#because there's such a thing as 'things are happening offstage that you the audience will not see but they are very much going on'

[edmunderson]

man, anet really wants ppl to forget about trahearne. His memorial statue is up and out of the way, the colors of it blend in with the scenery too well...... i literally had no idea he actually HAD a statue (when i was doing the knight of thorn sidequest i never noticed it despite it being right there) idk i just feel like they did trahearne dirty 😔

[kittyball23]

Hi kittyball, did you read the trolls band together junior novelization? Does it include deleted scenes from the movie? I heard there was a scene cut with velvet and veneer buying yachts 😆 and another scene with velvet spraying veneer with troll without warning him.

Hi, I sure did! I do remember that there were scenes and/or little details that differentiated from what was seen in the actual movie, and I’d be happy to share them:

John Dory in the beginning was being a little more critical of Clay’s dance moves

“C’mon, Clay,” John Dory said. “They’re Funderdrawers! Underwear, but seventy-six percent more fun! Now let’s see those dance moves!”

“Fine,” Clay said with a sigh. He did a quick series of dance steps, naming them while executing them perfectly. “Rusty robot into a wiggle worm, and end on caliente puppet.”

“Not bad,” John Dory said, stroking his chin. “But your robot could be rustier. And your worm wigglier.”

Clay looked annoyed. “Don’t you want my puppet caliente-er?”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” John Dory said, “but yeah. Definitely.”

‘Bro-Time’ happened in both the beginning and the end, each brother doing a hands-in-the-middle thing

Beginning:

“If we can’t hit the Perfect Family Harmony, we aren’t perfect,” John Dory insisted. “And if we aren’t perfect, we’re NOTHING! Being nothing is definitely not an option. So just follow my lead.” He stuck his hand out, palm down. “Let’s do this!”

Each of his brothers piled their hands on top of his. Together, John Dory, Spruce, Clay, Floyd, and Baby Branch shouted, “IT’S BRO TIME!”

End:

Smiling wistfully, Floyd said, “I can’t believe we almost missed out on all this.” It had been a long time.

“We shouldn’t have let our differences break up our family,” Clay put in, joining them.

John Dory walked up. “That’s right. Because we don’t have to be perfect to be in harmony. We just have to be together.”

Branch started to point out that he had told them exactly that, but he changed his mind. “You’re right,” he said. “Good point, bro.”

Standing in a circle, the brothers each put a hand in. “On three,” Branch said. “One… two… three!”

“IT’S BRO TIME!” they all said in unison, lifting their hands.

Baby Branch was supposed to make his entrance suspended on a wire

“And making his first live appearance, the Baby!” Glitter burst over the stage, revealing Branch suspended on a wire.

“Awwww!” the whole audience said, charmed by the adorable sight.

BroZone rolled right into their first song. Cool, calm, and collected, John Dory danced up a storm. Spruce blew another kiss, and the fans went wild. Clay added a little goofy touches to the dance steps, getting lots of laughs. Floyd shed a single tear as he sang. And Branch flipped down off his wire, sticking the landing perfectly, nailing every move and every note as the five brothers came together.

As the Family Harmony started to happen, glass broke and a lightbulb shattered

The five brothers hit a chord and held it. Offstage, a water glass broke. KSHHH! Overhead, a light bulb shattered. SHHINK! The brothers looked at each other. It was happening! They were achieving the PERFECT FAMILY HARMONY!

Smead, Gristle’s Aunt, was supposed to be the officiate instead of Miss Maxine for Bridget and Gristle’s wedding

Gristle’s Aunt Smead, a tall Bergen with goggles and hair that stood straight up, was in charge of leading the happy couple through their wedding vows. She leaned over and joked, “Hey, Bridget, you still have time to run for it!”

Poppy and JD went through with the whole hug, fist-bump, and wave thing she suggested when meeting him

Poppy rushed over and introduced herself to John Dory. “Oh my gosh, I was being so rude! I’ve never met anyone from Branch’s family before. I’m Poppy. Branch’s girlfriend. Should we hug? Fist-bump? Smile and wave for now and see where the night takes us?”

“All of the above!” John Dory said, hugging her, bumping her fist with his and waving and smiling.

Crimp was supposed to be shown cleaning up the chair before Velvet and Veneer made their entrance on the Mount Rageous show ‘The Bop on Top’

In a TV studio, the pop duo’s put-upon assistant Crimp swept off a chair, making sure it was immaculate before one of her bosses sat on it. Crimp resembled the head of a straw broom, with green eyes, white glasses, and a purple hair bow scrunching a bun of papery hair on top of her head. She was much shorter than Velvet and Veneer, but was still at least three times the size of the average Troll.

Ignoring their assistant, Velvet launched herself onto the chair, squashing Crimp. FWUNK! “So,” Velvet said to Kid Ritz, “what do you wanna know? I’m an open book.”

You are correct, Velvet did spray Floyd’s essence at Veneer without him expecting it lol

Grabbing the perfume bottle, she squeezed the bulb, giving herself a big spray of Troll talent. SHHFFT! Floyd groaned as the energy was sucked out of him. Velvet tested the results, opening her mouth to sing. She let loose an impressive cascade of notes. Satisfied, she smiled and aimed the bottle’s nozzle at her brother’s mouth. SSSHHFFT! “Your turn, Veneer.”

Veneer coughed. “Ack! You’re supposed to say it before you spray it, remember?”

There’s a quick moment where Floyd sympathizes with Crimp

Rolling her eyes, Velvet said, “Ugh. I’m exhausted by this drama. Do you wanna go buy a yacht?”

“Oh, good idea!” Veneer said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s buy matching yachts!” They left the dressing room without another word.

"Can I come out of the corner yet?” Crimp asked.

Floyd looked at her with pity in his big violet eyes. “Girl, you need a new job. I should be the saddest one in this room.”

A small moment where Bruce and JD hug

Seeing an opportunity, Poppy decided to give Bruce a little encouragement. “Prove it. Prove it,” she started chanting. Bruce’s kids all joined in, balling their fists and pumping their arms in time with the chant. “PROVE IT! PROVE IT!”

Bruce took up the challenge. “Oh, I’ll prove it,” he said confidently. “I’ll prove it right now.” He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he hopped up onto the stage and stood next to John Dory.

“Yes!” John Dory cheered. “Bring it in, brother!” They hugged.

More of Velvet being a jerk

A stage manager popped her head through the dressing room door. “Knock, knock, knock – it’s ‘we’re ready for you’ o’clock!”

Velvet faked a super-sweet manner. “Look at you, making your job fun. Good for you! Just give us five minutes. We’re still working on our routine. Okay, doll?” She closed the door and muttered, “Loser.” Then she picked up Floyd’s bottle, planning to take in another spray of his Troll talent before the day’s singing began.

Veneer making a reference to a meme

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Floyd cried, holding his hands up against the inside of the diamond bottle. “Come on, it’s just dress rehearsal. You don’t need me for a dress rehearsal!”

Ignoring his protests, Velvet grabbed the golden spray bulb between her fingers and pointed the nozzle at her mouth, ready to spritz her vocal cords. Her brother spoke up. “Wait. Maybe he’s got a point. Do we even need a dress rehearsal?”

“Obviously,” Velvet said, making a face. “That’s why we’re getting dressed.”

“I’m just saying he doesn’t look so great,” Veneer pointed out. “He has, like, sad Troll face.”

Velvet shrugged it off. “He’s fine.”

Velvet’s suggestions for how to make Floyd better

But Velvet wasn’t overly concerned about Floyd’s see-through hand and overall paleness. “Oh, he just needs some blush,” she suggested. “Or is there a mini tanning bed we can jam into the bottle with him?”

More back and forth with Velvet and Veneer

Veneer paced the dressing room floor, clutching his head. “What are we going to do? We obviously can’t even rely on the Troll to get us through this dress rehearsal, let alone the Rage Dome show!”

Looking annoyed, Velvet said, “How come I always have to come up with something?”

“Because you’re the mean one!” Veneer told her.

“I’m not mean – I’m ambitious!”

Floyd having been conscious while Velvet was shaking the bottle

Picking up Floyd’s diamond prison, she said, “Maybe we should just try shaking the bottle.” She shook it. Floyd ricocheted around inside, banging against the hard surface.

“Ow! Ouch! Ooh, my knee! My other knee!” he cried.

Lonely People having been sung later on in the movie, after Floyd makes a ‘philosophical’ statement

Floyd looked at his body, becoming more see-through by the minute. “Well,” he said philosophically. “I lived, I loved, I lost.”

To the accompaniment of gentle ukulele music, he sang quietly to himself. He looked and saw that it was Crimp who was playing the ukulele.

Bruce’s response to learning about Velvet and Veneer’s song

On an empty road that night, Bruce steered Rhonda, listening to Velvet and Veneer sing one of their pop hits on the radio. “My kids love these guys!” he said. “We’re a total Veneer household.”

“They’re the ones who are holding Floyd prisoner,” John Dory called from the back of the van.

Bruce looked shocked. “Wow, everyone’s getting canceled these days.”

A little more Clay and Viva friendship displayed

Viva put an arm around Clay’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’m the face of the operation, and Mr. Clay takes care of the boring stuff!”

“Guilty!” Clay admitted. He and Viva tapped elbows and laughed. 

Branch and Poppy having a short exchange after leaving Putt Putt Village

Heartbroken, Poppy watched as the gate closed. She leaned her scrapbook against it for Viva. Branch ran up behind her. “You were right, Branch,” Poppy said. “Family is… complicated.”

Velvet and Veneer having labeled bottles for the rest of the brothers

In Velvet and Veneer’s Rage Dome dressing room, Floyd’s diamond bottle sat on a shelf next to four empty bottles labeled Heartthrob, Fun Boy, Old One, and Baby. Floyd’s bottle was now labeled Almost Dead One.

Branch’s line about the diaper slightly differing

They tried singing one of their old songs, but John Dory soon cut them off. “Stop! Stop! Time-out. Let’s take it from the top. Spruce, I want some smolder in those eyes. Clay, you’re being too stiff. We need some sillier robot moves. Branch, maybe a smaller diaper.”

“Or some clothes not from the toddler section,” Branch grumbled.

Clay’s line about his CPA position replaced with this:

Bruce got right in his brother’s face. “This isn’t going to work if you keep being the same old John Dory.”

“Yeah,” Clay agreed. “We’ve all changed. Bruce settled down. Branch is slightly taller with zero glasses. And I’m not the guy who shoots milk out his nose and smiles through the burn!”

“Yup,” Poppy said to herself, remembering past milk blasts through her nose. “Been there.”

Crimp also confronting Velvet and Veneer when Poppy and Branch do on the red carpet

“You’re stealing BroZone’s talent because you have none of your own, you big PHONIES!” Poppy said, pointing her own accusing finger at them.

Crimp popped up out of the van. “They’re MEAN!” she shouted. “And I was their assistant, so I KNOW!”

The fans, listening to this exchange, started whispering to each other. Could what the little Trolls and the papery mop with glasses were saying possibly be true?

An extra line JD said when the talent was being sucked out of the four brothers

Velvet lowered herself back down through the sunroof and punched a button on the car’s dashboard. The roof folded back, clearing the way for a metal arm to rise out of the car, holding an entire round stage. Velvet and Veneer both hit the buttons on their shoulder pads and inhaled big whiffs of Troll talent. The four brothers winced in pain.

“Floyd, why didn’t you warn us about how uncomfortable that is?” John Dory asked.

Slightly different lines when Poppy, Branch, and Viva arrived at the yacht

When she saw Branch, Poppy, and Viva on the deck of the boat, Velvet wasn’t dismayed. On the contrary, she was delighted! “More Trolls!” she exclaimed happily. “This will last us a lifetime!”

Velvet trying to sing after she and Veneer came out of the river that they had fallen into, and Crimp calling the two out again

The yacht came to a stop, wedged diagonally across a narrow passage in the river. Velvet climbed out of the water, turned the camera on herself, and tried to sing.

She sounded awful.

The crowd gasped. “Hey, what happened to your voice?” a fan shouted.

Veneer decided it was time to come clean. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Listen up, Mount Rageous. We are FRAUDS! And we’ve been literally torturing little Trolls!”

The fans were horrified. One yelled, “My illusion of celebrity has been shattered!”

Crimp stepped in front of the pop duo. “It’s true,” she confirmed. And they’re mean. Not ambitious, but just plain MEAN!”

Veneer having put the handcuffs on Velvet instead of Crimp

“Oh, give it up, sis,” Veneer told her. He faced the cameras. “We just wanted to be famous. Honestly, my sister wanted to be famous, and truly, I was too afraid to stand up to her.”

Disgusted by her brother’s admission, Velvet said, “It’s like I don’t even know who you are.”

“Yeah, you do,” Veneer said firmly. “And you asked me to change anyway. Which isn’t okay, family or not.” He snapped a pair of handcuffs onto her slender wrists. She held them up, asking, “Veneer, what have you done?” Then she admired the shiny cuffs, saying, “Oooh, are these real silver?”

And the ending scene, in which Kismet is not mentioned, and Branch and Poppy have one last exchange

Over the loudspeaker, Crimp announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, you know ‘em, you love ‘em – give it up for the Trolls Kingdom’s very own… BROZONE!” She opened the curtains revealing the five brothers in sparkling new costumes. The crowd went wild!

In the front row, Poppy cheered along with them. Branch offered her his hand. “Poppy,” he said. “I have a small proposal. Will you – “

“Join the band?” she interrupted, bursting with excitement. “Of COURSE, I will! I thought you’d never ask!”

“You know me too well,” Branch said, grinning. “Now get up here and sing with us!”

“AAAAHH!” she squealed, leaping onto the stage. She extended a hand to her sister in the front row. “Viva! Viva, get up here! We’re in the band!”

“This is my dream life!” Viva cried, joining her and whipping out a pair of castanets.

The seven Trolls joyfully sang and danced together, and the audience absolutely loved it. The concert turned into an epic dance party. Fireworks exploded, lighting up the night sky.

Poppy turned to Branch. “I love you, Branch!”

“And I love you, Poppy!” Branch told her.

“Would it be weird if I fainted?” Poppy said. “Oh, I’m gonna faint right now.”

And she did. But Branch caught her. He would always be there to catch her when she fell, and she would do the same for him, no matter what.

Those were a majority of the main differences I could find in the junior novel. I think most of it stayed true to the movie, but some little details I would’ve liked to have made the final cut (the Cliva friendship stuff, the extra Broppy exchange and, while I understand the purpose of NSYNC’s cameo, I think the movie would’ve worked just fine without it)

[ninaolive]

Taskmaster S16E07 Recording Report

As promised to @pandaroboto here is everything I can remember.

There was an audience singalong to Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go during the warmup, and later on Sue Perkins made a call back to it during the episode, but Greg reminded her that part wasn't filmed

Mark Olver asked who in the audience had never seen the show, and why they were there, and one of them was there with a friend who said he preferred NZ Taskmaster to UK (the entire room GASPED)

Mark also identified a lot of people visiting from overseas in the room (we were visiting from NYC but kept quiet). Someone said it was their first time in London and Mark said "hate to break it to you but you're in Slough".

Mark asked if anyone already knew who the contestants were, and everyone in the upper right gallery raised their hands. Mark started to scold them for going on Reddit, but then they pointed down at the table next to Greg's throne where he had left his cue card with all 5 names on it! Greg kept mentioning that even though he'd done 6 episodes already he still needed their names written down.

The cast intros happened so fast that it felt like we were all still cheering for Julian when they got to Sue. Later on, Lucy asked Greg "why did you skip me on the introductions?" so I guess the cast noticed that, too. She thought maybe it was for a bit.

When Greg did the "felt cute, might delete later" bit I felt like he was looking right at me, and it was terrifying/electrifying.

The botox bit Greg was so fond of that he kept bringing it up so that the editors would have no choice but to let it in the show.

I don't remember why, but there was a long discussion about the meaning of the phrase "chickens come home to roost". Lucy thought it was a nice thing like when your kids come home from university for Xmas. Sam said he'd heard it in a documentary about 9/11. Greg then had to say "let's get off 9/11".

My favourite bit was "here they all are flicking themselves silly" so I am happy to see that made it into the episode.

During the discussion about Sam ripping the head off the standee of himself, he said "I'd been watching a lot of beheading videos" and then immediately started apologizing and begging them to cut that line out of the show.

The moment when Greg put his finger in Alex's mouth to stop him singing had to be re-done a ton of times because Greg kept laughing and he blamed it on Alex "moving his tongue around" and Alex said "I can't help it!". It was like a fever dream.

The live tiebreak was a total mess, so much so that audience members started to shout suggestions on how to measure it and Alex had to shush them.

In all the breaks Greg interacted with us while Alex was doing stuff offstage but sometimes his mic picked up stuff he was saying to crew members. There was a long break while Lucy's final prize task vamping was set up where all four of the other contestants just started chatting with the audience too and that was nice.

They kept telling us we were a very attractive audience and that they might use footage of us in other episodes. At the end Alex even did a retake of himself saying something like "33 minutes, 34 minutes" from another episode, and then told us "so, look out for that bit!".

We were directly behind the couple who got engaged! At the beginning when she was in the bathroom, the guy handed us the envelope and asked us to slip it under her seat at the end. We were confused but then he explained. At the end, Mark told all the people he'd singled out as visitors from overseas to look under their chairs for a special prize, and she found the envelope we'd put there. I noticed that all the cast were standing off the to the right in the wings watching. She went up and sat in Greg's chair and opened the task and the guy proposed. Then Mark started pointing at us and the people around us and saying "you guys all knew!! They were in on it!" which was sweet.

EDIT: I remembered some more stuff! Since we didn't get any team tasks, they told us who the teams were and described Julian as acting as a "sort of carer" for Lucy & Sam lol

Sue tried to get David Attenborough to voice her prize tasks but didn't hear back from her emails

Someone asked Alex if there would be any more NMJ and he said “not till the next pandemic, so” and then did fingers crossed gestures with both hands

[sleeptokenpuppy]

Y'know how the Teeth of God promo image/poster thing has been giving us all deer skull vibes and some of us have been going "what if Vessel gets antlers" and all?

I remember reading about antler velvet on tumblr some years ago and I did a little reading up on it because mental images happened.

In case I botched the link: When deer grow their antlers, as they start to grow in they're covered in a soft fuzzy membrane, usually called velvet, that supplies the antlers with the blood they need in order to grow. Then when the antlers are done growing, the velvet dries out and the deer will rub it off. And since that velvet used to be the blood supply for the antlers, the antlers look all bloody when the velvet comes off.

With all that said, Antlered Vessel Concept: He starts the tour with his antlers covered in velvet, and sheds the velvet as the tour progresses.

Maybe he just comes out with the velvet hanging off and the bloody-looking antler exposed. Maybe he removes some velvet offstage during an interlude and when he comes back out for the next song there's velvet hangimg off and blood on the antlers. Or, perhaps for maximum impact on the audience, maybe he rips velvet off the antlers in moments of high emotion, exposing the the blood and bone beneath, the same way he lays his emotions bare for us.

By the next ritual, whatever parts of the antlers got exposed the previous night are clean and dry and bone-white. Or even as the ritual progresses, maybe he cleans the blood off and removes hanging velvet during interludes. Not to say they won't get blood or velvet on them when he sheds more, though.

And then by the end of the tour the antlers are bare and bony and stark white, as we're used to seeing antlers be.

Granted, this might work better for a late summer/early autumn tour, if we wanna follow the natural cycle... But still. That mental image is metal as fuck. You cannot convince me it wouldn't be visually incredible, and if he sheds velvet during shows at all, the visualization of the emotions... chef kiss.

Pics of what shedding the velvet looks like on actual deer under the break in case anyone finds it a little gross.

[sailforvalinor]

As this week is show week for Pride and Prejudice, here are some of the show's biggest hits:

This script is just 10x more chaotic in general--lots and lots of shouting and overlapping lines, screaming from Mrs Bennet, etc. This Lizzy is also 10x more awkward, which while I don't think is necessarily very true to her character, is pretty entertaining. To give you an example, the moment when she and Darcy meet is when she accidentally bumps into him and spills punch all over him during the ball.

This show uses bells for a lot of sound cues to signal different moments in all of the romantic relationships--for example, a bell rings when Jane first sees Bingley, and vice versa, and a bunch ring when Lizzy and Darcy stare at each other after she spills punch all over him. Because I'm also in the theatre production class this semester, I was involved in some of the production process, including the sound cues, and by far my favorite bell cue happens after the first ball, when Lizzy and Darcy are the last to leave the stage, and stare at each other over their shoulders before exiting, during which a boxing bell goes "DING DING DING." I advocated very hard for that boxing bell, lol.

Opening night, somebody kept wolf-whistling every time Darcy came on stage and it was so funny that I almost broke a couple of times, lol.

This version really goes ham on characterizing Bingley as a dog, to the point where it’s hilariously overt—he idly plays with a ball at Netherfield, at one point when he’s trying to send up a sick Jane her sixth round of tea, Darcy shouts at him to sit and stay, which Bingley does, and then Darcy hands him the ball and says "good boy"--but my favorite bit has to be that at one point, he starts bringing Jane a bunch of random objects to impress her. By the time the show itself rolled around, we'd settled on a ball, a pillow, a ball of yarn, and a shoe, but during rehearsals, he was just grabbing whatever objects he could find offstage, the best one being when he carried out an entire chair and put it on her lap.

Mr. Collins (played by our Bingley) is kind of made into a bit more of a creep in this version, which I can't say I was the biggest fan of? But I understand why--it's hard to make why Mr. Collins is so objectionable to Lizzy as a potential love interest is difficult to do in play format, and going over-the-top on the characterization is kind of the *thing* in this adaptation. He is still hilarious, my favorite part being during when he starts to propose:

Mr. Collins: *gets down on one knee*: "Elizabeth Marie Bennet--"

Lizzy: "--not...not my middle name."

When Lizzy goes to visit the Collinses, the scene opens with Mr. Collins singing "BING.....BONG......BING....." along to the church bells in the distance, and it has the audience in stitches.

Anne De Bourgh wears a bunch of veils, and speaks nearly exclusively in indecipherable sighs, groans, and mumbling.

The Darcy proposal scene absolutely slaps, and is the part that kept the most original dialogue. Staying true to the theme of knocking things over, though, Darcy backs Lizzy into a desk and she knocks over an inkwell, spilling ink all over Charlotte's carpet.

In the penultimate scene before Lizzy and Darcy's final romantic scene, Lady Catherine comes to confront Lizzy, Darcy brings Bingley so he can propose to Jane, and thus every single character ends up in the Bennet house, very very confused, and they just end up shouting names at each other: "'Lizzy?" 'Jane!' 'Mama?' "MR. BENNEEEET!!!' 'Fitzwilliam!' 'Darcy!' 'AUNT CATHERINE???'" It's just fantastic.

[eisforeidolon]

Jared: [following on from Jensen's story of injuring his hand in a door] That's why - doors can be dangerous. That's why I always leave mine open slightly, so it's no longer a door, it's ajar.

Jensen: [pointedly turns to question line] Hi! How are ya?

Norton: [rimshot]

Jared: [jumps up in excitement, punches air, kicks, generally flails]

Jensen: Let me ask you a question. Ladies and gentlemen, [points offstage] Monsieur Keegan.

Jared: Monsieur Keegan Allen.

Jensen: Do you put up with those jokes on the set of a show you work on with Jared?

Keegan: Yes. Um, but they're so great. He's also my boss.

Jensen: Right, right, yes. He's so funny, isn't he?

Keegan: He's the most amazing guy ever.

Jared: I'm like, you're getting a raise.

Jensen: [mockingly monotone] He's the most amazing guy I have ever met in my life.

Keegan. I did - I did really laugh at that, that was great.

Jensen: What's up dude, what're you doin?

Keegan: Hey, dude, what's up man? Hey guys, what's up? Keegan Allen here, I'm from California.

Jared: Alright. Hi Keegan. From California.

Keegan: Man, this is really nerve-wracking, being down here.

Jensen: Just take a deep breath, we're all here for ya.

Jared: Yeah.

Keegan: I wanted to ask you guys [clears throat, speaks in a deeper voice] I wanted to ask you guys - hold on -

Jensen: [whispers into mic] Get it together, man.

Keegan: I wanted to ask you guys, in the last year, what have you done in your lives that you feel like has made it 10% better?

Jared: That's a great question, Ian. Ian, right?

Keegan: Keegan from California.

Jensen: Well, Keegan from California, 10%, huh?

Keegan: Well, 'cause you don't want - just, like a subtle upgrade in your life.

Jensen: Right.

Keegan: Because, like, y'know, something that's too drastic is too noticeable? But 10%.

Jared: Yeah, reasonable.

Jensen: I got one, I got one for ya. Make the bed first thing in the morning. I didn't used to do that. I would maybe get around to it. Y'know, like I'd get out of bed and later when I'd come back, and I'd, you know, sometimes I wouldn't go back to the bedroom until the afternoon, and I'm like ugh, bed's still unmade. Now I get up and I make the bed.

Jared: Yeah, that's a great -

Jensen: I have to kick my wife out of the bed first. [mimes kicking] But I make the bed every morning. And I dunno, it just feels good when I walk back in later in the day and I see the bed has been made. I dunno why. Yeah.

Jared: That's great. I think for me, Keegan from California, I think for me, I've tried to get rid of some of my perfectionist inklings, and so one of the things I like to do is not worry about, like, whether or not my bed is made. [audience laughs] So I come back in at night and the pillows are -

Jensen: See, [pointing at Keegan again] he has to laugh at that joke. [Jared cracks up] I don't.

Jared: But no, speaking of beds, I will not get on my phone when I'm in my bed. Even if I want to return a text message. Or I'm like, oh, shoot, I wanna play Wordle, or I wanna do something. I won't do it in the bed, I will force myself to get out of the bed [stands up] and either just stand next to it, or - Not a word of a lie, it works, it works. [Jensen cracks up] It's literally as simple as, because there's so much - because here's what I would do! I would be like -

Jensen: I just imagine like him getting a text in the middle of the night, and he's like [mimes grumpily throwing off covers, picking up imaginary phone, pushing hair back, typing on phone, pulling off imaginary glasses to set back on pretend nightstand with phone][Jared cracks up]

Keegan: I'll have to text him now, after he goes to bed.

Jared: Well, well, that's basically what happens. [Jensen laughs] But truth be told, I had the problem of, if it was middle of the night or whatever? And I'd wake up like, ugh, what time is it and I'd go and I'd look at my walk-clock or whatever on my phone and it's 1:30. I'd think oh, let me see if there's anything on the news. Let me see ESPN. Let me see who won the game. It's like, yeah ehh, I'm kind of awake, let's see what's on YouTube. And fast forward an hour and I haven't slept. So I'm like, if it's not important enough for me to get out of bed, to do it? Then I just leave my phone on my nightstand. So, yeah. And a totally unkempt bed, by the way.

Keegan: Thank you guys, that was great.

Jared: Thank you Keegan Allen, from California!

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for cheating on my girlfriend on live television?

I apologise for this being very lengthy, there’s a lot to cover. This was about seven years ago now, but it still gets brought up a lot and I want to get a definitive answer. I (then 28M) was (and still am) part of an amateur drama society. We have gathered a reasonable level of infamy, purely because our productions are always less that subpar (in other words, awful) and people seem to find this funny to watch. we’re a reasonably small group (we usually have between 8-12 members, including backstage) so we all know each other fairly well. My (now ex) girlfriend (then 26F) has been in this group longer than I have, and we actually met through performing together. Throughout the time we were dating, we tried to keep it more or less a secret from the rest of the group.

So seven years ago, we were the recipients of the BBC Community Choice Award, which was a huge surprise given that our plays are, as I said, awful. We were given an hour time slot for a live performance on the BBC, and we chose to put on a production of Peter Pan. I was chosen to play Peter, and my girlfriend was playing Wendy. From the very beginning there were a lot of issues, but things really went sideways about half an hour in, when an audio between our director and assistant director was accidentally played through the speakers. In this clip, they discussed how they thought it was inappropriate that me and my girlfriend were sleeping together while also playing Peter and Wendy, said some rude things about us, and also revealed that one of our other cast members (then 25M, playing Michael and the crocodile) had a massive crush on my girlfriend.

Once this was over, the scene continued as normal, but a malfunction in my flying rig made me go flying directly up into the rafters of the theatre. The harness then broke, and I fell 30ft back down onto the stage. I was severely injured (and was unconscious), and I had to be taken offstage for immediate medical attention. I managed to regain consciousness after about 15 minutes, and although I was heavily concussed and had lost a lot of blood, I continued with the show.

While I was unconscious, the show had continued, and our stage manager had been filling in as Peter Pan until he was also knocked unconscious. The next choice to fill in was the guy who had a crush on my girlfriend, as he already knew Peter Pans lines, as that had been the part he was hoping to play. I happened to come back onstage just as he and my girlfriend were about to do Peter and Wendy’s kiss, but when she saw me, my girlfriend came and kissed me instead. I continued my role, and I may have made a rude remark towards the other guy about his acting (which no one appreciated, because he’s the kind of guy who’s just very nice all the time). In hindsight, I regret the remarks I made, but you have to remember that I had just received some massive head trauma and was not thinking clearly, and I had just seen a man who’s apparently had a secret crush on my girlfriend for years almost kiss her.

Cut to a little bit later in the show (about 8 minutes). I was helping another actor (then 26F) with a costume change because she was a bit dizzy (she had been electrocuted and had only just been revived). She was worried it didn’t look okay, and I told her she looked great, and then she suddenly started to kiss me. This is not something she would normally do (I would blame it on the electrocution messing with her). I started kissing her back, and we started making out. Now, I know how this sounds, but please remember that I had received a nasty concussion only 20-25 minutes prior to this, so I was clearly not in the right mental capacity. The stage we were using was one that rotated between sets, and due to a fault in the rotation, the two of us kissing was seen by the entire studio audience plus the cameras that were streaming the show live. We did not realize we could be seen. On the second time the set rotated so that we were in view, my girlfriend walked in on us and got very angry. She slapped me and dumped me, and when I tried to insist that it was the other actress who came on to me, my girlfriend told me that “she’s not the one with a girlfriend”, basically taking her side.

We finished the rest of the show, and my (ex) girlfriend ended up kissing the other guy who had a crush on her after he saved her from being crushed by the pirate ship (long story). Me and my ex did make up, and have continued working together in the society. She and the other guy started dating, and she proposed to him the year after (also on live television) and they’re very happy together. Me and the other actress did not get together.

While most of the drama from this incident has been left in the past, whenever it is brought up, everyone acts like I was the sole asshole in this situation. While obviously cheating on her was not okay, and I do not blame her at all for breaking up with me, I don’t believe I am an asshole, as I would never do that if I was in my right mind. I have apologised to everyone involved, and it has now been seven years, and I think at this point it’s only fair to acknowledge that I was acting under the influence of head trauma from a life-threatening situation that had not been given time to be treated properly, rather than just a plain asshole. So, AITA?

[cyberphuck]

Assassin’s Apprentice Abridged: Part One

EDIT: Tumblr randomly swallowed like 500 words in the middle of this, so I've added that back in.

I am finally embarking on my long-threatened project to summarize all of the Farseer Trilogy for my friend Razz so they can understand my shitposts about it but don’t actually have to read it. I started with this post about the cast of characters in the first book.

This is being broken up into sections because the trilogy and AA in particular (as well as Royal Assassin... whew, that one’s gonna be hard) is so insanely long and complex.

And now, Ladies and Gentlequeers, AA Abridged: Part One.

We open on the narrator musing both about writing a history of the Six Duchies (but being unable to because every time he tries it turns into a salty rant about everything bad that's ever happened to him) and also about how very old and decrepit he is. He is hunched over his writing desk, his fingers gnarled and knuckly, literally crumbling away like a Thanos-snapped MCU character as he sorrowfully attempts to make some record of the long and storied life he's lived before he lapses into the sweet void of death.

Fitz is 35.

"I bet you're wondering how I got here," Fitz writes. "It all began when I was born. Neither of my parents bothered to show up."

Actually, the curtain opens on Fitz as a six year old, being hauled up to the front doors of a fort by a cranky older man. "Surely you must have memories of your childhood before six," someone in the audience asks, but Fitz replies "No, I definitely don't, I never did and I'm tired of you asking me that." It never really becomes super important what he was doing before he was six, unless you count the time where he was traveling from the King-In-Waiting's ballsack to the sweet hot vagina of Some Lady He Never Spoke To Again.

Fitz is scooped up and brought inside the fort, and presented to Prince Verity. You'd think Verity would be at least a little upset that his older brother has muddied the line of succession with his long-ago nut, but Verity acts as if Fitz's existence is the funniest thing he's ever seen. "Yep, looks just like him," Verity confirms, then instructs a soldier to bring Fitz to Burrich.

That's right, the cranky old man hammers on the front door, waits for someone to open it, says "this is Prince Chivalry's kid and I'm tired of dealing with him," and then walks off. Despite this, Fitz never develops any abandonment issues and only has healthy and honest relationships with people for the rest of his life.

"Those are all the memories I have of that fort," Fitz writes, "except for that one night that Prince Verity, Burrich, and Prince Regal stood and looked in on me in the stall and Regal complained that I was muddying the line of succession."

Burrich does not think this situation is as funny as Verity did.

But he's honest and loyal, so he sighs and says "C'mon, Lil Accident, I'll find a place for you to sleep." That place is in a horse stall with Vixen, the hound dog, and Nosy, her pup. Burrich looks down at all of them, mutters "Patience is gonna have a fucking aneurysm" and then walks off.

After a couple of weeks, Burrich puts Lil Accident on a horse behind him and they ride away from Moonseye and towards Buckkeep. During this time, offstage, Fitz's father Chivalry gets word of his appearance and does the only sensible and logical thing, which is to ollie out the window while flipping everyone off and yelling "GOOD LUCK FIGURING THIS ONE OUT, LOSERS!" He abdicates and retires to a farm with his weirdo wife, which pisses off basically everyone.

Burrich and Fitz arrive at Buckkeep, the capital of the Six Duchies, a tall castle on a hill overlooking the ocean. Burrich is the stablemaster, in charge of all the critters large and small at the keep. He'd also been Chivalry's right hand man until he'd jumped in front of a boar to keep it from killing the Prince and fucked up his leg. Burrich comes home to Buckkeep with a bad leg and a six year old bastard to find that his bestie has just fucking peaced out without saying anything to him. He's kind of having a bad day. He hands Fitz off to stableboy Cobb, who leads him and pup Nosy to the kitchens to get something to eat.

Cobb sits FItz-and-Nosy just outside the kitchens and goes inside for delicious pie. A burly man walks by Fitz, does a double-take, then points and yells, "Hey everyone! It's Chivalry's Bastard!"

Fitz shrinks down.

"I heard you don't even have a name!" Burly man hollers, then gets right up in Fitz's face. "Is that true, tiny and defenseless six year old boy that I'm accosting? You don't have a name?"

Fitz yells "NOOOOOO" and, like a tiny, dirty Jedi master, force-shoves the man onto his ass. The crowd, assuming that the dude was just a coward who couldn't handle being yelled at by a toddler, has a laugh and carries on with their tasks. Fitz gets up and he and Nosy run away and spend all day hiding in a hole.

Burrich does eventually find him, and with a hearty "what the fuck you can't just burrow underneath the shed, get out of there," returns him to the stables, where his new home is Burrich's little bachelor pad above the stalls. In the days and weeks that follow, Fitz wakes up, eats breakfast, and immediately escapes the keep to go down to the town and run around with a bunch of street kids.

Fitz doesn't say much but he's game for anything and he has a dog, so he's accepted into the gang as "Newboy." He and his new friends generally just run around making trouble, stealing food, and bothering people. One of the notables in the bunch is Molly Nosebleed, called that because she always looks like someone just got done beating the shit out of her. Wholesome!

One sunny day, Fitz, Molly and Nosy are on the rocks near the beach looking for sheel to eat. I have no idea what sheel is and neither does Google. Then Molly's dad shows up to hit her with a stick to teach her a lesson about having a drunk, violent dad.

Alarmed, Fitz force-shoves Molly's dad into the sand. Molly immediately freaks out and struggles to get dad back on his feet to stagger back to their candle-making shop (or chandlery if you're feeling fancy). Fitz is confused at the intricacies of abusive relationships, but relieved that no one yet knows that he has force-shoving powers.

Aside from his brief encounter with childhood trauma, everything is going great for Fitz. Then one day, while he and his fellow urchins (and Nosy) are running from a dude whose sausages they just stole, Fitz runs right the fuck into Burrich.

"You get your butt right back up to the castle, young man," Burrich says, dragging Fitz along by his ear. "And if I EVER find out you've been down in town hanging out with someone again, I will personally have sex with them a bunch of times," he added foreshadowingly.

"I don't have to do what you say," Fitz barks.

"Bark," says Nosy.

Burrich's eyes narrow. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asks.

"I don't really know numbers," says Fitz.

"Bark," says Nosy.

"Nosy says that's three," Fitz translates.

"Alrighty then, no more puppy for you, the puppy is going to live on a farm upstate," Burrich says. He drags the puppy outside.

Presumably something cool happens to it.

So now instead of slumming around Buckkeep Town, Fitz spends his days following Burrich around and being taught how to manage horses and dogs but not birds because birds apparently hate bastards. Fitz is careful not to let Burrich see him being friendly with any animals.

One day, Fitz is sitting underneath a table in the Great Hall, being friendly with a bunch of puppies. It's the morning after a party and there's plenty of leftover food to be had, and he's happily stuffing pies down his shirt and sharing pieces with the pups. Then he hears footsteps and who should show up but KING SHREWD!

Shrewd is technically Fitz's grandfather but has never really spoken to him. He's walking along with Prince Regal (*crowd boos*) and the king's new fool, a weirdo albino child who's just cartwheeling along behind them.

Fitz goes "hmm, time to bounce" and crawls out from under the table. Shrewd stops to look at him. "Ah, the Little Accident," he says. "If you leave weapons laying around, someone will eventually pick them up and stab you with them."

"What?" says Regal.

"What?" says Fitz.

"I am not going to leave you laying around for someone else to kill me with," Shrewd says. "Lil Accident, take this pin. I am going to to feed you, train you, house you and clothe you. If anyone's got shit to say about it, show them this pin. It means you belong to me."

"...Okay, sure," Fitz shrugs. He puts the pin into the collar of his shirt. Shrewd nods magnanimously and walks on. Regal flips him off. The Fool cartwheels out the door as they leave.

That night, Fitz goes home to Burrich's bachelor pad, but Burrich turns him right back around. "You done gone and did it now," he says. "King Shrewd noticed you and now you're gonna have to go live inside the castle like a fancy lad. Go on."

"But despite my fear and resentment of you, I see you as a protector and father figure," Fitz says.

"Oh little boy who blew up my life, I love and resent you too," Burrich assures him. "If you get lonely, you can come back down here and I'll murder another puppy for you."

Fitz trudges up to the castle. He has a room of his own. There's a fucking weird tapestry on the wall of the ancient King Wisdom consorting with... what is that thing? Slenderman? It's creepy.

Weeks go by. Fitz is kept busy with new lessons in reading and writing and 'rithmetic, as well as swordery. Once in a very long while, he makes the trip back down to the town to visit his buddies, but those trips become fewer and farther between.

It's the middle of the night.

Fitz wakes up to a draft and a light in his face. There's an old man at the foot of his bed, holding up a lantern. "Come with me," the old man says.

"Oh," Fitz yawns, getting out of bed. "It's the call to adventure."

The old man leads Fitz to a doorway in the wall that hadn't been there before. This is where the draft was coming from-- a steep staircase leading up between walls. Old man leads Fitz up a maze of passageways and then finally to a huge hidden room with all the amenities a crazy old wall-man could want, like a fireplace and comfy chairs and a big bed and a library and a science lab.

Also, the old looks like he took a hot frying pan to the face. Like he really looks like hell.

"Wrow," Fitz says.

"Wrow indeed, boy," the old man agrees. "My name is Chade. I bet I look familiar to you. Well it's because I'm King Shrewd's brother and I blah blah blah I have a weasel named Slink. Next you're going to ask what the fuck happened to my face. I can tell everything you're thinking, because I'm a master spy and assassin and-- now this part you should take to heart-- I am always right about everything. Never doubt me."

"Okay," Fitz says.

"Good. That out of the way, let's train you to kill people."

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals Pitch Meeting

[Should be experienced imagining the voice and acting of Ryan George, who is linked to above.]

Producer Guy: So, you have a musical for me?

Screenwriter Guy: Yes sir, I do. It’s called The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals because the main character, Paul Matthews, doesn’t like musicals.

PD: He doesn’t?

SG: No, he can’t stand them. Watching one is his own personal hell. And that isn’t a throwaway quirk, it comes up several times and is integral to the plot.

PD: Isn’t the protagonist typically meant to be relatable to the audience?

SG: Yeah.

PD: And won’t the audience be full of people who like musicals?

SG: Yeah.

PG: Bit of a weird choice, but okay then. So other than the musical thing, what’s Paul like?

SG: Oh, not much.

PG: What?

SG: Yeah, he’s the most average, boring, white middle-class American everyman you can imagine. No desires, ambitions or hobbies; he never expresses much passion for anything except things he doesn’t like. He has an office job at a company that’s so generic, I didn’t even think of what it does. He’s not particularly nice either. Like, when his best friend Bill asks him to help him reconnect with his teenage daughter Alice, he refuses to avoid his own discomfort despite having nothing else to do. And when his other friend Charlotte right next to him is clearly upset because she’s in a miserable marriage to a neglectful, cheating husband, he doesn’t bother to comfort her.

PG: Isn’t the protagonist typically meant to be likeable and interesting?

SG: Yeah, but we’re not gonna do that I decided. So another important character is Emma Perkins, this barista Paul has a crush on. She’s the only reason he keeps going to this crappy café.

PG: And what’s her deal? Is she kind and friendly to balance out Paul being so apathetic?

SG: No, she’s also rude, but she has better reasons for it. She hates her job and has really annoying, mean coworkers her boss favours over her, who just won’t shut up about how great musical theatre is. They all love it so much that there’s a new rule that if they get tipped, they have to perform a whole song and dance routine.

PG: But working for every tip negates the point of a tip!

SG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's a crappy café.

PG: I gotta say, though, you’re presenting musical fans in quite a negative light there. They are the people whose money we want.

SG: (aside) You haven’t seen anything yet. Anyway, Emma and Paul bond over not liking things and people - it’s cute. But then at the end of the day, a meteor crashes down in a big storm and lands right in the town’s theatre, which is putting on a musical. And the meteor turns out to have evil alien life inside it!

PG: Oh my God. What happens to everyone in that theatre?

SG: Well, it’s offstage, but we find out later that the alien works by taking over your body like a virus and killing you to use you as a vessel for its hive mind. So that probably happens to most of the people. Bill and Alice get out okay, but a lot of people are dead now.

PG: This escalated very quickly!

SG: Yeah, this show does that. It’s a horror comedy; it’s like a sitcom where anyone could brutally die. But here’s the thing: the alien hive mind makes the Infected sing and dance like they’re in a musical, so all the fun, catchy songs are actually it controlling people’s corpses. That’s how everyone knows the lyrics and can move in time to music nobody’s playing. You only hear the music if you’re Infected. And it spreads really fast, so this mindless musical obsession could literally destroy humanity!

PG: That’s so dark and tonally dissonant. But I have concerns about the villain essentially being a living musical, in a musical. Won’t that kinda alienate the audience? As in ‘make them not like it’, not ‘make them aliens’.

SG: No, it’ll be fun. The first song after the intro is very entertaining. There’s this really funny part with a silly, crazy homeless guy.

PG: Ah, yes. Making fun of the homeless and mentally ill is tight!

SG: Not what I… (moving on) and, and, we can cleverly parody musical tropes. For example, Paul’s boss tries to get him to sing an “I Want” song because the Hive want him to be the protagonist of their ‘musical’, but he doesn’t want anything so he’s a terrible protagonist.

PG: Oh, that was on purpose! I thought you were just a bad writer.

SG: Yeah, no, I’m setting up an arc. So the Hive take over most of the town - which is on a island and the bridge gets pulled up, so there’s no way off - including Emma’s café. But she escapes with Paul and they meet his friends from work, plus this obnoxious asshole Charlotte’s cheating with called Ted, who's the worst. But then the Infected police show up, including Charlotte’s husband Sam. She begs him to snap him out of it ‘cause she still loves him, but he pulls a gun on her.

PG: Oh no.

SG: Fortunately, Ted knocks him out.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But he hits him too hard and his brain falls out!

PG: Wait, even putting aside how unlikely it is that his flesh and skull were broken open wide enough that his whole brain could fall out, isn’t the brain… attached? That’s a very implausible injury.

SG: I’m gonna need you to get all the way off my back about that.

PG: Well, okay then.

SG: So Charlotte has a mental breakdown and Emma suggests they go to her biology professor, Henry Hidgens. He’s an eccentric doomsday survivalist who somehow predicted this exact incredibly specific apocalyptic situation and has a huge house with top-notch security. And he's a biologist, so he might be able to study the alien infection if they bring him Sam.

PG: It’ll be hard to get there safely with the town swarming with alien zombies, especially carrying a dead man.

SG: Actually, it’ll be super easy, barely an inconvenience.

PG: Oh, really?

SG: That part just happens offstage.

PG: So they get to shelter?

SG: They do, so they start to relax for a bit. Except Charlotte, she’s dying inside and stays with her tied-up dead husband. Bill and Ted have this funny argument where Bill threatens to kick Ted’s head, which, you know, is a stupid threat.

PG: It is?

SG: Yeah, because you’d have to kick really high and most people can’t do that.

PG: I thought you would just push the person to the ground with your arms and then kick their head. Most people can do that.

SG: True.

PG: And it would be highly effective. You could kill someone that way.

SG: (getting an idea) You could, couldn’t you? (writes that down)

PG: What are you writing?

SG: Nevermind. Emma and Paul have a nice heart-to-heart where she reveals her backstory. Turns out she had a sister, Jane, who lived a great life, dream job, true love, kid, everything, while Emma left home at eighteen and travelled around being aimless and irresponsible. But then last year Jane died and that’s why Emma came back and is studying, to try to do something with her life now that Jane can’t anymore.

PG: Aw, that’s sad.

SG: Even a zany horror sitcom has its serious moments. So she and Paul bond some more, until Charlotte and Sam burst in.

PG: Wait, what?

SG: The Hive made her think he’d come back to life and manipulated her into letting him go. Then he just killed her.

PG: Dick move.

SG: Massive dick move! So now Ted gets beaten up by the possessed corpse of the woman he loves, after the last things he said to her were mean because he’s the worst. Fortunately, Hidgens kills the zombies.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But Alice calls Bill and she’s under attack at her school!

PG: Oh no.

SG: If Bill goes to save her alone he’ll almost definitely die. But Paul volunteers to go with him.

PG: So he won’t be nice to his friends in everyday life, but he will risk his life for them?

SG: Precisely, this is really bringing out his inner hero. But when they get there, Alice is already Infected. She sings a whole song about what a terrible father Bill is and he's so guilty that he failed her that he tries to kill himself with the gun they brought. Fortunately, Paul takes the gun off him.

PG: Oh, good.

SG: But he drops it on the ground, so Alice just shoots Bill herself.

PG: Oh my God! Why did he let go of the gun? That was a very poor decision!

SG: Extremely poor, yes. Alice nearly kills Paul too, but the army rescue him. Specifically this secret special unit that I made up called PEIP that deals with supernatural stuff like magic and aliens that most people don't know about. They're ordered to kill everyone to keep the weird stuff secret, but the leader, General John MacNamara, is a good person so he doesn't do that.

PG: So he lets Paul live?

SG: He does, and he sends a helicopter to take him and Emma off the island.

PG: Paul tells him about Emma?

SG: Uh-huh. He realizes that he's in love and finally does want something: to be with her.

PG: Cool, cool, cool.

SG: Meanwhile, Hidgens and Emma are studying the Infected. Emma theorizes that if the brain of the Hive is in the meteor, they could take out all of them by destroying it.

PG: Is that true?

SG: There's no reason it couldn't be! But Hidgens changes his mind about the Hive being evil, knocks Emma out and ties her and Ted up. Then he opens his house's gates because he wants the Hive to get in.

PG: Why does he think the Hive isn't evil?

SG: Well, he's thinking that since humans are so immoral and harmful we're killing the planet and each other constantly anyway, but the Hive will bring peace and harmony. And he loves musicals.

PG: Oh, he does?

SG: Yeah, he's even written his own awful one, and he plays a song he wrote and composed to lure the Infected inside. He's willing to die and doom humanity for his twisted, irrational love of musical theatre.

PG: Really slamming your audience again. Hey, why wasn't he at the musical the theatre just put on?

SG: I don't know.

PG: Fair enough.

SG: So Paul comes back, frees Emma and Ted and they escape, but General MacNamara kills Ted because the soldiers are Infected now!

PG: And this is all onstage?

SG: Yes.

PG: Then it's gonna be hard to get past a division of fit, armed zombie soldiers who can survive not even having brains in their heads.

SG: No, it isn't. Emma shoots MacNamara in the shoulder and that makes him just give up.

PG: What about all the other soldiers?

SG: Please ignore them.

PG: Okay.

SG: So Paul and Emma get to the helicopter and think they've made it, but the pilot is Emma's mean coworker from earlier and makes them crash.

PG: Why is she Emma's coworker and not just the army pilot, if the Hive got there first?

SG: Because.

PG: That works. Are they okay after the crash?

SG: Paul is, but Emma's too hurt to walk. Paul says they should find a boat -

PG: Wait. There are boats? Or does Paul just think there might be?

SG: I have more notes on this town and it has a boating society, so there are boats.

PG: Then why haven't the Infected got in the boats and gone to mainland? Shouldn't they have done that by now?

SG:

SG: ...You're right. I didn't think about the implications. Oh my God, I didn't think about it!

PG: Whoops!

SG: Whoopsie! So anyway, Emma tells him her theory and he goes to blow up the meteor with a grenade.

PG: But then he could die, and right when he actually cares about something. That is heroic. Do he and Emma have a touching maybe-last goodbye?

SG: Kinda. They try to kiss, but she coughs up blood in his face. The Hive knows Paul is coming and lets him in order to infect him. He does his best to resist its control, but it makes him sing and dance and have an existential crisis.

PG: Oh no.

SG: But at the last possible moment, he pulls the pin, blows up the meteor and saves the day!

PG: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.

SG: So we cut to two weeks later. Everyone else in the town is dead, but Emma was saved by the army reinforcements and she's getting out of hospital on the mainland and ready to start a new life.

PG: Well, at least she survived and the Hive is defeated. That's what Paul wanted. But it's still a shame he died.

SG: That's what Emma thinks... until he walks in!

PG: (excited) What?

SG: Yeah, he's okay and he gives her this soft smile and she's the happiest we've ever seen her and they hug.

PG: That's such a sweet ending. After everything they've been through, getting to be happy together feels earned, and I really have warmed up to them both.

SG: And then Paul starts singing.

[Beat. Producer Guy's relieved expression turns to confusion, shock, sorrow and horror as he processes that information and its implications. He stares at Screenwriter Guy, betrayed.]

PG: But that means he's... (SG nods, proud of himself) and Emma's theory was wrong, and... (SG nods again) the Hive is on the mainland now, so the entire world is... (SG nods again) oh, a very depressing ending!

SG: Set to a very cheerful song! The cast even stay in-character for the bows; the Infected bow while Emma screams and cries and begs the audience for help before being dragged away. So what do you think?

PG: That ending will haunt my dreams. But as creative as the premise is and as emotional as it gets later on, I don't know if this will be that big of a hit. The tone changes so fast and jarringly, the main characters aren't that likeable at first and it all just seems pretty niche. And it spends so much time mocking its own genre and audience. I can see it becoming a cult classic, but I don’t think you’ll be able to launch a series with it or anything.

[ghostboymichael]

City of Bones: A Summary

I made this shitty stage play of City of Bones (book one of The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare) for giggles. It's full of expository statements and idiocy but I think it's funny. And it's still better than the books.

Spoilers for City of Bones. Obviously.

EXT. PANDEMONIUM CLUB

CLARY: 

Come on, Simon, let’s use our fake IDs to get into a club called Pandemonium. This couldn’t possibly go wrong— Woah! Who is that hot blond guy?

SIMON: 

What hot blond guy?

CLARY: 

Are you gaslighting me?

SIMON: 

About what?

THEY STARE AT EACH OTHER SUSPICIOUSLY.

JACE: 

You can see me?

CLARY: 

Duh. Quirky Girl Sarcasm Intensifies. HAIR FLIP

JACE: 

Subtly Worried Brooding Silence

SIMON: 

Let’s go, Clary. I don’t like you hallucinating hot guys. He’s probably not even a natural blond.

INT. PANDEMONIUM CLUB

CLARY AND SIMON ARE DANCING.

CLARY:

Dance Dance Dance.

CLARY POINTS DOWNSTAGE RIGHT AND STOPS DANCING.

CLARY: 

The hot blond guy and another guy are following that blue-haired kid and the girl into the storeroom. And he has a knife! I should follow them. Go get help, Simon.

SIMON: 

I don’t know what’s happening but I’m so whipped that I’ll do whatever.

CLARY MARCHES DOWNSTAGE RIGHT AS SIMON EXITS DOWNSTAGE LEFT.

CLARY: 

Hey, you! Don’t stab people!

JACE: 

You idiot! You stopped me from killing a demon!

ISABELLE: 

Don’t worry, she didn’t stop me and Alec.

DEMON:

Demon Dying Noises.

SIMON ENTERS DOWNSTAGE LEFT WITH SECURITY.

SIMON: 

Clary, I got security. Why are you standing in an empty room?

CLARY: 

To isolate me in the narrative.

SIMON: 

Okayyyyyy…

INT. FRAY HOUSEHOLD

JOCELYN: 

I have to tell her, Luke. It’s only a matter of time before— 

CLARY ENTERS UPSTAGE LEFT.

JOCELYN:

Oh hi honey!

CLARY: 

Hi Mom, what’s going on?

JOCELYN: 

Honey, we’re moving to the country to live with Luke, who I am not in love with.

CLARY: 

Nooo, Mom! We can’t move! Then everything won’t be about me and my struggles!

SIMON: 

Let’s go do poetry. I’m in a band.

EXT. ROAD

SIMON AND CLARY ARE WALKING TO JAVA JONES.

SIMON: 

Hey Clary, your Mom has weird scars.

CLARY: 

No she doesn’t.

SIMON: 

Yeah she does, I’ve seen her in a bathing suit. Your mom’s hella fine.

CLARY: 

What.

INT. JAVA JONES

CLARY AND SIMON ARE SITTING AND LISTENING TO ERIC READING POETRY.

CLARY: 

Simon, you’re not gay, are you?

SIMON: 

What?

ERIC, OFFSTAGE: 

TWIRLS ACROSS THE STAGE Poetry Poetry Poetry.

JACE: 

Hello there. 

CLARY: 

OMG, hot blond murderer. You’re stalking me. That’s not suspicious.

JACE: 

I’m a Shadowhunter, which means I kill demons. You can see me, which means you have the Sight and need to come with me.

CLARY: 

I’d love to but— STANDS AND DASHES AWAY WHILE PHONE RINGING 

CLARY:

TO AUDIENCE Hold that thought. What? Mom? Don’t come home? Tell Luke that “he” found you? Who’s “he”? Mom?

SIMON: 

JOINING HER Clary, we should go find Luke and not go home.

CLARY: 

Let’s go home.

SIMON: 

Okay.

JACE: 

STILL SITTING Okay bye. Just shattered your world view and told you about a whole secret universe, but go off I guess.

EXT. FRAY HOUSEHOLD

CLARY: 

My home is shattered and my mom is gone!

DEMON:

Demon Noises.

CLARY: 

AHHHHH!!! Stab Stab Stab! SLOWLY FALLING BACKWARDS ONTO GROUND

JACE: 

LURKING WITH ARMS CROSSED Wow. Good work killing a demon.

CLARY: 

ON GROUND You followed me again? I guess I’ll trust you over my best friend of ten years.

JACE: 

KNEELING Great. But you’re dying. I will heal you with my magic wand that will kill you if you aren’t a Shadowhunter.

CLARY: 

Wait but I’m not a Shadowhunter—

JACE: 

PRESSING STELE TO NECK Huh it worked. Guess you’re a Shadowhunter.

CLARY: 

That was a lousy experiment.

INT. THE INSTITUTE

CLARY:

We Go To The Institute, Where Like Five People, Three Of Which Are Teenagers, Purge The Biggest City In America Of Demons All By Themselves. We Do Nothing, Then Leave The Institute.

EXT. FRAY HOUSEHOLD

CLARY: 

Let’s go back to my messed up house and find things. Oh my gosh it’s my neighbour Dorothea, who didn’t get kidnapped because the TV show is really weird and full of unnecessary plotlines. 

INT. DOROTHEA’S HOUSE

CLARY:

Dorothea, are you a witch? ‘Cause you are serving witch. Alright, good talk, let’s jump through this mysterious portal that you told us not to jump through.

INT. PORTAL

PORTAL:

Portal Noises.

EXT. LUKE’S HOUSE

CLARY: 

We’re at Luke’s house. Huh. Let’s be super sneaky and HOLY CRAP WE’RE BEING ATTACKED.

SIMON: 

Hi!

JACE: 

Dude why were you in the bushes that’s super weird.

SIMON: 

Says the stalker.

INT. LUKE’S HOUSE

CLARY: 

We’re in. Wait, hide! Somebody's coming. 

JACE: 

The men who killed my father…

CLARY: 

They’re looking for something called the Mortal Cup that my mom stole from Valentine, but Luke says he doesn’t know— wait WHAT?

JACE: 

No further context required… I need to maintain an aura of alluring and brooding mystery. 

SIMON: 

You’re a traumatized sixteen-year-old. Also, why do we all have dead dads?

JACE: 

I’m Batman.

INT. THE INSTITUTE - LIBRARY

HODGE: 

I am Hodge, leader of the Institute. Your mother was a magical Nazi, and your father is dead.

JACE: 

Omg twinning.

CLARY: 

I knew that.

HODGE: 

No, your REAL father. Your mom made up the dead dad. Your real dad was THE magical Nazi, Valentine. Actually all the adults here were once magical Nazis. But we got better. PUTS BANDAID ON FOREHEAD

CLARY: 

Are you sure Valentine’s dead? He seems sort of alive.

HODGE: 

He is definitely totally dead.

CLARY: 

I don’t remember anything about anything. Let’s go to some scary monks and have them break my brain.

SIMON: 

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

JACE: 

Nah it sounds legit.

INT. THE SILENT CITY

SILENT BROTHER: 

ACTOR ONSTAGE BUT VOICE DOESN’T COME FROM MOUTH There is a block in your mind that we cannot remove. But the mysterious person who put it there signed it “Magnus Bane xoxo” so go find him.

ISABELLE: 

Let’s go to a party.

INT. MAGNUS’ PARTY

CLARY: 

Hello, Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn. Please remove the block from my mind.

MAGNUS: 

I can’t, but it will fade naturally. Don’t worry. Also your Jewish friend just turned into a rat. No weird subtext there.

CLARY: 

Holy crap vampires just took Simon the rat.

JACE: 

Let’s rescue him. I hope there are no lasting side effects from this traumatizing voyage.

THEY FIGHT THEIR WAY ACROSS THE STAGE.

INT. THE INSTITUTE

SIMON: 

Wow, I think there were some lasting side effects from that traumatizing voyage. 

CLARY: 

That can wait until book two. Right now it’s my birthday.

JACE: 

Let’s have a picnic in the middle of the night.

CLARY: 

Okay.

JACE: 

Let’s kiss.

CLARY: 

I’m in love with you forever.

SIMON: 

I’m still here, you know.

JACE: 

I’m gonna be really mean to everyone now.

INT. THE INSTITUTE - CLARY’S ROOM

SIMON: 

I hate Jace.

CLARY: 

Why?

SIMON: 

I’m jealous.

CLARY: 

Why? You have Isabelle.

SIMON: 

I don’t want Isabelle.

CLARY: 

Then why do you flirt with her?

SIMON: 

To make you jealous.

CLARY: 

Why would you want to do that?

SIMON: 

Are you genuinely, actually stupid?

CLARY: 

I might be. I’m going to go draw Jace as an angel some more. That’s not foreshadowing anything.

INT. THE INSTITUTE - JACE’S ROOM

CLARY: 

JACE WAKE UP JACE WAKE UP!

JACE: 

What is wrong with you?

CLARY: 

I just made a drawing come out of paper and I think my mom hid the Mortal Cup in Dorothea the witch’s tarot cards.

JACE: 

Cool.

INT. DOROTHEA’S HOUSE

CLARY: 

Yay we got the Mortal Cup and HOLY CRAP DOROTHEA IS A DEMON.

JACE: 

I like tea. Also I don’t like Simon and I’m going to make fun of him.

CLARY: 

You know, most psychologists agree that hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.

JACE: 

I’m not gay. Everyone hates me.

ALEC: 

I am gay. I don’t hate you. But I don’t really love you, I just tell myself I do because you’re a safe option because you are unavailable. Also I’m very wounded and slightly delusional right now.

SIMON: 

I just shot a demon to death with arrows as a powerless human but everybody’s still going to underestimate me for the next four books.

INT. THE INSTITUTE - THE LIBRARY

HODGE: 

Thank you for giving me the Mortal Cup. I am still a magical Nazi and I will now give it to our leader, who is not dead.

CLARY: 

Woah, who could have anticipated that plot twist? 

EXT. ALLEYWAY

CLARY:

I’m going to chase Hodge down this alleyway and goodness gracious me who could have predicted that a grown man could overpower me, a defenseless fifteen-year-old girl?

LUKE: 

I will save you with my werewolf powers, Clary.

CLARY: 

Luke! You’re a werewolf!

LUKE: 

Go find your mom who I’m in love with while my pack fends off Valentine’s army.

CLARY: 

Okay.

INT. VALENTINE’S BASE - ROOSEVELT ISLAND

VALENTINE: 

Hello, my son.

JACE: 

Dad? You’re not dead?

CLARY: 

Jace, that’s MY evil Nazi dad.

JACE: 

Omg we really are twinning.

VALENTINE: 

Come home with me, son. I love you.

JACE: 

No, you abused me really bad and made me think you were dead. But I’m gonna be indecisive about it for five more books anyway.

VALENTINE: 

Okay. Magic portal activate! 

PORTAL:

Portal Noises

INT. THE INSTITUTE

CLARY: 

Wow great adventure.

JACE: 

Valentine literally has the Mortal Cup and we are siblings. 

CLARY: 

Details. Let’s debate the morality of us dating for the next two books and be inconsistent about who’s for it and who’s against it.

JACE: 

Sounds like a plan.

SIMON: 

Am I the only one who thinks incest is bad?

*WHAT A GREAT FIRST BOOK. YOU COULD MAKE A TV SHOW AND MOVIE OUT OF IT, PROBABLY*

[shit-talk-turner]

The thing about drug hazed friendships is that when you are sober you are often ashamed of things that you did. Maybe Alex seeing Miles reminds him of those bad times or vice versa. I had a bestie and when we got sober we could barley talk anymore because we had seen the worst of each other and were riddled with shame and maybe a little lack of respect for one another. I hope they’re better and if that means growing apart that’s fine.

// Does anyone else feel like they had a bit of dynamic where Alex would overindulge and Miles would have to look out for him? No idea offstage, but onstage I never get the impression that Miles was out of control. For sure he's drunk and probably on something, but he doesn't miss his cues, he has the audience eating out of his hand, and he is always aware of what Alex is doing, right there to catch him if he falls. There are many shows where Alex needs help from Miles, he gets stuck on a box, he forgets his cues, he sits on the ground in the middle of the song, etc. When they talk in each other's ear it always seem like Alex is rambling, giggling, and Miles is responding to him, not the other way around.

I've had friends where you go out partying and everything is great up to the point that they get so out of it that you have to sober up quickly and take care of them. If this happens too much it stops being fun and you just feel like their babysitter instead of their friend. You worry about them, but you also feel resentful too because you can never truly let loose yourself, you always have to be the responsible one.

Miles has written a few songs that are worried about someone he cares about's behaviour and I always wonder if him finally needing distance or putting his foot down about Alex's dependency is what "killed the joke" and brought up these tensions. With the Monkeys Alex had many more people to lean on, and he was also more concerned with their image and professionalism, but with TLSP it was just Miles and no limits to what they could do and I think it made for a real pressure cooker of emotions.

^

[stranger-marauders]

i could never let you go

chapter four: voulez-vous mamma mia! au

chapter summary: You, Robin, and Nancy come together and perform for your daughter's bachelorette party. Lena's potential fathers all make a realization.

chapter warnings: language probably, daddy issues ig, use of y/n probably, single mom things, alcohol consumption

word count: 3.1k

series masterlist | masterlist

You had worked your ass off to make the bar look as good as it did, and it had certainly paid off.

Because the bar was outside, you had made a great effort in making sure that the area was fully lit and decorated. There were lantern lights around the place, and you’d even had your boys make a makeshift dancefloor before they left. You’d also secretly had Leo make sure the stage was functional, just because it had been forever since you’d had live music.

Robin and Nancy also helped you decorate the bar area, even though you had told them that you didn’t need any help. Of course, since that conversation took place after your mental breakdown in your room about Steve, Eddie, and Jonathan, they didn’t want to leave you decorating alone. While you appreciated the help, you still wanted them to feel like guests.

That was part of the reason why you were surprised whenever they’d talked you into becoming the entertainment of the night.

“Ladies! Are there any here tonight?” Robin asked, speaking into her mic offstage.

The cheers of Lena’s bachelorette party attendants screamed in response.

“Well, for one night, and for one night only, the Pinestead Inn is proud to present the one, the only, the world’s first Girl Power band in all its grown-up wrinkly glory—”

“Speak for yourself, Rob,” Nancy muttered.

“One night! One number! ‘Cause that’s all we’ve got the breath for. Give it up for Y/N & the Dynamos!”

The girls in the audience screamed as you, Robin, and Nancy walked out in outrageous 70s outfits in honor of the selection that night. You were surprised that your outfits still fit all of you. While Nancy and Robin had hardly changed in terms of physique, you thought that having a baby twenty years ago would’ve made a difference for you.

As the curtains rose and the lights hit the three of you, you began to sing.

You, Nancy, and Robin had decided to pull out one of your strongest hits from back in the day: “Super Trouper.” It had always been one of your most popular hits, mostly because there probably wasn’t a person alive that disliked ABBA. While you three had many, many songs to choose from, especially if you pulled from your solo catalog, “Super Trouper” was without a doubt the best pick.

Now that you were singing again, you thought that it was odd that Steve wasn’t out in the crowd. The last time you had been that happy singing was whenever you could sing specifically to him, acting as if every other person wasn’t there. You remembered that part of your life almost like it had happened yesterday.

Back in those days, Steve would watch your set the entire night, then he would take you home, wine and dine you before he took you to bed. He would tell you how pretty you were up there, singing for him like he was the only man in the room. He would touch you like he would never touch a woman again, touch you again. Steve would love you like it was the last time he’d ever get the opportunity to do such a thing and he wanted you to know that no matter what, that love would never go away.

Even after everything he’d done to you, you really did miss him. Something about him was so simply irresistible, even all these years later. You hated to admit that he still had a place in your heart. Just seeing him earlier that day made your heart hurt, just as it had whenever you’d sent him away all those years ago.

Whenever you’d seen Steve standing at the very opposite end of the bar, out of the line of sight with Jonathan and Eddie, your heart nearly skipped a beat.

While Steve knew that it was a bachelorette party for your daughter that he was technically crashing, he couldn’t help but eavesdrop whenever he heard you were going to be singing that night. Being back on the island made him think back to the summer of 1990, the best summer of his life. Even after all those years, he still couldn’t get your voice out of his head, nor could he forget the smell of your perfume or the feel of your body under his. You had never been able to leave him, even after his marriage with Amy.

Steve had married the girl back home that he’d said he would whenever he left you on Pinestead Island. If he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t have married her, no matter what happened with you. That decision was something he regretted even after all this time. He should’ve thought about a way to get you back rather than just settle and marry Amy.

He’d been stupid to waste his life the way he had. While he had money, more money than he could ever want, he wasn’t happy. Not really.

Unsurprisingly, Amy had served him with divorce papers almost ten years ago now, telling him that now that the boys were old enough for them to co-parent from separate homes, it was time for their relationship to end. In Steve’s eyes, their relationship had ended the day that he met you.

His sons were sixteen and eighteen now, but at the time, they had been much too young to understand why their parents didn’t love each other anymore. Steve had always told them that he would them what he’d done to their mother whenever they got older. Whenever they turned thirteen and fifteen, respectively, Steve told his sons about you and about that summer (of course, the less explicit version). He’d also told them that if they ever cheated on their partners the way that he’d done that he would disown them, but they promised that they wouldn’t.

Even so, Steve didn’t regret all of what he’d done. While he regretted not going home after he’d met you to tell Amy that it was over, he didn’t regret a single thing he did with you. That single month with you had been the most right his life had ever been, and he would do anything to have one night with you again.

That was the real reason why Steve had accepted what he’d thought was your invitation back to the island. 

Steve had thought about coming back to Pinestead to see you for years. He’d dreamed of seeing you again since the moment he’d left the island to get married. He had your website for the villa tabbed on his computer back home, checking on it every once in a while to make sure that the place didn’t close before he got to see it in person. He had never gone to see you because part of him was scared that you would throw him back off the island the second you saw him. He didn’t want to risk seeing you so angry and upset with him again—he couldn’t take it. His heart broke at the thought of making you feel like that ever again.

Because of that, he knew that he loved you. He still loved you, really. He knew that he’d said it to you in passing maybe once or twice whenever you’d been sleeping together, but if he ever got to say it to you now, he would make sure you knew he meant it because, even now, he still felt that way about you. You were still beautiful, even after all these years. You were bold, sharp even if he had still been, deservedly, at the other end of that anger you had. You had even built the villa you two had designed that summer, making your and his dreams a reality.

Steve knew, however, knew that he would never get so lucky to have you again and that he would have to live with the decision he’d made to leave you behind all those years ago for the rest of his life. For that, he would always live in regret.

Whenever the song was done, you, as well as Nancy and Robin, had immediately walked over to the three men across the bar. While you talked, music blared through the area, leaving the young girls to fill the dance floor.

“What are you doing here?” you asked them, somewhat irritated.

“This is a bachelorette party,” Nancy said.

“Meaning no boys allowed,” Robin added, making sure that she was really selling the point home.

“Well, you know, we thought that we would wander around the property, enjoy the hotel as guests, you know?” Steve said, trying to act calm. Internally, however, his heart was beating rapidly. He thought you were going to tear him to shreds.

“Hm. Too bad this area’s being rented out for a private party. Emphasis on private.”

“Yeah, well—”

“They can stay if they want to!” Lena shouted, smiling as she danced with Sarah and Jenny.

Steve shrugged, giving a tightlipped smile. “I don’t know if you know, but, uh… we have permission from the bride.”

He, as well as Jonathan and Eddie, disappeared into the crowd as you rolled your eyes.

It was almost like he hadn’t aged. Even though he was forty-something years old, he still blended in with these young twenty-something young girls. There was something youthful about him, something so spontaneously interesting and simultaneously fun that it started to make your heart melt for him.

“You okay?” Robin asked, putting a hand on your shoulder.

“Me?” you responded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

Without asking you, Nancy walked up to the bar, not even looking at the drink menu. “Three shots, please. Vodka.”

“Oh my God, Nance, are you trying to kill us?”

“No. No, this is good,” you said. “I need to start drinking, like, right now.”

All of this was too much for you. Why had Lena told them it was okay to stay? Your daughter couldn’t have known what she had just done. With Lena, Steve, Eddie, and Jonathan all in the same place, it wouldn’t be long until they realized that your daughter very well could have been one of theirs, too, and you wanted to be far from sober if you could to handle that conversation.

Once you and Robin had gotten so drunk that you were hardly able to stand, Nancy decided to bring you two up to your room for the night.

Of course, the bachelorette party still went on without you and the Dynamos.

After you had been forced to go to bed, Lena had decided it was as good a time as any to finally try to investigate who her father truly was. Her current plan was to talk to each of them individually to see if she could figure out the father that way.

The first person she could find was Steve.

Whenever Lena dragged Steve to the edge of the bar, which was away from most of the party, he didn’t mind. He knew he had to go with her, even if it was just to talk.

Lena truly did look just like you. She was such a beautiful girl, just like her mother. He couldn’t help but to love your daughter too.

“I’m sorry to drag you away from the party,” she said somewhat sheepishly.

“No, I’m glad you did,” Steve replied. “It’s, uh… It’s crazy seeing the island the way that it is now. It used to be so quiet, you know? Now it’s so different.”

Lena nodded. “So do you regret staying away for so long, then?”

“No,” Steve said. “I regret that I didn’t know what was here.”

“What?”

“This place. The Inn,” he replied. “Your mom and I talked about building this place here a long time ago, but, uh… you know, she obviously beat me to it.”

She hesitated to respond to him. “Tell me something about my mom.”

“Your mom?”

Steve didn’t know what to say to her. What could he tell this girl about her own mother that she didn’t already know? He had only spent a month with you twenty-one years ago, but this girl had her whole life with you. There probably wasn’t a thing she didn’t know about you after all the time that your daughter had spent with you.

“Okay, I think I got something. I was, uh… I was actually the one that brought her here.”

“And that wasn’t the only thing you did, was it?”

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “What’d she tell you?”

“Nothing!” Lena answered quickly. “She–She’s never mentioned you before.”

Something about that answer didn’t sit right with him. “No, no, no. You told me earlier that your mom never stops talking about her friends from the old days, okay? Something’s not adding up.” He paused whenever he saw the look of worry on her face. “What’s going on, Lena? Why am I here/”

Instead of answering him, however, Lena reentered the dance floor.

“Wait, Lena!” Steve shouted, trying to follow her. Of course, he was pulled right back into dancing with the young girls at the party.

The next person Lena spotted was Eddie. She pulled him to the very edge of the dance party, talking to him as she’d just talked to Steve.

“It’s crazy that Y/N has a grown-up daughter,” he said.

“Have you got any children, Eddie?” Lena asked.

“No, I’ve chosen to not put myself into the path of paternity.”

“It’s never too late.”

“Oh, I don’t think my other half would agree,” Eddie said, almost laughing.

“Do you not want children?” Lena asked, somewhat worried.

“Nah, it’s not that. We’re just old. Too old for a baby, anyway. Besides, it would’ve been hard to have kids on the road,” he said. “You know, I would’ve loved to have a daughter.” 

With that, Lena’s heart skipped a beat. “Really?”

“I don’t know, something about it. I would’ve spoiled that little girl completely rotten if I got the chance.”

“Must be your lucky day…,” Lena mumbled.

“Is your dad here?” Eddie asked. “I wanna meet the guy that made your mom settle down.”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know who my dad is,” Lena said, now speaking much more clearly.

Before Eddie could ask any more questions, he was brought right back into the dance circle. When Lena tried to find him, she was instead pulled to the side by Jonathan.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jonathan asked. “It may sound like I’m being nosey, but I’m trying to figure out how all of this is possible.”

“Go ahead.”

“How did your mother get this place? When I knew her, she was singing in a bar on the mainland.”

Lena shrugged. “I was really little when it happened. She was left some money in a will, I think. I know we lived with an older lady when I was younger. Her name was Darlene.”

“Darlene? Like my great aunt Darlene?” Jonathan asked.

“I think it must be.”

“I always heard her money went to family,” he said, trailing off. That was when he realized something. “Wait a minute. How old are you?”

“I’m twenty.”

With that, Jonathan went to go stand on the edge of the balcony, almost as if he was going to be sick.

“Jonathan!” Lena shouted, running after him.

“Sorry. I had to get some air,” he said, leaning on the edge of the railing.

“Why did your great aunt leave my mother that money?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You do. Please, just tell me.”

Jonathan hesitated, turning to look at your daughter for only a moment. “Well, what did your mother tell you?”

“She won’t talk about the past. She doesn’t understand how much I need to know.”

“Well, you’ll have to talk to her about it.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with her,” Lena finally said. “My whole life has been one big unanswered question, and I don’t want any more secrecy.”

“Lena, this isn’t my secret.”

She finally sighed. There wasn’t any point in sugarcoating it anymore. “Jonathan, are you my father?”

He hesitated. “I think I might be.”

“Well, you know what comes next.”

“Don’t tell me you have a win,” Jonathan said, his face going pale.

“No, no. It’s just me,” Lena said, trying to alleviate his worry. “No, I wanted to ask if you would give me away tomorrow?”

“Give you away?” he asked, not seeming to understand.

“I’ll feel like a real bride if I can walk down the aisle with my father.”

Before Jonathan could give her an answer, Jenny turned to tell Sophie something before quickly walking away, rejoining the dance circle. “The boys are back!”

“I’ll find your mother,” Jonathan said. “I need to talk to her about this.”

“No!” Lena replied. “Not tonight. We’ll keep this our secret until the wedding tomorrow, okay?”

“She’s gonna lose her mind, Lena.”

“She’ll be relieved. She’ll see us together and see that I’m happy.”

Jonathan pondered over the thought. “Oh, all right. I’ll do it.”

As he walked back into the crowd, Eddie came up to Lena again.

“Lena, I won’t beat around the bush, kid. I know why I’m here,” he said. “And let me tell you, I think it’s great. I’ve always wanted a little girl, and a big one’s even better.”

“No, Eddie! It’s—”

“I know I’m rushing things, but please tell me, does your mother know that I know?”

“No, she—”

“Okay, that’s good. Listen, I gotta know, who’s giving you away?”

“No one!” Lena said quickly.

“Wrong! I am!” he said, almost too excitedly.

“You?”

“Yes!”

“Oh!”

“And don’t worry about your mom. She doesn’t scare me too much!” Eddie shouted, getting sucked right back into the crowd.

“Wait, Eddie!”

Before Lena could catch him, however, Steve pulled her to the side once again.

“Oh my God! Talk about slow on the uptake. I’m your dad!”

“Steve!” Lena said, almost begging him to forget his realization.

“I get it now, okay? That’s why you sent me an invitation. You want your ol’ dad here to walk you down the aisle. I’m not gonna let you down, okay? I’ll be there!”

Before she could catch him, as well as Jonathan and Eddie, Lena could only stand in the middle of the crowd and the loud music, regretting her decision to try and find her father in the first place.

next chapter

[lovelandfrogman]

just saw that you saw the neptune theater production of ragad???? how was it!?!

YESSSSS it was so good!!!! sorry for the late reply, i just wanted to write out something detailed for this but didn't have the time!

id been planning to go for a while and i'm so glad it worked out! it definitely lived up to my hype, it was amazing!! ill give some very un-expert and very rambly impressions i had, but PLS let me know if you have specific questions about any details or scenes or choices :D

also i apologize im not a True fan of these 2 actors and i dont remember their names so ill just call them by their characters DHSJD

first off heres the set and playbill!!

i was kinda surprised because all the promo pictures seemed to show them wearing modern suits so i thought it was gonna be a modern setting, but it was just colorful old timey clothes! (sorry im not very knowledgeable on costumes, my main impression was just "oooo fun clothes")

oh one costume note is that one of them was wearing a green suit with a blue waistcoat, and the other was wearing a blue suit with a green waistcoat!

another unique thing about the production is it was split into 3 acts, like the script does, but most productions just do 2 acts!

i really enjoyed watching this, both ros+guil were super funny and the audience was laughing the whole time, even near the end like when guildenstern's breaking down, which i honestly enjoyed-- even when it's horribly tragic, it's STILL kiiinda funny. also i liked guildenstern's accent

in my opinion the acting was great all around, i kinda enjoyed the hamlet scenes and how they were acted seriously, since i'm always conflicted on if r&gad should make the hamlet parts serious or not! also guildenstern and rosencrantz's serious and emotional bits hit me so harddd (as in both of their monologues about death i guess)

there was a lot more use of obvious lighting and sound design than i feel like is typical for r&gad? but i enjoyed it!! i'll talk a bit more about that laterrrr

they also had some singing from the tragedians, once in their first entrance, and once replacing the ship noises at the beginning of act 3, which was very fun

one big difference was after the final scene w horatio, they blackout and go back to the initial positions and do a single "heads!" which was GREAT, i don't think i've seen anything else make the time loop that explicit??

ok and now just some rambling about interpretations

so part of me before the play started was like "i've watched/read/listened to this play SO many times, i hope it's not just boring and same-y and i don't realize anything new."

AND THEN. near the end of the first scene where ros+guil come across the tragedians. i was like HOLY SHIT and realized an interpretation that i've never thought of before.

(this might be a Super obvious interpretation and i'm just slow but whatever.) it occured to me that the moment that the tragedians are about to put on a play for ros+guil and the scene suddenly shifts to hamlet, it could be interpreted that the rest of the play is just the tragedians putting on one of the classics for ros+guil, and them getting "caught up in the action".

of course this doesn't make sense with Everything in the play, but it's SO fascinating to me and it recontextualizes a lot of stuff, like making it so that ros+guil are just fucking around backstage and onstage trying to figure out their roles the whole time in this play that's suddenly started around them.

also there's a couple choices that i think support this interpretation, like tending to switch to a warm stage-y lighting whenever scenes from hamlet are going on, and switching back to a cool neutral whenever ros+guil are "offstage".

plus, i think this happened a couple times but notably when hamlet is doing his "to be or not to be" speech and rosencrantz is trying to figure out how to interrupt him, there's this super interesting lighting effect where they have a spotlight on the BACK of the stage where hamlet is, and these lights near the bottom of the stage that give the impression of stage lights, making it look like the stage is reversed and hamlet's on the side facing the audience while ros+guil are upstage. IDK if that makes sense but i was like HOLY SHIT when i realized.

PLUS, im fairly sure all the actors playing roles in hamlet are all also tragedians, AND between each act, they had the tragedians doing stuff like moving the set, sweeping, etc, on stage, which was very fun..

ANYYYWAYY those are my thoughts :D not gonna tag this bc im embarrassedddd but feel free to rb and feel free to ask questions

[strangenewfriends]

"WHAT IS GOING on here? Why are idiot fans throwing stuff during live shows? It’s reached a crisis point in the past couple weeks—a disturbing and loathsome epidemic of fan aggression against performers. On Wednesday, Kelsea Ballerini got hit in the face when a concertgoer threw a bracelet at her—just the latest case of a female artist assaulted in the middle of a show. Why is this happening, and how do we stop it? 

Ballerini was in Boise, Idaho, doing her country-pop hit “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Too),” when the bracelet came out of nowhere and hit her face, right near her left eye. She left the stage, but then returned to finish her show. “Can we talk about what just happened?” she said, in admirably clear terms. “Don’t throw things, you know? I just always want shows of mine—every show, for every artist—but I’m in control of this one. I just want it to be a safe place for everyone. Can you help me do that tonight?”

It’s not an isolated case. Bebe Rexha needed three stitches after she got hit by a thrown iPhone at a NYC rooftop show on June 18, and posted a photo of her frighteningly bruised and bandaged face. The alleged assailant, a 27-year-old man, told police, “I was trying to see if I could hit her with the phone at the end of the show because it would be funny.” He also helpfully explained, “It’s a TikTok trend.” Oh. 

Two days later, Ava Max was assaulted by a man who crashed the stage at an L.A. show and slapped her in the face. She posted, “He slapped me so hard that he scratched the inside of my eye.” A couple days later, in London’s Hyde Park, Pink got interrupted mid-song by someone throwing a bag of their dead mother’s ashes. A true pro, Pink asked, “Is this your mom?” Then she put down the bag and said, “I don’t know how I feel about this.” 

It can’t be overstated how much this sucks. Miley Cyrus recently declared she doesn’t feel safe doing arena shows anymore. As she explained, “There’s no connection. There’s no safety.”

Ballerini posted an update to her Instagram Story on Thursday, saying, “hi. i’m fine. someone threw a bracelet, it hit me in the eye, and it more so just scared me than hurt me. we all have triggers and layers of fears way deeper than what is shown, and that’s why i walked offstage to calm down and make sure myself, band and crew, and the crowd all felt safe.”

How did we get here? These are important artists with things to say and music to make. It’s not their job to explain why idiots shouldn’t throw things at them onstage. But it’s simpler than that—they’re human beings. What these incidents have in common is a bizarre lack of respect, a main-character neediness for attention, a child’s ignorance of boundaries. This isn’t fan enthusiasm going overboard—this is hostility disguised as fandom. 

So: it’s weird that this needs to be said, but don’t throw things at the artist, mmmmkay? No matter how soft and fluffy it seems. A cute li’l stuffed animal turns into a weapon if it hits somebody, as happened to Lady Gaga in Toronto last fall. A bracelet can do serious damage. Somebody threw a lollipop at David Bowie in 2004, in Norway, and almost blinded him. A lollipop. Nobody wants concerts to turn into airport-security hellholes with body-cavity searches. Your elderly loved ones do not need the aggravation of amending their wills to say, “BTW, after I die, if it ever seems like a cool idea to bombard a hard-working music legend with the remains of my incinerated corpse, switch to decaf and think again.”

Why now? So much of it comes down to the pandemic. People got out of practice at going to shows, so they forgot how to be audiences. Or else they just started their concertgoing years now, without having learned from being part of an experienced audience. But in 18 months of isolation, the whole fan culture around live music shut down—the traditions, the habits, the manners, the codes of honor, the spirit of “act like you’ve been there before.” It was a disastrous loss for music and the community around it. When live music returned, some fans were desperate to get back into the action, but without remembering the details of how to handle themselves in an IRL crowd. That’s how you get a grown adult boasting he threw a piece of metal at a celebrity to join a “TikTok trend.”

But this wave of fan aggression evokes those horror stories from the Seventies, like the notorious 1971 incident when a London concertgoer pushed Frank Zappa off the stage, putting him in a wheelchair and nearly breaking his neck. Or when “some stupid with a flare gun” burned down the Montreux Casino, inspiring Deep Purple to write “Smoke on the Water.” (Respect to the late great Funky Claude, who ran back into the burning building to pull kids out.) Over time, audiences gradually learned how to be cool in a concert crowd, until the coronvirus. So there’s a lot of Some Stupid going around.

There’s always been a certain etiquette for live music. It’s taken a beating in the social-media age, as more people treat the live show as a backdrop to stage click-chasing viral stunts.

But it’s unquestionably gotten worse post-pandemic. Last summer, Kid Cudi walked out on the Rolling Loud festival in Miami. “I will fucking leave,” he warned the crowd. “If I get hit with one more fucking thing—if I see one more fucking thing on this fucking stage, I’m leaving. Don’t fuck with me.” Someone then hit him with a water bottle—and bragged about it on Twitter, because of course he did.  

Tyler the Creator issued a public plea last year for concertgoers to stop throwing things. “I don’t understand the logic of throwing your shit up here,” Tyler ranted mid-show. “Not only for safety reasons, but bro, I don’t want your shit. I don’t want it. Like, I’m not even being funny. Every show someone throws something up here, and I don’t understand the logic. Why do you think I want your shit? Then if I slip and break my foot? Stop throwing that fucking shit up here, bro!” He went on to say, “Fucking dick-fuck.”

But that message was evidently too subtle for some folks. Steve Lacy stopped a New Orleans show in October when somebody hit him in the leg with a camera. Lacy said, “Don’t throw shit on my fucking stage,” then smashed the camera and left. Rosalia got hit in the face with a bouquet of roses, in San Diego. “Please don’t throw things on the stage,” she tweeted (in Spanish). “And if you’re such motomamis that you throw them anyway, throw them on the opposite side from where I am.” Harry Styles, whose live vibe is the essence of generosity and openness, has gotten his boundaries invaded by Skittles-tossers and chicken-nugget-hurlers. Nobody could blame him for being less than okay with it. 

There’s always been a tradition of acts who encourage fans to throw their bras, panties, or flowers. That’s just consensual show-biz. A Tom Jones concert wasn’t complete without tipsy ladies pelting him with their hotel room keys. When a fan threw a bat onstage, Ozzy Osbourne assumed it was a rubber toy, so he playfully took a bite—then became the first rock star ever rushed to the ER for rabies shots after a dose of batflesh. Punk rockers often thrived on the dust-ups. At the Sex Pistols’ famous final gig, Greil Marcus reported that the band got hit with “ice, cups, shoes, coins, pins and probably rocks.” Johnny Rotten complained, “There’s not enough presents. You’ll have to throw up better things that.” Immediately, someone threw a rolled-up umbrella. Johnny replied, “That’ll do.”

But during the pandemic, for many fans, their primary source of human contact was social media, where there is no perk for non-asshole behavior and nothing but rewards for finding novel ways to be a dick. There are so many incentives to create a viral moment, so it seems acceptable to interrupt a show to make strangers notice you. Throwing your phone at something to get its attention—you wouldn’t do that to a squirrel, much less a human, so why would anyone do it to an artist they’ve paid money to see? But social-media culture breeds a new kind of fan mentality defined by parasocial resentment, where fandoms feel so possessive about their faves, they get outraged when their fave doesn’t live up to their demands. It takes a toll on simple human empathy. Our whole culture picked up so many toxic habits it will take years to unlearn.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Almost exactly two years ago, I saw a symbolic return for live music when Madison Square Garden reopened with a super-emotional Foo Fighters show. It felt like all of us in the room were figuring out from scratch how to be fans again. I described it at the time as an “invitation to start remembering how to celebrate together.” Needless to say, the return of live music turned out to be a lot messier than that—lots of stops and starts, lots of conflict and controversy, lots of fear and grief and anger. 

But this is the first summer when it’s felt like live shows are really back. My music summer began a month ago with Taylor Swift on her Eras Tour. I saw The Cure and Dead & Company on back-to-back nights, two tribal gatherings that felt like the most uplifting kind of communal devotion. In the past couple weeks, I’ve seen loads of brilliant punk rock (Protomartyr, Wednesday, the Dolly Spartans, the So So Glos, Bar Italia), comeback gigs from old-school heroes (The Feelies, Love and Rockets), and a Beatles tribute band, the Fab Faux (damn fine “Martha My Dear”). It’s time travel, hitting so many different eras of my life as a music fan—past, present, and future. I’ve been trading stories with friends having similar epiphanies this month at Joni Mitchell or DJ Premier or LCD Soundsystem. We were all hungrier for this than we even realized. 

The mass rapture of the live show—it’s a fragile temporary community that comes together for a night. Whether it’s in a sleazy bar or a basement or a stadium, it’s a place we go so we can experience those raptures in the dark with strangers, to be part of a story that doesn’t happen when we’re listening by ourselves. But those moments don’t happen without a certain level of mutual trust and respect. And they can’t even begin when the performer can’t trust the audience. We’re all in the crowd for the same reason—to create that space where this rapture can happen. But it’s not something the artists or the industry can conjure up on our behalf. It’s on us to be an audience that the performer can believe in. That’s really where the music begins."

[anotherdaveyjacobs]

Last night I saw a local production of Newsies

here are my notes!! (1000000/10, this was AMAZING)

the opening was so funny because they read the theatre rules like headlines (turn off your phone, etc) but the best one was about using the emergency exits and not rushing the stage, because of the fire curtain, it would be "great for readership, bad for you" 💀

important things to note: jack, davey, katherine, and race are played by college students. crutchie and buttons are played by 8th graders. the rest of the newsies, the delanceys, spot, bill, and darcy are all played by high school students. les is played by a 5th grader. the adults are played by adults.

(i didn't know any of this until minutes before the show, but they were on par with a full cast of adults imo)

tommy boy, henry, splasher, mush, ike, jo jo, and finch are all played by girls!! they did amazing

Pulitzer's cabinet is also all women!!!

When Jack is running from the Delanceys in the beginning, he did this cute little jump and wink at the audience, ran off, and when he came back he shushed the audience like we were gonna tell the Delanceys where he went

Race forgot his line ("don't worry kid it rubs right off") so Jack jumped in and said it for him

Buttons had little buttons sewn all over his suspenders and it was adorable

Medda was AMAZING oh my god I loved her so much

the bowrey beauties costumes matched hers, it was gorgeous

Watch What Happens was AMAZING. Katherine's actress sounded just like Kara Lindsay it's uncanny. She starts at her little desk and then moves her typewriter to Pulitzer's desk to get her inspiration. She also goes to take a drink of the alcohol on his desk, but puts it down once she smells it

During Jack's speech before the fight, the Delanceys are making fun of him (pretending to cry, yawning, etc.)

The fight scene was extremely short (no real pause between the start of the fight and the police showing up) but it was still really good

Crutchie gets carried away over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes (it was so fucking funny, I really struggled not to laugh)

Snyder gets face to face with Jack at the end of the strike but just has this evil laugh right in Jack's face before Jack runs away

Santa Fe??? CHILLS. he was SO GOOD. he pauses to heave breaths like he's crying and i.

Mr. Jacobi thought he was hilarious with his "fish in the desert" comment and repeated it to himself as he walked offstage

This production it was "there's a headline even Race could sell" 💀 poor Race (there was no Elmer in this show)

KONY was amazing. the bit where Katherine and Les have their little tap competition happens and then they like do a few twirls together it was so cute

Letter from the Refuge was excellent, Crutchie was on the top bunk with two newsies on the bottom. When the song swells the first time, they're gesturing at each other like neither wanted to be the one to tell him to shut up, it was amazing

During WWH Reprise when Jack calls Pulitzer a snake, he reaches back and grabs a fist full of Davey's shirt, who then has to get Jack's attention, and Jack smooths it down all apologetic like. love it

Also during WWH Reprise, DAVEY is the one who sings the "we've got Jack" line

Spot's voice was AMAZING

Jack doesn't shove or almost hit Les during the rally, but during the chaos of everyone running away and calling Jack a traitor and a sellout, Davey and Les are left standing in the middle of an empty stage looking lost and betrayed. STUNNING

Something To Believe In was really good, they harmonized so well together, Jack really belted the last "me" at the end and his voice just. ugh i loved it

Jack tried to spit shake Roosevelt so Davey and Spot LEAPT forward to grab his hand and stop him. Davey wiped Jack's hand with his hand, and then wiped his hand on his pants, and Davey and Spot were talking quietly amongst themselves while gesturing at Jack. iconic

"He doesn't do happiness does he" and Katherine shook her head like "yeah no"

Jack's mocking of Pulitzer "it's a compromise we can all live with" was perfect

Roosevelt had the funniest fucking fake moustache, it was this big black thing oh my god, i went back to the IG to check and he was NOT wearing it in the photo they posted, no idea what that was about lmao

Anyway the whole show was amazing and today's the last day of it, so I'm really glad I caught it when I did

[eisforeidolon]

Jensen: How about right here? Yep, yes.

Jared: Oh, the Family Business shirt. Oh, you're cheating, yeah.

Question: So my question is for Jared - I'm just joking.

Jensen: Hey, that's cool.

Jared: No worries [pushes his arm across Jensen to take his mic] What would you like to know?

[Questioner compliments Jared on Walker and Walker Independence and then I think says something to Jensen, but ??? Then asks how busy they are and what's next for them - what Jensen's planning to do, how long Walker will last and what'll be next after that, etc.]

Jared: Yeah, thank you so much. I, I - that's a great question, and I guess those conversations are starting now that SAG and WGA aren't on strike. So pretty preliminaries and then SAG hasn't ratified the vote [gestures at Jensen], and I gestured to him [repeats it] like it's his fault. Like, get to work.

Jensen: I'll get right on that.

Jared: I've been very lucky and fortunate in Austin to have a great cast and crew and I'm lookin' at my boy Keegan over there [points offstage] right now. Yeah, he's been segregated, don't look anybody in the eyes. I dunno, I said this for many years and I feel like I've been made a liar? But it just is the way it happened? Like I really do want to get off camera. I do wanna - I love reading, I've had a chance to read a lot and so I'd love to be a part of helping make stories more available to people? Not everybody has a chance to, y'know, spend several days or several weeks with a book. But if you can make it into a two hour movie, or an episode series? So there are stories that have meant a lot to me, and mean a lot to me that I'd love to try and help get made. So that's ideally - again, y'know - man plans, God laughs. Like I think my plan in March was to like [does weird little dance] get back to work in July, so - I don't know what I'm doing.

Jensen: It's the get back to work dance.

Jared: In the future, I won't do that anymore. That I can control, the rest of it is outta my hands, I'm trying to make peace with that. Ackles?

Jensen: Uh, what's next? Probably a haircut.

Audience: [laughs and cheers]

Jared: Thank God! I do want to really quickly [rests a hand on Jensen's shoulder, cracks up], I want to acknowledge that you said haircut and 98% of the people went [throws up hands] WOO!

Jensen: They get me.

Jared: I'm gonna get a haircut, too.

Audience: NOOOOO!

Jared: The fuck, guys? He got cheers and I'm getting booed?

Jensen: Okay, now I'm sweating.

Jared: You look handsome no matter what. Yeah, let's get some boos for that.

Jensen: Uh, I don't know what is - I mean, there are a few things on the horizon. I was speaking about this a little bit in the meet & greet yesterday. Like Jared said, those conversations are now starting to happen now that the strike is somewhat concluded. So just had a conversation this past week about some upcoming possibilities, some projects. So yeah, I don't think anything's really - nothing's popping off this year. Like, it'll all be spring when - because by the time these scripts get greenlit and then they have to staff up and then they have to cast and there's a lot of preproduction that goes into doing these projects. So nothing is - I think the soonest anything would really happen, if it's not already like [points at Jared] locked and loaded, ready to go, like Walker? Would probably be the springtime. You know. So I would probably say March, I might have a call sheet. But when I do, I will let you know -

Audience member: Hurry up!

Jensen: What?

Jared: Hurry up.

Jensen: Did you say hurry up? I'm tryin'!