#like even in the radio interview deleted scene

[tarobumma]

one of my favourite little costume things is that lupe literally only owns one dress (the plain pink one) 

#like greta and carson and everyone else has a new floral number every couple of scenes #but lupe literally only has that one dress and whenever she needs to wear a dress she pulls it out kdjhgfkj #like even in the radio interview deleted scene #lupe garcia #aloto #a league of their own #nevermind i lied accidentally she has a grey one when they go to the convent #but still !!!

[confettifalling]

Hi! For the ask game: 1, 2, 3, 8, and 13. :)

hi! tysm for asking (and for coming up with this game, it’s so fun)! :)

1) How did you become a Big Time Rush fan?

i saw an episode one day on nickelodeon. i remember seeing the title on the guide and going, huh, interesting name. is this an action series? (and the answer was, of course, no….but also yes, because they’re always getting kidnapped and knocked out and running from crocodiles and being roped into british spy missions. and then just shrugging like, huh. whelp. that was something. anyway. back to learning harmonies. #justboybandthings.) i pretty much watched one episode and was hooked. i also remember my mom coming in and going, this is really cute, like a present-day version of the monkees tv series your grandfather loved. and then later, i realized that was absolutely intentional and scott fellows was directly inspired by the monkees, and i watched a few of those episodes too, which was fun. 

2) Who’s your favorite member (and why)?

even when i was a kid, kendall and logan were my favorites. i didn’t really see many interviews of them back then, so i was just basing it off the tv show, tbh. now that i’m older, those two are still my favorites. they have gorgeous voices (and dimples!)  and i love how kind they are, like logan being so happy to be an uncle and talking about how he wants to pick out 3 good albums to gift kendall’s daughter so she can grow up with those songs, and how kendall is always posting some kind of photo or video with an animal, whether it’s calling over stray cats, stopping to say hello to a dog, gently petting a chicken, holding lemurs, kissing a donkey, or cuddling a pig. i was so excited to see the videos of kendall and logan together at the iheart radio awards last month, and was laughing at them blowing kisses to the camera and logan announcing that he was kendall’s baby first before maple.

3) What are your top three favorite Big Time Rush songs?

my number 1 slot always goes to no idea, particularly their live madison square garden version. their vocals are truly so beautiful and have only gotten better over the years. when i heard the finale, my jaw just sort of dropped, it was like when i was a kid and heard an iconic disney song like a whole new world for the first time again. it’s such a great feeling and not many songs and voices can sort of stop you in your tracks like that. my 2 and 3 spots are always in flux, so i’ll just say i’ve been listening to dale pa’ya and not giving you up a lot lately. (and also the acoustic version of i know you know.)

8) Who’s your favorite character from the show?

that’s hard, but i’m going to go with lucy. she’s really fun and i’m a fan of other shows the actress has been in as well. plus, according to tv canon, she’s what got us paralyzed (which i love and i’m so happy the boys finally officially released.)

13) What’s your favorite picture of Big Time Rush?

i like the ones where they’re goofing off, like this one:

i need to know what this deleted scene was, considering they’re in their not giving you up outfits. big time relationship services ended up being a pyramid scheme? money laundering via office supplies and teddy bears? they made criminally catchy bops?

#asks #big time rush #text

[saintlaurentproblems]

Jacob Elordi is under police investigation for assaulting a radio producer but what happened was that radio producer was being a creep and kept making sexual jokes and then asked Jacob for his bath water like in that scene from saltburn and that’s when Jacob had enough and told the producer to stop the show and to delete the whole interview and then things escalated because the dude just kept asking for his bath water and Jacob snapped and choked him….I don’t think Jacob was in the wrong tbh reporters are way too comfortable basically sexually harassing celebrities for the sake of an interview and trying to pass it off as a joke just because they think they can Jacob was obviously uncomfortable and made that clear throughout the interview and the dude wouldn’t stop

To be clear I don’t blame him either BUT HE CHOKED HIM?? I just cannot see him even moving that much I’m sorry lmfao.

Jacob being aggressive makes me like him more is that bad

#answered

[denimbex1986]

'If there's any one thing Christopher Nolan has shown throughout his last several movies, it's that he's a constantly evolving filmmaker. After getting "The Dark Knight" trilogy out of his system, his approach on the introspective and achingly heartfelt "Interstellar" couldn't feel more different from the operatic heroics of "Dunkirk." In the same way, "Tenet" feels like Nolan finally letting his hair down (so to speak) for an unexpectedly "vibes only" movie right before following it up with his grandest and most sobering film yet in "Oppenheimer." But amid such varied work, a common thread between them all is that Nolan simply can't resist bringing things full circle.

"Oppenheimer" is certainly no exception to that rule, particularly as it charts the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer's (Cillian Murphy) from his early days at Cambridge up until his post-World War II inquest into his security clearance and beyond. The decades of stress, depression, and guilt were hardly kind to the controversial figure, as the opening and closing shots of the film make painfully clear. Yet as studious and exacting as Nolan tends to be (there likely won't be a single deleted scene available on the home media release, unsurprisingly), the detail-oriented filmmaker admitted that he and his creative team actually hadn't planned out the film's opening scene as we saw it in its final form.

In a relatively recent interview, Nolan explained how the symmetry between the rain and the opposing closeups of Murphy's tortured face came about in the edit — not the script.

Of water and nuclear war

After its chilling opening title card describing Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and bestowing this gift upon humanity, only to be punished for eternity for the trouble, "Oppenheimer" opens on its eponymous figure observing raindrops falling on a puddle somewhere in the Cambridge campus. Juxtaposed against fleeting imagery of the microscopic world and visuals echoing violent nuclear explosions, it's as if even a young Oppenheimer was constantly plagued by how his actions could bring damnation onto the entire world. Even nature is no escape.

When the film concluded with a very similar close-up of a much older Oppenheimer gazing out towards raindrops falling on a pond, fans naturally assumed this was another instance of Christopher Nolan's penchant for parallel and downright poetic filmmaking. It obviously worked out that way, but it wasn't quite as planned out as most would've thought. In an interview with BBC Radio, Nolan revealed how that opening shot came to be:

"It's not in the script, actually, which for me is very rare. It's a sort of symbol, a symbolic representation that started to insert itself in the filming. I'm a very controlled and controlling filmmaker, and I don't often shift something as important as that, but it was something that just kept pulling us in and pulling us in that we kept repeating in the filming. Myself and [director of photography] Hoyte van Hoytema and Cillian, you know, just finding this. And working with Jen [Lame] in the edit suite relatively late, we realized that that's exactly the opening."

The haunting bookends play a large part in tying together the whole epic, tragic saga of Oppenheimer, but it goes to show how much the Film Gods can have the final say in things — oftentimes for the better.'

#Oppenheimer #Christopher Nolan #Jennifer Lame #Cillian Murphy #Hoyte van Hoytema #The Dark Knight Trilogy #Tenet

[becomingbts]

Time heals (sometimes) - 1

Summary: 6 years ago, (Y/N) thought that she was finally taking her life into her hands, leaving behind a toxic and abusive relationship with a man who taught her she’d never be worthy of love. However, it became hard to ignore his words when she met her seven soulmates who rejected her without even giving her a chance to prove herself. It took (Y/N) 3 years to realize that it wouldn’t be her end. She would live on to prove them all wrong; she would become what they all thought she wasn’t: someone worthy of love. And as she stands proudly on the stage, under the  burning spotlights and the applause and  the cries of the delirious crowd, she feels alive. Alive, just like the bond she believed to be broken.

Pairings: Y/N x OT7

GENRE: Soulmate AU!, Idol Y/NAU!, semi social-media AU!, ANGST (mainly), fluff, romance, maybe smut in the series.

Ask or comment to be tagged!

1.5k

Warnings:  The series is going to be heavy with a lot of personal experiences  mixed into the fiction, so this is going to be kind of therapeutic for me. Please, consider not reading the series if you are not comfortable with: abandonment issues, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, self-harm (not descriptive and only part of MC’s past), suicide thoughts (in the past), toxic behavior, toxic and abusive relationship (in the past), depreciating self-talk and low self-esteem, a lot of curse, physical and mental pain, near death experience situation (in the past), and maybe smut scenes (happy ending though, but it will probably be quite the ride).

NOTE: So hello everyone, welcome to Time Heals (sometimes). Thank you so, so much for the warm welcoming, it has been my first time getting so many asks, I was honestly overjoyed. I still don’t really know what to call this part; is it a teaser? A note? A full chapter? I believe we’ll get some snapshot of memories like this one throughout the series because there is going to be a lot to unpack on both sides. I think it will be a chapter nevertheless because I have to establish some kind of order as to which parts should be read first, and I think this one is extremely important.

Thank you for reading,

-Dolly

Profiles #2 - here - part 2

Her scream pierced through the air while cries broke in the frenzied arena while a single blond-haired man froze, emptily staring at the stage. It felt like his senses heightened; his skin was shuddering, his eyes were frantically searching for one specific figure while his voice was lost in his throat. The screams resonating in the stadium would have been too loud for his voice to be heard anyway. 

Jimin knew he shouldn’t be there. 

Namjoon had told them more than once that none of them should try to go to one of (Y/N)’s events. It could be dangerous and they could be overwhelmed; anything could happen to them and they would still remain a nobody who fainted in the howling crowd. Would they want to take this risk? No.

So, Jimin would have had to admit that going to her very first concert in Seoul since the pandemic sounded like a very, very, very bad idea. And to be honest, it still didn’t seem to be a bright idea now that he was actually there. 

But he still went because he needed to see her for himself; to see how she was. He had so many things he dreamed about asking her. Are you okay? Are you sleeping well? Did you eat before coming to the arena? Are you nervous? Do you... remember me? 

Maybe he was torturing himself. He kept on watching her lives, following her on all social media, always made sure to leave a sweet comment, and never miss any of her new updates... Maybe he even had a folder of pictures of her on his phone but he’d never admit it to any of his mates. Taehyung would probably take his phone away from him and delete everything and Jimin couldn’t let that happen.

He felt like it was cheating. Don’t take him wrong though. When he thought that, he was not really thinking about the boys. They did collectively agree not to follow her activities as an artist but it was getting harder and harder with how popular she got anyway. Moon was everywhere. In commercials, on the radio, her songs were on the TV… Even if she was known for refusing most of the promotional contracts that were offered to her, her image was still constantly in the media despite her avoidance of it. Ironic, but the media were trying their best to find anything about her, be it positive or negative. One day she was seen on her bike, the next, she was in a coffee shop, and it kept on going on, overstepping on her privacy as if it was just a meaningless word. 

The lockdown had admittedly played a major part in Jimin’s obsession. Being in their apartment meant quickly running out of activities, and his job as a dance teacher was not really filling his free time (a lot of his classes were also canceled). It was also during that time that (Y/N) truly blew up as an independent artist. Advertisement on YouTube started being around her channel and her music, the recommendations he kept on seeing were about also her… Jimin’s resolve honestly broke easily. It was hard not to be curious about his lost soulmate even though he didn’t feel like he had the right to be hurting. 

Anyway, to come back to his main point, if Jimin felt like he was cheating; it was mostly for her. After all, (Y/N) had no means of letting the curiosity get the best of her, to know what they were doing; to simply see or contact them. He had, at first, not really thought about that. Watching her content seemed a very innocent thing to do in his opinion; billions of people were watching her content, why should he prevent himself from doing so? Yet, Jimin could still remember one of her live she did soon after that interview she had given on this damned radio show where she had revealed who her title track ‘TIME’ was about… She had gone live the next day-Jimin had jumped on his phone because of the notification-and one fan had asked her what would she do if she knew that her ‘ex-soulmates’ (and those words left a very sour taste in Jimin’s mind) were watching her. The question had silenced a previously restless Jimin, replacing his initial excitation with dread while a lump formed itself in his throat. He had not even noticed it; he was so focused on her live and her upcoming answer that Jimin had completely missed the sound of a glass breaking in the apartment. Jimin had been home alone, so even if had indeed heard it, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to check what had happened, thinking that the wind knocked it over or something. Jimin had been so absorbed by what he had been watching that he even got surprised a few hours later when Seokjin came home and yelled at him for breaking something when he had been clearly innocent, engrossed in (Y/N)’s live (not that he could tell his soulmates about that part, but yeah). (Y/N)’s live would always be more important than some random glass breaking again in their apartment. Every object was doomed with Namjoon living here anyway.

On her side of the screen though, (Y/N) had seemed taken aback as she had read the question and had gritted her teeth gently. She had seemed to be pondering about her answer even though a lot of people in her chat were telling her to forget about the question if it made her uncomfortable (a lot were even scolding the person who asked). Yet, sighing softly, she had looked up at the screen: 

“I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from asking questions on this topic. It’s not taboo but I’d rather not remember everything that comes with it. However, to answer this-hopefully-last question about it, I’d ask them to turn off my stream and to stop watching any of my content. It would only be fair after all. I’ve been denied access to their lives six years ago, why would they get a free pass into mine now?” She had not smiled nor had she seemed hurt by her own comment, yet Jimin’s heart had shattered in pieces, unable to press the cancel button. 

Her voice had slowly faded into background noise while her words had been stuck in his head. 

I’d ask them to turn off my stream and to stop watching any of my content. 

How could Jimin ever do that? He realized that he truly should. Namjoon would even agree with you, as ironic as it sounded for Jimin. Namjoon had been one of the most adamant ones about rejecting your bond, after all. Jimin was shaking with bitterness while ‘Moon’ continued her stream peacefully with music. Jimin could only try to gulp his anger down as he remembered her crumbling features on that fateful day. 

“You’re not our soulmates. This name on our arms means nothing to us. You are nothing to us if not a hindrance. Leave us alone.” 

If Jimin could go back in time, he’d prevent Taehyung from spatting those words at her. Yet, he couldn’t do anything. Playing the scene over and over in his mind wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change that she probably hated them. It wouldn’t change the song she made about them. 

And worst of all, it wouldn’t change the fact that Jimin had let himself believe that their choice had been for the best, trying to console and reassure himself, even if he had already known that it was wrong. Tears were pooling up in his eyes even if none escaped as he finally caught a glimpse of her on the stage. Suddenly brought back to reality after his subconscious memory trip, Jimin finally connected back to the world, looking around while he was still frozen on his spot. People were still screaming around him and he wondered if he looked like an intruder. Because, after all, wasn’t that what he exactly was? She said it herself that she didn’t wish for them to watch her; so what was he doing here? 

Jimin couldn’t help but stare; she looked ethereal, dressed like a queen in the middle of a sold-out arena. People were screaming her name as she yelled her infamous ‘hi people’. It was an opening sentence that Jimin heard way too many times in her vlogs and suddenly hearing it in real life seemed surreal. 

Jimin could only watch in awe, entranced with her everything. 

Screw the boys and what they would think once he’d be back from her concert. 

He had been the one to find her six years ago anyway. He had been the one to bring her to their home six years ago, hoping for the boys to change their mind once they’d meet her.

Comments or Ask to be tagged!

Uploaded : 09/04/2021

Taglist: @sweetmoonlight9, @mickmoon, @dreamer95, @loveyoongles, @spicetouched , @jikooksgirl19, @summerevelyn , @springjade , @clevercoley, @prooteus, @sehun096rainbow, @ainsle-e, @ifyouareme, @sunshinee0-0, @fangirl125reader, @sea-nevermind-enthusiast, @atlantis-atlas, @thequeen-kat, @naajix, @skyys-universe , @sichajeon , @yukiehyukie, @amxranthinesworld , @bunzom, @potate-oh, @mawwnsterr​, @ celaenaelentiyavox, @dvoz-writes​ , @honeybaby-94​ ,

#bts #bts fanfiction #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #magicshopnet #author: dolly #verse: idol #verse: soulmate #soulmate au #bts soulmate au #yn idol #lot of angst #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #namjoon x reader #seokjin x reader #yoongi x reader #hoseok x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader #jungkook x reader #jimin centred #jimin pov #Angst with a happy ending

[batbobsession]

Some of the funniest stuff to happen as a result of BatB2017

It was revealed that Dan Stevens didn’t know the lyrics to the movie’s title song.

Luke Evans was nominated for Choice Hissy Fit in the 2017 Teen Choice Awards.

Josh Gad got to play Lumiere in a Crossroad Musical.

In that same musical, Dan Stevens wore a Beast hat and danced with James Corden, who was in the full 1991 dress and wig.

Rebel Wilson played a parody version of Mrs. Potts.

Stanley Tucci was in denial about singing for the film, even in the presence of his insistent co-stars.

Dan Stevens and Luke Evans discussed how they and the rest of the cast could form a superhero team because of the other roles they had played (Luke/Bard the Bowman, Dan/Legion, Emma/Hermione, etc.)

Josh Gad tried to act like he was British in many of the marketing videos, to the eternal chagrin of Luke and Emma.

Luke, Emma, and Josh made snow angels out of rose petals.

Audra could not move through doors, nor could she sit down on any chair with a backing while in the Garderobe costume.

Apparently, there is a deleted scene where Gaston hands his rifle to Lefou and it goes off in Lefou’s hands, quickly followed by the distant sound of a dying cow.

Josh Gad’s horse misbehaved every time Josh mounted it that Josh has insisted it was an anti-semitic horse.  His words, not mine.

At first, Ewan McGregor’s French accent sounded so Mexican that the directors had a small panic attack.  

Josh Gad joked that his slightly manic expression on the poster of Lefou makes him look like “overweight Jack Nicholson.”

Dan and Emma were interviewed by mini versions of Belle and the Beast.

Josh Gad hosted a Disney trivia, but in reality, it was a chance for Gugu to quickly climb the ladder and become Josh’s favorite co-star.

Josh and Luke played a prank with BBC Radio 1.

Luke Evans had a Gaston sing-off with Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton.

[fics-of-culture]

Rewriting Supernatural: Whiskey Eyes

Summary: Everyone knows the story of Gabriel, but how does that story change when he meets the Winchester’s youngest sister Y/N? Will their love be strong enough to change his fate?

Words: 4,847

A/N: I am reposting all of my old fics because my old account accidentally got deleted.

Tall Tales 2.15

Your brothers had been driving you up the wall ever since the three of you first took on this hunt. Originally, you had come to town looking into a suspicious suicide that looked to be a classic haunting case. But from the moment the three of you had stepped foot into this place, Dean and Sam had been bickering nonstop. Between the arguing and childish pranks, none of you had been able to make any actual progress on the case. Currently, the three of you were sitting in a run down motel room. You and Sam were on the couch, reading up on the case. Dean was moaning audibly on the bed as he ate his chili fries and listened to “Walk Away”. Sam rubs his face, looking exhausted.

“Dude. You mind not eating those on MY bed?” Sam asked irritably, and you just know that another argument would begin any second now.

“No, I don't mind.” Dean pops another fry into his mouth. “How's research going?” Dean asks as he flips through a magazine. You sigh in irritation, frustrated that you and Sammy got saddled with all the homework while Dean sits around eating takeout.

“You know how it's going?” Sam slams his book shut and you prepare for the inevitable shitshow. “Slow. You know how it would go a heck of a lot faster? If I had my computer.” Dean nods and hums at Sam sarcastically. Sam picks up another book and tried to continue research. You’re relieved that Sam decided to let that go.

“Can you turn that down please?” You spoke too soon.

“Yeah, absolutely.” Dean blindly reaches for the radio and intentionally turns up the music.

“You know what?” Sam shouts over the music “Maybe, uh, maybe you should just go somewhere for a while.” Dean shuts the radio off suddenly.

“Hey, I'd love to. That's a great idea. Unfortunately, my car's all screwed to hell.”

“Dean, I told you, I have nothing to do wi—“ A knock at the door interrupts Sam’s thought and you quickly stand to answer the door. You peek out the peephole and you’re relieved to find Bobby standing there. You open the door and pull the older hunter into a tight hug. The man had basically been a father to all three of you for your entire life, and you hoped that, if anyone could, he’d be able to put your brothers in their places.

“Well hey to you too, sweetheart” Bobby says, returning your hug.

“Hey, Bobby.” You hear Sam speaking over your shoulder as you pull away.

“Hey, boys.”

“Hey, Bobby!” Dean says as he stands from his spot on the bed.

“It’s good to see you again so soon.” Bobby says, shooting a confused look between the two boys. It’s clear to Bobby that something is going on here, he just can’t place a finger on what. You shoot him a sympathetic smile as Sam places a hand on the older man’s shoulder. You feel bad about wrapping Bobby up in your family drama, but you know that he’s the only one who’ll be able to sort the boys out.

“Yeah, uh, thanks for coming.” You all walk over to where Dean’s standing. “Come on in.” Sam says.

“Thank god you’re here.” Dean shakes Bobby’s hand, clearly pleased to see the man.

“So, um... what didn’t you wanna talk to me on the phone about?” Bobby asks. Sam launches into an explanation of the case and why it was so urgent that Bobby come to help. You all sit down as Sam begins to recall what happened when you all first went to the campus bar to interview possible witnesses. Predictably, Sam and Dean start bickering back and forth as they both tell their interpretations of the story. At this point, the retelling had veered away from the hunt and was now focused on Dean’s exploits. You didn’t bother to listen, knowing that the truth lied somewhere in the middle of both of their recounting. Bobby shoots you an unbelieving look and you just shrug as if to say ‘That’s pretty much what I’ve been dealing with all week’.

“Right,” Bobby nodded, scrutinizing the two brothers. “And where were you when all this was going down?” Bobby’s focus shifted to you.

“Well, while they were at the bar I thought it might help to check out the front steps of the building where the body was found.”

~~~~~

It’s around evening when you walk up to the front steps of the building, looking for anything that might indicate a possible haunting. The steps had been cleaned recently, all evidence that anyone had ever died here wiped away. Still, you squat down and search around to see if you could find anything that had been missed. You stand again after a few minutes, having found nothing of interest. You look up at the building, trying to figure out which window your victim had fell from. You look back at the front doors when you hear someone step out of the building. A janitor pulls out his keys to lock the door behind him.

“It’s a little too late for classes, Miss.” He says over his shoulder.

“Oh no, I don’t go here. I’m actually a reporter. I’m here to report on professor Arthur Cox’s death.” That seemed to catch the janitors attention. You immediately noticed the odd way that he stared when he turned to get a good look at you. His head was cocked and he watched you with rapt interest. You immediately take note of his breathtaking whiskey colored eyes. You can see them glint even in the ever dimming light.

“Well then,” The man gives you a sly smirk. “Ask me anything.” He walks over to you, leaning on the railing closest to you. He crosses his arms as he waits for you to respond.

“Ask yo- wait did you see something?”

“Did I see something?” He asks jovially. “Honey, who do you think found the body?” You idly think that he seems quite peppy for a man who found a dead body.

“Did you see anything weird that night?” He laughs a bit as you watch him with interest. He could be the break in the case you needed.

“You mean something weirder than a guy falling to his death?” You feel a little silly as he says that. Obviously a dead guy would probably constitute as the weirdest thing a guy like this had probably ever seen.

“Well yeah, I mean anything other than that?” Your statement turns into a question by the end and the janitor chuckles at you again. He seems entertained by your embarrassment.

“Actually...” the man leans in as if he’s about to let you in on a secret. You unconsciously lean in as well, hanging on his next words. “He didn’t exactly go up there alone, if you know what I mean.” You swallowed as you noticed your close proximity to this stranger. You cleared your throat as you leaned back.

“Is that so?” You try to slip back into your ‘professional journalist’ act. But for some reason, it’s difficult around him.

“Yeah. Told the police about the girl, but they must’ve never found her.” The man shrugged.

“I see.” You suddenly feel the need to end this line of questioning and get back to the motel. “Thank you so much, um...” You pause as you realize you’d never learned the man’s name. He considered you for a moment before seemingly deciding something.

“Gabe.” He put out his hand and you shook it. “Pleased to meet ya.”

“Y/N.” You’re not sure what compelled you to tell him your real name. You usually gave a fake name when interviewing witnesses. You don’t fret too much over it though, there’s not much anyone could do with just a first name.

“Well, Y/N.” Gabe looks at you seriously for a moment, as if he could see right through you. His stony expression fades as a cocky smile slides back onto his face. “Good luck with your article.” Article? Oh right! You had completely forgotten that you were pretending to be a journalist. Man, this guy was seriously throwing you off your game. You nod your head and leave before you can make yourself look any more foolish than you already have.

~~~~~

“And that’s all there really is to it.” You rap up your story and Bobby nods, deep in thought. You had decided to downplay the effect that Gabe had had on you. The last thing you wanted was for your brothers to think that weren’t you to the task of solving this case. Sam and Dean start to fight again and Bobby finally decides to speak up about it.

“Okay. What's going on with you two?” Bonny eyes the two of them suspiciously.

“Nothing. No... It’s nothing.” Sam says.

“Come on. You're bickering like an old married couple.”

“No, see married couples can get divorced. Me and him, we're like, uh, Siamese twins.” Sam and Dean fall into another argument and you suddenly feel a headache coming on. Bobby looks back at you.

“Do you know anything about this?” You just shake your head silently. You had no idea why your brothers were acting like this.

“Look, it-“ Your brother cuts himself off with a sigh “We’ve just been on the road for too long. Tight quarters, all that. Don't worry about it.”

“Okay...” Sam continues on with the story.

“So anyway. We figured it might be a haunting, so we went to check out the scene of the crime.”

~~~~~

The three of you stood in front of the building dressed as electricians. You and Sam compare notes from the night before as you wait to be let into the building. You look up in surprise as you see the Janitor, Gabe, approach.

“Hey, you!” He exclaims when he spots you standing beside your brothers. “Long time no see.” Gabe gives you a wide, lopsided grin as he jogs up to your little group. You suddenly feel shy as you feel Sam and Dean looking between the two of you.

“Yeah, anyway,” Sam starts up, drawing Gabe’s attention away from you. “We’re uh, the electricians. We were called by the school to do some repairs?”

“Is that so?” The janitor’s eyes narrow like he was sizing up your brothers. “Man, nobody tells me anything in this place!” Gabe saunters to the door to unlock it as he continues to speak. “Makes sense though, this place has been needing a tune up for years.” He holds the door open and you all walk inside. You take one step before Gabe stops suddenly. “Except,” He turns around and points at you. You’re not sure why, but when his eyes meet yours you suddenly feel nervous. “I thought you said you were a reporter.” You freeze your as you try to think of a good cover.

“Uh, I am a reporter. But my family owns an electrician business. And my brothers here,” You gesture to your brothers standing behind you. “Sometimes call me in when they need an extra pair of hands.”

“These guys are your brothers?” Gabe quirks his eyebrow, looking skeptical. You nodded.

“That’s quite the family business you’ve got there.” Gabe pins you with a look and you can’t help but feel as though this was some kind of inside joke you weren’t in on.

“Buddy, you have no idea.” Dean says as the janitor finally lets you into the building. Sam continues asking Gabe questions as you head up to the professor’s office. You remain silent as you observe your surroundings.

“So, how long've you been working here?”

“I’ve been mopping this floor for six years.” Gabe responds as he lets you into the professor’s office. “There you go, guys.” You look around as Sam pulls out his EMF reader.

“What the heck’s that for?”

“Huh. Well. Not sure why you're wiring up this office. Not gonna do the professor much good.” The janitor said as he leaned against a wall.

“Why’s that?”

“Didn’t your sister tell you? He’s dead. She came ‘round yesterday investigating it.” Gabe shot you a confused look.

“Never thought to mention it.” You muttered back lamely.

“Oh, what happened?” Dean asked, trying to appear casual.

“He went out that window right there.” Gabe pointed to the window behind the desk. “I’m the one who found him. But Y/N can tell you all about that I’m sure.” He sends a subtle wink your way and you’re at a loss for words. You clear your throat to speak.

“Yeah, you told me yesterday that the professor came up here with some girl, right?” You direct you questioning to Gabe.

“That’s correct.”

“You saw this girl go in, huh? But did you ever see her come out?” You see Sam shift into investigative mode. Gabe looks off to the side as he thinks.

“Now that you mention it, no.”

“You ever see her before, around?” Sam’s trying to act casual, but you’re worried that Gabe will see right through it. He seemed surprisingly perspective for a janitor. But game doesn’t seem to notice the inquisitive tone that Sam’s voice has taken.

“Not her.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asks, his mouth full of nuts he found in a glass dish on the desk.

“I don't mean to cast aspersions on a dead guy, but uh... Mister Morality here? He brought a lot of girls up here. Got more ass than a toilet seat.” Dean laughs jovially at that and you elbow him in the chest, causing him to cough up a nut. Gabe just grins at your antics.

“One more thing. This building, it only has four stories, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So there wouldn't be a room 669?”

“Course not. Why do you ask?”

“Ah, just curious. Thanks.” You thank the janitor for his time and the three of you head back to your motel room.

~~~~~

A few days later you’re back to pounding the pavement as Sam and Dean talk to a coed about an apparent alien abduction. You take a seat on a nearby bench as you mull things over. You’re at a loss at this point. You saw the circular scorch mark on the grass, but you couldn’t possibly believe that aliens were behind this. Before you can fall any further into your thoughts, a hyper little puppy scampers up to you. His tail wags furiously as he jumps on your leg.

“Hey buddy. Oh my gosh you’re adorable.” You bend down to let the excited pup sniff your fingers. After he seems satisfied, you give his head a scratch.

“Jack! Get back here!” You look up to see Gabe running towards the two of you. The dog tries jumping on your lap as you watch his owner draw near. “I’m so sorry about that!” Despite his apology, Gabe has an infectious grin on his face.

“It’s no trouble.” You say as you continue petting little Jack.

“We we’re going for a walk when the little bugger slipped the leash can you believe that?” You look up to see the leash hanging from Gabe’s hand. You chuckle as he sits down next to you on the bench. “Little guy must’ve been real excited to meet you.” Gabe picks up his dog and places the happy pup in his lap. “So, you here as a journalist or an electrician today?” Gabe asks as he fixes the leash to Jack’s collar.

“Neither, I’m just here.” Gabe nods as he puts his dog back on the ground. You decide that now’s a good a time as any to get some more info from the guy. “But I heard about that coed, says he was abducted by aliens. Gabe tilts back his head, letting out a hearty chuckle at that. You wait with baited breath to see what he has to say about the matter.

“You don’t seriously believe that nonsense, do you.”

“No, no of course not.” You turn your body so you’re fully facing the janitor. “But that scorch mark on the ground. I don’t think some frat kid could fake that.”

“True, but that don’t exactly mean aliens.” Gabe waggles his eyebrows at you. You don’t know what it is about him, but you feel at ease whenever he’s around. Your brothers walk up to where the two of you were sitting. They nod to the janitor and inform you that it’s time to go. You say your goodbyes and head back to the motel with as little information as you had when you’d left.

~~~~~

You sigh as you sneak out the motel door. After finding yet another victim, tensions between your brothers was at an all time high. You needed a break. This hunt was starting to really get to you. You weren’t sure where you were headed, but you had decided that a walk would probably be beneficial nonetheless. After a few minutes, you wind up back on campus. Lost in thought, you walk around aimlessly. You’re fed up with all this. You’re constantly forced to live in tight quarters with your brothers. You don’t have any real friends. And sometimes it feels like the weight of the work rests on your family’s shoulders. You want to scream. You want to run away and try to live a normal life. But you know it would just be pointless. You saw how well that went for Sammy, after all. You sigh to yourself and you think it might be best to return to your motel. Until you hear a voice behind you.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” You whip your head around to find Gabe. You’re shocked due to the fact that you hadn’t even heard him approach. Being a hunter, you had a heightened sense of hearing and yet, a janitor had managed to sneak up on you no problem. Despite your surprise, you slip on a mask of indifference as you address him.

“Apparently this campus isn’t as big as I first thought.” You gave him a small smile.

“Forgive me for asking, but are you alright?” Apparently you weren’t hiding your emotions as well as you thought.

“I’m fine. Just tired I think.” You sigh a bit as you speak.

“Here, why don’t we sit down.” Gabe gently grasps your hand as he leads you to sit on the front steps. He settles next to you as he waits for you to speak.

“You don’t need to do all this. I’m fine really.” You can tell that Gabe can see through your lies. You sigh, knowing it would be easier to just tell the truth. Well part of it at least. “My brothers are just really getting on my nerves lately. They’ve been fighting almost nonstop lately.” You turn to face the man beside you and you see an expression of... guilt? No that’s not right. He probably just felt bad for you. You keep talking. At this point, the words are tumbling out of your mouth without your permission. “It’s just hard to constantly be around them. We’re constantly traveling around and sharing motel rooms and it’s just exhausting.” Uh oh. You can tell that you’ve over shared by the way Gabe quirks his eyebrow up at you. “We, uh, travel a lot for our uh... electric company...” You finish off, lamely.

“Forgive me for overstepping my boundaries, but have you ever considered just quitting?” Gabe says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Quitting?” Shock seeps into your voice as you parrot the man.

“Yeah, leaving the company to focus on your journalism career or whatever.” You’d honestly never really given much thought to it before. Of course, Sammy quit for a while, but you saw how that turned out. At some point you had just sort of resigned yourself to the idea of doing this forever.

“I can’t. It was, uh, our dad’s business. He was really set on all of us becoming... electricians.” You feel defensive suddenly. About your father, about the fact that you never even tried to leave the hunting business before. At least Sam had the balls to at least try to do something else with his life. “Besides, it’s an important job. You have no idea how badly people in this world need... electricity.” Gabe let out a laugh beside you.

“Honey, it not like you’re the only electrician in the world.” Gabe pauses as he looks you over. “Although you are the cutest.” You give him a playful glare as he continues. “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t have to feel forced into doing something just because your folks expect you to. Believe me, I know more about that then you’d think.” You give Gabe a look, not necessarily believing that he could possibly understand what you’re going through. He responds with a more serious look. “Listen, I just think that people should be able to do whatever they want to do. That’s why humans have free will in the first place, right?”

“And being a janitor, that’s what you decided you wanted to do?” You realize only after you said it how pretentious you sound. You hadn’t meant for it to be a jab, you were genuinely just trying to ask. Gabe doesn’t seem offended, however. He just sends you a knowing smile.

“I do what I want, when I want. Being a janitor just so happens to suit my fancies right now.” You wished you could live the way Gabe did. Going around doing whatever you wanted on a whim. You wanted nothing more than to be telling the truth now. To just be a girl who’s father wanted her to be an electrician. Maybe then you wouldn’t have felt pressured to stay. You could see yourself attending a college just like this one. Heck, maybe you would even become a journalist for real! Or a photographer or anything else you felt you wanted. And on the weekends you could meet up with Gabe and laugh about your latest petty drama with your friends. You shake off the thought. None of this could ever be true. You were a hunter, same as your father.

“Must be nice.” You say wistfully. 

“It’s not as unattainable as you might think.” For a moment, you marvel at the fact that this man always seemed to know what you were thinking. The thought fades from your head and you stand. You hadn’t come here to make friends. And as much as you hated to think it, at some point the hunt would be over and you’d never see Gabe again.

“I’ve got to head out. But thanks, you know? For letting me vent and stuff.” Gabe gives you a sad smile, he knew you were pulling away. You wish you could be open with him.

“Anytime. See you around kid.” You walk away without a word.

~~~~~

You’ve never felt more stupid in your entire life then you do at this very moment. Bobby had, almost immediately, figured out what you were dealing with the moment he showed up. Sam and Dean’s constant arguing, paired with the ironic fated of all your victims pointed to the culprit being a trickster. Once Bobby had explained to you the lore behind tricksters, you knew who it had to be. The janitor ‘Gabe’ (although you doubted that was his real name) had played you all from the very beginning. You couldn’t help the feeling of disappointment that weighed on your shoulders. The time the two of you had spent together, the talk you’d had about family, him acting like he actually cared. None of it was real. It was all just an elaborate trick. He pretended to be your friend so that you wouldn’t notice that he was the one behind all of this. And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. You know you shouldn’t be upset by this. You’d only known the man for about a week. But your pride was wounded, a fact that you contributed to not having seen through his charade the moment you met him. You tried to pretend that you didn’t care that first person you’d considered to be a friend in years had been using you. And when your brothers hashed out a plan to put an end to the trickster, you pretended that that didn’t hurt as well.

~~~~~

Considering the events of the last 24 hours, you were less than pleased to be back on campus. You had opted out of going to meet the trickster with your brothers, not wanting him to pick up on the fact that something was off. Although your brother’s didn’t exactly understand, you explained that it would be better for you to show up later with Bobby. As you approach the door to the auditorium you hear the trickster speak.

“Sam was right. You shouldn't have come alone.”

“Well, I'll agree with you there.” You, Sam and Bobby take that as your cue to move in. You step through the doors to see a bed with two beautiful scantily clad women sitting on a bed atop the auditorium stage. You have to admit that the odd sight throws you off for a moment before you see Dean standing in front of trickster, who is lounging comfortably on one of the chairs and munching on a candy bar. Gabe turns to face you and he can immediately tell that you are more than unhappy with him. His shoulders slump a bit as his gaze returns to Dean.

“That fight you guys had outside – that was a trick?” The trickster seems impressed by your brothers’ deception. Dean just shrugs. “Hm. Not bad.” He nods his head impressed as Dean pulls a stake from his coat. “But you want to see a real trick?” You’re worried about how casual the man seems about this. He doesn’t seem to be the least bit concerned about his impending death. Instead, he gestures with his candy bar and masked man wielding a chainsaw appears behind Sam. Before Dean can stab the trickster with his stake, a girl from on stage grabs him and tossed him towards the bed. With the adrenaline pumping through your veins, your hunter instincts kick in. You rush towards the chainsaw wielding maniac. The masked man stops what he’s doing and turns to face you. But before you can do anything, you hear the trickster speak. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Sorry, sweetheart.” And with that, you are poofed out to the hall. You race up to the auditorium door, ready to get back into the fight. But the door refuses to budge when you pull on it.

“Oh, come on!” You yank harder on the door, to no avail. You can hear the sounds of fighting inside, but you’re unable to do anything. You back up and try kicking down the door, but nothing works. It seems that the trickster wants you to stay out of this particular fight. Suddenly the room goes quiet and under your fingers, you feel the door unlock. You walk in the door just in time to see your brother pull a stake out of the trickster’s corpse. You try not to flinch as you watch his body fall back onto the seat. You slowly make your way to Bobby and your brothers. You don’t take your eye off the trickster the entire time. Dean checks that you’re all okay and you nod mutely.

“Where the hell were you anyway?”

“The trickster locked me out.”

“Well, I won’t protest to anything that keeps my baby sister out of the fight.” You glare at him. “But I got to say... he had style.” You roll your eyes as you all head towards the door. As the others walk ahead of you, you pause on the steps for a moment by the trickster’s body. You’re happy to have finished the hunt, but as you look at the body before you you can’t help but wish things had gone differently.

“You coming, Y/N?” Bobby is stood in the doorway waiting for you. You take one last look at the man and continue on your way. “Good. We gotta get the hell out of here.”

The four of you make a beeline to Dean’s car. Sam and Dean pause for only a moment to exchange, what you can only assume to be, their apologies. As you drive away, Bobby speaks up suddenly

“You know the only part of this case that doesn’t make a lick of sense is,” Bobby turns to face you sitting beside him in the backseat. “How come the trickster was able to turn your brothers against each other that easily, and yet he let you go scot free.” You shrug.

“Guess he didn’t feel the need to.”

“Huh.”

~~~~~

You swing by the motel room to pick up your things before you ‘get the hell out of dodge’. And before you leave, you see there on your pillow, a wrapped chocolate bar.

#spn #supernatural #supernatural fic #supernatural reader insert #reader insert #spn gabriel #spn gabriel x reader #gabriel x reader #gabriel imagine #gabriel

[dustedmagazine]

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

#yearend 2020 #dusted magazine #ian mathers #greet death #holy fuck #spanish love songs #julianna barwick #phoebe bridgers #aidan baker #gareth davis #Anastasia Minster #Deftones #hum #Kelly Lee Owens #mesarthim #perfume genius #protomartyr #rachel kiel #the ridiculous trio #sam amidon #Shabason Krgovich & Harris #Stars Like Fleas #well yells #yves tumour #aix em klemm #bardo pond #charles curtis #coil #hot chip

[fanfics4all]

The Piano Man

Request: Yes / No 

Requests are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader 

Word count: 3999

Warnings: TALK OF RAPE I will not be tagging anyone but do not read if you are triggered by rape! (This is based on season seven episode 12)

Y/N: Your Name 

Y/L/N: Your Last Name

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK! 

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you! 

Masterlist 

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

A long time ago I used to live in Houston. That was a part of my life that I never wanted to return to. But now, it looks like I had no choice. I had joined the BAU team in the FBI and our case was back in my hometown. 

“So Houston PD needs our boots on the ground for the Piano Man case.” Garcia said and I silently gulped. 

“The serial rapist?” Morgan asked. 

“A case we consulted on about eight months ago. Twelve victims over five years.” Hotch said and he glanced at me. He knew that I was one of those women that he had hurt, he was the only one that knew. Not even my boyfriend of one year knew, I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone else. Hotch needed to know because it came up on my psych eval, but that was the only reason. The local PD didn’t even know, I never reported it because I was scared… 

“He crosses racial and social lines, ages too.” He added and kept glancing at me, I knew the others noticed as well. 

“Power assertive?” Prentiss asked. 

“Knocks them out with a date rape drug, and binds them with piano wire…” Rossi said. 

“They wake up with no memory of the assault or how they got the permanent scar the wire leaves.” I said, managing to keep my voice leveled. 

“So he’s branding his victims. How does he dose them?” Prentiss asked. 

“Houston PD still isn’t sure ‘cause, you know, date rape drugs metabolize quickly, and he’s keeping them for twelve hours.” Penelope answered before I could say anything. To be fair, I have no memory of how he drugged me, so even I didn’t know. 

“So why are they calling us in now?” Morgan asked. 

“Because of these most recent attacks. This piece of work has elevated sick and twisted to a whole new dimension. Cases in point- Brittany Anderson filed a report after she woke up outside the restaurant she was abducted from, and Vanessa Campbell was just reported missing.” Penelope answered and my eyes widened. 

“Wait, those were victims two and five, weren’t they?” Spencer asked. 

“Yes. He’s going back and attacking survivors a second time.” Penelope confirmed. 

“Vanessa was grabbed from her house? He’s changing his M.O. from what we studied. He’s upping his game.” JJ said. 

“Well, we know he stalks them. But public venue abduction, he has the power. Home invasion, he’s on their turf.” Morgan said. 

“So he’s betting he can gain control before they get to a phone or a gun.” Spencer said. 

“The question is why? What is he getting from revisiting old victims?” Rossi asked. 

“It seems careless for someone who’s been so controlled up to now.” Hotch said. 

“What is this? On the floor?” Prentiss asked.

“Uh, that- oh, God, that is the contents of Vanessa Campbell’s stomach, which she ralphed up.” Penelope answered. 

“And in the glass?” Prentiss asked. 

“According to the police report, it is salt and water.” Penelope answered. 

“Homemade emetic.” Prentiss said. 

“E-what what?” Penelope asked. 

“Quick and dirty cocktail meant to induce vomiting.” Rossi answered. 

“Vanessa Campbell and her husband moved to a new address. They’ve put locks on the doors. They took precautions. She even knew what to do if she was dosed again, and it still wasn’t enough. That’s what he gets out of it.” Prentiss explained. 

“Their fear. He wants them to know that no matter what, he can still get to them.” Hotch said and I felt a chill run up my spine. 

Everyone was getting ready to get on the jet. I gathered my stuff up and headed to the jet early. I walked on and saw Hotch sitting there alone. 

“Hey.” I said. 

“Y/N, I’m glad you’re here. Sit.” He said motioning to the seat in front of him. 

“I don’t want you to go on the case.” He said and my eyes widened.

“Hotch, I’m fine.” I said and he shook his head.

“No, you’re not. You are too involved with this case.” He said and I shook my head. 

“This man is the reason I studied so hard for this job, I want to catch people like him and now I have the chance to catch this son of a bitch. Please don’t take that away from me.” I said and he started at me for a few minutes. 

“He’ll try and come after you.” He said and I nodded. 

“I know the risks, but Hotch I can promise you I’m okay. I’m not gonna let him scare me.” I said and he sighed. 

“Fine, but you listen to what I tell you and don’t try and find him on your own.” He said and I nodded. 

“I promise.” I said, although I knew I might not be able to keep it all that well. Hotch and Rossi were talking with the chief and JJ and Prentiss were interviewing the victims. Reid Morgan and I were sent to the latest crime scene. 

“Does Vanessa smoke?” Spencer asked her husband. 

“Yes, Vanessa smokes. What does it matter?” He asked. 

“It might explain how the unsub is drugging these women.” Spencer said and my eyes widened slightly. Thank God I quit. 

“The media has done a very good job of warning people to watch their drinks so that bars are no longer a fertile hunting ground, but cigarette smokers aren’t as careful. They might ask to have a cigarette from a stranger, or have their pack swapped out of their purse when they put it down and then unknowingly inhale PCP or scopolamine, both of which mimic the effects of date rape drugs.” Spencer rambled, it honestly was always so cute to me, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking that.

“She hid them in her purse. She didn’t think I knew. She cracked the windows so I wouldn’t smell it when I got home.” Mr. Campbell said. 

“You know, if the unsub stalked her from the backyard, he’d have a good view when she lit up.” Spencer said. 

“He also took out the window with something like a center punch.” Morgan said. 

“What’s that?” Mr. Campbell asked. 

“It’s a spring-loaded device used to punch divots into metal. It also breaks glass.” I explained as Spencer walked off towards the kitchen. 

“No cigarettes. He must have taken them with him to hide the evidence.” Spencer said while looking through her purse. 

“You know, it might not be all he’s trying to hide.” Morgan said. 

“What do you mean?” I asked him. 

“Mr. Campbell, was this on when you came home?” He asked. 

“The police told me not to touch anything.” Mr. Campbell answered. 

“Well, you sure got a lot of MP3s on here.” Morgan said scrolling through them. 

“Was it playing one of them?” He asked. 

“No. Why?” Mr. Campbell asked.

“The media center keeps a history of the last twenty songs that were played, but either you don’t listen to any of them or someone erased it.” I said catching on to what Morgan was thinking. 

“It wasn’t me.” Mr. Campbell said. 

“I’ll call Garcia.” Morgan said, pulling out his phone. 

“Whatcha need?” She answered. 

“Hey, there’s an MP3 player in the Campbell house, can you tell me anything about the erased history?” Morgan asked. 

“Okay, I can’t tell you who deleted that playback list, but I can tell you exactly when the log was cleared. 7:43 P.M..” She said. 

“Why erase a history of someone else’s music?” Spencer asked. 

“Because he didn’t erase someone else’s music. At 7:36, he loaned an MPS via USB drive, played it, and promptly deleted it.” She said, showing us on the Campbell’s T.V..

“Cleared the history so he could cover up his tracks.” She added. 

“The unsub brought his own music to an abduction?” I asked confused. 

“Yes, he did, and that is creepy. Fortunately, whatever is imported onto this computer downloaded the home network, so, ladies and gentlemen, the mystery song of Mr. Gruesome is…” She said and the music started playing. “That’s specific.” Spencer said. 

“That’s another reason to call this guy the piano man.” Morgan said. 

“Turn it off. Please.” Mr. Campbell said. Morgan turned it off.

“Does this song mean something to you or your wife?” Spencer asked.

“Vanessa hates it.” Mr. Campbell said and I gulped. 

“How come?” Morgan asked. 

“I don’t know. She doesn’t know. But every time it came on the radio, she’d burst into tears.” Mr. Campbell explained.

“So the unsub just happened to play it the night he came after her.” Morgan said. 

We got back and JJ and Prentiss brought the woman back in to see if they had songs that triggered them too. All of us were in the room the local PD had set up for us and looked at all the songs these women now hated. 

“Lady in Red, Up Where We Belong, Glory of Love. Each victim has her own piano ballad.” JJ said. 

“You know, considering the survivors lose consciousness during the rape, we think this functions as the unsub’s signature. He most likely plays the songs repeatedly during the assault, resulting in pavlovian response when they heard it later, sort of a subconscious rape trigger.” Spencer said. 

“The night of Vanessa Campbell’s abduction, that signature became part of his torture.” Rossi said. Hotch looked at me and I shook my head. 

“We need to know.” He said and everyone looked at me. 

“No.” I said. 

“Know what?” Spencer asked confused. 

“Y/N is one of the victims from the first time.” Hotch said. 

“Hotch!” I said and I felt everyone looking at me in shock. 

“So, what song is it?” He asked and I looked away from everyone. 

“Endless Love…” I said.

“So, why these songs? What do they say about him?” Hotch asked, but before anyone could say anything more his phone rang. 

“Go ahead, Morgan.” Hotch said. 

“We just found Vanessa Campbell’s body. He didn’t even bother hiding it.” He said and my eyes widened. 

“How long has she been dead?” Hotch asked. 

“Maybe five hours.” He answered. 

“He’s never killed before…” I said. 

“Are we sure it’s our unsub?” Spencer asked, he was clearly worried. 

“He used a piano wire as a garrote.” Morgan answered. 

“Alright, Morgan, you come back here, I’ll go to the coroner's office once they’ve looked her over.” Hotch said and hung up. 

“Keep working.” Hotch said and pulled me out of the room. 

“You need to go back home now.” He said and I shook my head. 

“I’m not going anywhere until he’s behind bars.” I said, standing my ground. 

“Y/N this is serious, he’s getting more confident, you need to leave.” He said. 

“Hotch is right Y/N.” Spencer said coming out of the room. 

“I’ll give you two some time to talk.” Hotch said and went back into the room. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked. 

“Because I wanted to forget about it. Hotch is the only one that knew because of my psych eval.” I said not meeting his eyes. 

“I can help you.” He said, gently touching my arms. 

“Spence, there’s nothing to help. The only thing I need to do is to catch him.” I said. He gently guided my eyes to look at his.

“I understand, but this is dangerous for you, he could try and come after you now and what if he kills you? I can’t lose you…” He said with tears in his eyes. 

“I promised Hotch I wouldn’t go looking for him alone and as hard as it is to keep that promise, I need to. Because if I ever see him again, I will kill him.” I said and Spencer’s eyes widened, but he saw the tears in my eyes. 

“I can’t let him get away with this again.” I said and a tear slid down my cheek. Spencer pulled me to him and held me close. 

“Just stay with me okay? I can tell Hotch that we need to stay together, I can protect you.” He said and I smiled. 

“You know, I think that’ll be better for the both of us.” I said and he smiled back. 

“I love you.” He whispered. 

“I love you too, now let’s get back to doing our job.” I said, but he stopped me. 

“There’s nothing I can do to convince you to go home?” He asked and I smiled slightly. 

“You know there’s not.” I said and he sighed, but nodded. 

We walked back in the room and Hotch said the three of us were going to the morgue. So we hopped in a car and headed there. They didn’t have too much to look over apparently. 

“Tissue inflammation is consistent with inhalation of some sort of drug. I can’t tell what yet.” The doctor told us. 

“And the ligature marks?” Hotch asked. 

“Same as before. New wounds on top of old scars.” The doctor said holding up the hand and I felt myself reach for my own wrists. 

“No sexual assault, though. Possibly because she regained consciousness at some point and fought back.” He added. 

“She doesn’t show any signs of defensive wounds.” Spencer commented. 

“No, but I did fish this out of her trachea.” The doctor said handing Spencer a bag. 

“Neoprene?” I asked. 

“From a glove. My best guess is she bit him.” The doctor said. 

“Not enough to break the skin, unfortunately.” He added. 

“An exam glove?” Hotch asked. 

“Most likely.” The doctor answered. 

“Actually, it’s a surgical glove. A little bit thicker than an exam glove. If he was wearing neoprene, it means he has an allergy to latex.” Spencer said. 

“I’ll have Garcia check hospital records.” Hotch said and left the room. 

“Thank you doctor.” I said and Spencer and I followed Hotch out. 

When we got back to the PD Hotch told Spencer and I to take a little break. I objected at first, but he said it was an order so we took a walk around the block. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I said grabbing Spencer’s hand. 

“I understand why you didn’t.” He said. 

“I can hear him still you know…” I said and he looked at me confused. 

“What?” He asked. 

“He sang the song, I remember his voice. I was new to smoking so I wasn’t used to it yet. I was out with some friends and I went to smoke alone, when I tasted it, it tasted off so I got rid of it, but I blacked out after. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could hear that song and him singing it…” I admitted. 

“We need to go back.” Spencer said and grabbed my hand. We ran back as fast as we could and we saw everyone sitting at a table. 

“Hey you guys are back, we got a suspect.” JJ said and we looked at her confused. 

“Y/N remembers his voice.” Spencer said and everyone’s eyes widened. 

“Let’s go, Prentiss you try and get him to talk. Hotch said and the four of us walked towards the investigation room. Emily went inside and started playing to his fantasies. 

“It’s not him.” I said. 

“He’s definitely assaulted Dianna though.” Prentiss said. 

“Arrest him for that, but he’s not the man that raped me.” I said and walked out of the room. 

“How can Herman Scodie not be the piano man? We’ve got the medical gloves, the medical record he pulled.” Rossi asked. We were all gathered in the room, after Hotch had sent JJ, Spencer, and Morgan to go check his house anyway. 

“The taunt he said to Diana Mitchell, he repeated to us.” Prentiss said. 

“Well, Scobie definitely assaulted Diana the second time. He’s probably re-victimizing all of the survivors.” JJ said. 

“But apply the profile to Herman Scobie, and look at what’s different. There’s no piano wire, and there’s no song played.” Morgan said. 

“You think there are two unsubs, the piano man and a copycat?” Hotch asked. 

“A copycat studies the original unsub in order to learn. Herman Scobie’s a doppelganger.” Spencer said. 

“He’s trying to pass himself off as the piano man.” I said. 

“Why?” Rossi asked. 

“Convenience, maybe. If he assaults the piano man’s survivors, they’re less likely to reach out to the police.” Morgan said. 

“And if they do, the women claim it was the piano man. No one thinks to look at hospital orderlies.” JJ added.

“So who killed Vanessa Campbell, the piano man or Scobie?” Hotch asked. 

“It’s a lay-up. Same neoprene glove in her throat as we found in Scobie’s van.” Rossi answered. 

“There’s something odd about that too, though. If Vanessa swallowed this it would be scarred by digestive acids. I mean, even if it got caught in her trachea as he choked her out, gastric reflux would be evident, but there isn’t any.” Spencer said. 

“So the unsub placed that in her throat postmortem.” I said. 

“Which unsub?” Prentiss asked. 

“He used the piano wire, he played the song, it must be the piano man.” Morgan said. 

“So he plants a piece of evidence to frame Scobie.” Rossi said. 

“Okay, let me get this straight. The piano man is trying to convince us that Scobie is responsible for all of these crimes.” Prentiss said. 

“And if these two have studied each other this closely, then Scobie is the key to finding the piano man.” Hotch said. 

“His lawyer’s here. Scobie’s not gonna talk to us.” JJ said. 

“He will when he finds out he’s been set up.” Hotch said. 

“Let me talk to him.” I said and everyone looked at me. 

“No way.” Hotch said. 

“If he’s studied the piano man he’ll know who I am. He’ll want to talk to me.” I said and Spencer shook his head. 

“No, we can’t let you do that.” He said. 

“Fine. I’ll go in with you. That’s the only way.” Hotch said and I nodded. 

“Hotch, you’re serious about this?” Spencer asked shocked. 

“She’s right, if he knows who she is then it might put him on edge.” He answered. 

“Let’s go.” He added and we walked inside. Herman and his lawyer looked up at us and I noticed Herman’s eyes flash with realization. 

“My client has nothing to say.” His lawyer said. 

“Good. We’d rather he listen anyway.” Hotch said. 

“You’re going away fro rape. The question is whether you’ll let your competition hang Vanessa Campbell’s murder on you as well.” I said. 

“I didn’t kill her.” Herman said. 

“I didn’t even touch her.” He added. 

“Herman.” His lawyer warned. 

“From what you’ve told us, we know exactly what you think of these women.” Hotch said. 

“You don’t need to kill them.” I said speaking as if I wasn’t one of them. 

“They’re not worth that much effort to you.” I said and he never took his eyes off me. 

“But the piano man can’t take that risk. When he’d heard what you’d done, he killed Vanessa Campbell.” Hotch said. 

“He went back to an old victim, just like you, but then he places a piece of neoprene down her throat. Does that sound like an accident?” I asked and he glared at me. 

“He’s setting you up.” I added. 

“I need to discuss this with my client.” The lawyer said. 

“No, he talks to us now, or he takes his chances with a jury.” Hotch said. 

“What do you want to know?” Herman asked, eyes still never leaving mine. 

“Who is he?” I asked and he smirked. 

“You should know, I know who you are.” He said leaning forward towards me. 

“His unknown victim. The one that didn’t report him.” He said.

“Who is he?” Hotch asked again. 

“I never met him. I just read about what he did in the hospital records.” He said looking up at me. 

“You were the only one that didn’t report him, but you came in with the same marks as those other women.” He said, looked at me again. 

“The weird thing though, I had three chicks picked out to do next. I was gonna start with Vanessa, but… He got to her first.” Herman said. 

“Who was the other ones?” Hotch asked. 

“Regina Lampert and Y/N Y/L/N.” He answered. 

“You’re going away for a long time.” I said and walked out of the room. Spencer grabbed me and pulled me to him. 

“It’s okay.” He whispered and kissed my head. We all met in the room and tried calling Regina. 

“Okay, guys, regina Lampert is not answering her phone, and I found something hinky on her, which I’m sending to your tablets.” Garcia said. 

“Alright, Garcia, what are we looking at?” Hotch asked. 

“It’s a surveillance video from the bar that Regina Lampert works at. Do you see the guy she’s talking to?” She asked.

“PLaying the piano. He’s taunting her.” Rossi said. 

“She knows it too. Look at her body language.” Hotch said. 

“Watch what happens when I fast-forward to closing time.” Garcia said and sped up the video. 

“She seems to warm up to him.” I said. 

“And then, watch this.” She said and the video changed to a different angle. 

“Garcia, freeze it right there.” Hotch said. 

“Look at her face. No, she doesn’t. She set herself up as bait.” Hotch said. 

“Credit card says that the guy at the piano is Hamilton Bartholomew. This is what I know, his wife just filed a missing persons report on him this morning. She directed me to some job he just applied for, so I got a background check from that where they did his fingerprints.” She said. 

“Alright, Garcia, pull Regina Lampert’s rape kit and cross-reference the prints found with Bartholomew’s, and see if you get a match. We need to get to her house.” Hotch said. 

“Sending her address to your GPS.” She said and then we hung up. We all left to get to her house. 

“Garcia, did she pick up?” Hotch asked, answering the phone. 

“No, but we did just get a 911 call from her house, and it is freaking weird.” Garcia said and then started playing the call. 

“911 operator. What’s your emergency?” A lady asked. 

“Hello?” She asked when no one said anything. 

“My name is Hamilton Bartholomew. I’m being held captive by a lunatic!” He said then a gunshot went off. 

“She took the piano man captive?” Prentiss asked. 

“Unless he’s not the piano man. I mean think about it. Would the piano man call us to rescue him?” Morgan asked. 

“She could be shooting at the wrong guy.” Rossi said. 

“No, it’s him.” I said. 

“What?” Spencer asked. 

“That’s his voice… I know it.” I said. 

“The lab just confirmed, it’s him.” Prentiss said. We pulled up to the house and everyone got out. 

“Y/N you stay out here, that’s an order.” Hotch said and I knew there was no fighting this on. 

“As long as I’m the one that puts the cuffs on him.” I said and Hotch nodded. They went in and Spencer stayed out here with me. Hotch and Prentiss came out with both of them and Hotch handed him to me. 

“Hamilton bartholomew, you’re under arrest for the rapes of thirteen women and the murder of Vanessa Campbell.” Hotch said and I put the cuffs on him. 

“It’s you…” He said to me. 

“I’m gonna make sure you stay in jail for the rest of your damn life.” I growled at him. Hotch took him from me and Spencer came up and held me tightly. 

“Should have let her pull the trigger.” I said. 

“Come on baby, let’s just go.” Spencer said and took me to the car. 

“He’s never gonna see light again, you know that.” He said. 

“But he’s still alive…” I said. 

“And I’ll be here for you, whatever you need.” He said and held me close. 

[sunshinelukee]

this is for everyone who’s sad, lonely, bored or just needs some 5sos videos

I made one of these lists a while ago, but I decided to add some more videos, so now there are about 300 videos on here :) there used be even more but apparently links don’t work anymore if there are too many, so I had to delete a few

2011 - 2013

All 5sos Keeks part 1

All 5sos Keeks part 2

All 5sos Keeks part 3

Rolling In The Deep (cover)

Chris Brown/Justin Bieber - Next To You (cover)

Year 3000 (Busted cover)

What Makes You Beautiful/One Thing (cover)

Teenage Dirtbag (cover)

One Direction and 5SOS - Teenage Dirtbag (pie fight)

Superhero (unreleased song)

Teenage Queen (unreleased song)

Bad Dreams (unreleased song)

I Can’t Remember (unreleased song)

I’ve Got This Friend (unreleased song)

Over And Over (unreleased song)

Perfect Disguise (unreleased song)

5SOS on Ashton

5SOS on Calum

5SOS on Luke

5SOS on Michael

Keeks and various stuff (playlist with over 250 short videos)

2014

Yes/no game

Trying English food

That interview where Ash wore a banana suit

First dates and pick-up lines

NOVA FM interview

ODE interview

First in studio interview

Spin the bottle

5 seconds of snogging

Face to face (playlist with 32 short videos)

Ask anything chat

Vevo dscvr interview

Buzzers of death

Snog, marry, avoid

Karaoke on Capital FM

Puppet game

Trying to do makeup

Young Hollywood interview

Dressing up as elderly people prank at Target

Dressing up as Target employees

Don’t Stop the lost tapes

Good Girls behind the scenes

Amnesia behind the scenes

Slsp behind the scenes

Don’t Stop behind the scenes

Sunrise interview

The Bert Show interview

Bus tour

Pre-show routine

Blink 182 - I Miss You in the Live Lounge (cover)

Teen Vogue interview

5SOS play fall songs

Vodafone Big Top 40 Webchat

Chart Show Chat

Truth or dare

Ultimate Question Pong

Instagram videos

The Today Show

Tweet and Dare

What would you say to a talking cow?

A random twitcam

That Ninja Turtle dress up live stream (it’s over 1,5 hours)

2015

Shazamahang

Ash London live interview

Another Ash London live interview

The late late show

Answering fan questions with Qmusic

Ask anything chat

Vevo ask:reply

Rowyso tour exposed

This or that? Canada vs Australia

Shazamily feud

Yes/no game

Playing SKH on tiny children’s instruments

Bloopers from playing SKH on tiny children’s instruments

5sos vs fans: who knows 5sos better?

Interview in Japan

First and last

Jenga with a twist

Ultimate rock playlist

Hey Everybody behind the scenes

She’s Kinda Hot behind the scenes

The lost member of 5sos

Cards against humanity

Interviewing the Star Wars cast dressed up as Star Wars characters

Reacting to fetus photos

Bobble head game

KIISFM interview

Network TEN interview

Shane Dawson reacting to 5sos

Drown (Bring Me The Horizon cover in the Live Lounge)

5SOS On Chatty Man

5 Second Rule on The Ellen Show

Best ROWYSO moments compilation

Cake talk first kisses & getting drunk

How rock ‘n’ roll are 5sos?

Elvis Duran show

2016

5 seconds of sketching

MYX Philippines interview

Summer crush

In the kitchen on The Morning Show

Singing Cantonese songs

Slfl tour diary Europe pt 1 / pt 2 / pt 3

Slfl tour diary North America pt 1 / pt 2 / pt 3 / pt 4 / pt 5 / pt 6 / pt 7 / pt 8

Slfl tour diary London / Mex + Aus / Osaka / Nagoya / Berlin / Brighton / Asia

Playing Japanese games

Young Hollywood interview

To bae or not to bae

Girls Talk Boys behind the scenes

Heads up

What a cracker of a game

Ash London live interview

Fitzy and Wippa interview

Backstage tour

celebrating Luke’s birthday on stage

BBC Radio 1 interview

Spin Or Bin Music interview

Best SLFL moments compilation

Best 5sos crowd singing moments (this one gave me chills lol)

Outer Space live

2017

Tour diary South America

Tour diary Japan

Interview with Isabella Pascua

2018

Trying Dutch food

How well do 5sos know each other?

Popbuzz interview (bonus: it’s 30 mins)

Who knows who better?

Smallzy interview

Would you rather

Never have I ever

More never have I ever

Tattoo breakdown

Dad jokes

Reverse song challenge

Interview bloopers

Claro Brazil interview

First and last

5sos take a quiz to see which member they are

Who of you would

Friendship test

Chart takeover

Chart show chat

The meme review

Answering tumblr questions

5sos reacting to 5sos covers

Discussing Youngblood in 5 sauces

Much confessional

Reading YouTube comments

Playing Mario Kart

MTV Music interview

Australian TV interview

ET Canada interview

Reacting to fans hearing Youngblood

NRJ Sweden interview

Jingle Ball interview

Trying to speak German

5sos vs fan

Backstage at the ARIAs

Hit Network interview

Cocktail chats ep 1 / ep 2 / ep 3 / ep 4 / ep 5 / ep 6 / ep 7

5SOS3 tour diary V1 / V2 / V3 / V4 / V5 / V6 / V7

Meet You There tour diary V1

MYX Philippines interview

iHeartRadio interview

No Roots (Alice Merton Cover) in the Live Lounge

SiriusXM interview

The Today Show interview

Lashton answer fan questions

Cake on growing up on the road

Can 5sos remember their own lyrics?

Surprise radio presenters prank

What would 5sos do on a night out?

Answering fan questions on BBC Radio 1

Malum cooking on Sunday Brunch

Elvis Duran Show interview

The making of Killer Queen

Youngblood Official Lyrics & Meaning

Valentine Official Lyrics & Meaning

5SOS Catch Up on The Aussie Stuff They've Missed

5SOS do 'She Looks So Perfect' as a fake country band

Boat ride with 5sos

2019

5sos and the Chainsmokers at the Zach Sang Show (bonus: it’s 38 mins)

Musical beers

5sos and the Chainsmokers talk about wdyl

Ryan Seacrest interview

Another Zach Sang Show

Another Ryan Seacrest interview

Who tweeted it

Steve Harvey meets The Chainsmokers and 5SOS! | Celebrity Family Feud

Guys, if you're dating more than one woman... | Celebrity Family Feud

When I get to heaven, I want... wait, WHAT? | Celebrity Family Feud

This edible underwear tastes like... | Celebrity Family Feud

Blooper Reel: 5 Seconds of Summer

Dancing With A Stranger in the Live Lounge

"You don't even know me sometimes": 5SOS Answer The Internet's rhetorical stan questions

10 Things 5 Seconds of Summer Can't Live Without

Capital full interview

Easier behind the scenes

Ashton speaks to Luke

Ashton speaks to Calum

5 Seconds Of Summer Talk The Perfect Movie Theater Food

5SOS Plays Family Feud Against Elvis Duran Show

5SOS Talks Struggle of Work-life Balance

5 Seconds Of Summer Compete To Build The Best Sandcastle

Interview with QMusic in the Netherlands

5SOS Luke: “I FaceTime with my dog”

RTL Entertainment interview

5SOS On "Diverse" New Album And Why Teen Fans Are So Important

5SOS play “is it easier to...”

Michael talking about his Melody Maker

5SOS Swap Phones And Go Through Each Other's Camera Rolls

Wango Tango interview

5SOS have created a Capital's Summertime Ball playlist

5 Seconds of Summer Guess Life Hacks

5SOS defend their accents and bum bags

5SOS play "Adult Video or Music Video"

BONUS

Full How Did We End Up Here movie

Full Sounds Live Feels Live show

Full Rock In Rio show

Full Meet You There show

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #luke hemmings #calum hood #michael clifford #ashton irwin #5sos videos

[leakinghate]

Chasing the Ghosts of Season 8

Let’s skip the flowery intros and get to the point, because this is important.

Lotor’s vindication and reunion with Allura were originally part of VLD s8 and I can prove it. Most animation relating to this plot was excised, while other clips were re-purposed to make it look like he was dead all along: but some are still in there.

The removal of this plot line was one of the major factors in completely messing up season 8, and it was a change that was made very recently; no earlier than August in fact. There is a significant, non-zero chance that an unedited version of Season 8 exists in its entirety; completely finished.

The evidence is below the cut.

Trigger Warnings: Gore - that image and discussion of it, body horror, sexism, and major character death.

There’s something rotten in the house of Voltron, and by that I mean Dreamworks animation, because for reasons yet unknown the season 8 we got was not the one the writers had planned to give us.

The people involved likely can't talk about it due to NDAs, but I follow *most* of the cast and crew on social media, and from the way many of them were talking prior to the drop it’s obvious that whatever they'd recorded had led them to expect a very different season.

The almost total radio silence afterward is also telling.

So far as I can tell, AJ (Lotor’s VA) is the only one actively posting about it, and his posts have been expressing his distress over what happened to Lotor - a stark contrast to his excitement about the season prior to its airing. It’s very apparent that he thought Lotor would have a very different fate than he appears to. At the moment of the season drop he tweeted out “Lotor was framed”, and later didn’t seem to realize that ‘Allura’ was trending because she’d died.

Some of the other VA’s scarce posts lead me to believe that they’re having similar reactions: a now deleted post from Bex (Pidge’s VA) about having watched up to episode 6 consisted of an image of DOTU Lance captioned with “[internal screaming]”. Bex has since removed all references to VLD from her bio.

I’m certain that the VLD s8 we got was NOT the s8 that was originally planned. Or the one the writers and VAs had been alluding to in various interviews up until recently.

We know there were some very last minute changes to season 8. I guarantee you that Ezor was actually dead before the backlash over Adam in August, and you're kidding yourselves if you think that epilogue existed before then either.

Kihyun Ryu's 'last Shiro' tweet - that we now know to be from the wedding epilogue - was posted on September 13th, 2018. Less than two months ago these changes were still in progress. Less than a month before the first trailer premiered at NYCC these changes were still being made.

And those was absolutely not the only things which were changed. It was hinted we should pay attention to the s7 episode "the Feud" to spot some foreshadowing. Well? I've seen both that episode and s8 and I sure as heck can't find it.

This was beyond last minute.

JDS and LM were still talking in ways that would lead us to expect Lotor’s redemption roughly up to s7 in August; so whatever happened, it went down between August and November. Which is probably why s8 is so shitty; with such a terribly compressed timeline to make edits.

And edits they were, because with those time frames season 8 was either completely finished or very near to it when someone decided that things had to change.

I can prove it.

Do you know how?

Because the animation was recycled and altered to fit the new story, with only small parts made new for it. And because it was something else first, it’s still possible to partially reconstruct the original Season 8 from it.

Lets start with the big one, the one I’m sure you’re here to read: Lotor’s redemption and reunion with Allura.

One of the most frustrating things about season 8 is that it leaves the colony unexplained. The big question, the thing that results in Lotor’s murder at the hands of people he calls friends, and leads to a power vacuum that causes the deaths of untold billions of people. What was Lotor doing at the colony?

It’s never addressed or given an answer.

At least in the version of season 8 that we got.

Or is it?

Because they might have removed the conclusion to that plot thread, but they couldn’t get rid of it entirely.

In e8 ‘Clear Day’. Allura's suffers from several nightmares/dream sequences. They don't make any sense in context, and it’s never explained what caused them. Except, they make perfect sense, if you watch them as the first step towards understanding The Colony. 

Allura sees herself standing in a Juniberry field on Altea. Her mother greets her and proclaims that Allura has arrived just in time, and that only she can save them, “Only you can protect us.”

A Galra fleet passes over head, raining down laser fire.

Allura suddenly finds herself the pilot of one of the white mechs. She plunges her spear into the ground, draining the quintessence, and then fires on the fleet; obliterating it.

But as she grins in victory she realizes that the quintessence she siphoned from the planet has turned her immediate landscape to ash, including her mother. Allura is horrified, but as her mother crumbles away her voice echoes, telling Allura she is so proud of her.

In case me describing it wasn’t clear enough: what just happened to her was that Allura was literally put in Lotor’s position, operating one of his mechs. The places and the people were those that Allura cherished deeply, so that she could understand how terrible Lotor felt about what he had to do. It literally puts Allura in Lotor's place: having to take the responsibility of destroying parts of something she loves in order to protect the whole. 

And her mother? The Altean who was ‘sacrificed’ in this scenario? Praised her for taking the actions she did, because Allura was the only one able to do it. And the only choice was to save most of Altea, or none of it.

When Allura eventually does take the entity into herself we see the lights of Honerva’s mech’s faceplate lighting, then flash to a scene of Lotor in Sincline. He’s laughing, grinning as he did during s6′s finale, and as the camera zooms in on his face he shouts “Follow me!”

Briefly we see Voltron in front of the planets of Earth’s solar system, which is drowned out by a peculiar scene transition: an intense white light that appears to obliterate everything as though in an explosion.

None of these scenes are ever explained, but it’s reasonably comparable to the flash of images that Haggar sees in season 3 when she is first confronted with Zarkon’s memories. We’re left with the impression that we’re about to be enlightened, and the end of the episode reveals that Allura has passed out on the floor unconscious.

In this version of season 8, we never are told what exactly caused Allura to experience those visions. We can guess: was it perhaps the entity tempting her with its dark magic? Honerva attempting to place her under a spell?

But is the entity really dark magic? It’s different from the types of magic we’re used to, and the colors of it are certainly dark, but it in itself never actually causes Allura harm. Any harm she suffers after taking it into herself is caused by Honerva exploiting it.

Could it be a spell by Honerva? Unlikely. It took her almost two whole episodes of the paladins fooling around inside her mind for her to notice they were even there. If Allura had never taken the entity none of Honerva’s plans would have ever been found out. Yes, she did steal all the energy from the Atlas’ crystal, but she did that primarily to combat the Atlas and disable it. She didn’t need to get it from there, the energy her Komars were able to provide was all she needed.

So what caused those visions?

Lotor did.

Once he was free of the rift he was able to connect with Allura somehow and reach out to her. That was really him. Where he is now, trapped under Haggar’s control, he has no means to combat the witch. But Allura does. Everything he says to her? Is true.

The next episode, s8e9 “Knights of Light: Part 1″ begins with Allura awaking, Coran and Lance by her bedside. She’s been asleep for two quintants (days). She has apparently come up with a plan to infiltrate Honerva’s mind, but from whence she gets this plan is never explained. That’s because we’re missing an entire episode between these two. This is where Lotor’s redemption happens, where he and Allura finally reunite. God knows what else was in that episode, what else was happening while the paladins were waiting for Allura to wake. Lotor bids Allura to follow him, to finally allow him to tell his side of the story, and for some reason we weren’t allowed to hear it.

But from what we did get to see? It all but confirms @crystal-rebellion‘s Colony Theory. Albeit, the white mechs were built by Honerva, but Lotor was attempting to keep the colony safe in the only way he knew how. The Alteans who died did so willingly; to preserve the lives of all the others.

There’s a repeated narrative that the only person who encourages Allura to take action, to strive and push forward, is Lotor. Sometimes others accept it, but they never encourage her. Everyone else seems to consider her too fragile, or not capable of making her own decisions. They want to protect her and coddle her, don’t believe she should be taking any risks. They are supportive emotionally, but want to limit her physically. They care about her, but don’t truly trust her judgement or want her to be making her own choices.

With Lotor though, it’s different. He truly sees her as an equal, respects her judgement in her areas of expertise. This plot line revolving around the entity is a prime example. Lotor provides Allura with the information, that she has everything she needs to take down Honerva right in front of her; she just needs to utilize it. But from the moment Allura wakes the people closest to her doubt her decisions and choices.

And yes, those choices lead to painful consequences, but in the end they are proven to be the right ones, to have been necessary. Allura took a calculated risk, and it pays off - if she hadn’t they’d have never caught Honerva in time to stop her from destroying everything. They wouldn’t even have discovered her plan in the first place.

If Allura hadn’t made the choice to listen to and trust Lotor, by her own judgement, reality itself would have ceased to exist.

Both Coran and Alfor are given specific scenes this season where they judge and approve of Lance in his pursuit of Allura. But key, neither of them ever ask - or even mention - Allura’s feelings on the matter. The s8 we got, rather disgustingly, portrays this as the right thing. I believe the original s8 was meant to subvert this. Because Lance is everyone else’s choice for Allura, but when Allura was allowed to make her own choice? She chose Lotor.

Allura once again ends s8e10 ‘Knights of Light: Part 2′ unconscious. I firmly believe we are missing more moments  - if not an entire episode - with Lotor here, in s8e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ - probably explaining somewhere along the way how exactly he is able to contact her in this manner.

Which, uh... as to my personal theory on how that is, well... what did Lotor and Allura do together that might have crafted a unique spiritual bond between them?

What did you two experience in the quintessence field Lotor?

But, those were happier times...

I also think this is the episode, this missing one, that that particular image properly belongs to. We now see it in the previous episode, as one of Honerva’s memories. But the reason we see it is that the paladins apparently see it too. The only problem is, they don’t react to it at all. They literally have a stronger reaction to finding out they can see Honerva’s memories in the first place. There’s no possible way that Allura saw the melted corpse of the man she loved and had no discernible reaction. We see her reactions to Lotor’s presence multiple times over the course of s7 and s8, and they’re always intensely emotional ones.

But speaking of that image, since we’re on the topic. That’s a very detailed image.

There’s details there you don’t immediately spot, because you’re too distracted by the horrific imagery of the corpse of a main character. A character who’s tragic, abusive childhood was the focus of almost an entire episode earlier in the season.

Details such as the motes of light floating up from his body.

Motes of light we’ve seen in exactly two instances before: from Zarkon and Honerva’s eyes immediately after they were restored back to life by the rift.

And from Zarkon’s body: vanishing after he died.

Yeah guys, I’m about to make that image much worse.

That’s not Lotor’s corpse, because he’s not dead.

He’s still in there, in that state, and he’s been in there for over three years.

Melded, physically and mentally, with Sincline by his time spent in the quintessence field.

What. The. Fuck.

As the season progresses it becomes much more difficult to tell what was supposed to be happening because of how badly it’s been chopped up, re-arranged, and edited.

But there is a very distinct difference between Sincline’s two appearances in action - that is, it’s only in the first one that it actually is in action.

The last time we see Sincline move of it’s own accord is e6 ‘Genesis’. From the moment he reappears Lotor is on the attack; he is stopped only two times, once of his own accord and once by Haggar’s mind control.

And that one time he stops himself? Is when he takes aim at Allura. She’s running across the ground, about to strike Honerva with her bayard, when he raises his right arm and takes aim. We see her in his sights, through his eyes. And the view zooms in on Allura’s face.

Lance sees what’s happening and dives in Red to stop him, but is blocked by one of the white mechs.

Yet. He lowers his arm and doesn’t take the shot.

Lotor never fires.

But immediately afterwards the white mech lingers too close and Sincline impales it with it’s tail. It’s not an aversion to killing that stayed his hand.

It’s that it was Allura.

This scene unambiguously shows that Lotor is both alive inside that mech and somewhat aware of himself. He’s become a robeast.

Yet after that episode the mech never moves again. It hangs lifeless in space during the battle at the pyramid; the white mechs having to do the fighting. The lights on it’s chest have gone out, only relighting when it is charged with quintessence from the Komar. For all intents and purposes, Sincline is empty.

Oh, and speaking of Sincline, up until s8e9 it’s only ever referred to as “Lotor’s mech,” but suddenly, in e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ they’ve learned its name and Allura calls it “Lotor’s Sincline”.

I think that at some point between ‘Knights of Light’ and the second half of e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ Lotor was to have been rescued. 'Uncharted Regions’ is one of the worst episodes this season for flow: it’s extremely choppy and hard to follow - flicking back and forth between scenes without anything really happening in them.

But the most telling thing?

‘Uncharted Regions’ begins with Honerva in her haloed mech searching Alternate realities for her ‘perfect’ one. We see several clips of her doing this, the mech floating in front of the pyramid, alone, with the spinning disk of its wings as a viewport.

Suddenly, almost exactly halfway through the episode, we get an image of Honerva kneeling inside the pyramid, in her Altean commander uniform, one uniformed Altean to either side. She says “The princess has awakened,” and then the scene changes.

When next we see Honerva she’s floating above the pyramid, the silent and immobile Sincline by her side.

The entire time this is happening there is combat going on around the pyramid, first with the coalition fighters and then with the Atlas itself. This sequence appears in episode as though it all happens successively in a very short period of time. But it doesn’t make sense like that. Why should Honerva stop what she’s doing, and exit her mech just to check if Allura is awake?

In this scenario why does Honerva even care if Allura is awake? By this point she’s apparently found her perfect reality and is prepared to move on to it? She doesn’t need Allura for anything, none of her plans require Allura. Why should she even bother to announce that Allura is awake, as though this is something she’s been waiting for?

This entire episode, including the fight scenes, has been chopped into little pieces and rearranged. Other scenes have had edits to their animation, or were re-done entirely. What we have in ‘Uncharted Regions’ is a frankenstein’s monster of an episode constructed of the tiny remnants of of at least two, possibly three, original episodes.

If you watch this episode carefully you’ll notice that there’s a clip out of order. The lights on Sincline’s chest are dark until it’s charged with the quintessence from the Alteans on the Atlas. But. The close up shot of Sincline the paladins see immediately upon exiting the wormhole in front of the pyramid has the lights lit up. This clip clearly is part of the sequence we see later in the episode just before the mechs combine. So when the crew on the bridge of the Atlas is shown reacting in horror, whatever they’re actually reacting to has been cut out.

These original missing episodes would have contained what I’m fairly certain was our big Alchemist vs Alchemist reprisal fight between Honerva and Allura; something we’ve been waiting for since season 2′s finale.

Why was such an anticipated fight removed?

I think it’s because the fight was over Lotor, and ultimately Allura would have rescued him.

Every time Allura uses the powers she obtained in Oriande it’s mentioned where she got them, and often that she has them because of Lotor.

She’s shown again and again restoring life and health.

What happened, what we’re missing, is her using the abilities she has thanks to Lotor, to save him.

Allura is supposed to storm that pyramid, infiltrate it, and rescue Lotor from the evil witch holding him captive. She’s supposed to find him in that horrible state we saw him in, and she’s going to heal him. She’s going to fight for him, to protect him, when no one else in his life ever has.

There’s also a clear switch. When Sincline is active and alight Honerva several times refers to it as ‘my son’ but afterwards, she stops and uses Sincline as a tool for her to reach an Alternate Reality and obtain a ‘new’ version of Lotor. With the exception of one shot, where, since we can’t actually see her speaking it seems that the audio and animation are sourced from different original scenes, Honerva ceases treating Sincline as Lotor after the lights go out.

The line that causes Honerva to snap s8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is when the little alt Lotor says “My mother is dead”. It’s framed like a deliberate callback, like it should be echoing something. But it’s a line we’ve never heard. I’d hazard that this final rejection, this line was spoken by *our* Lotor as Allura is rescuing him.

Lotor was not dead in there, he was alive, and he was saved.

There is a really good theory going around, my friend @tsunemori told me about it. I don't know who first came up with it, but I fully support it, because I noticed the scene in question was really off too.

But the theory is that that hospital bed scene? Was originally Lotor in the bed after they rescued him, and Allura was in Lance's place. Which makes total sense, because after that scene, when Lance takes Allura to the bridge? His height is all wrong, and he is hanging onto her for support instead of the other way around: it should be Lotor there.

Do I have any concrete proof of this one? No. But there is something off about that scene. It just doesn’t feel right.

So yeah, if I ask myself, “Is this a scene that might have been re-animated, the characters traced over and re-drawn as different ones?” I can absolutely see that. When looking for places where actual edits to the animation have been made you have to factor in several things: the complexity of the animation - how many characters, how many settings, how much movement, who is the focus/moving/talking.

This is both a pivotal scene, and an incredibly easy one to alter, comparatively. Two characters, one laying still in a bed and only getting a single one-syllable line - the other character’s name, which might have been taken from anywhere. Lance has a long string of dialogue, but he’s sitting beside the bed the entire time, and he moves very little.

I strongly believe this scene was either altered significantly or created whole-cloth for this edited version of s8.

Things that are much harder to alter, because they’d be much more expensive, are the fight scenes. It’s where I started looking once I suspected what had happened with season 8, and it’s where I started finding things.

S8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is one of the best episodes in terms of flow, and I believe that’s because it suffers some of the least editing.

We are however missing at least two scenes: a farewell between Allura and Coran - presumably as Allura boards the Blue Lion - and an explanation as to how Voltron followed Honerva into her destination reality after the rift closed on them. I believe both of these scenes were edited out because Lotor was key in them; several scenes in the following episode s8e13 ‘The End is the Beginning’ lead me to believe that he spent the final battle in the Blue Lion with Allura.

Two scenes during the fight stand out to me: the first, a split screen where Keith is mysteriously given a double width section as compared to the others. It’s especially noticeable, because he’s not even centrally placed and he’s scaled to a different size than his fellow paladins. In the entirety of the series we have never before seen a split screen cut among an even number of characters where one of them is given odd prominence like this. The screen is arranged so the characters appear in a color gradient, Keith is red-black and immediately to his left is Allura who is blue. If there was a missing section here, the color space would correspond to indigo/purple - and those are Lotor’s colors.

The second is a moment when Allura is speaking facing forwards and very clearly looks to the side and makes eye contact with someone. Now, VLD does have moments when the paladins will react in their own lions as though they can see each other, but this isn’t like that. It’s the way her eyes move, and look, she’s talking to someone who’s point of view we’re seeing her from. And that person is Lotor.

There’s also a peculiar moment in this episode where the same split screen is used twice; another thing which has never before happened in the series. It appears first about a quarter of the way through the episode as the paladins enter the stage for the final showdown and then again as they push Honerva into the glowing whiteness at its center. I believe that the second one of these is its proper place, and that the one that originally went in the first instance had Lotor included in it.

Finally, and this is going to take several images, so be warned. When the paladins appear before Honerva in the heart of it all, fading into view, they’re spaced very strangely.

There’s six of them, so you’d expect they’d be spaced something like this:

But they’re actually spaced like this:

(yes, I know Honerva would be blocking someone there. She moves. I just picked this cap so you could see all the shadows; there’s no point showing you the empty space)

It rather looks like there’s someone missing.

The last half of the final episode is so heavily manipulated that it’s difficult to say what actually happened. But we have two very strong clues from which we can reconstruct it.

Remember the leaks?

Now that we know the leaks were real, it begs the question, why was this scene one of them. Unlike the others, which were all from the epilogue, this scene is from roughly halfway through the episode.

Well, I believe we have the answer now: whoever leaked them chose those because they were the scenes they had on hand. These were the scenes that were not originally part of VLD s8, and were added only in the last minute edit.

This one in particular is another where I think it’s taken an actual scene and traced over it to make it into something else. Lance is far too tall here, and doesn’t look like himself hardly at all.

It’s also very clear from the framing of the shot where Allura is going down the line of paladins and hugging them that Lance should be getting a send off in sequence to the others, not apart like this.

No, I think Lance was animated over Lotor here, and the audio was spliced in parts from Lance’s actual goodbye scene and Allura’s “I will always love you” comes from somewhere else. That portion of the line is said in a distinctly different tone of voice than Lance’s name beforehand. There’s different emotions to it than the rest of their conversation, and I’d guarantee we’re hearing it out of it’s original context.

I don’t know what else changes in the ending, but I’m very certain that it was not supposed to be read as Allura dying.

The reason we now read it that way is that Allura and Honerva are seen greeting the spirits of people we know that are dead. I’m fairly certain this scene is either new, or it was only Honerva going to meet them, and of course, that Lotor wasn’t among them.

And I think it was Allura and Lotor who stayed behind to do the work of restoring all realities. My proof of this is one of the very best and strongest among my evidence: the very last closing shot of Voltron: Legendary Defender, after the credits.

The lions of Voltron take off to rejoin their new Cosmic Entities; Allura and Lotor. Whoever was responsible for editing Lotor out of this picture only actually slightly blurred him.

Thanks to @articianne for the outline!

If you play around with the image contrast and brightness it’s even more obvious that the both of them are there, back to back.

It only looks like Allura dies because the spirits but without them there? It looks like they ascended to a higher plane of existence or something.

They haven’t died at all. They’ve become, of all things, like Bob, the gameshow host from s7e4 ‘The Feud’. An ‘all-powerful, all-knowing interdimensional being’.

And y’know? Bob was perfectly able to interact with the paladins no problem.

I don’t understand why these changes were made. To me? This looks like a perfectly happy ending.

What else was cut I don’t know. But I found all this evidence by looking for the things that weren’t there, that a competently structured plot would lead me to expect would be. Chasing ghosts, as it were.

A short list of additional things I strongly suspect were cut?

Several scenes between Keith and Shiro.

A pivotal scene between Allura and Coran.

A follow up event with Pidge referencing her sacrificing her videogame to get Allura a dress.

A scene between Lance and Pidge, possibly referencing said videogame.

A resolution to Lance and Pidge competing to get Allura the best present.

A conclusion to Axca’s sub plot.

A Hunk and Shay scene, to explain how and why the Balmeras all show up in s8e12 ‘The Zenith’.

An additional scene with the blade for the same reasons.

Actually, y’know what? I’m not just going to leave this, because I have a strong suspicion what one of the other cut subplots was about.

You see, the other half of ‘Clear Day’ isn’t entirely filler - it’s specifically a callback to the season 2 episode ‘Space Mall’, and it’s not the only one in this season. The little shopping trip from s8e1 ‘Launch Date’ is also one. Specifically they’re part of a plot for Pidge about her feelings for Lance.

In ‘Space Mall’ Pidge and Lance spend their time scrounging up change to buy a videogame console. The game that they purchase is part of a series that Pidge later trades the only copy of the latest version of to get Allura a dress. During ‘Clear Day’ Pidge and Lance both spend their time trying to get the best present for Allura (hint hint, Pidge is the one who actually got the ‘”something sparkly”).

Now, as I’ve already covered, there’s missing content between ‘Clear Day’ and the next episode. Part of that content should have been what the other paladins were doing while Allura was unconscious. And in series, we never actually see Allura receive either of those presents that were bought for her. So where did they go?

I think Pidge and Lance spent the time waiting for Allura to wake up together, and they got to talking about how Lance has once again failed to acquire the sparkly thing Allura would like. Perhaps Pidge trades her mining helmet for Lance’s signed Blue Lion, and then it comes up how both times Lance went to get a present for Allura he ended up getting one for Pidge.

And that first time was the video game wasn’t it? A perfect place for Lance to find out what happened with the video game in s8e1.

So why did Pidge trade that game? To make Allura happy, yes, but also to make Lance happy. Because Lance likes Allura and Pidge wants them to have a good time, because Pidge likes Lance. Like, check e1 when Allura tells her she's going on a date with Lance, Pidge's reaction... isn't really a happy one.

I think this should have been the turning point for Lance, where he learns the difference between infatuation and sincere affection. I think very soon after this his relationship with Allura would end, and he would naturally progress into a different sort of relationship with Pidge.

As much as I love s8e7 ‘Day Forty-Seven’ I don’t think it was originally part of season 8. I also get the feeling that s7e2 ‘Shadows’ may be composed of scenes we were supposed to have gotten throughout the later half of season seven - though I expect that this change was made in a much earlier spate of edits, likely when s7 was re-done. It’s been confirmed that this happened, and that s7e4 ‘The Feud’ was made to ease the pressure on the exhausted animators who’d been working overtime to get the other episodes done in time. It’s never been confirmed what exactly was changed about season 7 or why, but I highly suspect it was to include more content with the MFE fighters, who the higher ups at Dreamworks might have been hoping to spin off into a sequel.

I suspect that the episodes were shifted forwards, because the first half of the season has no 'event' episode. s8e6 ‘Genesis’ should have been that, and what we're missing is the mid-season event. Which was where they would have saved Lotor. They excised an entire climactic fight between Allura and Honerva, reprising their battle from season 2. The alchemist vs alchemist fight that was repeatedly alluded to being inevitable, yet we never got.

It was animated and voiced to be Lotura and Lotor's vindication.

But someone wanted that changed.

We know when and why ‘The Feud’ was created, and because we were teased in several interviews to pay attention to it so that we might spot some foreshadowing, we can definitively say that the mucking around that was done to season 8 happened at a much later date.

In fact, the animation portion was likely completed all the way back in June. These are two bumper images that were used to advertise Season 6, which released on June 15th.

We haven’t yet seen this image of Lotor appear in the show (for what it matters, the full color one is the correct way around; Lotor’s hair always curls up over his right shoulder, the left can go either way), we have scoured every frame of him to find it, but it’s just not there (yes I know it looks like it should be from s5e4 ‘Kral Zera’, but trust me it’s not). Every other image that’s ever been used in these promotional bumpers has been from somewhere in the show, but this one is so far absent. Therefore it’s from a piece of animation yet to appear, and one which was made by the time these images showed up in June.

Now that we know what the truth is, I am sure we will get the full story eventually. It's only a matter of time before it filters out.

But right now is the key time if we want to convince Dreamworks to release the original season 8. Tweet at them, email them, snail mail if you have the time! Sign that petition!

The fandom response now will determine if we find out what really happened sooner rather than later - and later could mean years.

We are the only people who can make this happen. The cast and crew are all bound by NDAs, and publicly reacting negatively towards a show you worked on is practically career suicide.

It has historically been fans who’ve made a difference when companies interfere with their favorite shows. Fans have been able to effect change in the past, and they will again in the future; lets make sure this is one of those times. We need to fight to get the VLD we should have gotten in the first place.

Just remember to apply your energies in the right places. JDS and LM aren’t perfect people (no one is!), but this isn’t their doing. This is someone above them responsible for the mess that was s8. Dreamworks Animation is the culprit. There is a very real chance that the original season 8 is completely finished and able to be released, and we just might get it if we’re persistent enough. 

Be polite, be reasonable, but be firm. Take this proof and use it. Show them that we know they changed things and that they can give us the original if they so choose.

The messages they inadvertently pushed with this slap-dash edit are vile and toxic, and people far more knowledgeable than I in those areas are speaking out about them. This needs to be fixed.

They need to say something. They need to tell us why they changed it. They need to give us the original Season 8.

Click here for Part 2: Seek Truth in Darkness

I, and any of you who enjoyed this meta, owe @nomadicism a huge thank you. She reminded me of that strange "Follow me!" scene, which prompted me to crack open 'Clear Day' for another watch... and I realized that Allura's dreams weren't nonsensical at all.

As always, thank you to my many friends in the Lotura Discord. You give me the strength and encouragement to keep going. I couldn’t have done this without you.

#Lotura #vld s8 #plance #Lotor #Allura #Pidge #Lance #VLD #Voltron legendary defender #VLD s8 spoilers #voltron spoilers #Haggar #Honerva #voltron conspiracy theory #The Ghosts of Season 8 #executive meddling #LotorDeservedBetter #AlluraDeservedBetter #Hate tries to Meta #hate writes too many words #it's like 6k #dare I tag it? #i dare #riftsex #i can't believe that's plot relevant #vld cast

[5sosbitchfest]

Alrighty, Nonsters.  We currently have 290 Asks in our box!  As much as we might try, I know there is NO WAY we’re going to be able to get through all of them.  Everything exploded this weekend when MessyGate went down!   I don’t want to ignore any asks just because I already answered a similar one.  So, I’ve tried to gather as many similar Asks as possible to let your your voices be heard.  Y’all are definitely NOT alone in your feelings.  Get ready for a lot of opinions on Messy’s Twitter Drama.  

Also, if you sent in an Ask and we haven’t answered it yet, please feel free to resubmit it!  I do try to scroll through all of them but it is a daunting task and personal stuff and work make it difficult for me to get through everything in a timely manner!

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Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’m really disappointed in Luke and this band in general, the way they deal with things. “honest policy” with messy? So he knew all of this and it was okay? Or he confronted her on this and he is okay with what she has done? I’m not sure this whole thing would be a deal breaker for me, but it certainly would make me real mad at my SO and some whiny excuses wouldn’t be enough to make things alright. Radio silence would’ve been much better than that story he posted, made himself look like a fool.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls will sooner or later become their downfall if their management or them does not realise they should rely on other things than bringing relationship up front to sell their music. I find it extremely bad that they are behaving as if nothing happened, I hope there will be changes once touring will be possible again and we won’t see these girls tagging along everywhere or being brought up in interviews all the time but somehow I’m not counting too much on that.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder if Luke knows everything that Messy got exposed for or just the parts Messy wanted to show him. Bc Luke said in his Story that he wasn't online lately so maybe he wasn't on Twitter too and Messy just showed him the parts that make her look good and he still doesn't know that she spoke bad about Ashton or how she stalked the fans also after she knew that they didn't hack his email adress cause he wasn't on Twitter so he couldn't see the screenshots.🤷‍♀️

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm just waiting for the day one of them date someone who isn't a part of their circle. tired of them passing around the same toxic girls.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls are just digging a whole for these guys and they want be able to get out of it soon

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It was a chicken move for Sierra to do it as a reply and no one has talked on twitter that she deleted it because they probably think her deleting it is saying it wasn’t true

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Am I the only one who thinks that guys really only heavily interact with us when they want to promote something or say something about the music? I do understand they have lives so being on Twitter isn't number one priority and with all the drama that surrounds this fandom its very easy to not want to be online a lot, I just can't help but feel that way

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm talking about this messy situation (no pun intended) with my friend and she said to me that Messy should consider changing her career if she can't handle that not all people are going to like her. (that ofc doesn't include any form of harassment bc that's not cool)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I really don't know how to feel about the Luke situation. At first I was upset and disappointed of Luke but now I almost pity him bc real or not either the management would want Luke to defend her or Messy. And I think Luke isn't the kind of person who would stand up against the management or Messy (even though it would probably be better for him if he would). And most people don't realise when they're in a toxic relationship so I can't really blame him. I just hope this ends asap.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I literally was so angry and frustrated with Luke and this whole situation yesterday that I couldn’t even look at him on my home screen, I had to change it. It’s really a disappointing thing to witness. Whether management put him up to this or he genuinely believes this toxicity is okay, I’m just very grumpy with him at the moment. He deserves better and WE (the fans) deserve better.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I think Luke really needs to be in a relationship with sb who either isn't famous and doesn't want to be or with someone who is famous bc they have a successful career too and who doesn't need Like to be famous.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’ve only seen a few accounts on Twitter who are attacking Messy and Crusty to the core and exposing every bad thing they’ve done with receipts for the sossies defending them! I’m happy that karma is finally getting to those con artist who think they can get away with anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: that recent lierra picture is photoshoped lmao. if you look at Sierra's hand you can see color coming off from it and her arm looks hella weird.her forehead looks hella weird and look couldn't have taken the picture because I doubt that he could stretch his arm that far and make a perfect picture. also we haven't even seen Sierra's face so I still don't believe they're together

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The Lemon pic was like a punch in the face (even though Petunia and Luke are looking cute there). But I've been asking myself lately if Luke has seen the whole drama going around on Twitter or just the posts Messy wanted him to know so the ones who make her look like the victim (and not the ones where she insulted Ashton or she made it clear that she stalked his fans). Cause Luke said he hasn't been online lately.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I mean we dont know how much of the story he truly is aware of and how much s changed to fit her narrative and get L to feel bad for her. Plus he was under pressure from management to do damage control and not standing up for his gf is a very bad look for outsiders who dont understand why she's at fault. It was a pretty neutral statement and he was obviously told to make the post so I dont blame him and just blame her more for putting him in the situation in the 1st place

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder how much toxicity happens behind the scenes, we know S is very manipulative and L is very much a people pleaser so.. and with how much they have to sell their "love" and "happiness" in the relationship. Minipulation is a powerful thing and it could explain why hes out of touch with reality, especially lately since he's isolated with her and doesnt have the voices of the band to raise any concerns and he's been getting skinny again and seems very "meh" rather than happy, idk

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel so disconnected with this fandom rn. I feel like no one is streaming CALM and that makes me sad bc it's such an amazing album. The boys aren't even online anymore, everyone is mad at each other and now Luke comes up with this shit... tbh I wish I would wake up tomorrow and see him tweeting something like yeah I'm sorry about my ig story I still love y'all lmao

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Wait wait wait wait ive been gone from the fandom for a little while now and what the fuck is going on with Luke and S? What did S do that she made a fake ass apology for?? I’m so lost please help me! 😂

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm seeing a lot of my mutuals unstanning and I'm just so mad bc Sierra started this drama and got Luke into it and I'm sad that people are leaving bc of this, it's just too much toxicity and it shouldn't affect the band and their connection with the fans but with Luke saying this he makes it seem like he supports the ugly things she does

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I am a Luke stan and I've always loved him bc he has inspired me so much through the years but when he does this things it's like...damn. I feel like he's invalidating the fans' feelings by being like "if you don't like my girlfriend, ur fake" like he has never noticed me on Twitter or anything but my biggest fear is to be blocked by him or just ignored bc I don't like her (although I never expressed it publicly) n yeah anyways :// It feels weird

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Going back and re-reading the DM’s messy literally confirms that she accesses Luke’s account by saying “we couldn’t get in” or some shit like that

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate being a luke stan, sometimes it just seems like he doesn't care? he always puts these toxic gfs before the ones who adore him and pay his bills. might just move into Cashton's lane. unproblematic kings.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: He literally posted a picture of him cuddling her and petunia within the hour

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The saddest part of this situation is it’s like a repeat of Arzaylea. Luke has no idea what a respectful, mature relationship is. We saw it with Arz and were seeing it again it’s just a little bit different. He stays being controlled and manipulated by toxic partners. I really think homeboy needs to be single for a WHILE and focus on himself. He needs to unlearn the things his past and current relationships have taught him about love because if I know anything, it’s that this ain’t real love.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Is it bad that I just want the larzaylea drama back?? Like everyone could at least agree on their feelings then...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Just checked messy’s insta and of course, everyone that still supports her filled her tagged with just the single picture

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel like the reason Sierra is getting away with what she’s done is because she isn’t that known. Like yeah she’s associated with 5sos, but they’re also like not that big which is probably why it’s getting swept under the rug. I’ve only seen the 5SOS fandom calling her out for her actions. If this had happened with a well known celebrity, they probably would’ve been dragged and been trending on Twitter. I might be wrong but I feel like this is what’s happening which is just unfair.

#kirby #luke #lemon #messy #messygate #messy's twitter drama

[mycosmicvoid]

The Real Kentucky Goblin Case, “Hellier,” and Interdimensional Beings

“Remember, something really did happen that night! Enjoy + Believe!” writes Geraldine Sutton Stith on the inside cover of my copy of her book, “Alien Legacy.”[1] Geraldine is the daughter of Elmer “Lucky” Sutton, and “Alien Legacy” is an account of, as she autographed, what “really did happen” on the night of August 21st, 1955, better known as “the Kelly Hopkinsville UFO case,” “the invasion of the Kelly Green Men” or simply: “the Hopkinsville goblin case.” Through reading her family’s story after I thought I knew it well enough, I felt my own compulsion to vindicate them, just as she does. In the prologue, she asks the reader to “see if you can feel and possibly understand what this family went through. And with that being said, this is my story, this was what was left for me. This is my legacy.”[1]

As the reader you can’t help but feel a bit of guilt thinking about the constant fetishization of real stories existing in real family lineage, UFO-related or not. However, sentimentality aside, I was determined to know the real story. First, the set-up of events in the book were slightly confusing, as I previously was not aware of exactly who everyone was. Geraldine is the daughter of Lucky and Glorine (who was not present, although his current wife at the time, Vera, was). Lucky and his friend Billy Ray were the two to battle the creatures that invaded the property that night after Billy Ray witnessed something “round and metallic”[1] fly across the sky followed by a streak of rainbow light. Lucky’s mom was called Miss Glennie, June is Billy Ray Taylor’s wife, JC is Lucky’s brother, Alene is his wife, O.P. is Alene’s brother, and Lonnie, Charlton and Mary are Glennie’s children and Lucky’s little siblings from her second marriage, who were all present that night.

The first I heard of this case was in the first episode of “Hellier”[2]- After all, it was the very case that influenced the crew to follow their email lead, which happens to be a plea from a man named “David Christie” (in quotations as it is now understood to be an alias), asking for help from Greg Newkirk and his paranormal hunting group, as little creatures have allegedly been harassing his family. Greg acknowledges the similarities and differences between the descriptions of creatures in David and the Suttons’ story: David’s were “the size and stature of a small child, devoid of any facial features save for large, oily eyes and lipless mouths. They frighten my children by peering through their bedroom windows, chirping at one another. They actively attempt to enter my home… I assure you [they] are not ‘wild animals.’”[2] He claims his daughter witnessed them playing together in the yard, and called them “‘bald like grandpa and weren’t wearing any clothes.’”[2] When he finally “witnessed” them for himself, David describes a “chirping” sound, “much like a skunk, if more guttural,”[2] and a “small, humanoid figure, with sickly pale skin, completely hairless...”[2] In the last correspondence with Greg before disappearing and deleting his email account, David sends pictures of a three-toed footprint[2] allegedly found on his property and claims he is fleeing.

The “Hellier” crew never claimed that the creatures from the two stories were the same - just too similar to ignore. Geraldine doesn’t go as far into detail with physical description, however I have not read her other works. The one I did read describes the creatures as “a figure standing about three feet tall.”[1] “It glowed, and as it got closer, they could see that it had its arms in the air as if to surrender.”[1] It looked as if it had “two huge eyes that glowed yellow”[1] and “its legs weren’t moving; it seemed to float on top of the ground!”[1] The men would shoot at them, and “it sounded like a metal bucket being hit…” They explained to the police that the “little men” were “one color all over except for the glowing eyes”[1] and they had “a luminous glow, but when a light hit them, it changed to a dull metallic.”[1] The glow “got brighter when they were shot at or yelled at,”[1] and Lucky thought this may be their way of responding. Unless I had let the detail slip by, Geraldine makes no mention of the creatures chirping, or any sound. Moreover, these creatures made no effort to enter the house despite the windows and doors being open, and made no effort to physically hurt the family - they seemed to be toying with them, by returning unaffected after being shot at, touching Billy Ray’s hair, scratching the roof, and peering twice into the living room window. As terrified as the family was, Miss Glennie felt no need for Lucky to be shooting at them: “I don’t think they’re here to hurt us. Didn’t you all see how they were holding their arms up in the air? I think they are as much afraid of us as we are of them.”[1] In David’s case, the creatures went so far as to allegedly take his dog and break into his home.

Greg mentions the term “goblin” as a label witnesses used due to having no other way to identify the creatures.[2] Lucky thought they “look like some kind of little goblin or demon!”[1] and in Billy Ray’s response to Glennie wanting to see what the two men saw, he exclaims, “I hope that God-awful thing went back to whatever deep dark depths it came from!”[1] Despite Greg mentioning that the family thought they were from outer space[1], all Geraldine mentions (in this account, at least) is that the family knew for sure the creatures were “not of this Earth,”[1] but also clarifies that since they were deemed goblins or demons, “I guess at first it was easier to think that they were something from hell than from another planet.”[1] Another factor regarding the description of the “goblins” was that they were silver/metallic, not green. Early writing describing them as “little green men” stuck, and this infuriated Lucky; he wanted every detail to be told as it happened. In fact, early police drawings of the goblins display very large, pointy ears,[2] however this is another detail not mentioned in “Alien Legacy.” The morning after the attack, the family decided to try and carry on as normal. Billy Ray went hunting nearby with a friend while Lucky, JC and O.P. went to Evansville, and because Billy Ray was the first to return home, he was the first to hit the interviewers’ notepads. As everyone seemed frustrated with repeating themselves and not being taken seriously, he seemed to be enjoying the attention. Lucky came home to Billy giving a description that was slightly different, and he was being “a little more colorful than the rest.”[1] Billy’s descriptions were starting to be “a little more than what they seemed,”[1] much to Glennie and Lucky’s disapproval. This part of the story, to me, feels like an important detail often looked over, and because I hadn’t seen or read much of the story apart from what was described in “Hellier” until now, I assumed the large protruding ears were part of Billy Ray’s fabrication. Upon searching the drawings with captions included from Bud Ledwith (announcer from Hopkinsville radio station WHOP) who interviewed the family, Lucky, JC and O.P.’s goblin[3] did have “ears,” however much smaller and less pointed than Billy Ray’s.[4] In a correspondence between Greg and Geraldine, described in a 2015 article by Greg, Greg actually proposes, “...What if the creatures’ ears aren’t actually ears at all? What if they were part of a helmet? In fact, what if the creatures were in some kind of a suit? It would make sense of the glowing eyes and the tin-can sound when Lucky and Billy Ray shot at them.”[5] This was slightly strange to me, as the article does not mention Geraldine’s reply regarding the ears and suit, or it is possible she didn’t have one. However, it is explicitly quoted in “Alien Legacy” (published in 2007) that when Lucky was describing the goblins to police, he explained that “their body surface looked like skin, not a suit.”[1] If they also had the luminous glow that got brighter when shot at, their “suit” would be a little more visible in the moments they were hit. Nevertheless, Greg had an incredibly interesting theory: that the Kelly goblins had goggles and a helmet, but had evolved enough not to need them by the time they reached David’s house 60 years later, which is assumed to be directly connected to the 1955 location by the underground Mammoth Cave System.

Super-specific story details, while important, were not the main point of Geraldine’s retelling. She focuses largely on the aftermath of psychological and social torture the family endured after the incident. Like many cases, and despite its popularity now, it was swept under the rug, given the label of a hoax, and/or brushed off with multiple “reasonable” explanations. When hearing the many different versions of the story, it is assumed that when the family sought help from the Hopkinsville police, only the Chief and a few officers were called to investigate. Chief Russell Greenwell was the current Chief, and he contacted the Madisonville headquarters of Kentucky State Police, all state troopers available, and Fort Campbell Army Base, from which four military police were dispatched. Christian County Sheriff’s office also sent a deputy sheriff, and plenty of others showed up at the scene, including a hoard of residents from the surrounding area. Chief Greenwell apparently had mentioned that Air Force intelligence from Fort Campbell were present, but according to “Alien Legacy,” 1975 Blue Book documents state that the incident was never officially reported to the Air Force. Geraldine wonders, “There was no official investigation ever made… But if there was no investigation made, how was it possible to get copies of the investigation?!”[1] The government’s general response was that there was an issue of credibility. Glennie was described as a God-fearing woman who never wanted to do wrong in the eyes of God - she didn’t even want the two young men shooting at the creatures. “Glennie Lankford would not lie… And she certainly wouldn’t have raised her children to tell false stories.”[1] “Was it a lack of credibility because Billy Ray and Lucky worked for the carnival?... It was said they made up the tale from something they had heard before… Was it because the carnival traveled and they probably heard all kinds of tales?... They didn’t want any kind of publicity, and they definitely didn’t make any kind of profit from this story.”[1] Geraldine wonders if they were treated this way because they were poor and not well educated. “How does being poor and uneducated make you less honest? How many rich ‘honest’ people do you know?”[1] The Sutton property was littered with people from the moment the family returned from seeking help. It is often told that the morning after the incident was chaotic and crowded, but it lasted far longer than this - the commotion did not slow down for weeks after that night. Often mentioned in articles is the fact that the family began charging admission, but according to Geraldine, this was their method of keeping people away as not many had money to spare at the time. “[The Suttons] never collected one penny. This made people think that it was all a big hoax after all, and it just made things worse for the family.”[1] People ignored their wishes and privacy, continuing to camp overnight at the property, walking into the home, and even taking things.

To add to this, I personally do not understand why the story is deemed “the Hopkinsville goblin case,” as the family property was in Kelly, Kentucky. The family drove about 8 miles to the Hopkinsville police station to ask for help, and drove back with police (except for June, who was terrified and refused to ride back until later), where the goblins had apparently fled before the family returned. A version of the story that I’ve come across explains the “battle” as something more urgent, where police were called and arrived to join a shootout with goblins. The police found nothing and didn’t return until the next day, however the goblins did return, peered at Glennie through the window at 3:30am, and the battle continued until 5:15am, when they disappeared with the darkness of night. The Kelly goblin case was actually featured in season 2, episode 4 of History Channel’s “Project Blue Book,” but to my disappointment, it adhered to the narrative that maybe the witnesses had too much to drink on a hot night and hallucinated the creatures. When the police checked the Sutton house the night of the invasion, “it was suggested that they check for alcohol. None was found; nothing was found to suggest that there had been anything wrong going on there that night. The family was asked all kinds of questions, and they all stuck to the same story.”[1] “Miss Glennie didn’t believe in drinking or smoking or any of the bad things you could do to your body.”[1] 

The way “Hellier” describes the Sutton story was just their general way of conveying the similarities to David’s email, and in no way am I attempting to pick apart their details or “prove” them differently. I think they did a wonderful job making the connections, and I can say with good confidence that the series changed my life. However, I would like to point out that a large part of the stories mentioned in the series was the downright terrifying detail of the goblins terrorizing the children. While explaining Geraldine’s story, Greg reports that the goblins were “were looking in the windows, especially at the children,”[2] and compares it to David’s claims of the children being targeted and frightened of the creatures. It is often mentioned that the Sutton story is peculiar because all eleven family members had witnessed the goblins. According to “Alien Legacy,” “The children didn’t really see much, because they were hidden away in the back bedroom most of the night. All they really remembered was hearing the shouts and the gunshots.”[1] It is a possibility that the David email was a “creepypasta”-esque retelling of the Kelly case, in which he either overlooked the actual details, or made his story just different enough to pass as original, if it were meant to be a hoax after all.

Aside from all the misconceptions that undoubtedly come with stories like the Suttons’, the heartbreaking reality is that the family was forever haunted by not only the terror they experienced that night, but the everlasting public scrutiny and harassment. When Lucky and friends had to leave Glennie’s to go back to traveling for work, Glennie became worried that JC and O.P. wouldn’t be able to handle the situation like Lucky and Billy Ray could. She and her younger children moved to a Hopkinsville apartment, and she and JC sold the house to her niece and nephew. JC and Alene found a place to stay, but JC struggled with holding a job, the incident continuing to haunt him. Lucky refused to talk about it for years, but would occasionally tell his kids his story, realizing he “wouldn’t be with us forever.”[1] “The night changed his life, and the days after that made him bitter.”[1] Lucky passed in 1995, and Geraldine reveals to Greg that there are two other living relatives, but they refuse to talk because they were made fun of so much in the media.[2] “This family wasn’t only invaded by something possibly from another world, but by our own kind.”[1]

When the “Hellier” crew decided to do some “goblin hunting” in a sizzle reel for a separate production company, they went to Cave City, Kentucky, near the middle of the Mammoth Cave System. In a strange off-camera moment, a little girl approaches them and mentions excitedly that they’re monster hunters, and she replies that her parents, friends, and herself see “monsters” all the time. Jokingly, Greg asks if they’re under her bed. She replies, “No! They come out of the caves!”[2] She is asked to draw them, and first, strangely, she starts with feet that have three rounded toes,[6] incredibly similar to David’s footprint pictures, and to throw my hat in the ring: my sister’s drawing. The feet my sister drew[7] have four toes rather than three like these other two examples, but none of them show an existence of heels, and it’s uncanny. The child they met in Kentucky draws a head, with bulging round eyes and large ears.[8] My sister’s drawing also has these features[7], and so do the interview drawings from the Kelly goblin case.[3][4]

The second episode of “Hellier”[9] brings the crew to Hellier, Kentucky to investigate David’s claims and learn more about what these “goblins” really are. Documentaries like “The UFO Deception”[10] and “The UFO Conspiracy”[11] explain a bit about Jacques Vallee’s Interdimensional Hypothesis (IDH): Vallee speculated that beings that mask as aliens may be interdimensional rather than extraterrestrial, and that their appearance throughout history is planned to fit with cultural and religious perceptions of specific time periods (in 50’s religious Kentucky, a being with a description of “goblin” or “demon” fits perfectly into culture). Researchers that support IDH believe that beings that mask as aliens are not technically specifically from another planet, they are from other dimensions or realities that coexist alongside our own. With this hypothesis, Vallee compared UFOs to phenomena created by mythological creatures such as gnomes or faeries (that are also known to abduct). “Hellier” episode 2 documents the investigators asking the residents about local folklore and if they know of any stories or have seen anything strange themselves. Among the stories is the strange and all too common detail of hearing a baby’s cry coming from caves, where strange creatures are sighted most often. Greg’s wife and fellow crew member Dana begins making connections. Hearing crying babies “is a common thing that often happens around elementals or nature spirits.”[9] Greg interjects, “It feels very fairie-ish!”[9] and they mention that it “sounds like there’s a level of trickery there… Trying to trick you to go into a certain place, knowing how to play on human emotions to lead you to certain areas that you probably shouldn’t be in.”[9] Going back to Vallee, John Keel mentions Vallee’s term “metalogic” in his famed “The Mothman Prophecies,” explaining it as a concept suggesting that entities have a logic system different than ours, so when they try to explain something to humans, it ends up being absurd. However, either way, they have a need for deceit and urge to manipulate us through our beliefs or acceptances.[12] In short, they may create crying sounds to lure humans intentionally, knowing most humans would not ignore it. Keel is mentioned in “Hellier” as well, noting his concept of “audio hallucination” and his claim that the two most common sounds heard during times of high strangeness are a baby crying and car door slamming. Keel writes himself that since ultraterrestrials live outside of our space-time continuum, they fail to adjust, slowing speech and noises down or speeding them up too much.[12] They make all sorts of similar mistakes due to confusion of the time period, similar ideas to Vallee’s IDH. These theories point to possibilities that the “cries” could be malicious and intentional, but if not, they may be due to distorted attempts at communication or mimicking noises familiar to humans. The “Hellier” team decides to stay in Kentucky in a secluded cabin, and figure it makes the most sense to do some searching in their own backyard. Dana makes a general offering to earth elementals as she isn’t quite sure specifically what kind of entity they’re dealing with. Connor, another crew member, begins an experiment he and his ghost hunting partner Karl invented, the Estes Method.[13] It’s an incredible session for the group, but there was one part that stood out to me after reading “Alien Legacy.” Connor asks the entity in contact, “Who’s in the caves? Who’s in the mines?”[14] and it replies, “Talking rooster.” There is a second of confusion, then “it” follows up with, “No it’s not.” Everyone laughs, however this reminded me of the theories and explanations in response to the Sutton story. They all sounded ridiculous to Geraldine, except for one at first: the theory that the “little men” were actually eagle owls.[1] Could this entity be telling them that the creatures coming from the caves, and the ones seen in Kelly in 1955 are absolutely not owls? As mentioned above, it is believed that interdimensionals would have trouble communicating. Surely they would not be able to name every (if not any) specific animal by name with much ease. Later in the series, Dana performs a session with a device called a God Helmet[15], and senses that “they” communicate in what feels like colors or emotions, and only refer to a small database of English words.[16]

Regarding the type of creature goblins really are, I want to point out that they are not the only ones of their kind; they appear in folklore, UFO lore, cryptozoology and the practice of invoking elementals. Often when discussing goblins, I have noticed that John Keel and garudas are mentioned. Garudas are bird/human-like creatures popular in Hindu mythology, and he uses them to describe the bird-like creatures that plagued West Virginia from 1966-1967, which we have come to known as mothman sightings.[12] However, Keel does describe ikals: tiny black men endowed with the power of flight who live in caves and kidnap humans.[12] After Dana makes an offering to earth elementals in the cabin’s woods, they begin hearing wooden knocks. Greg decides to whistle to see if he would get a response, and he hears one back. Connor didn’t hear it as a whistle, but more like a “guttural croak” mimic,[14] immediately reminding me that David used “guttural” to describe the sounds his creatures made.[2] Later on, during Connor’s Estes Method session, Dana hears something peculiar: “It sounds like they’re throwing rocks the size of baseballs.”[14] This made me think of rock babies, popular folklore creatures in the Great Basin area that are faerie-like creatures with the ability to pass through rock. Apparently they are heard from caves, have the ability to steal human babies and replace them with non-human look-alikes, and will reward you with new skills (primarily musical) if you successfully enter their caves. At one point in their journey, the “Hellier” group enters a cave, and through the Estes Method, an entity instructs them to perform what they call “the tones,” a three-note melody, and “it” replies with “Very good,” when they sing it correctly.[17] This brings me to another connection: “faeliens,” a concept author Joshua Cutchin spoke on in an online lecture[18] to explain the ever-present connection between faerie and alien lore: for one, stature doesn’t have to be of a certain size. Light phenomenon is present in UFO, ghost, witch, and faerie lore (“faerie lights”). A sort of weapon/prop, or more commonly, “wands” are found in both alien and faerie lore. They are used to paralyze, which Joshua defines as being “faerie struck.” Both creatures worship the stars and are often seen as negative for not being directly connected to a certain religion, and they can fly, levitate other creatures or objects, and/or teleport. Faery rings and crop circles are not the same things, but both are very similar happenings. Faeries and aliens are both known to exist in underground habitats: “faerie land” is often considered to be underground or in caves, and the idea of underground bases has been a staple of alien lore or conspiracy. They are both popularly connected to animal mutilations and an obsession with children and reproduction. Changelings are a type of fae that are known to take children and replace them with sickly faerie babies (it has been a popular thought in culture that sickly children were deemed the evil work of changelings). This all connects to folklore creatures like rock babies, or the supposed alien obsession with human reproduction and creating alien/human hybrids. Along with many other similarities, alien and faerie lore share the common ability to create “missing time” for humans, and draw them to places (reflected in Dana’s concern with the crying sounds), an experience Joshua explains as being “pixy-led.” In “Hellier,” when discussing different terms that have been used for these specific “goblins” in question, Greg mentions tommyknockers.[2] Author Alexandra Chauran offers a kind of encyclopedia of elementals, and I found some interesting similarities in the descriptions. Knockers, black dwarves, coblynaus, gommes, paras, or wichlein, are earth elementals that dwell underground, popularly in European mines. They are short, seemingly appear out of thin air, enjoy making funny faces at people, and are named because they make knocking noises to communicate with miners. They “can be a friend or enemy”[19] depending on how they are treated, and if befriended, they will knock to warn miners of danger. They appreciate offerings, and dislike swearing or whistling (which would make sense of the croak in response to Greg’s whistle). Goblins do not necessarily match Alexandra’s description of gnomes, but I found two details especially interesting. Gnomes are earth elementals that “seek to understand the nature of earth’s molecules and with it, perform magic and alchemy,”[19] which is seemingly what the goblins in Kelly were doing when showing so much interest in the humans, floating, and deflecting bullets, almost like magic. They “experience time and space differently,”[19] which gives them the time to focus on “monitoring earth’s processes,”[19] but in her description, unlike the goblins, gnomes are not exclusively interested in humans. However, the concept of gnomes differing in time and space connects directly to Keel and Vallee’s breakdown of interdimensionals. Alexandra makes a point to mention that elementals can be dangerous, and one reason for this is the fact that they will often choose to stick to one person or place for a lifetime, (giving reason as to why the goblins stuck around the Mammoth Caves for so long) which can be detrimental as they have the ability to cause “negative real life events.”[19] This is a broad statement, but the series of events after the Kelly situation seemed to have tormented the Suttons forever, and belief in David’s story or not, he supposedly was traumatized enough to pack up and leave town.

As you can see, there are endless connections that can be made when discussing fringe topics, and maybe that’s why people have such a hard time accepting and understanding them. For example, Keel uses the term ultraterrestrial, and it can apply to a myriad of creatures, things, and phenomena. Joshua Cutchin, even when discussing “faeliens,” does not keep the discussion exclusively to faeries or aliens, and often even connects them to bigfoot lore. Everything makes more sense when you understand that it all, essentially, is interconnected. When the “Hellier” investigators venture to the woods surrounding their cabin, they have a moment of contemplation about what they’re really there looking for. Connor confidently tells Greg that it doesn’t matter - he received the email for a reason. “Maybe that’s this trip. Maybe that’s to find out what’s going on in this place.” Greg, seemingly more calm now, agrees: “Maybe it’s more than goblins. Maybe the goblins were just the key to getting people here… Maybe there is something stranger than goblins here. Or more important than goblins here.”[14] They soon realize that this rings true, but there is an overarching point here. It’s never really about the goblins. As the great Allen “F******” Greenfield says, you cannot chase one entity or phenomenon without researching and/or connecting everything, so: “Stop mistaking one phenomenon as the whole deal.”[20]

[1] Geraldine Sutton Stith, “Alien Legacy”

[2] “Hellier Season 1: Episode 1 | The Midnight Children”

“Goblin” print photo sent from “David Christie” to Greg Newkirk, as shown in Episode 1:

[3] “Little Men” as described by Elmer “Lucky” Sutton, JC Sutton, and O.P. Baker:

[4] “Little Men” as described by Billy Ray Taylor:

[5] “Return of the Kentucky Goblins: New Leads in a Case of Strange Creatures, Crashed UFOs, and the Men in Black” - Week in Weird

[6] Child’s “goblin” foot drawing:

[7] My little sister’s “goblin” drawing:

[8] Child’s “goblin” head drawing:

[9] “Hellier Season 1: Episode 2 | Ink and Black”

[10] “The UFO Deception” (2018)

[11] “The UFO Conspiracy” (2004)

[12] John A. Keel, “The Mothman Prophecies”

[13] The Estes Method

[14] “Hellier Season 1: Episode 3 | Trapped in a Maze”

[15] The God Helmet

[16] “Hellier Season 2: Episode 3 | Borderlands”

[17] “Hellier Season 2: Episode 6 | The Altar”

[18] This lecture is no longer publicly available, but you can find Joshua Cutchin here

[19] Alexandra Chauran, “Faeries & Elementals for Beginners: Learn About & Communicate with Nature Spirits”

[20] This lecture is no longer available, but you can find Allen Greenfield here

Elmer Sutton, John Sutton, and O.P. Baker

Kentucky Goblin, Greg Newkirk, Geraldine Sutton Stith, and Dana Newkirk (photo shown in “Hellier Season 1: Episode 1 | The Midnight Children”)

Handmade goblin by Geraldine alongside her book, “Alien Legacy”

Ufologist Ivan Sanderson with a scale model of a goblin

You can find the Alien Legacy website here

You can read the famed Kentucky New Era August 22, 1955 article here

#posts #hellier #kentuckygoblins #geraldinesuttonstith #hopkinsvilleky #davidchristie #gregnewkirk #alienlegacy #demons #mammothcavesystem #usairforce #projectbluebook #kellyky #jacquesvallee #idh #elementals #johnkeel #metalogic #ultraterrestrials #audiohallucination

[brokehorrorfan]

Blu-ray Review: The Omen Collection

In the pantheon of religious horror, the holy trinity consists of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen. Although The Omen arrived last, opening on June 6, 1976, it arguably offers more excitement than its satanic brethren (which is not to say that it is a superior film). Likely to be considered a slow-burner by today's standards, the picture builds tension and unravels a mystery at a meticulous pace, but it's punctuated by elaborate, Rube Goldberg-ian death scenes.

The Omen spawned a trilogy of films, a made-for-television sequel, and a modern remake. Scream Factory has collected all five movies in The Omen Collection, which is limited to 10,000 units. Besting Fox's earlier Blu-ray set - which omitted Part IV and featured some of the worst box set packaging known to man - each film is packaged in an individual Blu-ray case with original artwork within a rigid slipcover case. It boasts a deluge of extras, new and old.

In the original film, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick, Anatomy of a Murder), adopt a baby named Damien (Harvey Stephens) after their own child is stillborn. Beginning with his fifth birthday, a string of mysterious deaths surround Damien. Upon being presented with convincing evidence by a photographer (David Warner, Tron), Robert becomes convinced that his son is none other than the antichrist, and he is faced with the task of stopping him to prevent Armageddon.

Firing on all cylinders, The Omen is an exemplary horror film. Working from a well-constructed script by David Seltzer (Shining Through, Prophecy), director Richard Donner grounds the story firmly in reality. The fantastical elements are easy to swallow, as each and every incident in the plot could be mere coincidence. Peck brings a gravitas to the production, leading a strong cast in which Remick also holds her own. Even the six-year-old Stephens, who never acted before and did very little after, is convincingly malevolent.

John Richardson's (Aliens, Harry Potter) special effects for the proto-Final Destination deaths - including one of the greatest beheadings ever committed on celluloid - remain shocking after more than 40 years. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Star Wars: A New Hope, Dr. Strangelove) captures it all with clean camerawork, while Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Gremlins) provides a chilling orchestral score elevated to pure evil with choral chanting.

The Omen has been newly mastered in 4K from the original negative, approved by Donner, for the new release. The result is a pristine presentation with improved detail and color saturation over Fox’s previous high-definition transfer. The Omen carries a whopping four audio commentaries. One, featuring special project consultant Scott Michael Bosco, is new. His audio sounds compressed - as if it were recorded on a cell phone - but it's dense with details focusing on the theological aspects. Bosco often digresses, but I appreciate the fresh perspective rather than a historian reciting IMDb trivia.

The other audio commentaries include: a track with Donner and editor Stuart Baird (Lethal Weapon, Skyfall), in which the two old friends reminisce about the highs and lows of the production; a track with Donner and filmmaker Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential), which features as much good-natured joking as it does insight; and a track with film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman, and Jeff Bond, largely focusing on Goldsmith's score. A lot of information is repeated across the commentaries, but the varying viewpoints make them all worth listening to.

Seltzer and actress Holly Palance (who plays the nanny whose suicide by hanging is among the film’s most memorable moment) sit down for new interviews. Seltzer's chat is particularly enjoyable, as he's candid and humble. He openly states that his script is not as good as the movie it birthed. He also shares what he would have done if he had the opportunity to write the sequel. Palance, the daughter of the great Jack Palance, recounts her naivety about working on her first film and shooting her iconic death scene. The final new extra is an appreciation of The Omen's score by composer Chris Young, who says he looked to Goldsmith's progression across The Omen trilogy as he was scoring the Hellraiser films. It's fascinating to hear one accomplished professional praise another in their field.

All of the archival extras are ported over: a thorough, 15-minute interview with Donner from 2008; 666: The Omen Revealed, a 46-minute retrospective from 2000 featuring crew members along with religious experts to provide context; The Omen Revelations, which is essentially a streamlined version of 666, recycling much of its footage in 24 minutes; Curse or Coincidence, in which the crew recounts a variety of curious incidents that nearly derailed the production; an introduction by Donner; a deleted scene with commentary by Donner; an older interview with Seltzer, which features a lot of the same information as the new one; and an interview with Goldsmith about his score. There's also an appreciation of The Omen by filmmaker Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), in which the master of horror waxes poetic about the influential picture for 20 minutes; Trailers from Hell trailer commentary by filmmaker Larry Cohen (The Stuff), who cites The Omen as one of his favorite movies; the trailer; TV spots; radio spots; and four image galleries: stills, behind-the-scenes, posters and lobby cards, and publicity.

Following the massive success of the first film, Fox fast-tracked a sequel, Damien: Omen II, to open in 1978. Having narrowly survived the events of The Omen, a 12-year-old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) now lives with his affluent uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden, Sunset Blvd.), aunt, Ann (Lee Grant, In the Heat of the Night), and cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), in Chicago. Damien is ostensibly a well-adjusted kid, unaware of who - or what - he is, but those who cross him wind up dead in freak accidents.

Omen II's plotting mirrors that of the first film, but the mystery aspect that made the original so effective is gone. The viewer knows from the start that Damien is, in fact, the antichrist, so they're left waiting for the characters to catch up. The plot dedicates an inordinate amount of time to Thorn's business enterprises, which is only vaguely paid of in the next installment when Damien rises to power. On the bright side, there are several admirably inventive deaths in the tradition of the first, from a bird attack that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous to a visceral elevator bisection to a harrowing scene of a man trapped in a pond under ice.

Since Donner had moved on to Superman and Seltzer was either uninterested or not asked (depending on the source) to pen the sequel, a new creative team was employed. Stanley Mann (Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer) and Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Flash Gordon) wrote the script, with the latter set to direct. Hodges only shot for a few days, during which he quickly fell behind schedule, before being swiftly replaced by Don Taylor (Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Goldsmith returns to score with a worthy successor, retaining the signature sound while expanding it to incorporate electronics.

Leo McKern is the only returning cast member, reprising his role as archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen in the prologue. Peck's formidable presence is sorely missed, but Holden - who, incidentally, turned down the lead role in The Omen - and Grant bring some prestige to the production. Scott-Taylor is a convincing surrogate for Stephens, but the child acting leaves a bit to be desired. It's offset by a supporting cast that includes Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front), Sylvia Sidney (Beetlejuice), Allan Arbus (M*A*S*H), and Meshach Taylor (Mannequin).

Damien: Omen II's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Grant, who is proud of the sequel and shares a funny anecdote about discovering her first wrinkle while filming; Foxworth, who was able to get to know Holden, one of his heroes, on their daily commute; and actress Elizabeth Sheppard, who proudly discusses working with Holden as well as Vincent Price (on The Tomb of Ligeia). In a separate featurette, Sheppard narrates a gallery of her personal photos from the shoot, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the bird attack sequence.

Since Omen II's mythology has little biblical foundation, Bosco's new commentary features even more tenuous tangents, but it affords him the opportunity to discuss the franchise more subjectively. An archival commentary with producer Harvey Bernhard proves to be a bit more informative. The disc also includes a vintage making-of featurette consisting of clips, interviews, and footage from the set, along with the trailer, a TV spot, a radio spot, and a still gallery.

The Omen trilogy came to a conclusion in 1981 with Omen III: The Final Conflict - although it proved not to be final after all. As prophesied, Damien (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park), now 33 - the same age as Jesus when he was crucified - has risen to political power. Following the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain’s ghastly suicide, Damien is appointed the position, which was once held by his adoptive father. The only true foe for the antichrist is, naturally, Christ himself. Rather than bringing about the apocalypse, as the franchise had been driving toward since the beginning, Damien attempts to prevent the second coming in a sanctimonious conclusion to the story arc.

While no successor could top the original Omen, its first sequel smartly embraced the gratuitous death scenes. For the third installment, however, director Graham Baker (Alien Nation) made a conscious effort to avoid them. Instead, he delivers inept monks trying to assassinate Damien with the Seven Daggers of Megiddo, while the antichrist’s legion of apostles murder newborn males who are the potential Christ child. Andrew Birkin's (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) script leans further into religiosity at the expensive of the horror elements while interjecting silly mythology akin to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Omen III: The Final Conflict's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Baker, who takes a truly retrospective look back on the film, comparing the society of today to that of when it was produced; Birkin, who hadn't seen The Omen when he first met for the gig and wasn't particularly impressed when he finally watched it; and production assistant Jeanne Ferber, who explains how she was among those polled by Bernhard to help choose the lead, with Neill selected unanimously.

For his final commentary in the set, Bosco is back to pointing out the film's connections to scripture, leading to a lengthy tirade comparing Christianity and Judaism. An archival track with Baker has a few nuggets of information among extended gaps of silence, but most of his points are addressed more concisely in the new interview. Special features are rounded out by the trailer, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Although The Omen’s main storyline continued with two more book sequels, Fox opted to use the familiar title for a made-for-television movie on their budding network in 1991. Although dubbed Omen IV: The Awakening, the film largely serves as a remake of the original film but with a female antichrist. After numerous failed attempts to get pregnant, politician Gene York (Michael Woods) and his wife, Karen (Faye Grant, V), adopt an orphan girl. Seven years later, Delia (Asia Vieira, A Home at the End of the World) becomes increasingly violent and manipulative, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

Similar to Omen II's production troubles, Omen IV started with Jorge Montesi (Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal) in the director's chair, but he was fire mid-shoot and replaced by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers). Writer Brian Taggert (Poltergeist III) keeps the basic structure of Seltzer's original script intact, but the details of each beat are altered and the death scenes are subdued for TV. In addition to gender-swapping the creepy kid, it's the mother who is proactive this time around.

Despite maintaining the general outline of The Omen, the plot is harder to believe this time around, stretching the required suspension of disbelief to include psychics that can read auras. The most ludicrous plot point comes in the form of a shoehorned connection to The Omen mythology. This "twist" canonically positions Omen IV as a sequel rather than a thinly-veiled remake, but it feels more like a low-budget knockoff than an official installment in the franchise.

Omen IV: The Awakening doesn't have any audio commentaries, but its Blu-ray debut includes a new interview with Taggert, who breaks down several of the major choices made in the script. It also contains The Omen Legacy, a feature-length documentary on the franchise that aired on TV in 2001. Narrated by Jack Palance (City Slickers), it finds cast and crew members (including a couple of folks who don't appear in any other special features) and religious figures (the Church of Satan’s high priestess among them) discussing all four films while playing up the alleged curse. The trailer and a still gallery are also included.

Amidst the onslaught of horror remakes that dominated the early 2000s, Fox shrewdly capitalized with The Omen in 2006 - on 6/6/06, to be exact. Director John Moore (Max Payne) offers slick production value and an inspired cast, but it feels wholly unnecessary considering how closely it follows the original script. Seltzer is the only credited writer, but it's unclear if his 40-year-old script was simply polished off or if he was involved in re-writes, as there are some subtle changes to contemporize it. While it fails to bring anything new to the table, it’s a stronger effort than Omen IV.

Liev Schreiber (Scream) and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) star as the Thorns. Talented as they are, they lack the chemistry of Peck and Remick. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is successfully creepy as the new Damien, while the role's originator, Harvey Stephens, makes a quick cameo. In a particularly motivated bit of stunt casting, Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) plays the antichrist's new nanny. David Thewlis (Harry Potter) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) also have supporting roles.

The remake is the only Blu-ray in the set that doesn't offer any new special features. The existing extras cover a lot of ground, but it would’ve been interesting to hear the crew reflect back on it. Omenisms is a 37-minute documentary exploring the pressures of making a movie with a release date set in advance, even showing Moore losing his temper and yelling at a producer. It feels very of its time, with director Stephen French  treating the piece like a hip art film, but it contains a lot of great material.

Moore, producer Glenn Williamson, and editor Dan Zimmermann participate in an audio commentary that's fairly informative but doesn't touch on many of the trials and tribulations showcased in Omenisms. There's also a featurette about Marco Beltrami (Scream) recording his score at the legendary Abbey Road Studio; Revelation 666, a cheesy TV special tracing the history, interpretation, and theories of 666; unrated, extended scenes, including a longer version of the ending; and theatrical trailers.

While The Exorcist remains the be-all and end-all of occult horror, The Omen franchise as a whole is more consistent. The first three Omen films comprise a cohesive trilogy, while Part IV and the remake each offer a fresh, if flawed, perspective on the material. Between the movies, commentaries, interviews, and featurettes, The Omen Collection contains over 30 hours of content, making it an unbelievable value and a must-have for any horror collector.

The Omen Collection is available now on Blu-ray via Scream Factory.

#the omen #gregory peck #damien: omen ii #omen iii: the final conflict #omen iv: the awakening #mia farrow #scream factory #dvd #gift #review #article #damien thorn #liev schreiber #julia stiles #lance henriksen #lee remick #william holden

[they-handed-me-the-moon]

Okay, so I went to see a screening of the first episode of Good Omens last night and Neil Gaiman was there to answer some questions, and it was. Very amazing to be there.

Unfortunately the interviewer wasn’t great, but there were still fantastic moments and lots of details I hadn’t heard before, so I’ve put the highlights of the conversation with Gaiman under the cut. Major disclaimer here, though: I didn’t record any of the conversation and didn’t take notes during the panel. I wrote down all the interesting bits I could remember immediately after, but none of this is Gaiman’s own phrasing unless I specify otherwise, and its entirely possible that I’ve accidentally fudged some of the details.

There’s here that I’d consider a spoiler, but in case anyone is being particularly careful I’ve separated anything that could be seen as sort of vaguely spoiler-y.

Anyhow, here goes:

Okay, my absolute favorite story that I hadn’t heard before was when Gaiman was talking about the audition process. Apparently when they started searching, all the audition tapes were horribly, horribly, horribly (I clearly remember his triple emphasis here) wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. And then ... Nina Sosanya auditioned for the part of Mary Loquacious. Now, apparently Good Omens has been her absolute favorite book since she was quite young, and she rereads it every year. And according to Gaimen, she just *got it* in a way no one else had. Apparently everyone else, knowing that they were auditioning for a role in a comedic show, was pitching themselves as comic actors. What Nina got, with her understanding of the book, was that the humor doesn’t come from the characters being funny in a making-jokes-and-pulling-faces sort of way. The comedy comes from the circumstances, from the storytelling (whether that’s narration or editing, camera angles, etc), and from characters being completely ridiculous with utter sincerity. Nina, he said, played the role straight and trusted that the comedy would be constructed through and around that. And seeing her act made it click in his mind, to the point that he then told casting directors to look for applicants who played their roles like Nina played hers. So basically what I’m saying is that Nina Sosanya personally saved Good Omens with the power of good acting and being a fan. (I’m tagging @shaxpere​ just for this, because I feel like you’ll have the appropriate level of appreciation).

Continuing the theme of comic acting not being right for Good Omens, he mentioned that he and Terry were approached through the years by multiple comedic duos who tried to pitch themselves as Aziraphale and Crowley, and they always turned them down without a thought. 

I think he also said something about taking the characters seriously even as they and their circumstances are ridiculous, because they aren’t just trying to make the audience laugh, they want them to be invested in the characters. I may be getting things a bit mixed here; but he definitely said something along the lines of wanting the audience to be genuinely emotionally invested in these characters.

He then went on to say that instead of going the comedic duo route, they instead went and got the “premier Welsh actor” (that is one phrase I’m quite sure he used) of his generation and the “premier Scottish actor” of his generation.

From there he went into talking about Aziraphale and Crowley. Regarding  their on-screen chemistry, he said: “the chemistry wasn’t instant. During the read-through it was a little awkward at first; they were tripping over each other a bit. But after only about twenty minutes in they started to find their characters and how they exist in relation to each other, and it was like watching them learn to dance.” (Again, I’m very much paraphrasing, but he definitely used the learning to dance phrase).

Next he talked about going out for a meal with some big deal writer fellow (I *think* it was Richard Curtis, the script writer of Love Actually) and Richard asked: “okay, so David and Michael have never acted together, but now that you’ve worked with them you can tell me: which one is actually the better actor?” And gosh of everything that was said that night I wish I could have an exact recording of Gaiman’s answer to that question, because it’s not exactly new, but I’ve heard it more from Tennant and Sheen than Gaiman directly, and the way he said it just made me very happy. But the gist of it was that he genuinely cannot answer that, because when it comes to this show you can’t separate them enough to pit them against one another. He compared them to a film or tv duo, I’ve forgotten who, but one of those pairs that are just impossible to think of apart from one another; it’s never just ‘x’ or just ‘y’, it’s always ‘x and y’. That’s what Tennant and Sheen are as Aziraphale and Crowley, he said. He said they make each other better when they’re acting together, and that, essentially, it’s less like they’re not doing two individual acting jobs but rather are creating a single thing together.

He talked a little more specifically about Sheen’s process of finding his character, and said that for Sheen his breakthrough with Aziraphale was approaching it from the perspective of Aziraphale being an angel and therefore a being of love. Sheen has said that before, but its worth adding than Gaimen then went on to say: “He loves Crowley, he loves books, he loves food, he loves wine, he just loves things”—and I may have misremembered that list a bit, but Crowley was %100 the first thing on it.

Oh, and fun fact: I’ve heard several people talk about how they love the radio adaptation of Good Omens but really feel that it’s missing something without the narrator. Turns out you’re not the only ones: apparently it was listening to the radio drama that convinced Gaiman that there had to be a the narrator in the show.

I imagine he’s said this before, but I haven’t heard it: apparently Good Omens was born in part from Gaimen reading some of Douglas Adams’s work, thinking, “I could write that sort of humor,” and then sitting down and writing that first portion of Good Omens that he sent to Terry Pratchett. 

Speaking of Pratchett he mentioned how he really made this show for him several times, and that’s not new I just :,)

He talked about two deleted scenes I hadn’t heard about! They were initially supposed to be the scenes introducing Aziraphale and Crowley. I sort of missed the context of Crowley’s scene, but I think it was him messing with the phone lines? Which he apparently did by, um, recruiting a bunch of rats. Which implies that, a). He can talk with rats? Like there’s a bit of a conversation in the scene that they seem to understand. And b). he can either control rats or has some sort of business arrangement with them. Personally I lean towards the latter. So yeah. I don’t have any particular thoughts about this but it does raise Questions.

Aziraphales’s scene was him on the phone doing something book related (I believe he was negotiating a deal/trying to find a rare book, possibly Agnes Nutter’s prophecies) while doing helpful little miracles like keeping a pram from tipping over or something. Ultimately I don’t really miss either of those scenes, especially since the Crowley one had a bit of dialogue I’m happy to be without, but the Aziraphale scene in particular sounds solid, especially if he’s being snippy on the phone while absently doing pleasant little miracles.

Kinda-sorta-vaguely-spoilery-stuff:

The panel began with the interviewer saying something about how closely the first episode sticks to the book (that’s it that’s the whole spoiler; like I said these aren’t really spoilers) to which Gaiman said something like, “Well, I guess that’s what happens when the author writes the show and is also the showrunner who decides whether to approve the script.”

The first few minutes of the show are a tribute to Douglas Adams, and specifically to the film or tv adaptation (I forget which) of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I’m not going to explain what Gaiman meant by that because a). you can piece it together when you watch, and b). I’ve never seen either adaptation so I’m not actually sure what he meant.

#okay that's it! #there were some other things i really enjoyed #but this is already very long #and the rest was either general stuff about writing and stories #or things i've already heard elsewhere #that he didn't add anything new to #anyway i'm not gonna tag this #because i just remembered he's here on tumblr #and while i can't imagine he'd read this if he came across it #i really don't want to tempt fate with the chance #of him reading me extensively misquoting him

[vnshkk]

Let's talk about Kyo's media blackout.

It is with a slight reluctance that I post this. It's not wise to mention Tanuki online nor share what they talk about within the overseas fandom for a multiple of reasons. 

1. I don't want them to get angry at me

2. I don't want the overseas fandom to flip out and judge the Japanese fandom

3. I just want everyone to be chill and happy and flowers

But I've seen a lot of people freaking out, a lot of random theories floating around and people worrying so I wanted to post this theory and open it for discussion. 

Of course this isn't fact. It's pure speculation. But given the timeframe, PERSONALLY I feel like this may have had something to do with Kyo decision. 

So I post this with two DISCLAIMERs. 

1. As mentioned this is not in any way fact. There is no proof that Kyo does or doesn't look at Tank. I simply find it interesting the sequence of events, the timing of the media blackout and I am only translating this for those who are interested. I hope this doesn't cause any huge arguments or any bad blood. It's simple here to discuss and consider.

2. Please do not judge the whole fandom based on Tank. Just like any forum, any comment section on the world wide web; there will be people who leave negative feed back. It is a tiny portion of people and not a reflection of the Japanese fandom as a whole. Judging them based on what they said would be like someone looking at negative comments or sarcastic jokes on Tumblr and judging the English speaking fandom. That's not to say what they post is okay, but it's just dumb shit posting and shouldn't be taken to heart. 

you get me fam?

Okay, so I contemplated posting screenshots and translating what happened immediately after Kyo changed his profile picture up to when he deleted everything but as I said I don't want to be taken out by angry tank users so I'm just gonna translate a selection of posts. 

These posts are taken from the Meg thread (remember the girl linking arms with him at a concert? That's Meg.) which to be honest is a shit show. It was a thread born from those notorious pics and for over a year now has remained a place where people post rumours, shit talk, complain and just make shit up a lot of the time. So please, AGAIN, bare that in mind. It is a place of negativity born from a scandal that shocked a lot of the fandom. Aint nothing nice ever gonna be said there. Periodt. In reality a lot of the people who post there are still fans of Kyo. I think they're just still a little hurt by the way it came to light about Meg. 

After Kyo posted his new picture I checked tank before going to bed because I was curious about what their reactions would be and everyone had exploded. During the 7 hours I was asleep Kyo deleted everything and left the internet forever so tbh given the fact he was probably bored in a hotel in Fukuoka, just did a radio show, probs wanted to see peoples reaction, etc I personally, believe he was on Tank. This is a running theme in the thread itself and people often say he actively browses it (this is not a major thing, a lot of guys in bands browse tank same as celebs browse twitter. Why Kyo would look at the meg thread in particular? idk. ) 

SO TLDR 

Yesterday around 7pm the thread suddenly changed to mixed reactions after Kyo changed his Twitter pic. 

"His new twitter icon had me shook lol" 

"I hope he changes his instagram one too" 

"Idk I don't like how quickly he's become some kind of social media old fogey" 

"Kyo's turned into a social media monster too" (*edit; my bad Yuchi is beer monster, Shinya is social media monster lol)

"It's kinda cheap" 

"I get you, it's like he's lost his values" (probably because Kyo has always made big deal about how much of himself he shares) 

 It continued like that for a while with people more or less saying the same thing until he posts about leaving social media.

"He just suddenly said he's not gonna do social media anymore" 

"lol after he went to all the effort of changing his profile picture" 

"I'm shook" 

"annoying 40 year old nut job" 

"Bet you he came on here"  

"Do you normally change you icon then quit" 

"Join Kyo online" 

"idg why even though Kyo's had so many haters since he first started twitter he's suddenly affected by it??" 

"I still think he's cute even when he's sulking like this lol" 

"I knew he was looking at Tanuki"

"I don't get why he's suddenly deleting it after all this time?? It's like what is this old man on about?" 

"It's lame how he's making such a big deal of out saying he's quitting" 

(lots of people agreed with this post saying that he's acting childish)

"I wonder what happened? Like everything seemed fine recently. I mean we'll never know but like I'm sure he has a lot going on.." 

"I can't believe he basically wiped his instagram clean but left all the pics of cake and omurice lmao" 

"If only he'd go to sleep earlier and eat a banana the serotonin would fix everything" 

The random comments and mixed reactions continued for all of Friday.  One of the main points that stuck out after the initial reactions was how people began to become suspicious that this was merely a tactic to get people to join Kyo online with people claiming this was typical of business man kyo,  that it was about that time of year where they usually begin to advertise and promote in order to get new members. 

So, allow me to play devils advocate for a second. As someone who is a member of Kyo online I have to admit since he started posting more and more online (compared to hardly ever on Kyo online), the membership has become more or less invalid. In the past it was worth the money for the videos and pictures that as fans we rarely saw. But if he's going to post them online then it raises the question (tickets to concerts aside) is there any point in being a member if you can just get the content for free?  I'd imagine that this plays some kind of role in why the reactions are often negative. Members of Kyo online have suddenly gone from having something exclusive that was only for them, to simply being a part of something anyone can access. 

Another point someone brought up is that whilst it's acceptable for Kyo to be upset. It is very, very childish and the timing is selfish.  Sukekiyo literally made their instagram days ago and suddenly Kyo states how he isn't going to post online anymore. This act instantly casts a negative feel on Sukekiyo's insta. It almost gives a vibe that any picture Kyo is in might be "against his will". Kyo is not new to criticism. He's been in this game for 20 plus years. Everyone who is in the Indies scene knows about Tank. Every fan, every bandmen, knows it's a bad place filled with mostly shit posting and rumours and doesn't represent fans a whole. 

The meg thread is simply fans flogging a dead horse, posting any poor Japanese girl with a straight fringe and some tattoos, anyone who looks even a little like Meg and saying she MUST be a groupie of Kyo. Which begs the question why would Kyo go there? Why would he look at that? Why would he want to subject himself to that kind of thing and then punish the majority for some dumb comments a few bored fans made? What was he expecting by going there?

Of course there is no proof Kyo lurks. But the reality is he probably does, I mean he's only human, he' s bound to be curious about fans reactions for Madara, etc and where else to get honestly reactions than an anonymous forum? Personally, as someone who has lurked tank for a few years now, I think he reads it. There have been times in the past where he's mentioned certain things, done certain things and I've thought "hmmm that's weird tank was literally talking about that". But once again there's no proof. It's just one of those vibes you get sometimes. (one major one I can think of is during the interview for mode of gauze where he said everyone massively complained about it. I know people can submit questionnaires after lives but I feel that a lot of Japanese people are more brutally honest when they can hide behind anonymity. ) 

Considering the "staff" posted a pic of his feet on the sukekiyo instagram today, I feel like this is just Kyo being (sorry to say) butthurt and it might just blow over.  A lot of the comments mention his age, mention how he's clearly trying and failing to copy 20 year olds by using insta, that he's lame or cringe and that's gonna hurt anyones pride. But I honestly think Kyo should be looking at the billions of comments on instagram of people who love him rather than a few trolls online. 

So with that being said I hope this was an interesting read and gave a little insight into why Kyo is often private. It was a big deal that he was posting so much and actively using instagra. I for one was very happy. I believe that in this day and age it is something that is required in order to engage with your audience and keep a good relationship. Hazuki and Ruki are good examples of this and Ive been saying for the longest time I wish Kyo would get more on board with it. So it's a shame he's left at the first hurdle. 

Oh well. This is why we can't have anything nice isn't it. 

#Kyo #dir en grey #instagram #translation #sukekiyo #drama I don't like drama why can't we all just be chill #remember this isn't fact its just my theory