#for years I’ve waited for the two of them to be cast in these roles

[masteroftheblankstare]

I apologize for the person I’m going to become now that this is official.

#i am foaming at the mouth #can finally sleep now #superman legacy #david corenswet #rachel brosnahan #superman #lois lane #for years I’ve waited for the two of them to be cast in these roles

[wilwheaton]

When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.

River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.

I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.

At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).

I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.

My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.

It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.

Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)

But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.

Okay. Back to The Curse.

This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.

One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.

No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”

It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.

I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.

It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).

So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.

My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.

Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.

My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.

The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?

My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she’d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.

My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.

Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.

She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.

Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.

But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.

There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.

I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.

I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.

This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.

As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.

Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.

There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).

Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.

#tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw exploitation #child actor #still just a geek #lucio fulci #trauma survivor #speaking up for the child who was silenced by his abusers

[josephquinnswhore]

Hello

I’ve had this idea for a while :}

What if reader and Pedro had a la la land moment when they break up and then reunir two years later at an awards show and realize they still have feelings for each other

Like right person wrong time :>

Finding Our Way Back

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x female reader.

Summary: you and Pedro rekindle your relationship after seeing him at an award show, it’s been two years since you’ve separated and he looks better than ever.

Word Count: 3.7k

Content Warning: allusions to reader that worked in a shit workplace, fluff.

Note: thanks so much for requesting. Thought I’d do the MTV awards since he’s nominated and I’ve already written about Pedro at the Oscars! I hope you love it 🫶🏼

As an interviewer for Vanity Fair, you knew it was highly likely that you’d run into your ex boyfriend, Pedro Pascal at the MTV awards as he was nominated with Bella Ramsay in the category “best duo,” after his latest role as Joel Miller. Although things had ended amicably on both ends, it had been two years ago since you split; your maturity, respect and the love you still had for him played a part in that clean break. You wanted to beg for him to stay with you, to try and make things work; but he was having a big breakthrough in his career and you couldn’t be selfish with him, after decades of his hard work to get to where he is now, so you let go. After years of smaller roles, despite you reassuring him he was incredible in all roles he played, he knew this one would change his life, working on a project with his idol Nick Cage.

Funnily enough, being in this situation was how you met. You standing at an event in a dress that was too tight and itchy on your skin, waiting to interview the nominees for this award show. Although all those years ago you didn’t work for such a well known, respected company as VF.

You worked for a small company called For You Entertainment, they were working their way up the ladder attending small events with D-List celebrities when your producer thankfully got you a breakthrough, an interview with the cast of Narcos at the end of season 2 premiere. You were nervous and fidgeting with your lilac sequin dress that was so tight you were cursing your stylist internally for making you wear clothing that was a size too small for your waist. Your lungs felt heavy as they couldn’t inhale fully, the feeling of being claustrophobic in your own skin was dizzying, along with the sweatiness of your hands and the bright light from your film crew, it was all too much. A staff member from the event, led Pedro to you and you knew you were screwed, the knowing look in those chocolate brown eyes, he knew how anxious you were feeling, he read you instantly. Your co-workers were ready to begin filming when Pedro held his hand up, signalling for the men to stop momentarily, and they did.

“Hey, I’m Pedro. It’s so nice to meet you…”

His hand meets your own as you introduce yourself, he catches the wobble in your voice as your confidence plummets to the ground beneath your heels. He offers a kind smile and you’re enamoured by how kind he’s being, how gentle and attentive he is; he was doing whatever he could to make you comfortable.

“Are you okay?”

You let out a shaky breath and huff out a small laugh,

“this is my first ever interview with like, a real celebrity and you’re my celebrity crush. Plus this dress is a size too small which they picked on purpose, something about making my boobs perkier.”

The speed at which your mouth rambles leaves your brain unable to comprehend the words that leave them for a few seconds, the moment you register what you say your eyes are wide and Pedro is laughing sweetly.

“It’s a pleasure to be here with you, don’t be nervous, I think you look stunning. You can do this, I’m here to help you make things go smoothly! Shall we?”

How wrong he was, he wasn’t just like any other guy, that’s what drew you in, he sucked you into his orbit, the gravity holding you down to him. Alas, you agree to start the interview. Your nerves somewhat shaken and cheeks a deep shade of red, along with a tingle of heat on your face you’d never experienced prior to Pedro’s flattery.

“Let’s do this.”

You bare a shy grin and give the camera man a thumbs up as they prepare to start the interview.

There was nothing wrong with your relationship with Pedro. It had just seemed like the relationship had run it’s course through the years. You were studying and working full time, 60 hours a week you were in a chokehold of being underpaid and overworked, being younger, new to the industry and vulnerable, you let your boss expose you to the cruelty of the profession when you had several employees that treated you like a doormat. Pedro had always insisted he hated how much you worked for them; how terribly they treated you and crushed your potential within months, that you could achieve more.

Pedro has just gotten a main role in “the unbearable weight of massive talent” when things fell apart, he was incredibly hard working and committed to his work life, the man that was practically married to his career left you in a position of what felt like roommates more than actual lovers. The conversation was hard and you almost didn’t go through with it; you knew you’d regret it but it was necessary, you couldn’t live like this anymore. You missed the intimacy and the connection, feeling like you were in a loveless relationship even though you loved him endlessly.

He had gotten home from a long day of filming, body slumped as he walked through the door, hours and hours on end of filming had him exhausted, he was surprised to see you sitting on the couch with the light and tv on when he walked through the front door.

“Hey, you’re up?”

The confusion in his voice was evident and you inhaled a shaky breath, turning to face him, you nearly backed out of your plan like a coward. Instead you invite him to sit next to you.

“Yeah, we need to talk, will you come sit?”

Pedro’s thick eyebrows are pinched in a frown, looking his age when the wrinkles in his face become evident. The lounge dips as he sits next to you, his large hand on your knee as his brown eyes watch you.

“Is everything okay?”

His voice is cautious and you just exhale, not questioning your own judgment.

“I think it would be in both our favours if we part ways, I’d prefer if we could do this amicably and still be friends afterwards. There’s no connection or intimacy anymore, we’re both too busy. Maybe if,” you sigh loudly unable to find the courage to finish the sentence. Luckily, Pedro knows what you’re thinking.

“If we were at a different stage in life, right?”

He finishes the thought in your head and you nod, fat tears falling down your face, his arms are quick to pull you into a hug, your head rests on his shoulder and he kisses the back of your head.

“I still love you, maybe things will work out for us one day, hm?”

You chuckle, the noise wet as you choke back your tears, “that would be a dream wouldn’t it?”

Having worked for Vanity Fair for the past 12 months, you had met some well known A-list celebrities, some in which would be here tonight at the mtv awards, some people attending not as well known but still nonetheless attending and perfectly deserving of your attention. Your black cocktail dress hugged your figure perfectly, hair pulled upward and styled neatly. Your faces natural beauty was accentuated by the light make up that had been carefully applied by the companies make up artist. The shades of pink and gold on your eyelids were glistening in the lights that shone a bright white overhead as you stood in the middle of the walkway right before the entry to the building where the awards were being held.

Your manager had warned you sympathetically that Pedro was one person you’d be interviewing, it didn’t take much reassuring on your behalf to assure her that although and and Pedro hadn’t really spoken since you broke up; besides the yearly birthday messages and him liking your Instagram posts, that things were okay between you and you were happy to interview him.

When you see him, he’s looking as handsome as ever. His brown hair had a few greying strands on the side of his head near his temples. The purple suit he wears clings to his body and he wears it with finesse, the grapefruit colour makes his skin look its glowing in a golden light, the suit hangs off his broad shoulders with no room to spare. A small heart-shaped patch in his black and grey beard was still failing to fill with hair on the left side of his face. He smiles so widely when he sees you, quickening his casual pace to a speed walk to bump his body into yours, wrapping his strong arms around you to pull you into a hug, his big muscles bulging against your dress-clad skin. You accept the hug and pull him into you, squeezing him as your arms wrap around the back of his neck, the cologne he wears compliments the natural musk of him that you recognise and miss so dearly.

You fight the urge to look at his plump lips a second time, the shade of pink whispered sweet words to draw you into him like a hypnotist, threatening you to kiss him against your will. He pulls back and stands tall next to you, he towers over you, even in your 3 inch heels.

“Pedro Pascal, what a warm welcome. Thank you so much for joining us this evening.” You greet warmly, holding the microphone between the small gap between your bodies, he misses the redness on your cheeks as he grins so widely his dimple exposes itself.

“Thank you for having me, it’s so great to be here, and it’s so great to see you, look at you, you’re looking stunning this evening.” He stands a little too close to you than he does anyone else that’s trying to get an interview from him, his fondness of you showing through the camera that records you.

“You always were a charmer weren’t you. This suit is incredible, you’re looking dapper tonight.” Your free hand that isn’t holding the mic gently runs a hand down his suit, keeping your hand on his chest, getting a feel for the material. You grin at the redness of his cheeks before getting to what the fans really want.

“Now, there is something your fans are begging me to address. As the self proclaimed biggest daddy on the internet, are your fans all your children?” Pedro laughs, the sound is ringing in your ears like the most delightful song you’ve ever heard. He takes the microphone from you and turns to the camera, “yes, you are all my children. I will warn you, grogu may get a little jealous.”

“That’s so sweet, why do you think you chose these roles that have you as basically a father figure?” You muse, eyes batting unintentionally as you’re drawn into his charming character. “I mean, truthfully I would love to have kids someday. Since that’s not an option right now I’m opting for the role of playing dad.” Your heart starts racing, both in awe and disappointment, knowing you would never be the one to bare his children, as his girlfriend or wife, you had missed your opportunity years ago.

“Now we do have a question that a lot of people are begging us to ask you and who are we to deny them?Does Joel Miller in the tv series meet the same fate as the game?” Pedro bares his teeth in a grimace and looks directly into the camera. “It’s going to be almost exactly the same, sorry kids.” He shrugs casually before turning back to you.

“Well Pedro it’s been such a delight to talk with you this evening, we’re wishing you and Bella the best to win an award, have a wonderful evening!” Pedros hands cross in front of his torso, fumbling with the silver ring that sits on his pinky. “Of course it’s amazing to see you. Thank you, have a great night.” He waves to you sweetly as he walks off with a staff member that’s leading him into the building. You stop filming and let out a big sigh.

“How are you feeling?” Your cameraman Andrew asks, “I’m okay, just feels like an open wound still, I guess.” He offers a sympathetic smile, “you did great. That was an awesome interview, everyone’s going to love it. Your chemistry is off the charts.”

You silently agree. The chemistry was still there, maybe you should just, text him later as a “it was so good to see you” curtesy text. Regardless of how terrible he was at texting, it would show you made an effort.

It’s been hours since you saw and spoke to Pedro, his image ingrained in your brain every time you close your eyes, where you’re normally met with blackness this night you’re met with his smile, the smell of his natural musk, the scent of his cologne lingered on your own skin as if he lie next to you. The heaviness of his hands as he hugged you felt as if he was still touching you, it made you restless. You were struggling to sleep even when the streets below your apartment began turning off their lights, one by one you seemed to be the only one wide awake in the neighbourhood.

11:28pm. After changing your mind about half a dozen times on what to write, you settle on something kind and friendly, and you send the text: “it was so good to see you tonight, you look great.”

To your surprise it’s barely a minute before he replies: “it was such a pleasure to see you, can I ask you something?”

Your heart is racing as you can barely think about what he could possibly ask, you assure him: “of course, anything.”

The bubble comes up as if he’s typing, then disappears. You grown as you watch him type and delete this message before it finally comes through after a few minutes: “going to bed anytime soon?”

You raise an eyebrow to yourself and whisper, “seriously that’s what took you so long?” And reply to him: “nope, wide awake.”

“Want some company? I can bring coffee.” You rub your eyes in disbelief, wondering if this is real or an illusion.

“Please do. You know how I like it.” You send through your address as you’ve moved to a newer and slightly bigger apartment in the last year. “Be there soon.” He replies without a moments notice.

“Shit.” You mutter to yourself as you rush to the bathroom, attempting to make yourself look presentable, brushing your hair down neatly before braiding it, smoothing out your pyjamas and turning on some lights in the living room as you turn on the tv to Disney Plus turning on Moana as you attempt to sit comfortably.

There’s a soft knock at the door and you get an alert on your phone that someone’s outside, you check your phone, seeing Pedro standing in black pants, a white shirt and a large black trench-coat, a cardboard cup holder in hand with two Starbucks coffees occupying the space. You smooth out your pyjamas once again and unlock the two locks to your front door, feeling winded as you see your ex boyfriend standing there looking as beautiful as ever with a shy smile on his face.

You open the door and step to the side, “please, come in.” He shudders slightly from the breeze that drafts in from outside, your house abnormally warm and the feeling is welcome on his cold skin. “You have a nice place here. How long ago did you move in?” You take the coffees and sit them down in the cup holders in your lounge as he takes off his trench-coat, the atmosphere too warm for the accessory. “Coming up 12 months now. Right after I started working for Vanity Fair.”

You gesture for Pedro to sit on the lounge after he hands his coat on the coat hanger by the door, he keeps a respectable space between you, unlike earlier in the evening where he stood entirely too close. “Moana always was your favourite.” Pedro muses to himself. “Somethings never change.” You reply with a shrug, the statement having a double meaning behind it.

“Yeah, I guess. What’s new in your life anyway. Other than work and all the formalities?” He questions, the hopeful look in his eye beams as you sink comfortably into the grey couch, “nothing really, I’m quite boring these days. The same girl you know.” You sip your coffee and hum in contentment, missing the way Pedro whispered “and love.” After your statement, “thanks so much for the coffee, it’s perfect. It’s any wonder you still remember,” you admit.

“How could I forget my girls coffee order?” Pedro freezes, realisation of what he said sinks in. “I mean, I meant- I didn’t..” he stutters and you rest your hand on his, trying to diffuse his panicked state. “It’s okay, I’ve missed you you know. Seeing you tonight made me realise how much I never got over you.” The admission has both of your skin burning with desire and slight embarrassment. “You feel that way?” His voice is sweet, you wish he would just talk to you all night, you’d simply sit and listen.

“Of course I do. I’ve always loved you Pedro.” Just like that the bomb has dropped, the elephant in the room is too large and suffocating to ignore, you still love him, years later you still love him.

“I’ve been needing to hear that for such a long time. I love you, I was a fool to let you go,” you lean into the warmth of Pedro’s hand as he caresses your face, your heart rate spiking at his touch and confession. “We can always just.. pick up where we left off,” you offer sweetly. Pedro’s eyes raise at your offer, the ball was in his court and he was going to take it. Without another word he pulls you into him, your lips smashing into his, moulding together like two unique puzzle pieces that were made for each other.

You part your lips and grant him access to deepen the kiss, years of unspoken love and missing each other all came to surface with this kiss. When you pull apart you’re both heaving, foreheads pressed together you stare into his chocolate orbs. “Please be mine. I don’t think I could go another day knowing you’re not mine.” You exhale a shaky breath, the taste of him still on your lips, “I was always yours Pedro. We just had to find out way back.” Pedro’s thumb strokes your cheek and let’s put a small laugh, almost in relief. “I’m grateful we did. Everything feels right again.”

You nod as you silently agree with him, the hole left empty now felt overfilled, you knew your cup would never be empty again with Pedro by your side again, “stay the night.” Your nose grazes his cheek as you whisper. He pulls you into his lap, strong arms holding you in place as he kisses your shoulder. “When have I ever been able to say no to you?”

“I’ll teach you how to stop being such a people pleaser one day you know.” You jest lightly. “As long as I have you, none of that even matters, baby.” You turn to kiss him, the intoxicating sweetness of his lips is almost impossible to pull away from. “You’ll always have me. Promise.” A few moments of silence pass before you ask, “did you win the award?” Pedro hums before he realises what you’ve said, pulling his eyes away from the tv, “yeah we did, Bella was stoked, it was such a big moment for them.” You lean into his chest, smiling in content with how perfectly things were falling into place.

#Pedro pascal #mtv awards #Pedro pascal as Joel miller #Pedro pascal x you #Pedro pascal x reader #Pedro pascal x fem reader #Pedro pascal rpf #Pedro pascal x ex girlfriend #right person wrong time #Pedro pascal x interviewer reader

[stagkingswife]

Around the holidays I had the unique joy of meeting up with @windvexer in person while they were visiting my beloved New York City.  Over sushi, dessert, and then just hanging out in their hotel lobby we had a wide ranging conversation about our practices, UPGs, etc.  The conversation eventually drifted to comparing our spirit lead initiations.  Chicken’s story is theirs to share, or not, as they choose. But I’ve been thinking a lot since that conversation about my own initiation and how it parallels another important story in my life. 

When I was 15 I was a dancer and I was good, like competing at a national level.  I was cast as Odette in my ballet school’s adaptation of Swan Lake.  I practiced, and rehearsed, and trained all year long for the role. Then a month before recital weekend my family and I went on a weekend trip to Gettysburg. I also love history, and my dad and I had just read a book about the battle of Gettysburg together, so we clambered all over the battlefield.  I tore a calf muscle doing this.  I saw my usual doctor for injuries and wore a cast for three weeks, walked through rehearsals, took it easy.  Once the cast was off a week before the recital I ramped up slowly, warmed up more than usual, stretched carefully, everything.  But come recital weekend I danced my heart out and left everything on the stage.  3 weeks later I was diagnosed with CRPS in the leg I had injured. What does any of this have to do with my initiation?  Everything, just bare with me. 

My childhood mentor had been initiated by the spirits of her tradition, and she had spoken to me about the effect this had had on her.  I had written an academic paper on initiatory spiritual traditions and the phenomena of initiation sickness.  I knew, long before Oisin ever broached the topic with me, that a spirit lead initiation could wreck your life, that it would be trying in ways that were specifically designed to change you on a fundamental to suit the spirit's needs, and that undertaking one would have consequences I couldn’t even begin to image.  I also knew that dancing Swan Lake one week out of a cast could have disastrous results for my dance career.  But I loved the music and choreography.  I loved how I felt while I was dancing.  So I danced.  I was already in love with Oisin when he presented me with this trial. I loved learning from him, and working with him, and if there was something hard, even something impossible, that he needed me to do so that I could keep learning and working with him - it was no question. 

I had no way of knowing when I was teenager waiting in the wings in my white leotard and feathered wig that I was about to dance my last ballet.  That in less than a year I would start using a cane, or that I would one day swap the cane for a wheelchair, or any of the changes and accommodations that I’ve had to make in my life for my disability.  I only knew the love. When I said yes to Oisin I couldn’t have predicted how much it would break me when he killed my soul, dismembered it, and scattered the innumerable shreds across the Otherworlds.  I could have imagined the amazing and terrifying things I saw and experienced on my journey to find those fragments and assemble myself - or what it was like to live without a complete soul in the meantime. And nothing could have prepared me for the permanent changes the whole process had wrought on my life: on my physical health, my mental health, the very fact that my spiritual oaths and promises must always come first for me.  I only knew the love. 

17 years after my diagnosis, and 13 after my initiation started, I look back at the choices that led to both and would make them both again, even knowing the consequences.  These two choices, more than almost anything else in my life, have shaped who I am as an adult and I like that person.  These choices came from the right place, both times.  Not from ambition, greed, guilt, or fear, but love.  And I can’t ever regret what I did for love.

#witchcraft #pagan #the returning #spirit work #initiation #spirit lead initiation

[jimblejamblewritings]

Our Violent Delights Will Not Have Violent Ends: The Twilight Saga Rewrite (Book 1, Twilight) | Part 1.

Summary: Y/N Swan is just like every other girl and she likes it that way. Normal is fantastic. Normal creates a functioning member of society. Normal is the reason she moved to a small town to live with her police officer father... only to find out that she gets the farthest thing from what she wanted. \\ This is a re-write of Twilight. Basically if I had been Stephenie Meyer and wrote Twilight. I will be combining some of the movie and book and the pace will be more like the movies. Not terribly high word count like the books. We might equal one book's word count when we finish doing all four of them. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings for the Series: light violence, light angst, light smut

Warnings for the Chapter: none

Pairing: Edward Cullen x reader, Jacob Black x reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Author's Note: If there are "I" written anywhere in the story, please let me know. I'm posting this story on Wattpad in the I form so I might forget to erase one or two here. Enjoy being casted in the feature role of Bella Swan. Let's go:

A police car pulled up in front of you as you waited outside Seattle-Tacoma International. To think, only four months ago you were trying to purchase plane tickets for spring break. Only you wanted to go to New York with the rest of your classmates. The last place you were ever thinking of was Washington. The state, not even D.C. 

And more importantly not Forks, Washington. But you promised your mom that you could handle this. The only thing worse than that small town for the entire year was traveling so much you might as well be homeschooled. When your mom remarried her now husband, Phil, he played baseball for the Phoenix team.

Phil’s good but he wasn’t good enough to be traded around. You thought your whole life would be Arizona. Until Florida called. And your sweet stepfather and lovingly erratic mother packed up everything before suddenly remembering you had school. So moving to Forks had been a you decision but you're not sure how good of a decision that was. 

The car in front of you rolled down its window until you could see your dad. Charlie flashed a smile that you struggled to return. He’s great. You've spent every single summer with him and almost every one of those summers was in Forks.

But two months is a lot different from the entire school year. You knew only a few people that would be going to Forks High School. A pang hit your heart when you thought about your friends again. You guys promised to call but you'd probably fall out of each other’s lives anyway. But you tried to smile once more, putting your suitcases in the back of the police car and pulling on a thick wool sweater over your shirt and overalls. 

As soon as you slid into the passenger seat, it started to rain — a stark reminder that this wasn’t Phoenix. 

You could feel Charlie’s head keep turning to the side to look at you. Like your dad in more ways than one, the start to small talk was awkward for you. The two of you went back and forth in a silent dance until Charlie saved you from speaking about the weather. 

“Your hair has gotten longer.” 

You grabbed a piece of your now shoulder length hair. Two years ago, in the spur of the moment, you had shaved your head to start over. It was the moment after that you decided you would never do that again. Charlie had to suffer the period of you not being able to look at yourself in the mirror. You looked like an egg. It took dedication but your hair was now long and damage free. 

“Yeah, I’ve tried to stop using heat completely. Except the blow dryer.” 

While starting small talk might have been difficult, once Charlie and you were talking no one could get you to stop. The conversation was still going as the car passed the ‘Welcome to Forks’ sign that should have read population: too damn small instead of an actual number — and even when we got out of the car and into the house. Your room wasn’t terribly different from other summers but you noticed drawers and wardrobes that weren’t there before. You guessed when one permanently moves they suddenly need storage for their things. Charlie even cleared more bathroom space. 

That was probably the one thing you hated about this house. One bathroom. Someone should have slapped the architect that ever suggested this… and then slap the builder that followed through anyway. 

You only unpacked the bare essentials for the next week or so. The rest could be slowly unpacked as time went on. Charlie helped for a few hours before doing his shuffle he does whenever he’s uncomfortable. All he could say was okay before leaving the room.

Even though you two can talk for hours, he’s still awkward to his core. You supposed that you should be happy as a teenager that he doesn’t hover. He never has. You used to think it was because being a cop made him busy all the time and he just developed the habit. As the years went on, it became more apparent that it was just his personality. 

A car honk right outside the window caught your attention. You looked through the glass to see an orange pickup truck and some of the only two faces in town that were familiar to you. Your feet carried you out the door before you were even aware until you crashed right into a boy with hair longer than yours, roughly your height, and only a few months younger in age. 

“Woah, Y/N/N, slow down before you hurt yourself. You know you can't be trusted on your own two feet. I'm surprised you're still standing right now or is it just because I'm holding you up.” Jacob said as he gave you a smile. 

“Whatever, dick."

"Whoa, Y/F/N. Language when you're standing right in front of me," Dad interjected but he didn't look that offended.

"Sorry... Hi, Billy.” 

“Hi, Y/N. Glad you’re back and here to stay. Charlie wouldn’t shut up about it since you told him.” 

Your dad rolled his eyes. “Keep talking and I’ll roll that wheelchair right into the middle of the road.” 

“Not before I ram you in the ankles.” 

You and Jacob’s dads abandoned you to play fight in the road. You couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight. 

“I’m glad to see they’re still behaving like that.” 

“Oh, yeah. Days go by and nothing’s different. It's getting worse with old age actually, I'm convinced that's why Mom is always on business trips… So, do you like your present?” 

You turned to face Jacob. “Hmm?” 

He patted the truck just as your dads came back. Your eyes went wide and your lips twitched until they formed a large smile. 

“Are you serious? This is perfect! Dad, you didn’t have to get me a car.” 

Charlie shrugged. “I work late sometimes and thought that your personal autonomy was very important.” 

He’s trying to sound like a parent that actually read the child psychology books. The why he bought me a car didn’t matter. It was the fact that he just did. A truck didn’t exactly fit my aesthetic but something about vintage ones totally did.

"Don't worry, I worked on it myself. Everything's perfect," Jacob said.

"You did this? By yourself now? Jake, what the heck. That's crazy you're doing it on your own now. Why are you so amazing?"

Before anyone could actually answer you, you whipped open the door and sat inside. You remembered this truck very well from playing in it since you and Jake were four. Billy had this thing for at least seventeen years. The first thing you noticed were the new leather seats. They were pink instead of gray. The second thing you noticed was the engine’s sound. Smoother than it had ever sounded before. 

Jacob opened the passenger door, hopping in to show you how the car operated. He was a genius at fixing cars and trucks. You wouldn’t be surprised if he owned his own mechanic shop some day. 

“And that’s it.” He patted the steering wheel. “If anything breaks, let me know.” 

“Thank you! God, I’m so glad I have one recognizable face at school.” 

“You’ve only been missed two summers. Did you already forget I don’t go to Forks?” 

“Right.” 

Jake, like most of the Quileute kids, went to a high school on the reservation in La Push. People weren’t as judgmental when they all shared something common. There they could wear their hair long, tell folklore stories without getting made fun of, or try speaking little words here and there of Quileute so the language doesn’t die with their great grandparents.

All things you would have loved to be part of or just sit on the sidelines and observe. Maybe you should have complained to Charlie until you went there. Now you couldn’t leech off of Jacob and had to actually make friends on your own. Disgusting. 

Your sentiments didn’t change as you got in the truck and headed to school. You were assigned a parking space the moment you transferred. Unlucky you, you were stuck in the front parking lot.

So much for leaving to go get a better lunch than whatever grub they were going to serve at the cafeteria. Charlie worked too much to even think about asking him to get you something. And you couldn’t ask him to cook either. He’s not really shit at it. It's just his taste buds suck. So unless you wanted to text him a specific lunch menu each Sunday, it was Russian Roulette of lunch. That was too much work. Charlie thinks salami and grapes belong on the same piece of Nutella and butter toast. 

When you finally found the parking space, after three circles around, you turned off the engine and found a bunch of eyes greeting you. Lots of them. That’s what being the new kid in a small town gets a person. The eyes stopped staring once you got out of your truck — they needed a face to match the name Bella Swan. 

“Nice ride,” a black boy in a red hoodie said as he nodded at your car. 

“Thanks, just got it.” 

“Cool.” 

You didn’t exchange any other words before you entered the building. You stared at the paper schedule, trying to memorize classrooms and the stupid tiny map in the corner. An arm suddenly tapped your shoulder. 

“You’re Y/F/N Swan, right? Our new girl.” 

You turned to your right to see an Asian boy with a black polo shirt and the most emo haircut you've seen in a while. You took a double take at his outfit and then at the outfits of your peers around you. Suddenly, you were feeling terribly overdressed.

Your thrifted Burberry monogram poncho doubled as a blanket that you would inevitably need because it sat on top of a long sleeved black mini dress. Was it impractical for January in Washington? Probably. But fashion made everything work. At least you had worn snow boots. 

“Yeah. It’s just Y/N by the way.” 

“Just Y/N. Got it. Well, hi, I’m Eric and your eyes and ears of this place. Anything happens and I know about it. If you need a tour guide, shoulder to cry on, or lunch date then I’m your man.” 

Eric made conversation naturally, no small talk in sight. Kind of like Jacob. You chuckled. “I’ll take a rain check on the lunch date but I do need to find room 33C.” 

“Let me lead the way.” 

He started to lead you down the hallway and to a set of stairs. “So, why move to Forks?” 

“I’m not a baseball girl.” 

Eric snapped his fingers. “Perfect tagline for your spread. I’m the editor-in-chief of the paper and you are front page news.” 

“Oh… Just the front page right? I mean I don’t mind the paper but more than two pages and I’ll transfer.” 

“Got it. Spread killed, feature only. And here’s your stop.” 

“Thank you so much.” 

“I’ll be back for whatever other classes you need to find.” 

True to his word, Eric came back and led you to all my morning classes, including the dreaded P.E. You didn’t hate exercise. You just hated whatever wasn’t pilates or a Jane Fonda workout. Besides, you were never good at P.E. anyway. The testament to that was the gym teacher thinking you should do the volleyball exercises with some of the other girls. 

You flinched as the ball came towards you. It didn’t go back over the net. Instead, it hit my calculus desk partner, Mike Newton, in the back of the head. 

“Sorry!” you yelled as you sped away to hide in the locker room until lunch period. 

Mike seemed to forget about it when lunch came. He talked your ear off all the way into the cafeteria. You had forgotten that a small town wouldn’t be like Phoenix. Everyone wanted to talk to the new kid. Whether they were friends or not was yet to be determined. But Mike was a gentleman. He pulled out your seat for you. 

“Thank you.” 

“My pleasure, Madame.” 

Eric laughed. “Mikey, glad you met my girl Y/N.” 

“Oh, your girl?”

“Excuse me, my girl. We even bonded over cars,” The black boy from earlier rubbed your hair in fake affection before pulling the chair out from under Mike. 

“You’re so dead, Tyler!” he yelled as they ran after him. 

The two girls at your table gave a mix of a laugh and a scoff. A girl with a chunky pink headband slid over a juice carton from her tray. 

“Sorry about that. It’s like kindergarten all over again, isn’t it? You’re the shiny new toy. Hi, I’m Jessica by the way.” 

“Oh, almost forgot,” the other girl with glasses picks up a camera. “Smile!” 

The flash blinded me for a moment. “Woah.” 

“Sorry, I need some candids for the spread.” 

“The spread is dead, Angela,” Eric said in an oddly defensive tone. “Don’t bring it up again… I got your back, babe.” 

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from your throat. Eric left, leaving you, Jessica, and Angela at the table. Angela set her camera down. 

“Great, now what am I supposed to do about filling up the rest of the newspaper? I can’t do another editorial on teen drinking. It’d be the third time.” 

“You could always run a psa on eating disorders,” you tried to offer an option. “Or um… padding on the swim team?” 

The other girls looked at you and for a moment you thought you said something completely wrong but they began laughing. You caught bits of the conversation as you focused on my food: some of the guys bragging about their sizes that seemed totally fake, speedos fitting improperly, and wondering if they only pad for school pictures. 

Going back to the conversation, a glimpse at the window caught your eye before you could speak. Five people walked like this school was a runway. 

“Who are they?” you asked. 

Jessica dropped her fork on her tray, ready to tell you everything. “The Cullens. Dr. and Mrs. Cullen’s foster kids.”

The names were ones you couldn't remember hearing while visiting over the summers. They were either new kids or never came around La Push. One thing you couldn’t deny was that they were all attractive. And the shorter girl had wicked fashion sense. She strutted by like the rest of them in her thin and flowy white maxi skirt with a chunky black sweater and heels entirely too high for you to ever try wearing. You felt almost entranced just looking at them.

“They’re all like together,” Jessica continued. “Rosalie, the blonde one, yeah she’s with the big one, Emmett. Like a thing.”

“Jess, they’re not actually related,” Angela quickly interjected.

“Yeah I know, but it’s still kinda weird that they live together, don’t you think? Anyway, the small dark-haired girl Alice is with Jasper. He’s the one that always looks like he’s in pain. The two blondes are actually siblings, Mrs. Cullen’s niece and nephew or something like that.”

“Dr. Cullen’s like this foster dad matchmaker.”

“Maybe, he’ll adopt me,” Angela said.

You chuckled. If Dr. Cullen was such a matchmaker then you’d have to tell Charlie goodbye.

“What about him?” you motioned to the last guy left. He walked ahead of his foster siblings like he was the leader or something. 

“Edward? Totally hot, supposedly single. No one here seems good enough for him. Don’t waste your time. Like I care, just don’t waste your time.” 

“Trust me, wasn’t planning on it.” 

You knew that Jessica could have a skewed perspective. Maybe something happened between the two of them but Angela seemed to agree with her. This Edward probably was nothing but bad news and trouble.

You dared myself to look at their table again. Your eyes squinted when you saw their trays. Nothing looked touched. When you looked up, all five of them were staring at you. You whipped your head around and didn’t dare look back again until after lunch. 

Thankfully, the classes you had right after lunch didn’t have any of them… until bio class. The teacher, Mr. Donoghue motioned for you to sit at the only empty seat that happened to be next to Edward. You nodded and began moving to the chair. A chill ran down you spine and you shivered as the chill pierced your back. Edward stiffened up at the same time. 

You scowled as he held his hand over his mouth and nose. You had taken a shower, put on nice perfume, lotioned, and wore nice jewelry. There was absolutely no way you smelled. His hand stayed over the lower part of his face the entire class period. Even when he had to hand over material, he pushed them to you with a pencil. The moment the bell rang, Edward was gone. Good riddance. 

Mr. Donoghue signed the last spot in my slip saying you made it to class successfully and now you could give it to the receptionist. You paused in the doorway after seeing someone’s back but it was too late. The receptionist had seen you. 

“Just a moment, dear.” 

The person with the back turned around to reveal a troubled face. He grabbed his coat. “Never mind, I’ll just have to endure it.” 

You rolled your eyes, handed in you slip and went to your truck. Edward was a total douche. Yet you couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d be seeing each other more often than you’d like. Probably more often than he’d like as well. 

Charlie wasn’t finished working when school was over but had enough time for a dinner break. His friend, Waylan, brought takeout from Subway. You didn’t remember Waylan very well. He left for most of the summer each year to visit his kids and grandkids that left Washington. You all moved stuff around on Charlie’s desk to clear space so you could eat. You had a Spicy Italian sub while the two of them ate BLTs. The two of them shared a different sentiment about the Cullens when you asked them. 

Unlike the kids at school, they had nothing but praise. The Cullens weren’t weird but mature and well-rounded teenagers. And Dr. Cullen was the best surgeon they’ve had… and he stayed past one year which is an accomplishment. Certain jobs like doctors and lawyers always come from out of town. Most leave after one or two years, not able to handle the slow pace of this green and gray town. 

Soon, Charlie and Waylan talked in the most stereotypical old man fashion that you had actually checked out of the conversation. Your cellphone rang as you grabbed a potato chip from the small bag that came with your sandwich. 

“That’s Mom, I’m gonna take this.” 

“Tell your mom I said hi, Y/N/N.” 

You nodded as you walked away.  

~~

The next day at school, Edward wasn’t there. You had planned to confront him and find out what his problem was when he didn’t even know you. You weren't exactly popular back in Phoenix but no one had any issues with you. Never. 

However, his siblings were there. Not that you were going to approach them. Your problem was their brother not them and you weren't trying to make enemies in such a small town. You watched them walk into the building as you leaned against your truck. You turned when something hit your back. 

“Y/N!” 

You laughed as you looked at the Twizzler on the ground. “Seriously, Tyler? How dare you waste good food,” you said as you grabbed your bag and walked over to where the kids you met yesterday were all crowded around what you assumed was Tyler’s van. 

He shrugged. “I would hardly call Twizzlers the peak of fine dining.” 

We all walked inside at the start of a bell ringing. The day had been pleasant without your science partner. And the next day was the same when he didn’t show up again. And the next day until the entire week had gone by without Edward showing his face. 

Your first week of school was lucky. You had missed any torrential rain. But you couldn’t say the same for that Monday. The only thing worse than rain was rain when it was below freezing outside. Your front steps were covered in ice. Your phone rang as you closed the house door.

"Hey, Jake... First week done, somewhat a success. Hey, when is Spring Break for you guys? We should totally start coordinating now if we want to try and leave town."

Despite being careful as you talked, you must have stepped incorrectly because before you knew it, your butt had gone down the last three concrete steps leading away from your door and to your driveway. 

“Woah, woah, Y/N/N. Are you okay?” Charlie asked as he helped you up. 

“Yeah, just fine, Dad. Ice isn’t exactly helpful to the severely uncoordinated.” 

“That’s why I got new tires for you. The old ones were getting pretty bald.” 

“Thank you.” 

You both high-fived before getting into your respective cars and leaving. It felt like you were already used to the routine of Forks when you pulled into your parking spot and found yourself automatically going to Tyler’s van. You sat with Jessica, Angela, Eric, or Mike whenever you had class and swapped snacks with Tyler in between every morning class because your lockers were right next to each other. And the group always walked to lunch together. 

“Salad or Sandwich… Hello? Earth to Y/N?” 

You blinked to see Jess snapping her fingers in front of you. “Sorry.” 

“We wanted to know what you wanted? The lines are backing up so we’re splitting up and tackling stations.” 

“Nice, divide and conquer the cafeteria.” 

“The Vikings got nothing on us.” 

“As long as the only thing we’re conquering and pillaging are those sandwiches.” 

“Absolutely. They might have had great hair but I'm not interested. So, ham and cheese, turkey, or those stupid cucumber ones that no one likes?” 

“Hey, I like them!” 

Jess laughed and walked to her designated line. Mike and you were in charge of gathering everyone’s desserts and soups. Three wanted brownies and three wanted chocolate chip cookies, four wanted tomato soup and two wanted chicken noodle. You all wanted saltine crackers. Every now and then, you looked over your shoulder at what made you stop in you tracks. Edward was back. 

And your biology class was the first class after lunch.  

(part 2) ...

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PERMANENT TAGLIST:

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#twilight fic #twilight #bella swan #edward cullen x reader #edward cullen x black!reader #edward cullen #jacob black x reader #wolf pack

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group A Round 4: To Your Eternity vs Shadows House

#A7: To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e)

Immortal being learns what it’s like to be human

#A5: Shadows House

Two girls unravel mysteries surrounding an isolated manor

Details and poll under the cut!

#A7: To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e)

Summary:

An Orb, known only as It, is cast to Earth to be observed from afar. Capable of changing forms from beings whose reflections It captures, It first becomes a rock and then, due to the rising temperature, moss.

It does not move until one snowy day, a wolf at death’s door barely crosses by. When It takes the animal’s form, It attains awareness of its consciousness and starts to wander with an unclear destination in mind. Soon, It comes across the wolf’s master—a young boy waiting for his tribe to return from a paradise abundant with fish and fruit in the south. Although the boy is lonely, he still hopes those whom he holds dear in his memories have not forgotten him and that he will reunite with them one day.

The boy wants to explore new surroundings and decides to abandon his home with It to find the paradise using the traces his tribe left behind. However, with a heavily injured body and no sight of his elder comrades, what will become of the boy?

Propaganda:

I don’t think I’ve ever watched an anime that has meant so much. It’s/Fushi’s journey from being born as nothing and without emotions, to becoming a genuine, real person who loves and cries is so special to me. The constant war he’s in between being too human and being not human at all is written so well—for him to love so much it hurts, leading him to isolate himself for years on end, for him to want to make friends, to love, but too afraid of them leaving and eventually dying to meet anyone new. For him to get so detached from life and death and the cycle it perpetuates that he loses understanding of why human life is so special—why should he save people, if they will die anyway? Why should he save them, if he can just bring them back to life, if he can just become them? The constant cycle of him learning to love again, and learning to treasure life again, only to lose it once he’s experienced death in a new and agonizing way. It’s about love, and it’s about humanity. Always.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death, Child Abuse, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Racism, Rape/Non-Con, Self-Harm, Suicide

All TW’s apply to the protagonists, except child abuse and the racism. The world itself has hints of racism/discrimination throughout the anime, and not directly towards the protagonist. As for the rape, an antagonist attempts to rape the protagonist. There is a ton of self harm (protagonist and side characters) and blood as there is a lot of wars also happening in the anime

#A5: Shadows House

Summary:

The Shadows, characterized by their pitch-black appearance and tendency to emit soot when agitated, are a family of nobles who reside in a colossal manor deep within the mountains far from other humans. When a Shadow child is nearly of-age, they are assigned a Living Doll who acts not only as their attendant but also as their second half—the faces they could have had if not for their complexion.

Emilico is a cheerful, newly created Doll who serves a rather soft-spoken master named Kate. Despite their difference in personalities, Emilico does what she can to carry out the needs of her master. As she learns more about her role and duty, Emilico begins to meet her fellow Dolls and their respective masters and comes to know more about the purpose of her existence.

"Do not fret over trivial matters," says one of the rules by which all Dolls must abide. But how could the ever-curious Emilico do so in the face of the deep secrets that the Shadows House holds?

Propaganda:

The atmosphere of the manor is probably the most effective aspects of the story, creating a feeling of isolation and worry as Kate and Emilico try to survive in the mansion. The show starts off pretty subtle, but as it progresses it becomes more and more strange and off-putting. This series is an incredibly interesting, layered mystery, and the horror elements are excellently done.

Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form with your revisions, and I’ll consider adapting those changes.

New: Starting round 5, screenshots will be included in the poll post. You can submit screenshots through the form linked above, or through here, via ask or dm.

Guidelines in submitting screenshots:

No NSFW or spoilery images.

Pick some good images please. Don’t send any blurry or pixelated ones.

You may send up to 9 screenshots, but not all may be used.

#anime #best underrated anime #polls #poll tournament #tournament #anime tournament #animation #group stage #group stage round 4 #tournament polls #group a #to your eternity #fumetsu no anata e #shadows house

[ornii]

Folie a Deux III: Trending

The shoots were getting more and more intense as time went on, from your magic, to faking being blind to shooting your own fight scenes, a lot of work with little downtime, but when you did, you spend it focusing on your music. Making samples and producing, one late night in your trailer, the sounds of a cello tuning cut your music time down, you couldn’t focus with it. You heard that melody so vividly, You placed your headphones down and stepped out of your trailer, you heard the sounds coming from inside one of the rooms for shooting, it was nearing midnight. You crept up the stairs as Paint it Black was echoing.

Jenna sat with a Cello, trying to mementoes the strokes for her character Wednesday but it was always off by a smidge. She sighs as she stops to tune it. You watched her, her dedication to her character, to the art. You were, admittedly amazed.

“Don’t tune it.” you say, her head jerks over to surprise, seeing you.

“Shit. I didnt wake you, did. I?”

“No I was just finishing some samples Metro sent me, you’re really good at that.” You walk over, trying to not be a creep you sit always away from her, Jenna shrugged it off.

“No I’ve.. only been playing for a few months for the role.”

“A few months?” You say, flabbergasted. You scoot closer.

“It took me a year to learn bass guitar! You’re amazing, can you play something for me?” You ask, as Jenna was fumbling around to form an excuse you had an idea.

“Wait; let me help you, gimmie a sec.” (Y/n) darts off, leaving Jenna alone only for a minute, he enters with a keyboard piano and a violin, he sits across from her.

“It might Help you to recognize keys from songs you like and mentally implant them for your song, like this.” You say, you tap a few keys for drums and begin a simple beat, and with the lyrics she immediately recognizes the song

“I wish i knew you wanted me~ I wish I knew..” you sing, you then put the drums on repeat and take the violin and help with the bass line.

“Okay, take the keys, minor. Cellos a low register, I’ll pick up on high.” You say and begin a Violin and Cello rendition of “Bad Habit” by the one and only Steve Lacy, your eyes can’t stay off of her as you watch her play. The lyrics flowing like red wine from your lips.

“I bite my tongue, it's a bad habit

Kinda mad that I didn't take a stab at it

Thought you were too good for me, my dear

Never gave me time of day, my dear

It's okay, things happen for

Reasons that I think are sure, yeah…”

The keys started to come naturally to her, listening to the beat and focusing. While the music was amazing, it attracted more of the cast members who were unaware of what was going on, Peeking inside the Enid and Wednesday bedroom stage they saw the two performing and it was magical. The duo were reaching the chorus as they entered, actually impressed by the cover, and joined it.

You can't surprise a Gemini

I'm everywhere, I'm cross-eyed, and

Now that you're back, I can't decide

If I decide if you're invited

You always knew the way to wow me

Fuck around, get tongue-tied, and

I turn it on, I make it rowdy

Then carry on, but I'm not hidin'

You grabbin' me hard 'cause you know what you found

Is biscuits, is gravy, babe, ah-ah

(Y/n)’s eyes locked with Jenna’s. He couldn’t tear away from that gleam, those eyes, that smile.

“You can't surprise a Gemini

But you know it's biscuits, is gravy, babe

I knew you'd come back around

'Cause you know it's biscuits, it's gravy, babe

Let's fuck in the back of the mall, lose control

Go stupid, go crazy, babe

I know I'll be in your heart 'til the end

You'll miss me, don't beg me, babe..” He ends with a violin string, and the others watching immediately started berating them with questions, wondering if this was going to be in the final shoot. After some laughs and awkward chit chat, they all left, but Emma saw (Y/n) and Jenna chatting as the night was coming to a close, and couldn’t help but smile.

Wednesday had been a Commercial success, the internet going wild for it. Netflix had found lightning in a bottle and much of that was Thanks to Jenna of course, but much of the conversation was about the supporting cast. Mostly You. The Wenclair ship was trending, but it was #Healday that kept on the charts. The internet obviously went wild for the show and a season 2 was bound to happen, and of course there was the press tour, promoting the show and showing up appearances.

Exiting the Limo you kept a fairly calm demeanor, unbeknownst to everyone a little anxious, stepping out in a Notch Label embroiled Suit with a deep red scarf to boot. Wearing deep black shades your eyes were hidden to the crowd, you turn around and extend your hand and from the Limo Miss Ortega takes it, steeping out with a slim fit single shoulder dress with a thigh split for the thigh high leggings to show. Thank god for your shades, everyone would have seen just what you were oogling at. You kept composure as you lead your “Friend.” Out of the Limo to more flashes and cameras. Fitting a perfect example of a Modern Victorian Couple indeed. You walked with her slowly to let the Paparazzi get their moneys worth.

“Great dress.” You say to her, she attempted to hide the smile but couldn’t.

“I thought you’d like it..” she accidentally blurted out.

“What?” You reply, not entirely sure if you heard her correctly.

“I just meant It would go well with yours, we gotta keep this up, people really seem to like us.” She said, you shrugged it off and Jenna, taking a small risk leans up against your shoulder just slightly, the brush of her hair along your neck made you soul tingle. It seems this coverage was going swimmingly. You casually checked your phone and you see what’s treading. Both of you.

“Well.. that didn’t take long.”

When it came to interviews you kept things pretty professional, but always did your best to support your cast members and always talk positively about it. Your fame continues to grow and your friendship with Miss Ortega seems to be blooming so swimmingly, unfortunately for her; two words stuck a dagger into the heart of your relationship, making it bleed with jealousy.

This words.. Olivia Rodrigo.

Folie a Deux IV: Jealousy

#netflix #male reader #wednesday #wednesday addams x male reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday addams x reader #reader insert #wedensday x you #jenna ortega x male!reader #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x male reader #jenna ortega x you

[dangermousie]

This drama is going HARD for dynamics I really really like.

To be fair, seeing that when she picked him up (literally), he was not only starving but clearly was horribly tortured for years, the only place people are waiting for him is likely the owners of BDSM with Extreme Prejudice Cage with saw in the flashback.

Love that he does not say. Love that she is not dumb to read that silence correctly.

Cdramas are really big on “rescue abused hot men, they are royals who will totally be your subs” agenda. This is giving me mad Colourful Bones vibes. I do love how quietly pleased he appears with his transparent little dodge.

I have no idea if they intended this whole sequence be as kinky as it comes across (especially with his halting hoarse voice) but well, there is a Russian saying that translated goes something like “everyone thinks to the measure of his perversion” and well...

I do love that she has enough common sense to know that whatever is going on with this dude is likely troublesome and complicated (the guy with her pointed out that if someone wants to kill a person they just slit their throat; whoever held him instead horribly tortured him for years) and likely he has people who are after him and would love him back and she still is super softie and caves in super quick.

Her naming skills OMG!

Love her flunkies going at least it’s not as bad as it could have been (her first choice was licorice ahahaha.)

Confession - I only checked out this drama because I check out pretty much every costume cdrama. To say I had no expectations would be too nice - I don’t like anyone in the cast (I don’t loathe them or anything, but it’s not an inducement that they are cast either), I disliked the last Yang Zi drama I watched (Immortal Samsara), I disliked the last two Deng Wei roles (Chong Zi and TTEOTM), I have never seen Zhang Wanyi in anything and last thing I watched Tan Jianci in was the awful Court Lady where he was as awful as the rest of them (loved him in Advisors Alliance and Secret of Three Kingdoms but that was ages ago and in heavy historicals), xianxia is a more miss than hit for me genre, no synopsis I’ve seen made sense etc etc.

And yet - I can’t believe I am about to say this - genuinely am loving this, probably more than any other summer cdrama so far. Ummm....

#cdrama #lost you forever #yang zi #deng wei

[swissboyhisch]

Opening Night

Pair: Mat Barzal x Reader

Requested: Yes/No

Could you write something about Mat Barzal, please?

Word Count: 1205

A/N: THIS IS AN OLD POST THAT I DIDN'T POST TO THIS BLOG. I’ve been listening to Heathers on repeat at the moment so I concocted this :)

Warnings: None :)

THE MASTERLIST JOIN THE TAGLIST HOCKEY DISCORD

Today was the opening night of Heathers on Broadway, and for you, that was a big deal. Being cast for Veronica was your first significant role on Broadway, so you were so excited to finally be debuting on Broadway. And you were lucky, your boyfriend was currently amid offseason, so he and the team were coming to support you in your debut. You had to be at the theatre early for one last run through before heading home to get ready for the opening night red carpet walk. After getting dressed in comfortable clothes and packing your practice outfit into a bag, you kiss a sweaty Mat goodbye while he is doing his morning workout before heading out to practise.

When you get to the theatre, you and the girls who played the three Heathers all changed into your practice outfits, yours being black leggings, a royal blue blouse and a black blazer. 

“So is Mat coming tonight (Y/N)?” Sophie asks as she ties her hair up in her signature hairstyle from the show.

Jodie nodded, “He better come, you two are adorable together.”

“Yeah, he and the team are coming,” You reply, tying your hair up and adding the blue ribbon. “The girls are coming as well, so it’s going to be a star-studded event that’s for sure.”

Shan's eyes widen, “Wait, does that mean Anders Lee is coming?”

You giggle at your friend’s reaction, “Yes, he is but sadly for you, he has a girlfriend who is one of my closest friends.”

The girls all laughed at their friend’s embarrassment before the four exited the change room they shared and headed back to the stage where everyone was waiting. 

“Since it is opening tonight, we won’t be too hard on you. We're gonna run through each number so in your places,” The director shouts, clapping his hands.

The group moved around the stage, preparing for the intro, ‘beautiful’, to start. It was your first number and you were excited for everything to finally come together.

“September 1st, 1989

Dear Diary:

I believe I’m a good person. You know, I think that there’s good in everyone, but—here we are! First day of senior year! And uh... I look around at these kids that I’ve known all my life, and I ask myself—what happened?”

After practice, you headed home, to where Mat was relaxing on the couch, with Anthony beside him as Black Mirror played on the TV in front of them. 

“At least it isn’t hockey,” You joked as you chucked your bag at the end of the couch before falling on top of Mat. “Nap time.”

You slid off Mat and laid beside him with your head in his lap as the two continued their show while you had your pre-show nap. 

By the time you had awoken, Anthony had left, and Mat had pulled you up onto his chest, falling asleep beside you. You decided to let him sleep for a bit while you had a shower and started getting ready for the red carpet walk. Your dress was blue as you, and the girls decided to wear dresses corresponding with your characters. As you started on your hair, Mat strolled into the bathroom for his shower. After pressing a kiss to your cheek, Mat jumped into the shower as you finished up your hair and started on your makeup.

“Are you nervous about tonight?” Mat questions.

You shrug, applying your foundation, “Of course I am, it’s my first major role.”

The boy chuckled, “I think this is the first major event in our lives that isn’t about me.”

“Finally,” You joke, rolling your eyes at your boyfriend.

Both of you got ready, into your dress and shoes while Mat wore a suit with a tie to match your dress.

The paparazzi went crazy when Mat stepped out of the car and held his hand to assist you in climbing out of the flash vehicle. Fans were screaming his name as he shut the door and quickly fixed the train of your dress. The two of you made your way down the red carpet and met with Jodie, Sophie and Shan and their partners a bit further down. 

“He came!” Jodie squealed, coming to hug you and Mat. The girls follow Jodie, and you all greet each other. “Group photo time!”

You got photos with the girls, the whole cast, you and Jamie, who played JD, and everyone involved. It was an intense hour and a half, but it was time for you and the girls to make your way backstage to get ready while everyone moved to their seats, where Mat went to sit with his teammates. You and the girls reach your dressing room where you exchanged your fancy dresses for skirts and blazers.

“You will kill it tonight (Y/N)!”

You girls all hug each other before exiting the dressing rooms and getting ready for the opening number. 

“And queue!”

You grinned and made your way to the centre stage and sat on the steps as the announcement began. You took your place and waited for your time to shine. Music started, and you stood from your position, a spotlight shining down.

“September 1st, 1989

Dear Diary:

I believe I’m a good person. You know, I think that there’s good in everyone, but—here we are! First day of senior year! And uh... I look around at these kids that I’ve known all my life, and I ask myself—what happened?”

You grinned as you held hands with Jamie as you took your bow before the whole cast lined up and you took the final bow together. You waved at the crowd as they gave the cast a standing ovation. The group watched with tears in their eyes as the heavy red curtain closed on the opening night of Heathers on Broadway. The cast shared hugs as they heard the chatter and cheers from the other side of the curtain.

“You were amazing (Y/N)!” Sophie squeals, running from her spot to hug the younger girl dressed in blue. The girls all hug and have a laugh. 

“Girls!” They heard their director call. “You have a few guests waiting in your dressing room.”

The girls giggled as you rolled your eyes, leading the group to the room that was packed with hockey players and WAGs, Mat standing at the front with a big bouquet of white roses, a cheesy grin blessing his beautiful face.

“You were amazing,” He compliments, passing you the bouquet and pressing a kiss to your lips. “I’m so proud of you.”

The boys started joking around as the girls all giggled at the cute couple, “Get a room.”

“Well let’s go home then!” You shout, smirking as the girls all shouted in protest as they wanted to celebrate.

Hours later, Mat carried a stumbling you into the apartment, guiding you towards your shared bedroom. You were a giggly mess once you had done tequila shots with the cast. After helping you take off your makeup and helping you drink some water, Mat let you doze off.

“I love you,” You mumbled drunkenly.

Mat laughs, pulling your drunk self closer, “I love you more my little star.”

TAG LIST

@findapenny @mp0625 @hischierhaze @11zegras @lvrzegras @francesfarhadi @cixrosie @daisysthings @barzyblogbabe

#mat barzal imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fic #nhl fanfiction #new york islanders imagine #islanders imagine #swissboyhisch #swissboyhisch imagine #mat barzal #mathew barzal imagine #mat barzal imagines #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal blurb #mat barzal rpf #mat barzal fic #mat barzal fanfiction #New york islanders imagine #new york islanders imagines #new york islanders x reader #new york islanders fanfiction #new york islanders fic #new york islanders blurb #nhl imagines #nhl x reader #nhl rpf #nhl blurb #hockey blurb #hockey rpf #hockey imagine #hockey imagines

[allthingsfangirl101]

Seeing You For The First Time–Joe Keery

Joe's POV

I carried a box into the empty apartment. I couldn't help but overanalyze the safety of this place.

"That should go in the kitchen."

I turned around to see Y/N walking in with a box in her arms. I quickly put the box I was carrying down and ran over to her. I grabbed the box out of her hands and put it down.

"I can carry boxes," she teased me.

"Doesn't mean you should."

Y/N and I have been best friends since we were little. She moved in across the street and didn't have any friends. My mom was talking to her mom and they were worried about her. My mom asked me to befriend her. We instantly clicked and soon we were inseparable.

I moved to LA last year and it was the most depressing year of my life. Sure, I landed my role as Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. But it drove me crazy being away from Y/N. After weeks of begging and pleading and negotiating, I got Y/N to agree to move to LA.

Her new apartment is a ten-minute walk from mine. I plan on being over there all the time. Or having her at my place all the time. While I'm filming, Y/N is going to art school. She's an incredible artist. She won multiple awards and was the star of every art show in school. She also helped every theatre production with its backdrops. I have multiple Y/N Originals in my apartment.

My plan is to get Y/N a job working for Netflix. I may or may not have shown the Russo brothers some of her artwork. They loved it and were obsessed with the idea of Y/N working with us. They don't even care if she goes to art school or not. They want her to work with us starting next season. I just need to sneakily introduce her to the cast and get her invested before they officially offer her the job.

"Seriously, Joe," Y/N sighed as I carried in two boxes. "Please let me help you."

"Absolutely not," I said quickly. I put the boxes down, trying to hide how tired I was. But Y/N caught on. She grabbed her water and handed it to me.

"Thanks," I sighed.

"Please sit down," she begged. Before I could say anything, she grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the couch the movers put in a horrible place. She sat down, pulling me with her. She leaned her head on my shoulder as we relaxed.

"I'm really glad you decided to move here," I mumbled. "I've missed you like crazy."

"I've missed you too," she giggled.

"Want to come to set with me tomorrow? It could be fun," I offered.

"I'm in," Y/N shrugged.

"Great," I said, sounding a little happier than I should have. I cleared my throat, pretending like I was just coming up with this. "We could go to lunch. You could meet some of my costars. How about noon? We might be finishing the scene so you're probably gonna have to wait a little, if that's okay. I could take you on a quick tour of the set, head to my trailer, let me change real fast, and then I can take you to my favorite diner for lunch."

"Sounds great."

                                * * * * *

"Hawkins, Indiana is pretty cool," Y/N laughed after our tour. I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward my trailer.

"Who's this?"

We turned around to see Gaten walking toward us. He glanced down at our intertwined hands and smirked up at me.

"This is Y/N," I introduced, trying to ignore Gaten as he sent me his 'knowing' look. "She's my childhood best friend. She just moved here. Y/N, this is Gaten. He plays Dustin."

"It's nice to meet you," Y/N smiled.

"It's nice to meet you too," Gaten smirked. I really hoped she didn't catch on to the dumb look on his face.

"Well," I said, trying to get Y/N away from him, "we should get going."

Before either one of them said anything else, I pulled Y/N toward my trailer. Once we were safely inside, I let go of her hand and let out a sigh of relief.

"Everything okay?" Y/N laughed as she grabbed her purse off my couch.

"Yeah," I said, clearing my throat. "I was just. . . Gaten is a little uncontrollable. We always have to watch him."

"He's cute," she giggled as she walked over to me. I smiled when she looked up at me and stuck out her bottom lip.

"What's wrong, pouty?" I asked.

"I'm hungry."

I grabbed her hands and pulled her closer. "Then let's get you something to eat."

After lunch, we went back to set. We headed to my trailer and talked for a bit before I had to get back to work. I went the long way to the costume trailer so I could walk Y/N to her car.

"You're going to come over tonight, right?" She double-checked.

"Duh," I chuckled. "I'll pick up some food on my way over and I can help you finish unpacking."

"I'm already done," Y/N shrugged.

"What?!" I yelled making her giggle. "You did manual labor without your man?"

"My man has a full-time job," she laughed as she unlocked her car and opened her door. "He shouldn't be worried about me unpacking a couple of boxes when he's busy saving Hawkins."

"But his girl is so much more important to him than some kids in Hawkins," I said instantly. Y/N rolled her eyes as she laughed. She stood on her toes and kissed my cheek.

"I'll see you later," she said with a small chuckle. I stepped back as she got in the car. She started it and sent me a wave before pulling out of the parking lot. After making sure she was safely on her way home, I turned around and headed back to set.

                                * * * * *

"Where's Y/N?" Gaten asked as he walked over to me with his knowing smirk.

"She's probably at home, unpacking or getting things ready. Her semester starts soon," I said slowly, not sure why he was looking at me like this. "What's wrong with you?"

"The two of you are adorable," he smirked.

"Y/N and me?"

"I especially love how you become a different guy around her."

"I do not," I scoffed. "I'm the same guy. I don't change for Y/N. She's the only one who. . ."

I stopped talking when I saw Gaten smirking at me.

"You really don't see it?" Gaten laughed.

"See what?" I asked, losing my patience.

"How much Y/N affects you," he smirked. "You completely change when Y/N's around you."

"I do not," I scoffed.

"Yes, you do," he pushed. "I've worked with you for over a year, Joe. I know you. But the Joe Keery that I saw the other day when you showed Y/N around? I've never met him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I stuttered.

"Come on," Gaten scoffed. "You were acting like a puppy following your owner who just got home from a long vacation, terrified she was going to leave again. You're whipped."

"I'm not whipped," I said quickly. "Y/N's my best friend. Of course I'm going to act a little differently around her. I don't want her thinking Hollywood has changed me."

"Bullshit," he laughed. "You're whipped. You're whipped. Joe is whipped. Joe is whipped for Y/N. Y/N and Joe, sitting in a tree. He's in love with her but won't admit it!"

I ran my fingers through my hair as he skipped away from me. My breath got caught in my throat when I saw Y/N walking toward me. She watched Gaten skip away with a confused look on her face.

"What's with him?" She asked when she got to me.

"He's a weird little guy," I stuttered. I cleared my throat before asking, "You ready for lunch?"

"Of course," she said, still studying me.

Y/N shrugged and grabbed my hand. I couldn't ignore the zoo in my stomach as we walked through set, hand-in-hand. My stomach turned sour when I saw Gaten watching us.

We walked down the street to one of the neighborhood ma-and-pop pizza places. On the way back, I took her the long way through the park. I pulled her out of the way as the sprinklers started. All of a sudden, I heard Y/N let out a devious giggle.

"What's wrong with. . ."

Before I could finish asking her what was wrong, Y/N pushed me into the sprinklers. I turned around to see her smiling at her with fake innocence.

"Are you okay, Joey?" She asked. "You must've tripped."

"How clumsy of me," I smirked. Y/N gasped, turning into a giggle when I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into my chest. I spun us around, the both of us getting completely soaked.

We started chasing each other through the sprinklers. We didn't care that people were watching us. Y/N always made me feel like this. I didn't care about anything anyone else had to say. As long as I made Y/N smile, that's all I cared about. She's all I cared about.

"Joe!" She shrieked. I wrapped my arms around her waist and picked her up. I walked over, out of the sprinklers, and set her down when we were out of the splash zone.

"We should go dry off," she giggled. "You still have three scenes to film."

My heart did a weird flip when she knew my schedule for the rest of the day. I grabbed her hand, unconsciously intertwining our fingers.

"We can go to my trailer," I said, pulling her with me. "I've got towels and you can steal one of my shirts."

"I love stealing your shirts!" Y/N said, jumping up and down excitedly.

"I love when you steal my shirts," I chuckled. "I should probably buy more if you're going to keep stealing them."

"One request?" She asked shyly.

"Anything, m'lady."

"Can you buy some that are a little bigger?" Y/N asked. "They're comfier to sleep in."

I'd do anything for you, I wanted to say.

"Sure thing," I said, instead.

We walked back to set without saying anything. I held her hand, checked before we crossed the street, and made sure she wasn't walking on the side closest to the street. When we got to set, we randomly started running and hiding around every corner.

"What are you two doing?!" Finn yelled at us.

"We're running," Y/N ran and giggled.

"Duh!" I agreed.

I grabbed her hand and quickly pulled her into my trailer. I slammed the door shut behind us and held her against my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around her.

"I think we're safe," I whispered.

"I think so," she whispered back.

I looked down, my breath getting caught in my throat when I saw her looking up at me. We stood in each other's arms, looking deeply into each other's eyes. A few minutes passed by without either one of us saying anything or moving.

"Joe," she whispered, finally breaking the silence. "I'm freezing."

"Oh yeah," I whispered. I let go of Y/N and quickly grabbed her a towel. I turned around to hand it to her and couldn't help but stare at her. We were both still pretty wet but Y/N somehow looked gorgeous.

"Thanks," Y/N smiled. She went to grab it but stopped. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," I cleared my throat. She looked at me for a second before finally grabbing the towel. She started to dry her hair but she kept looking at me because I wouldn't stop looking at her.

"Joe," she pushed, "what's wrong with you?"

"I need to confess something," I rushed out.

"What?"

I closed the gap between us, stepping in front of her. I took the towel out of her hands and tossed it onto my trailer couch without looking away from her.

"Joe?"

"The year without you was the worst year of my life," I started. "I missed you every day. Nothing I did was worth it without you by my side. But when you agreed to move here with me, I was extremely relieved. I need you, Y/N. In every aspect of my life. Work. Friendship. Relationship."

"Relationship?" She repeated, her voice under her breath.

"I'm crazy about you, Y/N," I whispered. "I've been crazy about you since we were kids. When you're with me, all I can think about is making sure you're safe and happy and having fun. When you're not with me, all I can think about is wishing you were with me. I never want you anywhere but next to me. I know this sounds kind of obsessive but, I'll be honest. I am obsessed with you, Y/N. In fact, I'm in love with you."

"You're what?" She asked, barely audible.

"I am madly, obsessively, completely in love with you," I said a little louder. "And I need you to tell me how you feel about. . ."

Y/N grabbed my face with both hands and smashed her lips to mine. I instantly tightened my arms around her waist, pulling her closer as I kissed her back. Things sped up as we collapsed onto my couch. It took everything in me not to push her onto her back, crawl on top of her, and fulfill every dream I've had about her.

I forced myself to break the kiss, both of us out of breath. I leaned my forehead against hers, catching my breath.

"Joe," she said, still breathing heavily. "I can't believe that you're in love with me."

"Of course I am," I said quickly. "How can I not be? I've been in love with you since. . ."

"I'm in love with you too," she cut me off.

This time, I initiated the kiss. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. I felt her smile against my lips as she kissed me back. Our lips moved in sync as I gently pushed her back so we were laying down. I wrapped my arms around her, keeping her pressed between me and the back of the couch.

We jumped apart when my phone started ringing. I groaned, forcing my anger down as I reached into my back pocket and answered the phone.

"What?"

"Hello to you too," Gaten chuckled. "Are you and Y/N back from lunch yet? We need you on set."

"Shit," I mumbled. "We just got back. I'll be right there."

I hung up and sat up, pulling Y/N with me. "I'm so sorry," I sighed. "I'd really like to continue. . . this but I have work to do."

Y/N stood on her toes and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. She broke the kiss and smiled at me.

"Come over tonight," she whispered. "We can pick up where we left off."

I pulled her into my chest and leaned down to kiss her. Our lips fit together perfectly, just like I dreamed they would. I broke the kiss with a small sigh.

"I'll pick up dinner on my way.

#joe keery #joe keery imagines #joe keery x reader #stranger things #friends to lovers

[taco-night-frenzy]

Mario RPG Fans and Wonder Fans UNITE!

Excited for the Mario RPG remake? Can’t wait to see Daisy playable in a main new Mario Wonder game? Have I got a fic series for YOU!

Introducing The Detective Luigi series!

AO3 link: Here

Art by @frayed-symphony​ Starring Luigi and the entire cast of Mario characters throughout its entire series! Mario RPG, Paper Mario, and Mario & Luigi play the biggest part in these!

This is an AU smushing them all together in one noir-like city with mysteries and wacky crimes abound!

With two, COUNT EM,

TWO,

novel length fics in this story, you’ll have plenty of Mario RPG content to last you till the games come out! Plus many more stories that fit inside!

This series has a total of 242k words and YEARS of love and blood and sweat and tears put into it!

This series offers an engaging and fun story that can entertain the biggest Mario fan to even beginner Mario fans! Don’t know Mario lore that well? No problem! If you can enjoy the Mario movie, you can enjoy this series!

Don’t just take my word from it! Take it from these awesome readers as well!

And if THAT doesn’t sell you, what if I told you I’m a VERY cute trans girl that loves to write gay girls? There’s a pair of gay girls here you might not expect! Plus Vivian plays a huge role as a trans girl in the sequel! Support your very exhausted gay trans girl who kind of wishes she got more engagement on these fics!

Art by @jrpgdog​ Enjoying the art? There’s more in the fics! Anyways, for reals, if I’ve sold you at all in this, try giving my stories a try! I really truly worked very hard to make a fun and vibrant world that should leave the reader engaged. What are you waiting for? Give it a shot!! Ao3: Click here for the link to the series!

#mario #super mario rpg #Paper Mario #Luigi #Daisy #Mario Wonder #fanfiction #noir

[leikeliscomet]

No, Ncuti Gatwa's Casting Isn't Regressive

Chapter 2 - Strong (White) Female Character

There are many women in Who loved by fans of all genders. In Classic Who, the female leads were the companion to the Doctor and played the role of audience surrogate. They asked questions, got in trouble and got rescued. But over time, this role would develop and gain more significance. Classic Who female representation is usually brushed off as one-dimensional compared to the girl-bosses of Nuwho, but still some representations shined through. Characters such as Sarah Jane Smith and Ace McShane are considered great female representation for the time they were created and archetypes for modern female leads in Who we see today. When the show was revived in 2005, this would be the beginning of a new type of female lead in the companion role. Women would save the day and even the Doctor. They’d gain supernatural abilities, defend galaxies, fly TARDISes, fight Time Wars and save the universe. Doctor Who makes the message (or at least tries to) that us girlies are not just the sidekicks but key parts of the journey too. Most fans agree the show has plenty of strong female leads, even if there are still critiques to be made about agency and sexualisation.

But all that glitters isn’t gold. Whilst it can be agreed women shouldn’t be limited to the role of companion, there are many demographics of women yet to be included in the companion role even if it is the bare minimum, Using intersectionality as a framework for Doctor Who’s female representation, there’s still a long way to go. There are only three women of colour who are companions in the main show. There are only two female companions of colour from them that are canonically queer. Only two are Black. Only one is South Asian. There is only one doctor who is a Black woman and she is not in the main lineup. There are no East Asian, Latina or Indigenous main female companions. There are no trans or disabled women as companions. There are no female companions that are dark-skinned women (close to Ryan or Fugitive Doctor’s complexion). When fans ask for more female representation I’ve questioned many times what or who they imagine. Even when we look at the female lead progress of the show a pattern merges; the first companion of Classic Who, the first companion of Nuwho, the first female master, the first Time Ladies and the first female leader of UNIT are all white women. Most companions of the show both classic and new are white women. So when Jodie Whittaker was cast as Thirteen I wasn’t quite sure how to feel. It was a huge moment as the Doctor themselves had never been played by a woman before. Girls across the fandom shared their excitement and joy, sharing group photos of blonde cosplayers excited for Thirteen’s era. And yet, I felt like something was missing. Whittaker got tribute videos from fans who looked up to her and was continuously asked about the importance of representation on screen, whilst Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole sat quietly beside her. I thought the first South Asian Muslim companion and first full-time Black male companion were just as big achievements as casting Whittaker for Thirteen and still do. But the show and fandom didn’t seem to think so. Some women of colour tried to express this disappointment back in 2017, but were met with ‘wait your turn’ or ‘at least you have Bill and Martha’. Don’t worry! You’ll get your POC Doctor one day!

7 years on, this progressive irony has yet to be addressed by the greater fandom. I’m not asking for Doctor Who to treat every marginalised group as a list to tick off and I don’t expect it to perfectly represent my experiences to the letter, but I do expect an allegedly progressive show and fandom to practice what they preach at the absolute bare minimum. If white marginalised genders can recognise how the companion role, despite growing to become more fulfilling and meaningful, is still the side character to a role historically played by a cishet white man, and that playing the lead themselves is, essentially, the greatest form of representation to have in the show… it begs three questions:

1. Why are Black fans then expected to settle for that ‘lesser’ companion role? 

2. Why do we not deserve to have the ‘greatest form’ of representation as the lead? 

3. Why is casting a Black man as the lead in a show that has only had three Black male leads, two Black male companions and only one that travelled full-time a step back, but a white woman in a show where most female leads are white women already a step forward?

Even when we finally got our ‘POC Doctor’ by Jo Martin, she was another side character. Fugitive’s role was to add to the Timeless Child Mystery and once that was completed, she was a get-out-jail-free hologram in the last series of the Whittaker era. Our first form of Black representation as the lead was still a supporting role. Women of colour in the fandom, Black women especially, had to wait our turn yet again. Ncuti Gatwa is a man and I am not, so I know there are limits on the extent I’ll relate to Fifteen in the same way there were limits for Thirteen. But looking at representation statistically, Black men in Doctor Who are not outnumbering white women, so this idea of a ‘stepback’ is just disingenuous and incredibly antiblack. Many fans shared their ideal doctor castings for after Gatwa and even in place of him. Minus the occasional Lydia West and T’Nia Miller cosign, most of these castings were white women; Olivia Coleman, Gillian Anderson, Tilda Swinton, Phoebe-Waller Bridge etc. Apart from the need to replace our first Black male doctor before his era even began being wild in itself, I thought about who is the idea of female representation in Doctor Who. Gatwa is dark-skinned, but the ‘replacements’ minus T’Nia Miller were not. I want to believe the ‘but he’s a man’ backlash and ‘oh but we only meant white men!’ rebuttals came from a genuine place of hurt from certain parts of Thirteen’s stanbase. However, the continued dismissal of Black fans of all genders who rightfully critique Chibnall’s neglect of the Fugitive, the surprise that conservative white men still rejected Ncuti Gatwa ‘even though he’s a man’ when manhood has never saved Black men from antiblack racism and the treatment of the show’s first Black female companion, Martha Jones, that is still yet to be addressed by allegedly misogyny-concerned fans has me very, very pessimistic. If Ncuti Gatwa was a woman would this response be different? Only time will tell and if we get a dark-skin Black woman in the main lineup one day, we’ll see if this support comes through for real. I’m going to wait and see what Fifteen can provide for the show and wait for my ‘perfect fit’ casting to arrive just as other fans who are Black women have done since day. I hope that white marginalised genders waiting with us ask not why they have to wait, but why is this the first time that they have ever had to.

<- Chapter 1

Chapter 3 ->

#white feminism #strong female characters #fugitive doctor #the fugitive doctor #female representation #fifteenth doctor #ncuti gatwa #doctor who #nuwho #new who #black representation #doctor who analysis #fandom analysis #doctor who fandom #fandom antiblackness #fandom racism #fandom history

[likeadaydreamorafever]

Mischa Barton: ‘The trauma doesn’t just go away overnight’

The OC made her one of the most famous stars of the Noughties. Now 37, and with a new role in Neighbours, she’s back — and this time it’s on her own terms.

There was a time, not so long ago — the Noughties — when we hunted young women until they went mad. A pack of men with cameras followed them, stalked them, waited outside their homes to take their photograph, so that people could devour their lives and their changing teenage bodies, and watch their rising panic as they cracked under the pressure we were putting them under.

“It was all very Hunger Games,” says Mischa Barton, 37, sitting in a hotel room in central London, hair blow-dried, coffee poured, legs crossed. The British-American actress was 17 when she was cast in the teenage TV drama The OC, catapulting her to worldwide fame and making her Karl Lagerfeld’s “face of a generation” — an It girl in an era of size-zero bodies, up-skirt shots and gossip blogs.

Barton was — reluctantly — a paparazzi favourite. She was beautiful, cool and sceney, with a trail of rock star boyfriends and wild child friends. She suffered as a consequence of rather than in spite of the fame. She was arrested for drink driving, spent time in rehab and was detained in a psychiatric hospital. In 2017 a video of her, incoherent, rambling and distressed, was sold to the gossip site TMZ, peddled as proof of her going off the rails. Her drink had actually been spiked with a date rape drug. That same year an ex-boyfriend tried to sell a video — filmed without her knowledge — of her having sex and being naked in her own home.

“You can go to therapy every day for the rest of your life,” she says, “but there’s just a certain amount of trauma [from] all that I went through, particularly in my early twenties, that just doesn’t go away overnight.”

Today her life is a little quieter — the paparazzi don’t yet know where her new home is in Los Angeles (though the sound of cameras can trigger a panic attack, part of her enduring post-traumatic stress disorder). The OC is coming up to its 20th anniversary, with a new generation of Gen Z fans going wild for the Y2K vibe. She has had a stint on Dancing with the Stars and the reality TV show The Hills: New Beginnings, as well as parts in horror films, indie films and now the resurrected teatime soap Neighbours.

Barton was, and still is, a valuable commodity. “They first wanted me to do an arc on Neighbours when I was in my twenties,” she says, dressed smartly in a blazer, A-line dress and preppy jacquard pumps. I’ve just finished watching the new season, I tell her. “Oh wow,” she says in her mid-Atlantic drawl, “have you actually been watching it?” Sure, I continue, it was nostalgic. “Oh wow,” she says again, flatly. “Yeah. I haven’t seen any of it.” Barton still has the cool-girl energy that drew so many people in: arch, a little judgmental, but fun. She is the popular girl at the party.

The “final” episode of Neighbours was broadcast on Channel 5 last July, after 37 years and 8,903 episodes featuring alumni including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Margot Robbie. A group of heartbroken fans campaigned for its return and four months later Amazon Prime signed a deal with the production company. The reboot features old favourites Susan, Carl and Harold, as well Barton’s new character, Reece Sinclair, the expensively dressed American hotel proprietor who is having an affair with the bellboy.

Barton spent two months filming in Melbourne, cramming lines for 5am call times. “They work crazy hard [on soaps],” she says. “Really, it was gruelling. You’re lucky to get a second take.” She did, however, rewrite some of her script. “They don’t let everybody change their lines” — she lowers her voice — “trust me. The other kids were like, oh, can I do that? And [the writers] were like, no.” She cackles. “Say your lines as scripted!”

The actress will always be known for The OC, in which she played Marissa Cooper, a rich, blonde Californian who was troubled and glamorous — and who every teenage girl was desperate to be. The first series, which aired in 2003, pulled in an average of 9.7 million viewers per episode in America and was a hit on Channel 4, and she won two Teen Choice awards.

“I don’t think I was fully prepared for that level of fame,” she says. “Because it has never been something that I have sought out. I really would much rather be anonymous.”

Still a teenager, Barton was lauded for her looks and treated, she says, as much older than her years. “You do look back and you were 18 dating 34-year-olds,” she continues. “With hindsight you’re like, yeah, that was weird.” An interview with Harpers & Queen has recently resurfaced in which Barton, 19 at the time, says she was told by her publicist to sleep with Leonardo DiCaprio, who was 30, “for the sake of your career”.

She left The OC after three series — she says she was bullied on set and exhausted by 18-hour days for each 24-episode series — asking the writers to kill off Marissa as brutally as they could. She died lying in the road, dripping in fake blood, her crashed car up in flames.

In the following years Barton became a familiar face on the LA nightlife scene, all smoky eyeliner and faded band T-shirts, photographed with Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse, while dating the Kooks’ frontman Luke Pritchard, the American rocker Cisco Adler and the Roughs’ guitarist Taylor Locke. “I definitely got to tour with some cool bands,” she says, still a little thrilled by the whole thing. “I mean, I was obsessed. But I don’t know if I could date a guy in a band any more. It just sounds exhausting and dirty.” The paparazzi attention was certainly not “healthy” for romantic relationships. “Everything is just so heightened,” she says. “You depend on the person so much more, you think you’re that much more in love because they’re your grip on some sort of normalcy.”

In the gossip blogs she was considered fair game. She was criticised for losing a stone in a year, then criticised for being “bloated Barton”, with the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton often the leader of the pack. “Nothing I did was good enough,” she says today. “It was the peak of cruelty about young women’s bodies. It was wild.”

Could she leave the house without being followed by photographers? “No,” she says immediately. “I couldn’t. [The paparazzi] were doing all kinds of crazy stuff to me.” She says they tracked her car, tried to climb over the walls of her house, paid off restaurants and bought mobile phones for homeless people so they could tip them off. “I was stalked,” she says. “I did go a little bit nuts at [one] point. I just felt really helpless.”

Then there was an arrest (2007, driving under the influence, without a valid licence and possessing cannabis), rehab (court ordered) and psychiatric hospital. She said she was “depressed and overworked”, and then, she claims, pumped full of prescription drugs by her “team” to keep her working. People have got kinder about mental health, though, she says. “That’s one of the better things about society these days — people are more willing to talk about having had depression or anxiety, or it’s not so taboo.”

But it was her legal battle against her ex-boyfriend that was “one of the worst and most gruelling experiences of my life”, she says. In 2017 Jon Zacharias tried to auction off illicit videos of her to the internet’s highest bidder.

After a years-long legal battle she won the case to prevent him from doing so. “It’s shocking to realise that there is that type of darkness in the world,” she says. “And you wonder what you’ve done to attract it.”

Mischa Anne Barton was born in Hammersmith in west London, the middle of three girls, her mother a producer and photographer, her father a foreign exchange broker. She went to St Paul’s Girls’ Preparatory School before the family moved to New York when Barton was six.

She was a bookish, shy child who found respite in acting. She had her first modelling job at eight and her first professional stage role the same year. By 11 she was in Italian Vogue. By 13 she was the lead in the movie Lawn Dogs, which had dark undertones of child molestation, followed by Pups, a crime drama. “Even from a young age I was sexualised,” she wrote in Harper’s Bazaar in 2021.

After her big break in The OC she starred as the “hot girl” in various music videos (Noel Gallagher, James Blunt, Enrique Iglesias) and became the face of Chanel, Calvin Klein, Monsoon Accessorise, Neutrogena, Herbal Essences and Keds.

“I was definitely told ‘sign here’ many, many times over,” she says. “I’ve gotten a lot better with legalese. Now I will read a contract front to back.”

Do people think she made more money than she has? “Oh, I know they do.” Today you can watch The OC on Amazon Prime, Hulu and ITV. “But I say to my friends, ‘Oh cool, I just got a direct deposit for $1.50.’ And they’re like, ‘What’s that?’ And I’m like, ‘Residuals.’ ”

She pushed herself into indie films and cerebral plays, which she loved, and then appeared on the rebooted reality show The Hills, which “wasn’t for me”, she says. “It’s the fame-chasing and the posing stuff that I don’t like. I found them to be very alieny.” She says the producers tried to make out that the original cast of The Hills had hung out with the cast of The OC in the Noughties, “but that was not the case. I never saw them around. I mean, it was a completely different world, a different type of celebrity.” She looks up from pouring herself another coffee. “You know what I mean.”

Today Barton lives between New York and LA. She is steady and grown-up, but still with a streak of flightiness. Her spontaneity “is a problem”, she says. She travelled around Indonesia alone over the summer, then France, then the UK, where she has been staying with her older sister, a barrister, in Kensington.

“I’m happy being single at the moment,” she says. “Because it comes up, the whole thing of ‘Do you wanna settle down and have kids?’ I am a weirdly traditional, conventional person when it comes to stuff like that, more so than people think. But it really depends on the person you’re with.”

In the past few years there has certainly been a collective reckoning regarding our behaviour towards young, famous women of that era. But does that regret mean anything to the women who suffered through it?

Recently the FBI knocked on Barton’s door, saying they were “working on a case” and wanted to play her a series of tapes. She listened to her conversations with people from years ago, which were recorded covertly. “Who knows who was doing it?” she says. “But I was almost grateful to know that they [the FBI] were going to such lengths, otherwise you feel crazy and paranoid.”

She has also had direct apologies. In 2019 Perez Hilton told her, on The Hills: “If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would.” Barton was largely unmoved. “This bullying you did for so long to so many young girls, I find it hard to let go,” she replied. “I can’t really accept the apology entirely.”

I bring up Hilton today and she rolls her eyes. “I don’t listen to anything he says because he’s so crazy,” she says. “You can see how sorry people feel for what they did to people like Britney [Spears] then. Everyone now is like, ‘I can’t believe we did that to those poor women.’” She pauses. “People feel so entitled to you and your body and your image. It’s a strange feeling. It’s strange.”

Video included in the article:

#mischa barton #marissa cooper #the oc #theoc

[zukadiary]

Anastasia (Umeda Arts, 2023)

I’m flattered that the overwhelming response to my poll was to bring back reviews :D Since I posted that, Takarazuka has unfortunately been involved in a terrible tragedy (additional information here). I may review the Takarazuka performances I was able to see at a later date, but at the moment I’m going to take some space from doing so.

In the meantime, a very bright spot in a long-awaited trip otherwise filled with multiple bouts of shocking news was the Broadway musical Anastasia, featuring Asami Hikaru (my ご贔屓, kamioshi, bias to end all biases, for those who joined during COVID and somehow missed this) amidst a rather star-studded cast. Getting to see Anastasia was quite special, not only because it’s been 4 1/2 years since I was last able to travel to Japan and see Komu, but also because I HAD tickets to the original Spring 2020 run before, well, you know (not to mention the ruined plans to see fave #2 as the same role in the tkz version). On top of that, it was good.

The Broadway version of Anastasia follows two con men in post-revolution Russia, Dmitri and Vlad, who, amidst rumors that Anastasia Romanov has somehow survived the execution of the rest of the royal family, accidentally find the real one while auditioning actresses to pretend to be her for reward money.

Given that my bias to end all biases taidan’d 17 years ago, I’ve seen my fair share of Japanese theater outside of Takarazuka in my quest to spend as much time in her presence as humanly possible. Usually, I find the non-OG cast members (especially men!!) unimpressive to the point of superfluousness. Imagine my shock when I found myself raising my opera glasses when Komu wasn’t even on stage.

Ranking!!

Anya: Aoi Wakana / Kinoshita Haruka

Anya is a poor street sweeper with amnesia who has a feeling SOMEONE is waiting for her in Paris (turns out it’s her grandmother, the dowager empress). I was supposed to see each actress twice, but due to the flu making its rounds through the cast, I ended up seeing Wakana three times and Haruka only once… which is unfortunate, because Haruka is an absolute powerhouse, and Wakana is a TV actress. The cast lineup for my first of four viewings was absolutely flawless, and I wish it had been the finale instead (especially because I was in shock from Sora taidan dropping like 3 hours prior to curtain). Haruka has a Broadway-quality voice, and her acting not only made sense, but also lacked that peculiar anime-like delivery that most of the Japanese actors I’ve seen have in spades (IYKYK). Although perhaps she returned from flu recovery too quickly and didn’t have her whole voice, Wakana’s singing wasn’t really up to the challenge of the role; all of Anya’s big solo’s were rendered anticlimactic by very flat long notes. I also found her acting to be over the top and desperate, whereas Haruka’s was quite nuanced.

Dmitri: Kaiho Naoto / Aiba Hiroki / Utsumi Akiyoshi

Dmitri is the romantic lead, something of a street urchin who starts off by hatching a moneymaking scheme to produce a fake Anastasia, and ultimately gives it all up after falling in love with Anya. I got to see Kaiho and Aiba, and to be honest, the only reason I’m not mad I had to see Aiba once is because that day Kaiho Naoto was Gleb. I know I am very late to this party, but this was the first time I got to see Kaiho Naoto live, and hooooooooooo boy. That man’s voice gave me chills, he acts like a normal person and not a cartoon, and his facial expressions are SO dynamic. His fans in the FIRST ROW had their opera glasses up, and now I take back making fun of them in my head. Incredible casting choice for Dmitri; he did an amazing job going through the full range of emotions and showing character growth, plus he looked so good in that scruffy little outfit. Tbh, marry me (Aiba on the other hand was an anime boy made flesh and blood and I can’t say I cared for it).

Vlad: Osumi Kenya / Ishikawa Zen

Vlad is Dmitri’s old man friend, a former aristocrat and adulterous lover to Lily. This one is slightly less cut and dry because both actors had their merits, but alas, I’m a big Ishikawa Zen fan. Osumi Kenya is a dancer and Zen is not, and that was quite apparent in any scene with choreography. Other than that, I quite preferred Zen’s knockout voice, nuanced acting, and overflowing kindness. He’s irl bffs with Komu, so I found his Vlad’s chemistry with Lily to be more compelling; but he also integrated himself seamlessly into each cast, despite that I imagine it’s tricky to get the best possible rapport going when the roles are changing all the time. Osumi definitely gave his Vlad quite a bit of enjoyable energy and unique flair, but ultimately, I thought his Vlad was a bit over the top (he’d be a huge hit in a kids’ show), and he seemed to be acting next to rather than with the rest of the cast.

Gleb: Kaiho Naoto / Douchin Yoshikuni / Tashiro Mario

Gleb, a Bolshevik general trying to fill the shoes of his father who relished executing the Romanov family, is the villain of the show. I was SUPPOSED to see all three Glebs, and I’m quite sad I didn’t, but the flu took Tashiro Mario. I ended up seeing Douchin three times and Kaiho once. This is REALLY HARD, and it’s likely impossible to separate out my feelings toward Kaiho’s Gleb in isolation, because Dmitri, without Kaiho in the role, was not compelling, so the overall impact of the show was less on the not-Douchin day. Kaiho showed up again with the voice that gives you chills, and while his performance throughout most of the show was a bit more low-key, his final scene, in which he attempts to get Anya to admit she’s playing around and return to Russia lest he be forced to shoot her on the spot if she is in fact the real Anastasia, was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING UNHINGED (spit flying everywhere, no wonder everyone got sick). Douchin, however, also has quite a powerful voice, and I think overall he did a better job of coming off as creepy and weird. He was awkward in kind of an is-this-guy-ok way, his barely concealed feelings for Anya were both clearer and more unsettling, and he felt believably indoctrinated into an ideology vs. just this is the villain because we said he’s the villain. His slick, jet-black hair and choice to wear light blue colored contacts also really enhanced the evil image. I really regret not getting to see Tashiro Mario, but I think my ever so slight preference here is Douchin just because his presence balanced the rest of the cast.

Lily: Asami Hikaru / Marcia / Horiuchi Keiko

Lily is the dowager empress's lady-in-waiting, a former countess who, in her younger days, cheated on her boring husband with Vlad and is currently tending to the dowager empress in refugee-laden Paris. LBR, I didn’t fly across the world to see the other two (although 3 or so days into my trip there was a SCARE where Komu was announced out with an injury, and I thought I might have to… but she recovered in time for my first show!). Ohhhh it was so nice, I missed her more than my COVID-era complacence led me to believe. Lily was a very fun and pleasant Komu role for me. Homegirl is 51 now (don’t talk to me) and fresh taidansha like Tamaki Ryou are getting the heroines she played a decade and a half ago, but Lily isn’t exactly someone’s mom either. She’s funny, and sassy, and wears sick costumes, and has DANCE NUMBERS! Which she did without looking injured at all! With the exception of like 20 seconds in the prologue, Lily does not appear at all until Act 2, but Act 2 is very juicy. I think I liked the look-Vlad’s-back tango even better than her piano-top nightclub solo, but both were utterly delightful. She also has great chemistry with her Yukigumi top senpai Asami Rei, comfortable yet reverent (just like in real life!). I juuuUUUUuuUUUUuuuSsstttt wish they would lower the key for her… just a little… as a treat.........

Dowager Empress Maria: Asami Rei (more like Asami SLAY)

Y’all… seeing Asami Rei live has BEEN on my bucket list, and the experience did not disappoint. Her voice may be going, but it’s completely age appropriate, and she could have done literally anything up on that stage without it ruining the impact of her presence. I legit inadvertently gasped "mother" into my mask when she made her appearance in a black and silver bejeweled gown to attend the ballet… serving boatloads of charisma uniqueness nerve and talent at 73, to say the least.

The ensemble was also a force and the songs were expertly directed, giving the whole show a stunning sound that has been rare in my experience with Japanese musicals (part vocal talent, part book made for Broadway). The play-within-a-play scene at the ballet was genuinely impressive (it's been a while since I've seen a man jump that high). All in all, a treat to watch!

#reviews #anastasia 2023 #tadaima 23

[bohemian-nights]

So bridgerton really skipped Eloise, Benedict and Francesca for Cunt hungry Colin and man pleaser Penelope. They both give me nothing but people who think they have it bad but literally live in luxury. Literally over the whole Bridgerton series after queen charlotte I don’t care anymore

Eh, Bridgerton is on a probation period for me. And I’ll say that even though I don’t particularly like either Colin or Penelope, at this point, I don’t care that they skipped over Benedict’s story for them.

(I have a theory of why they did this and if my theory is correct I’m happy as a clam).

And if we are going by book order Polin’s season should come before Eloise(who is book #5 and it doesn’t matter but I personally am uninterested in her character) and Francesca’s (love her/her book is my second favorite and I am excited to see her and Michael, but her book is #6).

Now the real reason why Bridgerton is on probation for me isn’t Benophie being skipped, it’s the issue of Sophie’s casting and how everytime you mention her (possibly) being Black, people start crying.

I’ll be honest and say if Shonda pulls another stunt and doesn’t finally cast a Black girl for Sophie Beckett my Black ass ain’t watching this shit anymore.

I don’t want to hear any it’s “bad representation” especially not from a bunch of non-Black women. Sophie isn’t a slave(she literally says she could’ve left anytime she wanted to which is something that slaves never could) and more importantly, she gets a happy ending.

And yes I know about Gregory’s book and no I don’t want to wait another five to six years for that child’s boring season(I give Polin crap, but their book is actually better than that dry mess) where he is spending half of it pinning after another girl. It’s a very strong possibility his season never happens or if it does happen it combines with Hyacinth which is unacceptable if that’s our only representation on this show.

Fortunately the rumors are that a casting call went out for a Black female lead for season 4 and people speculate Masali Baduza (who is stunning and talented) was the one who landed the role.

So I’m remaining cautiously optimistic that one of the these two rumors is true, but if not (as I’ve stated) season 3 will be the last season of this show I watch.

I already have one show(and racist fandom) that acts like Black women are the plague.

Hell, might as well say Black people period because some of these dumbasses have been crying about Michael being (more than likely) Black and saying there are “too many Black people”(it’s giving me HOTD fandom war flashbacks) on the show and it not being “diverse enough.”

Mind you they say all this even though the showrunner is a Black woman(which is why I expect Sophie to be Black cause I would never expect nor demand that from someone else), but instead of being understanding why most of the diversity would and should be Black they want her to mule for them, but I’m not supposed to say that since it hurts their feelings.

This show is plenty diverse, but because Shonda hasn’t completely stopped featuring Black people they are upset.

People want every season to be like season two and that’s fine and dandy, but Black people are under-presented in the media and not only that our representation is absolute shit riddled with stereotypes.

I don’t think Shonda(or I hope not) created this show to further sideline us so a Black Sophie is the hill I’m willing to die on. I’m not watching three seasons back to back to back with a non-Black lead and definitely not five seasons back to back 5x over with a non-Black female lead.

I will not be suffering through another anti-Black fandom whose showrunners prioritize and appease said non-Black racist fandom at the expense of Black people. That’s my grievance with the show.

#bnasks #bnask #bridgerton asks #i’m sorry for my rant #benophie #benedict bridgerton #sophie beckett #bridgerton #benedict bridgerton x sophie beckett #fandom misogynoir

[genlossneg]

thank you for this blog im boutta post a lot of my suffering in here enjoy the essay

I’m not a ranboo fan at all, i just heard about a cool horror project from a name i’m familiar with and i was excitedly waiting for perhaps a new kid on the block with cool content and the resources to do so. I’ve seen what people with three coins and a piece of lint can do out of passion, and so i expected that someone that has far more resources out of the gate would be able to really take it out of the park if they were equally as passionate. I’ll just grab a couple of points and elaborate.

Intentionally bad.

This is the poorest excuse for low quality content I’ve heard. Not a single self-respecting creative that actually cares about their project would make something ACTUALLY bad. Anytime you see something that’s intentionally bad and yet somehow beloved, look DEEPER. Because behind that veil of “bad” is actually often a HUGE amount of effort and care put into something a creator cared about. 

Intentionally bad content is still made with the intention to be fun to watch, to be entertaining. There is very little entertainment found in any of the genloss bad content.

Lack of horror content

The main excuses i’ve seen is that they were scared of Twitch TOS, to which I say lolwhat. You had two whole years to contact twitch and talk it out with them and figure out what part of your project and show would fly and what wouldn’t, and instead you opted to really cut out any horror aspect at all for fear of being banned on twitch? And even then, content more gorey and disturbing than this is allowed on twitch. If Until Dawn flies on twitch, I think gen loss could have gone wilder.

And if they REALLY didn’t want to risk it, for the love of god at least be creative with your attempts to circumvent it? The goofy poor editing of the red in ep2 during the surgery sequence took me out of it entirely and confused me so much. You know what they could’ve done? TURNED THE LIGHTING A STARK RED. THAT’S IT. THE MOST BASIC THING, TO AT LEAST REALLY GET ACROSS THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.

The acting

I was a theatre kid in highschool and let me tell you even the 13 year olds acted with more passion and devotion to the role than 95% of the cast in gen loss. Even during improv. You can tell that there is basically no script to gen loss and that its purely “X will happen then Y will happen and we need to fill it with conversation and improv” with zero direction on tone or anything. It was so painful seeing how little effort had gone into the acting. Ranboo can’t act for shit and should have gone through some acting classes before taking on a live show. The only ones that were visibly trying were charlie and jerma and the people who were frozen robots during ep3 (because as someone who had to stay frozen in pose hours on end for a play while on-stage, that shit is HARD)

Hetch’s acting was even more laughable, and his fakeout death was… something. An incredibly cartoonish “uguguhh” exiting his mouth- really? Also It was so frustrating to have his voice come from seemingly nowhere. There was no source to his voice.

It sucked so much seeing ranboo actually TRY to be better in his acting in episode 3 because when he suddenly started being intense it felt WRONG and out of character, because there was no natural leadup to him being like that. ep 1 and 2 were so bad that even when ep 3 was better it felt disappointing.

Lighting

Its already been mentioned by film student anon that the lighting is such a huge amateur mistake but I want to touch upon the creative aspect of the lighting a little more.

There was such an utter lack of using colored lighting to really set tones in scenes and it SUCKED. Like, already with the lack of outright horror blood and gore, they NEEDED creative lighting to at least intensify scenes! Add some damn flickering lights! Green lighting? Something- anything. Again, TEENAGERS have been more creative with lighting in a performance and all they had was four colors to work with and nothing fancy.

Camerawork

I wish they would have actually done good camera work. Set up some cameras in locations and acted in front of them instead of having someone follow ranboo around and having some “lore” explanation for it that makes little sense. Having moving cameras that are shaky and constantly cutting people frame-wise is just not pleasant to watch and does not add anything useful. On top of the camera quality jarringly changing between shots constantly it just… ruined the flow. 

in ep3, we had an explanation for why there’s a camera following ranboo, and we got some REALLY COOL ESTABLISHING SHOTS THAT…. made no sense in lore. Why would the “drone” following ranboo take establishing shots? It’s supposed to follow ranboo- but then later it gets dismissed and we suddenly have sharp camera cuts to what im guessing was a prerecorded scene due to the camera quality change and it just felt. So sudden and jarring? Like okay you just dismissed the camera and now we suddenly get a different non-canon camera because they remembered we actually need to still see whats happening.

Lore/Story

The lore and story we have gotten so far is so scatterbrained and nonsensical. + knowing that this project isn’t actually what gen loss was supposed to be (which: Why are you advertising it as gen loss then, ranboo? You’re just staining the name of your passion project). So much of genloss is in the “I guess” category of why things happened. But the consistensy also felt so off. From what I understand, Charlie is the slime demon, and was the guy on the gurney, and was also in ep 3 as  himself. And all those other versions WERE the ep3 charlie. How? Charlie died? twice? According to what has happened? But he’s alive anyway at the end until he gets killed again by a cheap backrooms monster? But supposedly everyone else did actually die? 

I just. Genuinely do not understand what the story here was. What the point was of everything. I’m not gonna ask who the characters were because the characters were just the streamers and nothing special or new. If you know the streamer, thats the “character”. It’s just godawful writing.

Viewer interaction

Viewer interaction was pointless and didn’t matter. Either every choice the viewers made was gonna happen anyway, or ranboo decided to ignore it lol. It felt like there was no impact to viewers doing anything to influence the show and the show probably would have been largely better had viewer interaction not been a thing at all.

also idk maybe making ranboo’s “character” aware of the audience from the get go would have been more fun as they could’ve been trying to get the audience to do anything while we’re just watching quietly. And they could’ve gotten more and more desperate with the audience as things went on. But then again that requires actual acting skills that ranboo barely has.

Just as some final words, this really feels like a case of someone who has never done anything like this thinking they can do this because they’re famous and well-liked online. I know ranboo makes a lot of money, so they certainly had enough money to make something good. Take some film classes or acting classes. Instead they became overambitious and made just a generally unpleasant show that is not going to make me want to watch any future gen loss content in good faith.

The entire show depends on going “MY STREAMER!!! THATS MY STREAMER!!!” and would not survive on its own merit. The hype towards gen loss was misleading on what it’d be, and the fans made amazing fanart that does not live up to the reality of what they got and i feel genuinely sad for them. The fanbase made a better interpretation of what gen loss is WITHOUT EVEN NEEDING GEN LOSS TO BE OFFICIALLY RELEASED.

also a final thing about the merch but why is the merch so bad lol. Its such boring design. The gen loss logo appears barely anywhere in the show itself. The fans could’ve had some sort of cool merch, like masks based off of ranboo’s mask and the showfall robot masks. Shirts and merch based off of the slime demon and warehouse master. 

Anyway sorry for the huge wall of text I have just been going insane abt this to my friend in dms enjoy

————————————————–

i could probably spend hours responding to all of this! thank you for the mini essay, you make a ton of great points. i really sympathize with the “not a ranboo fan” stance because my friends are way more fans of him than i am, and were way invested.

i personally haven’t heard any “it’s supposed to be bad!” defenses but i can totally believe there are people like that out there lol. i definitely in the “there’s no entertainment when it’s bad”. you’re entirely right about the lack of horror! i was so confused after the first stream and everyone was like “it’s not supposed to be horror yet! you don’t understand!” and then it took until the 3rd stream for anything significant to even happen, and even then it was weak.

charlie and jerma did so much for gen loss man, ranboo’s acting was just.. not that great and when it was, it felt so jarring. more interesting lighting would’ve been so fun! so much could’ve been done with that, and that’s especially clear when they switch cameras because they had the ability to film this incredibly and just.. didn’t. i feel like we didn’t get so much lore that we should have, especially with how long the streams were. i hope we get something clearer later on.

the idea of him being aware of chat the whole time would be cool, but idk if it would’ve worked with the “brainwashed” thing he was doing. overall i agree - gen loss was super hyped up and in this form, it didn’t live up to it as well as it could have. once again, ty for the mini-essay, it was a great read!

#submission #gen loss neg #gen loss crit