom to take out a third. The fourth manages to get away, and Sita has to hypnotize the agents into letting her go after her. The car chase takes Sita to a ferry dock, where she misses the boat and has to swim after it (with the help of some friendly dolphins). She sneaks up on the fourth killer and incapacitates her, then they get off the ferry and drive the killer’s car back across the English Channel.

Let me repeat that. Sita drives a car. Through the Chunnel. Back to England.

(Technically, you can take a car, but it’s like a train-ferry. You don’t actually DRIVE.)

She checks them into a cheap hotel room and sets about trying to extract information from this killer. Yes, they have a connection to the ancient Egyptian civilization that Sita saw before, but they’re not the same evil fourth-dimensional lizard aliens we’ve come to know and love. Their people, the Telar, go back much farther and older than even them. They’ve taken responsibility for the planet and the things living on it, but right now humanity has gotten too large and too hubristic, so the Telar wants to pare it down. They do know about vampires, because one of their number ended up marrying (guess who) Original Vampire like a thousand years ago. So they know about Sita, and have maybe due to blood purity fanaticism have been led to believe she’s even more dangerous than she actually is, which is why they’re trying to wipe her out.

It’s been a long-ass day, so both Sita and her assailant fall asleep. But Sita dreams of demons and evil, and wakes up once more out of control and ends up drinking all the blood of this poor immortal, in the most horrific way. It’s mostly left to our imagination, but when she comes to (thanks to the intervention of Seymour and the young Indian girl) she mentions the “mass of torn flesh” (292) on the bed and feels ill. And lucky for everyone! Teri and her boyfriend have followed Seymour to this random, how-the-shit-did-they-find-it hotel somewhere a solid two-hour drive from London, and they’re totally disgusted by what they see and the boyfriend tells Sita to kindly fuck off and never come back. 

What now? Sita can’t think of anything else but to find her prophet friend, the one who had Miracle Baby way back in the fourth book. The kid is I guess 17 now, and so engrossed in a video game that he won’t even talk to Sita. They’re living somewhere in the Greek islands now, and they drop in uninvited because the lady has taken pains to not tell Sita where she is now. Why is she so pissed? Well, she’s just as annoyed at Sita for trying to take the fate and the responsibility for all of mankind as the boyfriend was. (And actually, the events in this book are pissing me off kind of the same way.) But Sita wants some help and comfort and information, as best they’re willing to give it to her. She’s figured out that picking up the pieces of the glass vase gave IIC enough genetic information on her to be able to control her through their power system, and the prophet friend points out how the Indian girl can block this power. Which we’ve already seen. This is Sita’s protection. 

Still, she’s not willing to put a kid at risk when she follows her lead to Switzerland. Remember the Swiss fax number? Like, put two and two together, Sita. You can remember what someone you met once for ten minutes SMELLS like; you can certainly remember Original Vampire chasing you down from a whole COUNTRY. So she goes there and traces the dude to a hotel, where the owner says he’s been expecting a young blonde woman to ask about this former guest and points her to a secret vault that the guest said she’d be able to open. Inside is a book, in Original Vampire’s handwriting. It discusses how Krishna taught him about this ancient enemy, but stops short of explaining how to overcome it.

She makes a copy and then goes back to return it ... upon which she finds herself locked in a basement cell, the prisoner of the Telar. They’ve got an impressive torture device that taps directly into the pain center of a person’s brain, and they threaten to use it on Sita if she doesn’t tell them all of her dealings with IIC. That’s not a problem: Sita has no love lost for this company that has twice forced her to carry out her basest animal instincts against her will. But she stops short of telling them anything she knows about the ancient prophet or her current day reincarnation, so the torture begins. And again, she finds herself thinking of Krishna, and of Miracle Baby Teen, and finds she can control her brain even as overwhelming pain should be incapacitating her. 

So now the Telar leader doesn’t have control over her anymore, and he’s just about to kill her when everything starts blowing up again. It’s the Abomination, everyone says, which freaks the leader the fuck out. He takes off to warn the overarching bosses and instructs the remaining fighters to not let the Abomination leave this place alive. But they don’t stand a chance: this motherfucker has all of the lasers and straight murders EVERYONE except Sita. Guess who? It’s Teri’s boyfriend! Who it turns out was Original Vampire’s son with the Telar lady he married! No wonder he got Sita so horny. He knew how the Telar felt about vampires, but his dad was one, and he couldn’t just let Dad’s most ancient love die in some basement as a victim of immortal Nazis who also supposedly killed him for betraying the blood purity of their species.

He assault-helicopters them the hell out of town and then they take the whole clan to some abandoned mining town in Colorado, where he owns a safe house. And now Sita has to decide what to do, even though pretty much all the advice she’s gotten in this whole book is “do nothing unless you’re actually targeted.” I guess it’s hard to argue, though, that she’s not a massive target from both sides. She knows that IIC is using its wealth and power to manipulate world governments. She knows that the Telar intend to do the same and fabricate war so that humanity is pared down. And she knows that both powers are at odds. It seems pretty obvious which side is worse, but they’re not even given time to make that choice: the Telar are attacking.

Immortal Boyfriend has prepared for this kind of attack. He sends the mortals down into the mine, and he and Sita find a vantage point to repel the Telar forces. They dispatch pretty much the entire fighting force with a combination of guns, mines, and drones, but not before the Telar manage to release a toxin that makes even these immortals blister and cough. They make for the mine, but Sita hears some Telar nearby and takes one hostage to get the antidote, and he pretty much immediately joins Team Vampire to keep from dying. They go through the mine to Immortal Boyfriend’s other helicopter, but as they’re making their escape the bad guys target them. So it’s time to jump from another helicopter into another lake! Only it’s winter in the Colorado Rockies, and the nearest lake is frozen over, and Teri horrifically breaks her leg when she jumps and is about to die from blood loss.

Yeah. The whole reason Sita started this stupid club in the first place is almost finished, and very much does NOT want to be made over. She states it clearly. But Sita just can’t let her die.

We leap to the epilogue, where Seymour is preparing himself for a funeral. Everyone’s there: the Indian psychic (who has been healed by months of plastic surgery and a little bit of vampire blood), the seer buddy and Miracle Teen, the new Telar recruit, the evacuated IIC employee, Immortal Boyfriend ...

And Teri.

What the fuck? Whose funeral is this?

It turns out that yes, Sita did turn her goddamn descendant into a vampire against her goddamn will, and of course Immortal Boyfriend was even more pissed than before. So much, in fact, that IIC was able to train their system onto him. Sita was able to reason a little bit, but Seymour saw the writing on the wall and couldn’t just let this dear old friend he just met get shot with a frickin’ laser beam. So he charged the dude, and of course he stood no chance, but Sita dove in front of the gun before Immortal Boyfriend could fire it.

So here we are. And Seymour is the last one at the grave, paying his respects. But then Teri comes back. And she whispers into his ear that she is still here, that she is Sita inside Teri’s body.

Obviously now we have to fuckin’ read Thirst No. 4, right? And honestly, as annoyed as I am at how long this vampire story is getting dragged out, and at how much Sita is changing because of market pressures learning from time, this is still a better cliffhanger than “I went to prom with the vampire, somehow wearing a leg cast and one high heel, and thought about what everyone else hadn’t told me yet but I would be finding out in the next three books, so go buy them, everyone.” 

Still. This thing was hard to write, you guys. I will not give up with only five books to go, but seriously? I kind of want to.

[cesium-sheep]

watching pm seymour and there's a post like "the scariest monsters are the ones you can understand because you realize that in the wrong circumstances you might become a monster too" but like. yeah? that's not forbidden horror knowledge that's just. a fact of being human. that I made peace with a long fuckin time ago. and frankly it irritates me to see the cognitive dissonance others put in place to avoid the idea cuz I think it generally does a lot more harm than good.

[ofbesaid-a]

Feel + humble + lust

DAMN. questions for muses / accepting, if u want to send. 

FEEL. How does your character react to a persons touch? A random stranger’s? A loved one’s? A friend’s? / previously answered.HUMBLE. How does your muse handle praise?LUST.  Who does your muse find attractive?

humble. she handles it well. she knows how to say thank you to the one giving her the praise or compliment. but she’s quite modest, really. she never lets it get to her head, and would prefer very much if others didn’t dote on her too much, ya feel? she’ll never admit it, but after a while, it gets tiring????? like... a lot of people tended to focus on her, thanking her for what “she” did and how “she” saved spira, but yuna knows that it wasn’t just her. a lot had to be sacrificed in order for sin to be banished forever, and her guardians, as much as everyone else involved in the process - the al bhed, the crusaders, everyone really!!! had so much to do with it. without everyone singing to the skies, it would’ve been like.... impossible????? for them to get so close to sin???? though she’s fully aware of the responsibility placed on being a summoner, and a high summoner, no less!!! she wants everyone’s efforts to be recognized too! not just her’s! so she does her best to bring attention to that when she can. overall, yuna is quite humble..... she’s already sitting down, but thanks kendrick!! hehe

lust. RUBS HANDS TOGETHER alright....... let me tell u!!! who my child thinks is attractive!!!!!! first and foremost, we gotta get the most obvious answer out the way am i right or am i right? seymour fuckin’ guado, BOIIIIIII!!!!! that chest.... it’s everything. those antlers? EVERYTHING. those EYES???? E. V. E. R. Y. T. H. I. N. G. ok i was half joking but also @aeonchains i hope you’re happy? obviously, tidus is quite attractive to her. she thinks wakka’s handsome, but she wouldn’t be attracted to him if their relationship was different. she thinks lulu is one of the most beautiful women she’s ever since, and a lot of it has to do with her grace. rikku is quite cute to her! brother, not so much ehehehe. she believes baralai and nooj are quite handsome, and there’s just something about gippal... but she won’t admit it if you ask her. paine also has an allure to her (probably those boots that she wants to be stepped on with you feel???? @fynneun) i know i highkey listed a lot of characters, but.... i feel like.... you know.... yuna is appreciative of the beauty around her and those are her friends????? like she believes they are attractive people, but that doesn’t necessarily mean... more than that, you know? like, if i had to say honestly? that most physically and sexually attracted she is would be toward tidus, but that’s also bcus of the relationship they share.

#meme: kdotdamn #meme tag #& you were a writer * BEFORE YOU EVER PUT PEN TO PAPER / headcanon. ) #i want to post this now instead of the queue bcus i do what i want!!! lmao #fxllenmxster #asks