#even after OPRAH called him to say she walked out of a screening of the movie because she thought it was putting the devil into the world

[marisatomay]

so cool that fanfiction won anne rice’s war on fanfiction

[lomlmarvel]

It’ll Always Be You II

Randall Carpio x fem!Reader Series

Part Two [Part One]

For the past few hours, you had been catching up on some reading. There wasn't much to do since classes hadn't begun yet. Hamish was getting ready for his first day of class by looking over his scheduling log and re-reading the material he was going to cover the first day. You felt like you didn't even need to attend his first class since you had heard him repeat his speech a dozen times in the past hour.

Lilith had gone to the store to buy groceries and toiletries. She returned and left again to go on a run. The den was quiet, other than Hamish's muttering in the corner of the room as he rehearsed his speech again. He had been making drinks in between and offering them to you while he practiced his speech. You had taken a few, but you could feel the alcohol start to intoxicate your body, and you didn't want to get drunk the day before classes began.

You didn't want to be drunk if Randall came back to the den and wanted to talk to you about what had happened earlier. Honestly, you hadn't stopped thinking about it since it had happened. Why did he keep leaning in if he was going to back out last second? Did he even mean to lean in, or did he even realize it? Did he have feelings for you? Did he know about your feelings towards him?

Your mind was buzzed with all the possibilities as to why Randall leaned in and why he pulled away quickly. Part of you had hoped that it was a mistake and that it meant the two of you would remain friends forever. But the other part hoped that he was as infatuated with you as you were with him. 

You took another large gulp of the alcoholic beverage that Hamish had prepared for you. It had been placed in your hand for the last 10 minutes, but your thoughts had been so busy with Randall that you had forgotten it was there. It was the afternoon, Randall should've been done with doing the last tour and checking in with everyone. He should've been at the den by now. That's if he decided to sleep in his room at the den. Maybe he decided to stay at his dorm to help the freshmen settle in their first night.

 It sucked, knowing this would be the busiest time of year for Randall. It meant you would have to deal with all the Order newbies with Hamish and Lilith, not that they weren't good company, but you preferred to be with Randall.

"What's wrong?" Hamish called out to you. He had been watching you for the past few minutes, seeing as you harbored the alcoholic beverage in your hand. You would usually take it all in one sip, but this time was different. He knew something was up when you showed up at the den by yourself and without Randall. The two of you were always together, even when Randall had to be working. 

"Nothing. Just tired of reading 'Hamlet' again. I finished 'Ready Player One' a couple of days ago, so this is the only book I have left," You replied, lifting the old cover of 'Hamlet' that was in your hands.

"You can get started on the philosophy readings you have to do--" Hamish started, but you cut him off.

"No, thanks. I have one day of summer left, and I do not want to spend it doing homework," You stated. Hamish smiled at you, placing his lesson plan on the table and walking over to you on the couch. 

"First off, Professor Krowchuk is thinking of adding three more books to the lesson plan, so you might want to rethink starting your reading now. Secondly, I know something happened with Randall," Hamish commented. You sat up from laying down and faced Hamish's concerned expression.

"C'mon, you can tell me," He softly said. He placed his hand over yours, and you smiled at him sweetly. 

"It's just--We were out by the tree earlier, and we were talking. I mentioned how I got into Krowchuk's class and when I turned to look at him, I didn't realize how close we actually were. I guess he didn't realize it either, but he wasn't pulling away. I figured I was finally going to shoot my shot and kiss Randall," You told Hamish, explaining what had been on your mind for the past few hours. Hamish stared wide-eyed at you, waiting for you to continue telling the story.

"And..."

"And, I started to lean in, because I thought he wanted to kiss me too, but then last second he pulled away. Pulled away, as in, he literally jumped two feet away from me to put distance between us. He got all weird, started packing up, and made some lame excuse about going back to the dorms. So I came here," You said, shrugging your shoulders at the memory. 

"Maybe he was just scared?" Hamish asked. You sent him a glare.

"It's Randall. He's not scared of shit."

"Look, maybe he just got nervous. Don't give up on him or yourself. Shoot your shot if he won't do it first," Hamish advised. You nodded and set your book down. 

"Thanks, Hamish." You pulled him in for a hug. When you pulled away, your phone vibrated in your pocket and saw a text from Jack.

Meet me at the Blade and Chalice for a drink? It's on me :) 

Oh, by the way, Randall's coming too

You showed Hamish the screen, and he shrugged. 

"Shoot your shot," He replied. You stood up and grabbed your sweater as you made your way to the door. 

When you arrived at the B&C, the two guys were sitting at a table with two beers in front of them. Randall immediately made eye contact with you the second you stepped into the room, but quickly avoided your gaze until you stood two feet from them.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” Jack greeted you. You smiled and took the seat in the middle.

“How was orientation?” You asked. Grabbing what you assumed to be Randall’s beer and took a sip out of it. He stared at you for a moment before looking down at his hands.

“Let me get you a drink. I promised I would,” Jack said, watching you set the bottle back down in front of Randall.

“No, it’s fine. Randall doesn’t mind, we share beers all the time,” You responded. Jack turned to look at Randall, who nodded in return. He gave you a look before answering your question.

“It was fine. Didn’t really need to have a tour. You know Pete would talk about it all the time, I have like a mental snapshot of the map”

“He was rejected by his tour guide,” Randall cut in after Jack. You stared back at Jack, who rolled his eyes.

“I’m not interested in her,” Jack replied. His attention fell to the corner of the room where a posse of freshmen was seated.

“You into him or her? Or the other him?” Randall asked Jack, bumping his shoulders. You leaned over the table and punched Randall in the arm.

“Ouch!” Before you could respond to Randall, Jack cleared his throat to get your attention.

“What do you know about the Hermetic Order of The Blue Rose?” He asked. You looked at Randall, smirked, and turned back to Jack.

“It’s a crock of shit,” You stated. Randall agreed and discreetly pulled your chair closer to his. You turned your head to catch Randall leaning next to you, with his stare already on you. You sent him a small smile, which he returned.

“I think they may have been recruited, and I’m trying to figure out what they have in common.”

“Besides being...” Randall asked.

“Elitist assholes?,” You replied to Randall, causing him to chuckle.

“Hey, a lot of good people are members. Michelle Obama, Warren Buffett, Oprah,” Jack defended himself. You gave him a serious look and heard Randall shuffle next to you. You turned around, and he was starting to talk.  Did he move his chair so the two of you would be touching legs?

“You know who’s also supposed to be members? Bad people, like Benito Mussolini, George W. Bush. Oprah,” Randall said. He glanced at you and noticed you staring at him.

“For people that don’t believe, you two sure know a lot about them,” Jack observed. You turned away from Randall’s stare.

“Randall’s Wikipedia smart, and I’m just the unfortunate one who listens to him talk all day,” you started. Randall softly kicked your foot with his. “Look, even if they do exist... I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

Jack gave you a glare and took a sip of his beer. “Why is that,” he asked, a hint of hurt in his tone.

“They want sheep, and from what I remember, you’ve got a mind of your own,” you replied. Jack nodded and raised his bottle to you.

“Well, who wouldn’t want unlimited power?” Jack commented. The three of you looked at each other and nodded.

“I have to do something, so I’ll catch up with you later, alright?” Jack said as he looked at you. You nodded and pulled him in for a hug.

“I’ll see you later. Thanks for the beer, Randall,” Jack said, turning to the dark-haired male next to you.

“See you around,” Randall replied. The two of you watched as Jack walked out of the bar. An awkward silence settled as you turned to look at each other. You weren’t sure whether to bring up what had happened a few hours ago or pretend that it never happened.

“So, Jack seems real--”

“Hey, sorry about earlier-”

You and Randall stared at each other, cutting each other off. Neither of you said a word, you kept looking into each other’s eyes. 

“About earlier, I just wanna say I’m sorry,” Randall was the first to talk. “I’ve been thrown off this entire week for some reason, and I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re my best friend, and I guess I just got caught up in the moment,” Randall stated. You felt your heart fall, and your throat tighten. You wanted to cry, but you kept in your tears. It was just like how you had thought, he never had feelings for you. 

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. It’s the beginning of the school year, we’ve got a lot of pressure. I don’t blame you,” You lied, placing your hand on his arm. He looked down at your hand and smiled. 

“C’mon, let’s go back to the den. I have a feeling these assholes are gonna start using bad magic soon,” you said. Randall nodded and laid a $20 bill on the table. The two of you got up and made your way out. 

-

The next two weeks were stressful for everyone.  Jack had managed to get involved with the Order, but you only found out because Randall had told you. Randall and Lilith had been hunting down this thing that was killing pledges. Hamish had been busy with his class, and you had been busy helping Lilith and Randall figure out what the creature was. You had found some books in the basement, but Randall said it would be quicker to just search on Google. Being how you were so in love with him (and majorly because you didn’t want to read all those old books), you followed his direction.

With Randall, the two of you had gotten back into your regular routine. It was as if nothing had happened. You never revealed that you did, in fact, have feelings for him, but since he clearly didn’t have any for you, you decided to not say anything. You treasured your friendship too much to risk losing it.

However, things got interesting one day. You had gotten back from your last class of the day and started prepping snacks for the movie night you and the Knights would be having. Yet, when you arrived, the front door was swung open. You entered the living room and began scanning the rooms. But a particular smell led you to the basement. There, you found ripped up clothes. You searched for a wallet and saw that it belonged to the one and only Jack Morton. You immediately called everyone else and went out to search for the newly-turned werewolf.

[chwrpg]

Murray, I have asked you repeatedly not to call me "woman".

A NOTE FROM ADMIN R: Oh, oh, oh ! Y’all don’t know how happy I am to be accepting this application. Dylan is truly one of my CHW faves and to have her taken up by you, Cailin... that’s just an honor. I can not wait to see what you do with her, but I know one thing... this dash ain’t ready fro the looks Dylan is about to serve us. Thank you so much for applying and welcome back, love !

OOC NAME/ALIAS, PREFERRED PRONOUNS, AGE & TIMEZONE:

cailin, (she/her), 25, est

DESIRED CHARACTER:

queen mother, dylan davenport

HOW ACTIVE WILL YOU BE?

8-10

SECONDARY CHOICE:

taylor flick

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER:

Dylan is shrouded in beauty, bold fashion choices, witty comebacks, and her daddy’s debit card. But the woman wearing the Amina Muaddi heels to 7/11 is much more interesting than her out of this world clothes. If Chanel’s head is in the clouds, Dylan’s feet are planted on the ground. She’s the fuel to the fire, the one who gets shit done. Things don’t move without her — and that includes the fashion scene in Rosewood. Dylan could’ve been a surgeon, she has the brains and attention to detail for it, but, you see, what Dylan says or doesn’t say goes. She predicted high waist jeans making a comeback before Vogue did, telling the girls one day during first period. So she’s a bit of a culture oracle. It’s why people care about what she’s thinking, who she’s endorsing, what designers she’s buying. They even want to know what she’s watching on a monday night. Her confidence and sincerity is inspiring. When she’s not taste making though, she’s the loyalest, most straightforward friend you can find in her tax bracket. Balancing the thin line between being no-nonsense and fun to be around. She does it well, though. In fact, she does most things well (driving not included.)‌ Her peers boast about her style and charisma, her professors brag about her work ethic and creativity, her boyfriend….well, her love life is a tumultuous roller coaster but every icon needs a fixer upper. Plus she gets diamonds every time he fumbles.

SAMPLE WRITING:

( Alexa, play Daddy )

The day Dylan was born she became a daddy’s girl. Stevie Wonder could see it. Dada was her first word much to her mother’s chagrin. He never raised his voice at her, never got impatient with her when she spilled her juice or threw her food. He got up in the middle of the night so his wife wouldn’t have to even though he had meetings at 7 in the morning. It didn’t stop there, though. Mr. Davenport didn’t put her down at parties. He carried her around on his hip as he mingled and held court, demanding on no one use baby talk for his brilliant baby girl. “She’s smart like her mom.” He would say to his captivated audience. For her third birthday he rented out an entire amusement park. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t yet tall enough to ride the rides, she had asked for it so he made it happen. He was a doer and a fixer, but he wasn’t perfect. Mr. Davenport had always been a better father and provider than a husband.

So, when she was five, her parents went through a nasty divorce. The papers their lawyers drew up cited irreconcilable differences but she’d come to realize, many years later, that was just how rich people skirted around the truth in hopes of keeping people out of their business. In truth, Mr. Davenport had spent the better part of his career sleeping with secretaries, temps, and clients. Basically anything that was of age and not nailed down. Mrs. Davenport had only grown tired of it after watching Halle Berry cry over Eric Benet  on Oprah. But like she’d taught  Dylan, Mrs. Davenport thought three steps ahead, and had arranged to have a cheating clause in their prenup. She saw the board before she’d even stepped foot on it. And, Sure, they’d been in love when they got married at twenty three, but a cheater never changed its spots, just his lies. In an instant, she got half of everything. Twenty percent of his future earnings, and 360 lipo for a girls trip to Maui to celebrate her emancipation.

All Dylan got out of the deal was two houses, two birthdays, two Christmases, two cars she still couldn’t drive when she turned sixteen. The court awarded them joint custody, ruling they both had enough sense to figure out the schedule on their own. But since that was the year her mom went back to school for her PhD, Dylan spent the majority of her time with her dad and a nanny. Those double holidays also served as a good distraction from the heartbreak she couldn’t explain. Though she was sharp as a whip and actually funny, not laugh because it’s a kid funny, but really funny, she still couldn’t wrap her little mind around why her parents drove to separate houses at the end of the night now. At all those parties, what stuck out the most was everyone saying what a handsome couple they were, how lucky they were to have another. They danced and laughed. They seemed so happy. But looks are deceiving and lucky for her, the loneliest year of her young life was also the year she met her best friend.

( Alexa, play Wannabe )

Dylan and Chanel became an instant package deal, and she thanked her father for not being able to keep his dick out of seedy holes because she wouldn’t have went to school in another district if her mom hadn’t won the house in the divorce, and she wouldn’t have sat down next to Chanel at show and tell, and they wouldn’t have bonded over their pretty dresses, or shared their organic apple juice. God worked in mysterious ways like that. She had a partner for life, and nothing came between them. Not even boys. And, despite having the power to date any eligible bachelor in her grade, she really liked one in particular.

The day she brought Paxton home her took one look at him and chuckled. Dylan figured it was because of the grill he hadn’t learned to talk without slurring with yet, but her mother had other ideas. “He reminds me of your father.” She said, long after he’d gone home, but not before Dylan spent fifteen minutes walking him to his car. The driveway was super long but her lipstick was nonexistent when she returned. That didn’t matter though, because Dylan knew what that meant. Her mom thought Paxton was charming, likable, handsome — but she also knew he was a liar and a dog. They argued for well over an hour, and she said some things she regretted but that’s what teenage girls did, they rebelled against becoming their mother all while doing so. She didn’t realize just how much he was like her father until she caught him DMing other girls on instagram and got a diamond necklace out of the deal. Still, it was clear that he could shoot a man in broad daylight and she would always be daddy’s little girl, nothing could change that.

“Daddy!” Dylan whined, clinging to her dad’s arm as they traipsed through another commercial property with their real estate agent. Today was the day she was finally going to buck up and switch locations from her dad’s pool house to an office space in scenic, downtown Rosewood. Being interviewed by magazines had been life changing, sitting front row of the hottest runways next to A-listers had its perks, doing a skincare routine video for vogue was dope, but expanding her business because the calls wouldn’t stop coming in to be styled be Dylan and her associates? That was something she’d done herself from the ground up. She’d started with styling her friends and now she was going to style the world.

( Alexa, play Successful )

Her heels were tall enough to greet God but she still only reached his shoulder. “I hope this one has vaulted ceilings.” Her tone was way past passive aggressive. She would’ve dialed it back had their agent not been set to make serious bank off of this, but had only been showing them office spaces with disgusting lighting and rude doormen. For all of their sakes, she hoped this one was better. “I need two sessions of hot yoga after the last mess you showed us, at least. My chakras are all out of wack now. Thanks a lot, A.” She was being dramatic but her dad didn’t stop her. He just smiled that infamous smile at the agent and excused himself to the back of the elevator to take a call. Dylan rolled her eyes when she caught their real estate agent, Angela, fawning. She was a slender woman with the proportion of a fashion model who only modeled in theory, never practice. With cropped hair and full lips. She’d been their families real estate agent for decades, found the house her mom had one in the divorce, but Dylan couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d slept with her dad while he was married to her mom, and for that she hated her.

The light dinged to signal they were at their floor, and the elevator doors slid open. When she bothered lifting them from a lengthy text she was typing to her beau, her eyes lit up like when her dad gifted her a patek for her eighteenth, or the G-Wagon that was still collecting dust in the garage for her sixteenth. Whatever the occasion was, she was aglow just like then. The floors were European oak, all the walls were white sans a charcoal accent wall that would be the space of her future desk, and yes, the ceilings were vaulted with windows to match. It was beyond.

“Daddy!” She squealed, running around the space and dreaming up renovation ideas. “This is the one. It’s, like, perfect.” Dylan ignored the real estate agent when she repeated the price tag. 1.2 million may have been a lot for some people, but some people weren’t his little girl and Angela should have known that by now. “Wait. I need to call Chanel!”‌ Dylan could bet she’d be calling Chanel the day Play got down on one knee ( What?‌ A girl could dream ) before she even said yes. She was greeted with a selfie when she unlocked her phone, tapping her chanel platform sneaker clad foot against the wood while the facetime call connected, “What do you think about staining the floor another color?” She asked before absolutely beaming when Chanel’s face appeared on the screen.

“I found it! I found the perfect space.”‌ Without another word, she flipped the camera and did a little dance when Chanel’s excitement nearly exceeded hers. She knew a squeal of absolute glee when she heard one, “I know! Ok, so Just imagine a chaise here, we can install some shelves here. Do you think we can get a Prosecco fountain?…” She walked her through the office like Angela had done moments before, moving out of earshot so her dad could handle business, while they discussed all the possibilities. “Today an office with a view, tomorrow Dylan Davenport’s Fashion Academy,” she beamed.

All her daddy had to do was sign on the dotted line, and she knew he would. He was, after all, her doer. He wouldn’t dare break that illusion…right? The journey from the bathroom back to the main area of the office space was a short one, and she was all smiles until she rounded the corner only for her dream to turn into a nightmare. Her face cracked along with the screen of her phone as it hit the ground and shattered, “DADDY!” She screamed. The sight of her dad and Angela kissing over paperwork causing her to gag instantly.

“Honey, let me explain…..”

There was nothing to explain. Horrible step parents was Jasper’s lane, not hers.

( Alexa, play Ring Off )

ANYTHING ELSE?

1985.

[largebeeffriedrice]

All Good Nuts Must Come to An End: Part 2

Hello,

Have I mentioned that you need to be following @terribletomimagines and @lyingtom?

Cause you really should. These stories make way more sense if you do. They’re also just great blogs. So. You know. Do it. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I am adding a ‘read more’ bar. If it doesn’t show up for you then I’m so, so, so sorry cause this bitch is 5,000+ words.

Anyway. On with the show!

Title: All Good Nuts Must Come to An End - Part 2 Based off of/Inspired by: #1, #2, #3, and #4. Warnings: Mentions of other celebrities, Hamlet, short shorts, and I guess cussing.

Date Attempt #2:

Friday (One week later)

After a week of making sure Tom did not find himself in police custody, you were almost ready to take another stab at a date night with his former classmate, Jonathan Birch.

You'd spent the last week texting back and forth with him about how to handle this date, the significance of nightmares, and disagreeing over what good music was.

Tom had moodily slogged through the week. Apparently not appreciating being on home confinement when 'There was a lot of work to be done with seasonal marketing at Tom's Nut Farm.'

Any chance he could find to pester you would be filled with more questions about your date or about how to convince you to take a trip out to the farm with him.

"You aren't allowed to leave the house yet. Luke said so. You can't convince me otherwise."

"It's just to the farm. No one will know. You and Luke act like me selling produce is a big deal."

Without looking away from your phone, you calmly retort, "It is if you nut at some cops trying to arrest you for lack of permits," briefly you glance at him, seeing him hanging over the back of the couch in boredom, and question, "Is that sexual assault or harassing a police officer?"

The pitiful man practically growls before letting his body slink down fully onto the couch. From his janky, folded up position next to you he says, "For the last time. That wasn't me. Some enthusiast from the farm must have thought they'd help me out or something."

"They just happened to coincidently ALSO have oranges for sale?"

"If you'd go to the farm, you would see that the orchards are doing really well."

"They also share your mindset that your farm is above the law?"

Tom Hiddleston couldn't argue that fact and you knew it. So, he growled again and rolled himself off the couch so he could stretch out and huff angrily on the floor. All the while grumbling, "This is all unfair. I was in Hamlet for God's sake!"

"Then please act like it."

From over the top of your phone screen, you could see Tom's ginger curls bounce as his head shot up from the floor and whipped around. Clearly looking for something that ended up taking him out of the room.

Finally. A moment of peace.

You wrapped up your text to Jonathan about seeing him tomorrow for lunch and pocketed your phone with a sigh.

It couldn't be tomorrow soon enough.

"To be or not to be..."

Tom re-entered the room with a scared Bobby stiffly being held up by the actor's outstretched arms.

The dog made eye contact with you, as Tom continued his lines, and you mouthed, "I'm so sorry."

It never crossed your mind that the dog couldn't understand you, especially since Bobby seemed to sag more at your words and lack of help.

Or maybe you imagined that reaction.

It really needed to be tomorrow already.

~

Saturday (tomorrow)

Lunch ended up taking place in a little coffee shop near Tom's house. You had to apologize profusely for the inconvenience but you were under strict orders not to leave your client alone for too long. Or to go too far. Even though today was supposed to be your day off.

"It's no big deal. Coffee and a treat are just as good as an actual lunch. Maybe we can take a little walk after this?"

You knew it was cliche but you couldn't help sighing dreamily. Nothing seemed to deter this guy.

"Maybe, let's see how I feel after I get some caffeine."

A young, shy voice calls out 'Birch' and Jonathan swiftly jumps up from the table while signaling you back into your seat, "I got it, I got it."

After smirking and throwing your hands up in defeat, you sit back down and try to resist checking your phone for potential texts from Luke or Tom. You felt confident that nothing was going to happen today. It was going to be a pleasant, relaxing time.

But then again you never were good at gut feelings on Saturdays.

The sound of your date's chair being scooted out and dragged back in brings your attention away from where you were watching said date pick up the coffee drinks.

Here is a list of people you expected to be seated in front of you (in no particular order):

Tom Luke Bobby Your Father Salma Hayek Oprah The Ghost of Toby Keith Your 8th Grade Science Teacher

You did not expect to see a woman, about your age and height, with familiar looking eyes.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. I've actually never been here before so this will be fun," she says easily as if you were actually expecting her here.

"Yeah, um, who are you?"

Before she gets the chance to answer, Jonathan walks back over and casually sets down your drinks while looking back and forth between you two. You with your mouth slightly open and forehead furrowed and her with a full smile and bright eyes focusing intently on the coffee cups.

Without hesitating, the new lady reaches over and picks up your coffee; immediately taking a sip and smacking her lips with a pleased, "Yum!"

This earns her a scowl from you and an agile, "Here take mine," from your gentleman as he moves his cup in front of you before he looks around and leaves to gather a new chair for the table.

"Great. Now, who the hell are you?"

"Now, now, Y/N, that's not nice," Jonathan chided once he'd returned and sat down. He is sent a quick glare from you before you return to eye battling the new table guest.

Said company finally looks over at him and her eyes widen in surprise, "Tom didn't tell me one of the dates was Michael Fassbender!"

WHAT?!

"Tom?" he asks, while you almost screech, "Michael Fassbender?!"

"Yes," she agrees and then purrs, as she stretches out to stroke at Jonathan's hand resting on the table, " and apparently yes."

"I'm not Michael Fassbender," he sounds almost distressed as he slides his hand away from her and rests it out of her reach.

"He looks nothing like him," you confirm and add, "He's clearly his own person." This earned you a sly grin from Mr.Birch, who looked like he wanted to say something more to your statement.

But, before you two can get too cozy, the mystery lady continues purring, "Oh well. You look like him and that's enough. Both of you will be absolutely fun!"

"Okay, who are you and why did Tom send you?"

Honestly, you should have known that Tom wasn't going to let you just enjoy yourself today. This was probably payback for keeping him cooped up all week. Even though that was really his fault, but try arguing that with him.

"I'm a good friend of Tom's and he said he had a bi-friend," she shrugs while stating it as if it was clearly obvious.

Your hand smacks into your face as you groan and slouch down into your chair.

Of course. Of course.

"A bi-friend?" your date quizzes while poking at your arm. A swift glimpse shows one of his eyebrows raised in an 'oh really' manner and you almost want to giggle at the sight.

Now is not the time though.

"Tom has been on house arrest and we got on the topic of dating and preferences and what not, " you move your hand off your face and lazily wave it at your unwanted company, "Apparently, Tom thinks that being bi means that I like to date two people at once."

Tom's lady friend laughs and gives you a petulant look before declaring, "Honey, that is what it means."

You weren't really sure what you had planned to do with your hands, but you did know that you had sat up and started lunging across the table. The only thing that stopped you was Jonathan grabbing your shoulder and tenderly pushing you back into your seat.

"Let's just enjoy our date. Or what's left of it. I still have to get back to my office," he gives you a side-eyed look and you willingly pretended to relax some of the tension in your body.

"Yes, we can't keep you too long from work," you wink at him once you're sure your third wheel isn't wearily watching you anymore. He gives you a- what should be trademarked- smile before turning back to the woman and beginning to question her on random facts about herself.

After taking a deep breath, you truly do relax in your seat and decide to sip a little at Jonathan's coffee. Keeping your eyes focused on Tom's friend and trying to decide what it was about her eyes that kept setting off alarms in your brain.

It wasn't until she ungraciously excused herself to 'the powder room' do you suddenly jolt forward in your seat and scramble to find your phone.

"What's wrong? Did you lose something?" he asks once Ms. Mystery is out of earshot.

"No. Jonathan. I think I know who she is. Give me a second to Google this."

He says nothing but regards you with cool blue eyes as you furiously tap away at your phone.

Finally, you hold your phone up and show him a picture of Elizabeth Smart.

"Isn't she the one-"

"Yes."

"That looks nothing like this woman."

"No," you agree and hold a finger up before zooming in on her eyes, "now look."

Jonathan squints, then lets his eyes widen and glance towards the bathrooms, then looks back at your phone and squints again.

"That is weird."

"Tom kept going on, FOR-EV-ER, about having a girlfriend and the only thing that was sometimes consistent was that she had eyes like Elizabeth Smart!"

"Then I think his girlfriend is, ah," he actually reddens and does his signature neck rub before finishing, "a lady of the night?"

His blush only intensifies when he sees your baffled gaze. So, Jonathan reaches over and pulls something out from under what was your coffee.

Said object is slid across the table and left sitting in front of you as he mutters, "She put it there and winked at me before going to use the restroom."

Sure enough, it was the prettiest call card you'd ever seen. This woman was a true professional.

After a few beats of silence, you finally look back at him and say, "I'm not sure what's worse. That Tom's girlfriend is an escort or that he hired her to be my plus two today."

You both end up shrugging and you offer him a drink of his coffee.

~

Date Attempt #3:

Sunday (morning sometime)

"Tom, I know it was her. She had eyes like Elizabeth Smart!"

"I don't know who that is!"

Deep breathes. Deep breathes.

"How do you not know? That's literally who you've chosen numerous times to compare to your girlfriend."

"Elizabeth Taylor, yeah, maybe. But I don't know who Smart is."

You clench your hand into a fist and then rasp your knuckles, hard, against your forehead. The amount of rage this job provided was unhealthy and unfortunately, the only therapist you liked wasn't able to professionally see you.

Though fortunately, he was able to unprofessionally see you.

Next Tuesday to be exact. Since you both agreed that another try at a normal, casual date was warranted. You weren't sure how many more unusual dates the guy was going to put up with. Especially since he never let on if these events really bothered him or not.

After removing your fist, from your own face, you look back at the pensive actor sitting in front of you and sigh, "Okay. Well, anyway. I'm not looking to date two people at the same time. So, no more trying to help me in that department, alright?" His fingers instantly seek out his beard and the wheels start turning in his head.

You shudder and cross your fingers behind your back.

Please, supernatural forces, old gods, Allie Brosh, anyone... DO NOT LET TOM HIDDLESTON FUCK UP ANOTHER DATE!

~

Tuesday

For your 3rd outing, you and Jonathan agree to try to keep the setting even more low key. Also, you decide not to leave yourselves sitting ducks for the possibility of another terrible Tom intrusion.

Well, you decide.

Your date thinks you just like taking strolls around the park for no reason.

"Please, please, please. Next time we pass another table with chess you have to let me challenge you," the therapist begged as you two started on your second lap around the park.

You'd obviously denied him the first time because of not wanting to be a waiting target but you already knew you couldn't do it a second time.

The guy was seriously too gorgeous to refuse anything. At least twice anyway.

"Okay," you dubiously agreed and he gave a little cheer and fist pump with his free hand.

His occupied hand tightened its grip on your fingers and you felt that silly middle school blush burn your cheeks again.

After somehow brushing off his first pleas for a game of chess, he'd slowly started letting his hand graze against yours before finally gently interlacing your fingers together. At the same time, he'd moved closer and carefully glanced your way to see your reaction. Unfortunately, for you, you'd also chanced a peek over at him and the resulting eye contact had made you both flush with embarrassment.

Seriously. It was like you two were some young courting couple from a Jane Austin novel. It was disgusting and maybe you loved it.

That is... until this very moment.

You rolled your eyes at your teenage reaction and managed to catch a glimpse of some actual teenagers unsuccessfully hiding behind some shrubbery.

They were clearly giggling, looking at their phones, and then pointing in your direction.

Alright. Weird. But nothing to be worried about.

The walk continued and Jonathan started telling you a story about something that had happened to him, Tom, and even Eddie Redmayne back in their school days. You had tried hard to follow the tale but it was starting to unnerve you that every few steps, more and more people started to appear closer to the walkway.

It wasn't just teenagers anymore. It was a largely diverse crowd and they all were for sure looking straight at you.

Wait.

Not at you.

At Jonathan.

"Maybe, we should," you gradually started guiding him towards a side path that led out of the park and towards a small part of a local shopping district, "go get something to drink. I'm getting parched."

Jonathan, who seemed completely oblivious to the growing number of people, easily followed and started commenting on places he knew that were nearby that would be great for a bite to eat.

Which was all well and good but was not destined to happen.

The mob seemed to realize that you two were trying to leave and the yelling and chasing started.

"Quick, follow Michael Fassbender!"

That was how you two started running. Hard. Like your lives depended on it down the path and out onto the sidewalk.

You weren't even sure when, but at some point, your date started running just a little ahead of you and used your clasped hands to help drag you along. You were so out of breath and tired that you didn't notice that he'd pulled you into a side street; which then led to you abruptly running into him when he stopped. Not even his grasp on you could stop you from falling over.

"I'm so sorry," you panted and beat at your chest with your now free hands as you tried to convince your body to not die.

"It's okay, it's okay," he hushed at you after bending over and hurriedly dragging your unwilling to move body behind a well-placed dumpster.

It was a good thing you were out of breath because this would have greatly bothered you if you were in the right frame of mind.

Distantly, you heard the screeches and yells of "Michael will you sign this autograph" and an overabundance of other things being shouted by the gathered crowd.

Some of the things being said were so nasty that you actually mutely thanked any celestial being that Tom was not here to get any ideas for his farm's website.

Tom.

"I don't know how," you whispered while pulling yourself up into a crouched position next to Jonathan, "but I know Tom Hiddleston did this somehow."

"How?"

You just shook your head and went back to silence as you both continued to listen and feel the pavement shake with the force of people marching by.

Deciding not to let this pause in activity go to waste, you extracted your phone and started scouring through social media sites for the evidence you needed.

And sure enough, as the sounds of voices and feet started to get farther away, you found your proof and showed it to your former therapist.

The phone screen showed an official Twitter account for one -Bobby Hiddleston- that had received over 53,000 retweets for a tweet saying, "I think my good buddy Michael Fassbender is out and about at this park today!" Followed by a map of the park with a huge circle around it.

"Isn't that his dog?"

"He claims Bobby runs his own Twitter but I'm pretty sure Tom does it. I mean... you pick. Either Tom or a dog told people where you were going to be today."

He just snickers softly. His shoulders bunching up in an attempt to contain how badly he wanted to really just laugh out loud. You just tiredly crack your neck and take another trembling breath.

"Do you think the coast is clear? I really need to stand up."

Jonathan peaks around the dumpster, before reaching out to help you stand up, "It looks clear."

"Good. My knee was starting to hurt."

The boyish grin is gone and he flashes you a concerned look before starting to comb over you with both eyes and hands, looking for injuries.

"Was it the running or when you fell just a moment ago?"

"It was a croquet mallet to my knee."

That levels him back up and your date fixes you were a bewildered expression. So, you grant him a little mercy and explain, "I tried to play croquet with Tom and he almost took my kneecap out-"

You stop when the sound of his very loud howling suddenly starts echoing back from the end of the side street.

"It's not funny! I thought I was going to lose my leg!" but you know you aren't saying this with as straight a face as you hoped. This only causes him to double over, laughing even harder at your expression.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's not funny. But it kinda is. All of this is funny."

"I find it all incredibly frustrating. I'm just trying to pay bills, work hard, and date a nice guy that I like. But I'm not catching any breaks."

The laughter slowly stops and you both end up just staring at each. Both still taking deep, air recovering, breaths.

"Y/N. I'm going to kiss you now, alright?"

"Oh."

And he really had planned to. You were positive. He had framed your face with his hands and had started to pull you closer.

But.

That was before someone hollered, "I found him! Quick! Michael is over here!"

It was another infuriatingly instantaneous rush of movements and words, but Jonathan managed to push you against the wall and jumblingly say, "Just stay here and I'll lead them somewhere else. I'll text you once I'm hiding and we can try to plan to meet up another time."

Then you were sliding down the wall and letting yourself fall flat on your ass. Still a little dazed and confused, but still with it enough to hear him yell, "And I am absolutely going to snog you the next time I see you!"

You weren't even sure how long you sat there or how long it'd been since the last fan had gone stomping by.

What. The. Fuck.

This day. This week. This Month. Almost all of this last year was suddenly hitting you like a freight train.

It was so bizarre and just physically draining. Hell, it was mentally almost torture at this point.

Nothing could make any of this weirder for you.

Except for when you looked up at the wall across from you.

Your mouth actually truly gaped open at the sight of the most beautiful Loki graffiti you had ever seen. Not that you'd seen a lot of Loki graffiti but you had seen a lot of Loki artwork and this was truly taking the cake.

The intricate details to his face and armor AND the kaleidoscope of bright and vivid colors was like nothing you had seen before. And there, just under Loki's scepter, you could see it was signed: The 18th Street Gang and Tom Hiddleston.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Was Tom in a gang now?

~

Date Attempt #4:

Thursday

This time you both agree not to try and meet somewhere public. You also don't share any kind of details with anyone. Not Tom. Not Luke. Not your family. Not even your 8th-grade science teacher.

When Luke asks what your plans are for Saturday afternoon, normally one of your few days off, you simply tell him that you plan to be napping and not to disturb you.

"I just need to drop the contract renewal off. I'm obligated to give you exactly two months to go over it before we have to re-up."

"I don't know what to tell you. I'm already really tired that day. Just drop it off at my doorstep and I'll pick it up whenever I wake up."

The publicist eyes you as if you've grown a second head and mumbles under his breath, "Tom is rubbing off on you."

So, you channel the spirit of Tom and weirdly tell him, "Those are fighting words. I think I'll tell Tom he's allowed to wear short shorts and thigh high boots. In public. Again."

Luke doesn't speak to you for the rest of the day.

~

Friday

At this point, Tom was obviously off of home confinement yet you were positive that HE was the one that had asked you if it was okay to work out of his house today.

Instead, you were pacing around his living by yourself and waiting for him to answer his phone.

"You've reached Tom's Nut Farm. Our hours of operation..."

You let your mind wander while you waited for Tom's 12-minute voicemail to go through its spiel.

Where in London could he have gone today? There was too much to be done for him to be galavanting around or selling Nut Farm merchandise.

He had three scripts to go over, two articles to write for some fake news site, and he was supposed to be writing a formal apology to Dame Maggie Smith.

Finally, a robotic female voice breaks through your thoughts with, "Please leave your message after the beep."

Beep.

"Tom. I am at your house. You are not. If you don't return in the next 30 minutes, I'm going to go into your basement and clean it. Then I'm going to blast Taylor Swift's new song on your stereo until the speakers blow out and the neighbors call in a noise complaint on you."

You hung up and immediately regretted your threats. You were going to have to follow through, he wouldn't learn if you didn't, and you literally had picked the two worse ways to torture yourself.

Not even the cleaning crew would touch Tom's basement and you saw how much they were getting paid to come to clean this place once a month.

Then again, you wouldn't clean it for that money either and it was already more than what you made now.

You'd started making your way towards his office when the phone still in your hand started going off. Your clients "secret" moniker popped up on the screen and you huffed before answering, "Why aren't you here, Mrs. Hemsworth?"

"There's an evil tyrant there."

"You dick! You asked me to come here!"

"Oh shit, I didn't realize who I was talking to!"

"30 minutes, Tom, or I'm going to clean your basement."

With great satisfaction, you ended the call as Tom had started to yell, "No, you'll find the secret formula for-"

As you stood motionless in the hallway, you actively hoped to high heaven he'd get here soon. The basement would take at least three days to clean and you had shit to do tomorrow.

~

Saturday

You are giddy with excitement and also about to puke with the little nagging feeling of anxiety that was tingling in your stomach.

Jonathan Birch had absolutely, outright made his intentions of kissing you clear at your last sabotaged date. The only thing was... were you ready?

Sure, you'd gotten to know him pretty well through all the twists and bumps, but this felt like a leap considering you two hadn't even completed one whole normal date!

What to do? What to do?

The sound of a car door shutting interrupts your dramatic internal dialogue and you spare a glance at your phone.

2:02 PM

Jonathan wasn't due until 2:30, so your brain rationalized that it was probably Luke bringing over the paperwork. It was probably best to get the papers from him so that he didn't try and linger. He had seemed adamant that you get the renewal personally from his hands.

You'd opened your front door and stepped out while muttering, "Luke, am I going to even like this new contract?" before turning around and coming face to face with your former therapist.

You're only capable of blinking rapidly at him as he grins and walks closer to you.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm early. But I didn't want to chance something happening if I waited until 2:30."

Eventually, you remember how to breathe and take a deep gulp of sweet, sweet air before embarrassingly stuttering, "Ye-yeah, that's fine! You're probably onto something with that train of thought."

You share a nervous laugh with each other and, for the first time, you realize he actually looks apprehensive. Mr. Birch had been the epitome of calm, collected, and roll with the flow with everything since the moment you had met him.

Today was different.

"Can I ask you something?" the nervousness evens bleeds into his voice and you promptly nod your head because you're willing to do anything to take that edge away.

Hell, your mind was made up. You'd even kiss him if it meant he'd go back to the carefree attitude.

"Did you agree to go on a date with me because I looked like your boss?"

For a moment, you almost laugh, but then manage to quell the feeling and instead very sincerely say, "Absolutely not."

A wave of relief seems to wash over him and his smile turns slightly silly looking as he asks, "Is it because I look like Michael Fassbender?"

"You don't look like him! I seriously don't understand why people keep saying that!"

He steps closer. You manage not to flinch or dive for cover somewhere.

"Why did you agree then?"

You pretend to think about it. Tap a finger against your chin, roll your eyes up in consideration, and even hum for a second.

"Your pants were so tight that I could see-"

He actually hilariously barks his laughter and swoops you into his arms before you can even try and resist.

"My pants were not that tight," you narrow your eyes at him, "okay, okay. My pants may have been a little too snug."

Your only reply is a snort and a slight tilting of your head. Your eyes briefly dart to the right, thinking you saw a glint of bright light, but are refocused towards Jonathan when he gently brings up a hand and taps at your chin.

"Now?"

"Yes."

And again he is leaning so very close to you. You felt sure it was going to happen this time.

But alas. It did not.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

"Luke!" you scream so loudly, and so quickly push Jonathan away from you, that you don't realize he has mirrored all of your actions perfectly.

Luke Windsor merely stands there and blankly looks back and forth between you two.

"This is a total breach of contract!"

"No, no, no, no, no," you rush to say before motioning avidly at your date, "I told you about me going out with the therapist. This therapist!"

The publicist gives you the most daunting stare possible and you feel a spark of resentment well up in your chest.

Balling your fists up, you say, "Luke, seriously, it's not-" but you stop when you look over to the other man for support.

Jonathan Birch toys restlessly with the neckline of his shirt while giving you a truly miserable and pained look.

"No."

Tom lets his hand drop away from his throat and holds it out like he's trying to offer you something.

Peace? Comfort?

"No," and you can't help but hate how choked up you sound. You place one balled up fist on your hip and bring the other up to your lips. Biting onto your knuckle as you try to stave off the tears.

"I'm sorry. I never meant-"

"I don't care."

And you really don't. Not anymore.

You turn, so your back is towards your front door, and start to back away from both men. Hands now held out in an effort to keep anyone from getting near you.

"Please just let me explain," the actor begs while carefully trying to tread closer to you.

But, you just shake your head and bitterly say through gritted teeth, "I really don't want to hear it."

"I never meant for it to get this far, really, I was just trying to help," his pleas only make you rock your head more vehemently as your back finally presses into your front door. The feeling of the cool metal through your shirt gives you a moment of comfort before you realize Tom is still also fringing closer to you.

"Stop. Seriously. I don't care," and something about the one last extra step he takes seems to suddenly set you off on a rant that had been building up for almost a year.

"Tom Hiddleston, I do not fucking care! After everything, EVERYTHING, I have put up with... why on Earth should this be any different? I've had to flush sriracha out of your eyes three times, you've nearly flooded my home on multiple occasions, tried to break my leg, caused me to be burned," you pause and point to the burn scars still slightly pink on your palm, "and not to mention fucking pretended to be a dinosaur and attacked me!"

Oh, but you are far from done, and you bring a finger up to Tom's chest and rapidly poke hard at him while listing off, "Let's not forget about your obsession with your fucking farm, the fact that you're probably in a Mexican gang, your aversion to hairspray, how every week you watch Marvel porn so you can critique the people who play Loki, and how you made me sleep on the couch because..."

In a strange twist of timing, you trail off just as one particular jab of your finger finally forces Tom to step backward from you. The increased distance is enough for you to feel more clear-headed and to inhale a little easier.

The guest bedroom.

The bright neon warning that you had ignored.

Every thoughtful gesture Tom tried to make ended with hurting you somehow.

There was only one thing that could stop all of this.

"There's only one thing I want to know. I think I deserve that, right?"

At first, you think he finally has decided to stop speaking and the memory of him taking up miming for a week almost breaks your resolve, but you're saved by him decisively nodding with a look of hope.

"How did you do it? Is this like The Prestige or something? Are we going to find dead Tom clones somewhere? Orphan Black, maybe? Oh! What about The Island? Are you going to do an Ewan McGregor impression and finally tell me the truth?"

Luke pipes up from somewhere behind your client, "That is actually a really curious and important question."

Oh. But by the intense frown on your client's face, it's clear it's the worse question.

"I can't tell you how."

You can feel your face scrunch up and barely hold in a lamented chortle.

Then you straighten yourself, as if a soldier called to attention, and give both men a watery smile.

"Tom Hiddleston," you nod to him, "Luke Windsor," another inclination aimed behind Tom, "I quit."

You somehow end up through your front door and have it firmly closed and locked, before the voices on the other side finally react.

Their words are indistinguishable and completely incoherent to you. They could have and might have been, offering you every rich and treasure the world had to offer but you were well and truly done.

You sank down and cuddled your knees to your chest.

If every nice thing Tom tried to do for you ended up with your misery then didn't it make sense to quit?

If it was a looping record, forever doomed to be played on repeat, then didn't it make sense to skip the same old song and dance?

If your relationship, working or whatever, was an endless rehashing of the same crazy story over and over again... Then didn't it make sense to now write...

The End?

[potterheads23]

35 Things You Might Not Know About Harry Potter

1. ROWLING AND HARRY SHARE A BIRTHDAY.

They both blow out candles on July 31 (happy birthday, JKR!). And that’s not the only influence Rowling had on her characters: She’s said that Hermione is a bit like her when she was younger, and her favorite animal is an otter—which is, of course, Hermione’s patronus. Plus, both Dumbledore and Rowling like sherbet lemons (Rowling said that the wizard’s “got good taste”).  

2. SHE INVENTED THE NAMES OF THE HOGWARTS HOUSES ON THE BACK OF A BARF BAG.

In 2000, Scholastic gave schoolchildren across the U.S. the opportunity to ask Rowling questions about Harry Potter. When one student asked her, “What made you think of the people's names and dormitories at Hogwarts?” Rowling responded, “I invented the names of the Houses on the back of an airplane sick bag! This is true. I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.”

3. EARLY ON, ROWLING WROTE A SKETCH OF THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE FINAL BOOK.

Rowling calls the idea that she had the first chapter of Deathly Hallowswritten and locked away in the safe “rubbish.” But there was a small element of truth to it: “I had, very early on—but not the first day or anything, probably within the first year of writing—I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be,” she told Harry Potter's big screen portrayer, Daniel Radcliffe, in an interview for the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD extra features. “I always knew—and this was from really early on—that I was working toward the point where Hagrid carried Harry, alive but supposedly dead, out of the forest, always. I knew we were always working towards a final battle at Hogwarts, I knew that Harry would walk to his death, I planned the ghosts—for want of a better word—coming back, that they would walk with him into the forest,  we would all believe he was walking to his death, and he would emerge in Hagrid’s arms.”

And that mental image is what kept Hagrid alive, despite the fact that he “would have been a natural to kill in some ways,” Rowling said. “But because I always cleaved to this mental image of Hagrid being the one carrying Harry out … That was so perfect for me, because it was Hagrid who and took him into the world, and Hagrid who would bring him back … That’s where we were always going. Hagrid was never in danger.”

4. THE DEMENTORS ARE BASED ON ROWLING’S STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION AFTER HER MOTHER’S DEATH.

Rowling’s mother, who had multiple sclerosis, died in 1990, after which Rowling suffered a period of depression. She would use the experience to characterize the Harry Potter’s dementors, creepy creatures that feed on human emotion. “It's so difficult to describe [depression] to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness," Rowling told Oprah Winfrey. “I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling. That's what Dementors are.”

5. SHE CREATED QUIDDITCH AFTER A FIGHT WITH HER BOYFRIEND.

“If you want to create a game like Quidditch, what you have to do is have an enormous argument with your then-boyfriend,” Rowling said in 2003. “You walk out of the house, you sit down in a pub, and you invent Quidditch. And I don't really know what the connection is between the row and Quidditch except that Quidditch is quite a violent game and maybe in my deepest, darkest soul I would quite like to see him hit by a bludger.”

6. THE WIZARDING WORLD’S PLANTS COME FROM A REAL BOOK.

“I used to collect names of plants that sounded witchy,” she told 60 Minutes, “and then I found this, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and it was the answer to my every prayer: flax weed, toadflax, fleawort, Gout-wort, grommel, knotgrass, Mugwort." The book was penned in the 17th century by English botanist and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper; you can read it here.

7. A PROPOSED TITLE FOR THE AMERICAN VERSION OF PHILOSOPHER’S STONE WAS HARRY POTTER AND THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC.

Rowling turned that down, saying, according to American publisher Arthur Levine, “No—that doesn’t feel right to me … What if we called it the Sorcerer’s Stone?” (The French edition, Levine points out in J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography, is called Harry Potter a L'ecole Des Sorciers.)

8. ROWLING MADE COMPLICATED OUTLINES FOR THE BOOKS.

You can see a partial outline for Order of the Phoenix above. The outline has chapter titles, a general outline of the plot, and then more specific plot points for certain characters. (Based on this outline, it looks like Rowling thought about calling Dolores Umbridge Elvira Umbridge instead!)

9. ARTHUR WEASLEY WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE.

In a battle between good and evil this epic, not everyone would make it through alive—that would have led to “very fluffy, cozy books,” she told Meredith Vieira. “You know, suddenly I [would be] halfway through Goblet of Fire and suddenly everyone would just have a really great life and … the plot would go AWOL.”

Which is not to say that Rowling knew exactly who was on the chopping block. She thought about killing Arthur Weasley after he’s attacked by Nagini in Order of the Phoenix, but instead opted to save him, partly because “there were very few good fathers in the book. In fact, you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only good father in the whole series.” (She also “seriously considered” killing Ron, then thought better of it.)

Instead, Lupin—a character she had no intention of killing when she began the books—and Tonks died during the final Battle of Hogwarts. “I wanted there to be an echo of what happened to Harry just to show the absolute evil of what Voldemort's doing,” she said. “I think one of the most devastating things about war is the children left behind. As happened in the first war when Harry's left behind, I wanted us to see another child left behind. And it made it very poignant that it was [Lupin and Tonks's] newborn son.”

10. TO KEEP DEATHLY HALLOWS FROM LEAKING EARLY, BLOOMSBURY GAVE IT CODENAMES.

You probably wouldn’t have been so interested in reading Edinburgh Potmakers or The Life and Times of Clara Rose Lovett: An Epic Novel Covering Many Generations.

11. HALEY JOEL OSMENT COULD HAVE PLAYED HARRY.

When Steven Spielberg was attached to direct the film adaptation, he wanted Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment to play Harry. But the director eventually left over a creative clash with Rowling, and new director Chris Columbus had to find his star. Some 300 kids tested for Harry Potter over a period of seven months; Jonathan Lipnicki (Jerry McGuire) even expressed interest. “There were times when we felt we would never find an individual who embodied the complex spirit and depth of Harry,” Columbus said.

Then, one night, Heyman went to the theater with screenwriter SteveKloves (who ended up penning all but one of the Potter scripts). “There sitting behind me was this boy with these big blue eyes. It was Dan Radcliffe,” he told HeroComplex in 2009. “I remember my first impressions: He was curious and funny and so energetic. There was real generosity too, and sweetness. But at the same time he was really voracious and with hunger for knowledge of whatever kind.” He persuaded Radcliffe’s parents to let their son audition, and the rest is history.

12. RUPERT GRINT’S AUDITION WAS UNUSUAL.

Nine-year-old Emma Watson’s first audition for the role of Hermione took place in her school gym; she auditioned a total of eight times. Grint, then 10, sent in a video audition, and went in a rather unusual direction: “I found out that you could audition by sending a picture of yourself and some information to Newsround,” he said in 2002. “I did my own video with me, first of all, pretending to be my drama teacher who unfortunately was a girl and then I did a rap of how I wanted to be Ron and then I made my own script thing up and sent it off.”

He had some competition, though: Tom Felton auditioned for both Ron and Harry before ultimately being cast as Draco Malfoy.

13. THERE’S A VERY GOOD REASON HARRY’S EYES AREN’T GREEN IN THE MOVIES.

In the books, Harry’s eyes are described as “bright green”—but Radcliffe’s are blue. When Sorcerer’s Stone was in pre-production, Heyman called Rowling and told her their options: They’d tried green contacts; they could also trying making Radcliffe’s eyes green in post-production. How important was it, he wondered, for Harry’s eyes to be green?

Rowling said that the only thing that was really important was that Harry's eyes looked like his mother’s eyes, so whoever played Lily Potter would need to have some resemblance to Radcliffe. This was a relief for Radcliffe, who had an an extremely adverse reaction to the contacts. (He was also allergic to the glasses, which made him break out in acne.)

14. THE BROOMS USED IN THE SERIES AREN’T REGULAR BROOMS.

They were made by modeler Pierre Bohanna using aircraft-grade titanium. “People think of them as a prop the kids are carrying around, but in reality, they have to sit on them,” Eddie Newquist, chief creative officer of the firm Global Entertainment Services, which puts on Harry Potter: The Exhibition, told Popular Mechanics. “They have to be mounted onto motion-control bases for green-screen shots and special-effects shots, so they have to be very thin and incredibly durable. Most of these kids weighed 80 pounds, 90 pounds [at the beginning]. Now they're all adults, so they're up over 120, 130 pounds, and you have to really make sure your brooms can withstand that.”

15. THE ROLE OF PEEVES WAS CAST AND FILMED—THEN CUT.

British comedian Rik Mayall was cast as Hogwarts’s prank-happy poltergeist in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He showed up and shot the scenes, which were later cut when director Chris Columbus decided he didn’t like the look of the ghost. Mayall described the experience in a 2011 interview:

I got sent off the set because every time I tried to do a bit of acting, all the lads who were playing the school kids kept getting the giggles, they kept corpsing, so they threw me off.

Well, they asked me to do it with my back to them and they still laughed. So they asked me to do it around the other side of the cathedral and shout my lines, but they still laughed so they said they’d do my lines with someone else. So then I did a little bit of filming, then I went home and I got the money. That’s significant. Then a month later, they said: ‘Er, Rik, we’re sorry about this, but you’re not in the film. We’ve cut you out of the film.’ … But I still got the money. So that is the most exciting film I’ve ever been in, because I got the oodle and I wasn’t in it. Fantastic.

He didn’t tell his kids his part had been cut, though, and when they went to see it, “they came back and they said: ‘Bloody good make up. You didn’t look like yourself at all dad,’” Mayall said. “They thought I was playing Hagrid, Robbie Coltrane’s part.”

16. THE ACTRESS WHO PLAYED MOANING MYRTLE WAS MUCH OLDER THAN A STUDENT.

Shirley Henderson was 36 when she played the bathroom-haunting ghost of a 14-year-old student who was killed by a basilisk’s stare in Chamber of Secrets. Playing a ghost was tougher than playing a real person, she told the BBC, “because of all the technical stuff it involved. I had to be strapped up to this harness so it looked as if I was flying and so I could be pushed through the air and twisted and turned over and over again. It's physically very tiring on your body. It also requires a lot of concentration, because there's all kinds of people shouting stuff like 'Turn, do this, look at this' so they can do all their stuff with the computer effects while I'm trying to act it out. But once you block all that out, it's great fun. Really good fun.”

17. PRISONER OF AZKABAN DIRECTOR ALFONSO Cuarón ASKED THE TRIO TO WRITE ESSAYS ABOUT THEIR CHARACTERS.

Alfonso Cuarón wanted Watson, Radcliffe, and Grint to write essays about their characters from a first person point of view. According to Heyman, “they all responded very much in character … Dan wrote a page, Emma wrote 10 and Rupert didn't deliver anything.” Grint told Entertainment Weekly, “I didn't do mine, because I didn't think Ron would. Or that was my excuse. At the time, I was actually quite busy with the real schoolwork involved with my exams, and I just didn't do it. But in the end, it felt right because that's what Ron would have done.”

18. ROWLING SHOT DOWN ONE OF Cuarón’S IDEAS.

Rowling wasn’t precious about all of the details of her books (see: Harry’s eye color). “Inevitably, you have to depart from the strict storyline of the books,” she told Radcliffe. “The books are simply too long to make into very faithful films.” But that didn’t mean she’d let everything slide: “Sometimes I would dig my heels in on the funniest things,” she said. “I’d say yeah, change the costume, that’s not a problem … And then all of a sudden I’d say, ‘Why would they do that spell? They wouldn’t do that there.’”

Take, for example, one shot that Cuarón wrote into Prisoner of Azkaban, which Rowling called “rather bizarre.” “I think Flitwick was conducting, and there were miniature people in an orchestra inside something,” she told Radcliffe. “I said to him, but why? I know it’s visually exciting, but part of what I think fans really enjoyed about the literary world is that there was a logic that underpinned it. There was always a logic to the magic, however strange it became. And I know it’s intriguing to go through the mouth of whatever it was and see these little people, but why have they done it? For you to film it, that’s just what it feels like. Normally, with the magic, there’s a point. So we had a bit of discussion.”

19. ROWLING TIPPED ALAN RICKMAN OFF TO SNAPE’S MOTIVATIONS.

“I told him really early on that Snape had been in love with Lily, that’s why he hated James, that’s why he projected this amount of dislike onto Harry,” Rowling told Radcliffe. “So he knew that. Then you told me that he’d been saying … ‘I just don’t think Snape would do that, given what I know.’” She laughed, continuing, “And I thought, ‘Alan, are you really milking this now?’”

She also tipped Radcliffe off to Harry’s (partial) fate after seeing him in Equus. Radcliffe asked her, point blank: “Do I die?”

“You get a death scene,” Rowling told him.

“I saw you double-take,” Rowling said. “Neal, my husband, afterward, said, ‘What did Dan ask you?’ And I said ‘He wanted to know if he’s going to die.’” When he asked what she’d said, Rowling told him, “I’m not telling you!” Though her husband was tipped off to Dumbledore's fate ahead of time, Rowling kept Harry’s ultimate fate a secret till the end.

20. THE ACTORS COULDN’T PLAY CONTACT SPORTS.

Instead, they played golf. ''[At Leavesden Studios], Rupert Grint and my brother [James] and I would hang out at the driving range downstairs quite a bit,” Oliver Phelps, who played George Weasley, told EW. “I mean, I say driving range, but it was a mat and a 150-yard cone at the other end. Golf was one of the only sports we were allowed to do in our contract because it was relatively quite safe. We couldn't do any contact sports.”

21. THE MOVIES FEATURED SOME HIGH TECH VISUAL EFFECTS …

Visual effects artists were tasked with bringing many of the fantastic magical elements of Harry Potter to life, including everything from fire-breathing dragons and club-swinging giants to zombie-like Inferi and Voldemort’s snake-like face (which was created by using practical makeup and digitally removing Ralph Fiennes’s nose). One of their most challenging sequences came early in Deathly Hallows, when members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive at Privet Drive to whisk Harry away to a safe spot. Multiple Harrys, Mad-Eye Moody says, will confuse the Death Eaters on their trail—so some of the wizards chug Polyjuice Potion and transform into Harry.

The transformation was tough for visual effects artists to pull off. "We needed to have a little bit of the attributes of Harry, and a little bit of the attributes of whoever we started with—George, Fred, Ron, Hermione," Nicolas Aithadi, VFX supervisor at Moving Picture Company, told Popular Mechanics. "The tricky part is you have to be able to read the Harry part and the George part. What we keep from each of these characters has to be perfect." They accomplished it by coating the actors’ faces in UV paint, then having them make faces in the Mova Contour Reality Capture system, which has 29 cameras and can capture 50,000 points of information, creating a 3D mesh cloud they could use as a basis for the transforming faces.

According to Phelps, it was completely different than anything they’d ever done before. “There are probably 30 different facial expressions they tried to get you to do,” he told Popular Mechanics. “I never realized how wide I could open my mouth until we did that scene, so that was quite cool.” Because of the UV paint, the VFX artists had one piece of advice, Phelps said: “They were quite keen to say, ‘Just don't go to any nightclubs tonight, because you'll look like a floating head.’”

22. … BUT NOT ALL THE EFFECTS WERE COMPUTER GENERATED.

Animatronics were made for the actors to interact with on set, including baby mandrakes, Hedwig, the Monster Book of Monsters, and Buckbeak, which was used on-set for close ups. “He could stare at you, his eyes could follow you, he could bow, and every one of his feathers was dyed and put in by hand,” Newquist told PopMech. “There are tens of thousands of them, and they look absolutely gorgeous.”Other creatures were built to give the animators reference for lighting, like the giant Jack-in-the-Box from Prisoner of Azkaban and house elf Kreacher.

23. THE FILM’S MAKEUP ARTISTS APPLIED THE LIGHTNING BOLT SCAR MANY, MANY TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF EIGHT FILMS.

Five thousand eight hundred times, to be exact. In our 2014 interview with Radcliffe, he told us, “The lightning scar, on the first two films, we essentially painted it on, and after that we used Pros-Aide, which was like a glue [to put it on]. It was very simple.” The scar was applied to his face 2,000 times; the rest went on film and stunt doubles. Radcliffe also went through 160 pairs of Harry’s round-frame glasses.

24. HELENA BONHAM CARTER KEPT HER BELLATRIX TEETH.

“I loved my [fake] teeth!” the actress told EW. “I kept them because they're not going to fit anybody else. I keep them in a blue plastic thing in the bathroom and bring them out when I miss [Bellatrix].’”

25. THERE COULD HAVE BEEN AN OFFICIAL HARRY POTTER MUSICAL.

Rowling has turned down a lot of proposed Harry Potter ideas—including, she told Winfrey, a musical that Michael Jackson wanted to do. Earlier this year, Rowling announced that she’s working with a team to bring a new Harry Potter story to the stage; Harry Potter and the Cursed Childwill hit the West End in 2016.

26. DUMBLEDORE WAS GAY.

In 2007, when asked by a fan whether or not Hogwarts’s favorite headmaster had ever been in love, Rowling responded, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” She revealed that he had fallen in love with Grindelwald, “and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.”

Rowling said she found the reaction to the news very interesting. “To me it was not a big deal,” she told Radcliffe. “This is a very old man who has a very terrible job to do. And his gayness is not really relevant. Very relevant to him as a character, because I always saw him as a very lonely character. And I think that there is in fact a hint of it in [Deathly Hallows] because of the relationship he has with Grindelwald. He fell very hard for this boy ...  And don’t you think it was perfect that Dumbledore, who is always the great champion of love … his one great experience of love was utterly tragic.”

This led to one very necessary tweak to the Half-Blood Prince script. “In an early draft of that script, Dumbledore said to Harry … ‘I remember a young woman with eyes of flashing whatever, raven-haired…’ and I read this and I scribbled on my copy of the script, ‘Steve, Dumbledore is gay,’ shoved it up the table,” she said. “And Steve [said,] ‘Oh.’ So that’s why that line didn’t make the film.”

27. ROWLING ACKNOWLEDGED THAT A HARRY/HERMIONE PAIRING MIGHT HAVE WORKED.

In an interview with Emma Watson for Wonderland magazine in 2014, Rowling said that “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” saying that they ended up together “for reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it … The attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it … I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility.”

She noted that “in some ways Hermione and Harry are a better fit,” and that she felt that “quite strongly” when she wrote a particular scene in Deathly Hallows, where Harry and Hermione are in the tent. “I hadn’t told [Steve] Kloves that and when he wrote the script he felt exactly the same thing at exactly the same point,” she said.

28. BACK IN THE DAY, THE MALFOYS HUNG OUT WITH RICH MUGGLES.

“Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. In fact, one Malfoy might have had designs on the British Throne: “There is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen's subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy,” Rowling writes. The Malfoys gave up their Muggle fraternizing when the Ministry of Magic, “the new heart of power,” was founded.

29. MOANING MYRTLE HAS AN INTERESTING INSPIRATION.

Rowling wrote on Pottermore that the whiny, bathroom-dwelling ghost was inspired by “the frequent presence of a crying girl in communal bathrooms, especially at the parties and discos of my youth. This does not seem to happen in male bathrooms, so I enjoyed placing Harry and Ron in such uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

30. MUGGLES CAN’T MAKE POTIONS.

And that’s because you can’t make potions without wands. “Merely adding dead flies and asphodel to a pot hanging over a fire will give you nothing but nasty-tasting, not to mention poisonous, soup,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. Though her least favorite subject in school was Chemistry, she admitted that “I always enjoyed creating potions in the books, and researching ingredients for them. Many of the components of the various draughts and libations that Harry creates for Snape exist (or were once believed to exist) and have (or were believed to have) the properties I gave them.”

31. ROWLING’S EDUCATION CAME IN HANDY.

At university, she minored in Classics, and she put that education to good use, peppering the books with Latin. “It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know,” she said in 2000. “I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.” Expelliarmus, for example, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon,” and knocks weapons from an enemy’s hands. Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiarius, or “fire-raising.” And Hogwarts’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus—“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.”

32. THERE WAS ONE HARRY POTTER QUESTION ROWLING FEARED THE MOST.

It was “What was Dumbledore's wand made of?”

“That would have been quite a telling question,” Rowling told Time. “Because I had this elder thing in my mind, cause elder has this association in folklore, it's the death tree. I thought, ‘What am I going to say?’” Thankfully, no one ever asked.

33. STEPHEN KING THOUGHT DOLORES UMBRIDGE WAS A GREAT VILLAIN.

In his review of Order of the Phoenix for Entertainment Weekly, King said, “The gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter” [PDF].

34. YOU CAN SPOT A CRUMPLE-HORNED SNORKACK IN THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER ...

It’s on the second story of the Magical Menagerie. Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood, claimed it was a real creature, but it was never found. Rowling said that Luna, who became a naturalist, had to eventually “accept that her father might have made that one up.”

35. … AS WELL AS ARTHUR WEASLEY’S FLYING CAR.

The flying Ford Anglia—which Harry and Ron flew into the Whomping Willow and later saved them from Acromantulas in the books—can be found in line for the Dragon Challenge roller coaster, just over the bridge and before entering the castle.

[cnovellineglobalcinema]

Spike Lee

Spike Lee is an African American director, producer, writer and actor. With over thirty-five films under his belt, which he refers to as “Spike Lee Joints”, Spike Lee has cemented his reputation as a director. Lee’s films often revolve around the black experience in America, which has been the basis of his films since his early career. He is known for making films that are controversial in nature, as well as being a controversial figure in general. He explores themes of race relations, colorism, poverty and other social issues.

Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1957 and moved to Brooklyn at a young age. His father was jazz composer William Lee and his mother Jacqueline Carroll, was a teacher of arts and black literature. Lee was aware of his African American identity from a very young age which would eventually become a big influence in his films. He went on to attend the all black Morehouse College where his father and grandfather both attended where he majored in communications. He found his passion for film at Morehouse and decided that he wanted to attend New York University for their graduate film program. Lee set out to make films that captured the black experience starting with his thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. (Spike Lee Biography)

From early in his career to even his current films, Lee has always found difficulty in funding his films. His first feature film, She’s Gotta Have It, was shot with only $33,000 which wasn’t enough to get it through post-production. He screened a rough cut at NYU in order to get financial support. The final budget ended up being $175,000. (Rizov) For his biopic on the life of Malcom X, Warner Bros have him a $20 million budget which ended up going over budget by $13 million. Lee used $2 million of his own money as well as calling upon a group of black superstars to “bail him out”. This group included Oprah Winfrey, Janet Jackson, Bill Cosby and Prince. (Clark) Lee frequently attributes his struggle to find funding on race, claiming white directors get budgets in the hundreds of millions while he struggles to find a company to give him a $40 million budget. Lee is notably independent as a director, often writing directing and even starring in his own movies to any change in his vision for his films. (Rizov)

Lee is best known for creating films that deal with controversial issues including race relations, poverty, gang violence and police brutality. The film that cemented Lee’s status as a director was his 1989 film, Do The Right Thing, which dealt with all of these issues. Lee is quoted as saying, “the studios might not want to touch this film.” (Keeley) When Paramount Pictures asked him to tone down the climactic riot scene towards the end of the film, Lee took the film to Universal instead. (Rizov) Lee stated in his director’s notebook, “I know I’ll come up against some static from the white press. They’ll say I’m trying to incite a race riot. He turned out to be correct, critics said the film would result in violence amongst young African Americans and the film would ruin his reputation. Both of these accusations turned out to be wrong, and the exact opposite happened. (Keeley)

The film follows Mookie, a young black man played by Lee himself who lives in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn and works at Sal’s Famous, an Italian pizzeria. The majority of the film explores the race relations in a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone. The community is mainly African American with Italian Americans running the local pizzeria, a Korean couple owning the corner store, and a group of Hispanic people that live in the community. On the surface, the characters in the film all appear to coexist with few racial issues. As the film goes on, Lee explores some of the more nuanced racial tensions in the community. The most obvious is Sal’s son Pino, who from the start of the movie is consistently complaining to his father about working in a predominantly black community, using a fair share of racial slurs. Mookie, who has a child with Tina who is Puerto Rican expresses to her mother that he wants her son to speak English and it’s bad enough that his name is Hector. Radio Raheem becomes angry with the Korean couple when the accent barrier delays his purchase at their store, inciting him to yell at them to “speak proper English”.

The main conflict starts when Buggin’ Out complains to Sal that there are no black people on his Hall of Fame in the pizzeria. Sal explains that he is Italian American and only Italian Americans will go on the wall. Buggin’ Out spends the majority of the movie trying to organize a boycott against Sal’s which proves difficult since everyone in the neighborhood likes Sal and his pizza. As other minor conflicts arise and the racial tension builds, the movie cuts to a montage of characters of different races shouting a colorful array of racial slurs into the camera, finally ending with Samuel L. Jackson’s character “Love Daddy” telling them to “cool that shit out”.

Buggin’ Out finally gets two people to boycott Sal’s, Radio Raheem and Smiley who proceed to enter Sal’s blaring music saying they won’t eat there anymore. Tensions rise leading to Sal smashing the boombox with a bat and even dropping the n-word, resulting in a fight between Raheem and Sal. Police arrive, detaining Raheem and eventually choke him to death with a crowd of his peers begging the officer to stop. In the most climactic scene of the movie, Mookie throws a trash can through the window of the pizzeria inciting a riot that ends in Sal’s burning down. The mob crosses the street to presumably wreak havoc on the Korean couple’s shop where the Koreans shout that they caused no harm, and they are “black” just like the mob. As firefighters attempt to put out the fire and police attempt to control the mob, they chant the names of previous victims of police brutality. The next morning, there is a shot of the neighborhood with kids playing basketball and people walking around as if life had gone back to normal.

The story Lee captures in this film is one that is still seen today in America. The two main themes in this movie are race relations and police brutality which Lee captures both of in their most real form. Mookie acts as the bridge between the various racial groups that exist in the neighborhood, having a positive relation to every group. One of the most interesting parts about this movie is that there is no one that is painted as the true “villain”, every character has good qualities and flaws. In Sean Keeley’s analysis of the film he says, “no character is allowed to be Good or Bad; this is the crooked timber of humanity just waiting for a fuse.” (Keeley) The scenes of police brutality are ones that can still be seen played on news stations today. Lee says that Radio Raheem’s death was based on the murder of graffiti artist Michael Stewart. (Kilkenny) The film discussed highly controversial topics and was criticized heavily by the media at the time.

Another one of Spike Lee’s great works dealing with African American social issues is his biopic on Malcom X. The movie was released in 1992 following the death of Rodney King, who’s brutal police beating is shown in the opening sequence of the film, along with a burning American flag as Denzel Washington delivers one of Malcom X’s famous speeches. The film follows the life of Malcom, played by Washington, starting with his time as a gangster and hustler, known then as “Detroit Red”. There are frequent flashbacks to his childhood with his home being burned down by the Ku Klux Klan, his life in a foster home, and his mother trying to get justice for the death of his father.

When Malcom goes to jail the film begins to show the transformation from Detroit Red to Malcom X. Lee shows this through the dialogue but also through changes to his hair and facial hair as well as his attire. “Of particular note are the exceptional production values, from Ruth E Carter’s sumptuously detailed period costumes to Ernest Dickerson’s cinematography, which uses starkly different shades and tones to comment on each of the film’s three distinct segments.” (Clark) He is shown spending days in solitary confinement for refusing to state his inmate number then is introduced to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. After finding out that the Nation of Islam has betrayed him and Elijah does not practice what he preaches, Malcom goes independent and travels to the Mecca for his pilgrimage. After arriving home and continuing to deliver speeches, he is threatened, attacked and eventually killed by his former allies.

This movie depicts the good and the bad about Malcom X. It depicts his early life as a gangster setting up robberies and doing cocaine with criminals then starkly transitions to his life as a Muslim once out of prison. While a greatly influential figure in the black community as a Muslim, Lee is also not afraid to include some of Malcom’s more controversial moments. This includes his views on women with banners stating, “We must protect our most valuable property: our women”. It also includes his infamous statement regarding the JFK assassination saying it was, “a case of chickens coming home to roost”. (Bose)

Spike Lee’s films have had a significant impact on the African American community and America as a whole. Whether his films are meant to provoke controversy, send a specific message or both, Lee’s movies are always created with the intent and purpose. From his breakout film Do The Right Thing which deals with race relations and police brutality to the more historically based biopic Malcom X, Lee creates his movies with the intent of delivering a message on behalf of the black community.

Works Cited

Bose, Swapnil Dhruv. “‘By Any Means Necessary’: The Importance of Spike Lee Film 'Malcolm X'.” Far Out Magazine, 18 Nov. 2020, faroutmagazine.co.uk/by-any-means-necessary-the-importance-of-spike-lee-film-malcolm-x/.

Clark, Ashley. “Malcolm X: Spike Lee's Biopic Is Still Absolutely Necessary.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Feb. 2015, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/malcolm-x-spike-lee-biopic-black-cinema-selma-the-butler.

Keeley, Sean. “The Radical Empathy of Do the Right Thing.” American Interest, vol. 16, no. 1, Sept. 2020, pp. 1–9. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=145917906&site=ehost-live.

Kilkenny, Katie. “Spike Lee Reflects on Police Brutality Since 'Do the Right Thing' on 'Tonight Show'.” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 June 2020, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/spike-lee-reflects-police-brutality-do-right-thing-1297644/.

Palis, Eleni. “The Economics and Politics of Auteurism: Spike Lee and Do The Right Thing.” Cinema Journal, vol. 57, no. 2, Winter 2018, pp. 1–21. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/cj.2018.0000.

Rizov, Vadim. “Joint Financing: Spike Lee Has Never Had an Easy Time Funding His Films.” MTV News, 26 July 2013, www.mtv.com/news/2770944/spike-lee-film-funding/.

“Spike Lee Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, www.notablebiographies.com/Ki-Lo/Lee-Spike.html.

[sachertortes]

Congratulations! I'd enjoy some Darcy/Tony, funny meeting at a party theme #1 If you do this, thank you sooo much. Your writing is pretty spectacular.

:D :D :D Thanks so much! Of course, I’ll try my hand at Tony x Darcy (it feels a bit wobbly to me still, but I hope you enjoy!)

Prompt: Funny meeting at a party, #1,  “i was on my balcony and you started loudly quoting romeo and juliet at me”

Pairing: Tony x Darcy

Rating: T

Notes: I gave our girl a PhD in this bc it’s in my power to do so :P *Oprah voice* you get a PhD! you get a PhD!!!

Darcy leaned against the balcony, grateful for the cool night air across the back of her neck. Stark’s parties were always amazing, but sometime around 1am she usually started to feel claustrophobic and too hot. She must be getting old.

She sipped at her candy apple martini (it was bright red, and had gold leaf on the rim because Tony Stark was the least subtle person on the planet) and listened politely as Helen Cho talked about her plans for the rest of the weekend. (Genius geneticist and an avid free climber? She was a madwoman.)

Cho was in the middle of lamenting the cost of proper rock shoes when suddenly, there was giggling from below them.

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks! It is the east and Darcy is the sun!!” The man called out loudly and flung his arms dramatically to the heavens.

Helen nudged her none too gently and Darcy’s drink sloshed dangerously in its glass. “Darcy, that’s Tony Stark!”

“Oh my god,” Darcy squeaked as Helen threw her head back and cackled with laughter  “What in the world is he doing? How does he even know – ”

“The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly into your service!” Tony yelled. His tie was loosened, and he was grinning up at her. Bruce Banner stood next to him, pinching the bridge of nose and trying desperately to blend in with a topiary.

“He’s mixing up the plays,” Darcy said, one hand on her hip.

“That’s what you’re getting from this?!” asked Helen incredulously.

She handed her drink off to Helen, then leaned over the railing.

“How drunk are you, Stark?”

“Rude! I was in the middle of a solil – a solay – I was in the middle of wooing the beautiful scientist!”

Darcy rolled her eyes.

Wooing.

Apparently she was being wooed. By Tony Stark of all people.

Okay, so she wasn’t completely immune.

Tony Stark was hot. He was confident. He also had like, a million advanced degrees and Darcy, herself the recent recipient of a PhD, was a person who’d quite inadvertently surrounded herself with geniuses of all disciplines.

Smart was sexy as hell.

But she also knew that Stark’s penchant for going through women like…well, a playboy billionaire, was legendary.

She was understandably cautious.

“So whaddaya say, Lewis?” Tony called out again. “You, me, dinner? Or you, me, Italy? I can have the jet ready tomorrow. Sunbathing on the Amalfi coast, baby!”

“Sleep it off, Romeo!” she yelled back, even as her martini-addled brain was coming up with interesting new ways to break public indecency laws on the beach with Tony. She told her brain to shut up and dragged a pouting Helen back inside.

On Monday morning, Darcy shuffled blearily into the lab before her morning coffee no less, to find a giant unicorn on her desk.

It was pink. Its horn was a glittery purple. It smiled manically at her with big shiny eyes.

“What – ”

“Tony,” Bruce finished for her distractedly, while swiping his way through a holo-screen littered with equations. How he could do advanced mathematics before 9am would always be a mystery to her.

Darcy groaned and picked up the phone.

He answered after the first ring.

“Do you like it?” he asked, sounding a bit breathless.

There was grunting in the background, the sound of machines whirring. Morning workout then. She scrunched her nose. At least she hoped it was a morning workout.

“Stark – ”

“Tony.”

“Tony. Why is there a giant mythological creature on my desk? Before I’ve had my coffee?”

“You don’t like him? His name is Periwinkle. He told me he likes rainbows, and sparkles, and says there’s a reservation waiting for us at Pearl at 7 this Friday if you’re up for it. He says to wear those heels that do that thing that make your ass look – ”

“Tony!”

“Yes, darling,” he purred.

“I am not your darling. No thanks to the dinner.”

“Huh. …And the unicorn?”

She paused. “I’m keeping it,” she said, and hung up on him.

“Is Tony trying to ask you out again?” Bruce asked, a small smile playing on his face.

Darcy shrugged, and ran her fingers through the Perwinkle’s hot pink mane. “I guess.”

“He went straight to the stuffed animals. He likes you a lot.”

“He likes the chase a lot. He likes buying stuff a lot. Jury’s out on whether he actually likes the sarcastic lady who yells at him sometimes.” She took the unicorn off her desk, and petted it a little sadly. “You men are so weird,” she said as Bruce went back to his work, completely oblivious. “I wish Janey was here.”

On Thursday afternoon, there were a shit ton of flowers waiting for her in her apartment.

“Whaaat the fuck,” Darcy stated as she took in the lilies and orchids and roses that were on her sofa, on every surface in her kitchen, the garland (an actual garland!) strung over the doorway to her bedroom. It was as if Tony watched that one scene from The Great Gatsby movie, shrugged, and said, ‘I could do better.’

Tony himself was standing in her living room, holding one single white orchid, smiling hopefully.

He gestured at his surroundings proudly.

“You keep buying things,” she said, simply. “And you broke into my apartment.”

Tony raised one shoulder. “I’m good at buying things. And you keep your key under your doormat.”

“You can be good at other stuff.”

“I’m good at that too,” Tony said waggling his brows.

“So I’ve heard,” Darcy said with a bit more bitterness than she wanted to. Tony’s features softened, and he was no longer leering. She sighed, moved a bouquet of white roses out of the way, and sat down heavily onto her couch motioning for him to join her.

“Actual romance,” she said, after he sat down next to her. “Romance you can’t buy.”

Tony smiled with a gleam in his eyes. She knew that gleam. That was his ‘Challenge Accepted’ gleam.

Oh no.

That Friday, Tony gawped at her.

“I’m sorry, did I hear you correctly? Did you say that you want to drive into Manhattan? On a Friday before a holiday?”

Darcy shrugged. “Not drive. I’m taking the bus.”

Tony made a face like she just suggested he run Windows Vista in his suits. “That’s it. Get your stuff, and meet me in the garage in five.”

For that entire afternoon, Tony gamely followed her around no less than four used book stores and even accompanied her to Zabar’s when she decided that what people really needed at the facility were black and white cookies. No small feat considering the holiday crowds.

Finally, laden down with bags of old books and treats, Darcy called for a break.

“Let’s get something to eat,” she said to Tony, who had seen her purchase of The Long Goodbye and was idly flipping through it in the middle of the cheese section, much to the annoyance of other shoppers.

“Thank god. I’m starving, I’ll just call – ”

“No, no fancy places with reservations. Just…follow me,” Darcy said and took the box of cookies from Tony before he could eat them all.

A bit later, they were sitting on a bench in Riverside Park eating hot dogs. Tony had a spot of mustard at the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve got a…here.” Darcy reached over and swiped at the spot with her thumb, then licked it off her finger.

Tony grinned. “So.” He looked at her with barely contained mirth. “Aren’t we just the cutest – “

Darcy sighed. “Don’t ruin the moment, Tony.”

“Who me? I’d never. I was trying to say that we make a good team. Why, what’d you think I was doing?”

Darcy rolled her eyes but smiled anyways. She nudged the toe of her red Converse to his Oxford. He winked at her then took another bite of his hot dog.

Sunday night, Darcy walked into her apartment to find that it was already occupied.

She was ready to scream at the intruder but then she saw the familiar scarf and the familiar face beneath the knit hat.

“Jane!” Darcy yelled and flung herself into her best friend’s arms. Jane hugged her back, laughing, tightening her arms around the other girl.

“Surprise!” Jane said, voice slightly muffled by Darcy’s hair.

A soft cough alerted Darcy to Tony’s presence. He stood off to the side, hands in his pockets, watching with a pleased look on his face.

“You’ve brought me Jane?!” Darcy grinned.

Jane smiled into the fabric of Darcy’s sweater. She pulled back, flicking Darcy’s nose gently.

“Hey! I brought myself. The conference was a bust anyways. Boring and totally, as you’d say, a sausage fest. Tony did call me and offered to fly me back though.”

“I didn’t pay for it!” Tony interjected, before Darcy could say anything. “I used my frequent flyer miles.”

“You have frequent flyer miles?” Darcy asked.

“I got to sit in First Class. My god, the leg room,” breathed Jane happily. “And they gave me champagne and cookies!”

Tony shuffled a bit, looking as unsure as she’d ever seen him and said, “Alright, Lewis, I’m going crazy here. Did I pass or –“

So Darcy just walked up to Tony Stark and planted one on him. Not to be outdone, Tony kissed her back just as fiercely, grinning all the while and winding an arm about her waist. He was doing things with his tongue that made her feel like her hairs were standing on end.

Vaguely, over the buzzing in her veins, Darcy heard Jane’s voice. “Um. Did I miss something? And why do have so many flowers in here?”

[starringemiliaclarke]

Press: Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones fans: 'Airports are a source of fear. It gets kind of freaky'

THE TELEGRAPH – Emilia Clarke walks into a suite at Claridge’s, a gaggle of publicists and agents surrounding her, with the kind of poise that you would expect from a queen.

  To the tens of millions of fans of Game of Thrones, the show that catapulted her to fame only a year out of drama school, it’s a not unfamiliar scene.

  Although of course, as Daenerys Targaryen, the all-powerful, slave-freeing queen of the show, it would be some kind of windswept castle or ancient pyramid, and her retinue would be in armour.

  Even her newly blonde hair is apt (until now she’s worn a wig on the show). Like the character she plays, Emilia’s is a story of success against the odds (of which more later), but there the similarities end.

  At 31, the English rose couldn’t be less like the prickly queen she plays (full title: Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains… or just Dany for short).

  Emilia is funny, light-hearted and, that entrance aside, a million miles from grand. She’s much more like the carefree, dancing girl she plays in the new campaign for the Dolce & Gabbana fragrance The One. (When the brand asked if she would be its new face, ‘I was like, “Well, yeah. Duh.”’)

  In the past, Emilia has had to deal with uncomfortable questions about how she, as a woman, justified the arguably gratuitous female nudity and gruesome violence for which Game of Thrones initially made headlines.

  But long before the Harvey Weinstein scandal turned Hollywood upside down, the show’s plot pulled a complete 180 – and now it’s the female characters who are fighting over the titular thrones. And everyone, but everyone, is rooting for the 5ft 2in Khaleesi, who is proving to be just as fierce as her dragons.

  Playing the role has sharpened Emilia’s own feminist impulses. ‘It’s given me a real insight into what it feels like to be a woman who stands up to inequality and hate. And as she [Daenerys] has become more empowered as a woman, you can’t hide any more,’ she says. ‘You are adding to the voices that are going to make people realise an equal society is what we’re aiming for.’

  Emilia grew up near Oxford with her older brothers, and was surrounded by strong examples of equality. Her mother, who worked as a marketing executive, was the primary breadwinner, while her father worked as a sound engineer in musical theatre – so it was the norm for Emilia to see a woman in a position of power at work.

  ‘That’s the lens through which I’ve been fortunate enough to view the world,’ she says. ‘It’s only when you go to school that you’re like, “Oh, that’s different, that’s weird.”’

  After attending the private boarding school St Edward’s in Oxford (where she discovered her love of acting through school productions), she was still studying at the Drama Centre in London – and earning money with a catering job – when she was cast in her first role, in an episode of BBC One’s Doctors.

  It was in 2009 that she auditioned for Game of Thrones. The casting director had been looking for a tall, willowy blonde. ‘I genuinely don’t know what it was that set me aside. I mean, I didn’t look the part at all,’ laughs Emilia.

  ‘I [readied] myself, listened to a little Tupac and bowled in, obviously still a bag of nerves. But I just tried to play the truth of it.’ It may have been her sense of humour that helped her win the role – the actress read for her part, but also broke into a ‘funky chicken’ dance in front of the HBO execs.

  As Game of Thrones gained momentum and Emilia has become a recognisable celebrity, she has struggled with some aspects of fame. She gets stopped on the street increasingly often, and finds crowds of fans incredibly stressful.

  ‘Airports are a constant source of fear,’ she admits. ‘When you’re in a really public place and someone asks you for a picture, then suddenly you get people who don’t know who you are, or really care, come up and join in. Then it gets kind of freaky. Because you’re like, “It’s just me. I’m by myself, feeling outnumbered.” It’s overwhelming.’

    One would think that all the nude scenes she’s filmed for Game of Thrones would also have caused her anxiety, but no. She has branded those who criticised her for going naked ‘anti-feminist’.

  Between seasons, Emilia has found time to film some major pop culture, including a role in Solo: A Star Wars Story, a prequel about Hans Solo’s early years to be released next year. The project remains shrouded in secrecy – all Emilia can say is that her character is ‘really cool’.

  She was also the lead in last year’s Me Before You, the adaptation of Jojo Moyes’s bestseller, and next summer she’s due to be reunited with its director, Thea Sharrock, in a West End play called Five Times in One Night.

  Both she and Kit Harington – who plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, and (spoiler alert!) is now her on-screen lover -flew to Naples to film adverts for Dolce & Gabbana (today, naturally, she’s in a black Dolce dress, with statement tiger-head buttons on the collar and sleeves). Set against the heady backdrop of a lively street festival, Emilia became swept up in the atmosphere.

  ‘I’ve been to Italy before, but not Naples,’ she says. ‘It was all locals in the advert, which was even funnier because it was so authentic. I think there were a lot of out-takes with me like, “What the hell is going on, this is so cool!” I feel Dolce & Gabbana is [for] girls [who] are at ease in their own skin,’ she says. ‘They have a frivolity and a femininity that I can relate to… It fits really well.’

  For now she’s now back on set for the final series of Game of Thrones. Last season, her Instagram feed was filled with videos of her and Harington goofing around behind the scenes. But this time around the restrictions are more serious.

  ‘We have a very strict social-media ban this year because people need to stop spoiling it for everyone,’ she says, pouting slightly. ‘It’s really frustrating.’ Even Emilia doesn’t know what’s planned for her character (the TV series has now gone past the point George RR Martin’s books have reached).

  ‘They’ve written a number of different endings,’ she says. ‘So none of the cast know what the actual ending is. If there’s ever a leak of any kind, don’t believe it because it’s probably not true.’

  No matter how it ends, Emilia seems deeply sad for Game of Thrones to leave her life. When asked how she’s feeling about it, she simply frowns and says, ‘emotional. It’s a big one.’ That said, being on the show is not without its downsides. During the seven months she spends filming each season, she typically wakes around 4am to head into hair and make-up, with 18-hour shoot days that can often involve riding prosthetic dragons in front of green screens for hours on end.

  As a result of this intense schedule, her personal life has fallen by the wayside. She dated actor Seth MacFarlane between 2012 and 2013, but isn’t currently romantically linked to anyone. Once Game of Thrones wraps for good in 2018, for the first time in seven years she will have free time.

  She often tries to remind herself that in order to create characters, you have to spend time in the real world. ‘The thing with being an actor is, to play the roles you need to have an idea of more than just getting into a car and getting to a set,’ she says.

  Her goal, lately, is to take more time to be herself. She and her best friend – the actor and writer Lola Frears (daughter of director Stephen), with whom she’s also writing a script – have been working their way through a list of 60 influential movies given to her by Solo screenwriter Jon Kasdan. The most recent: All About Eve.

  She’s reading Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, loves Kendrick Lamar and went to Glastonbury for the first time this summer. Fans filmed her dancing wildly to Stormzy’s set, but she didn’t care – she was having too much fun.

  Her family have always supported her dream of acting; although her father, being in the industry, joked early on that she’d only ever need to remember one line: ‘Do you want fries with that?’ Tragically, he died from cancer last summer while the actress was filming upcoming thriller Above Suspicion alongside Jack Huston in Kentucky.

  Now Emilia focuses on her mum and her brother, Bennett, who works in the camera department on Game of Thrones. She credits her interest in Star Wars and Comic Con culture to him. ‘My brother was a huge fan, and I wanted to be like my brother in every way,’ she laughs. ‘Sometimes he does the clapper before my takes [on Game of Thrones]. I’m always like, “Don’t f— it up!” It gets very unprofessional very quickly.’

  Game of Thrones has also brought her security – it has been estimated that she earns up to $500,000 per episode. She owns a house in the LA neighbourhood of Venice, although she admits that she rarely spends time there.

  ‘I can provide [financially] for my friends and family,’ she says. ‘Genuinely, that’s the best thing. Knowing that everyone I love is going to be fine. It sounds like a real Oprah Winfrey sob story, but it’s very true. It’s incredibly empowering as a young lady.’

  Emilia Clarke is the face of Dolce & Gabbana The One, £50 for 30ml edp.

  Press: Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones fans: ‘Airports are a source of fear. It gets kind of freaky’ was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke

[sleepykittypaws]

Sweet Mountain Christmas

Original Airdate: October 25, 2019 (Lifetime) Where to Watch?: Lifetime will re-air it in this, and future seasons; It’s also available to purchase on iTunes or to watch, with ads, for a limited time, on mylifetime.com (cable login, required).

Look, I never start watching Christmas movies until November. Like never, ever, because anticipation is a big part of the fun. But…This year, I did. So, here we are. 

Yep, I dove head first into the season on October 26th with Sweet Mountain Christmas. OK Lifetime, you win. I am powerless in the face of promised Megan Hilty singing.

And, honestly, it did not disappoint. Hilty was every bit as charming as expected, and Marcus Rosner’s dimples as deep as ever, even slightly obscured by facial hair. Hilty sang not once, not twice, but four times. Yay, Lifetime! This makes up for last year’s song-less Santa’s Boots. You are now forgiven.

Rosner is not only a snow plow driver, as advertised, but he’s also the town’s mayor. And an architect. Who is organizing the Christmas concert. He does it all! 

Gotta presume that "Winter Storm Megan” is a meta-joke, made by Hilty’s character, but is it also inside insight that Rosner longs to build a mountain dream home? Because his character in last year’s Poinsettias for Christmas had the same goal. Gotta say this was a lovely house, too. Kudos to whomever really owns that place in British Columbia.

Speaking of, at the beginning when they’re in “Malibu,” Hilty’s country star, Laney Blu, talks longingly of looking out her window and, “pretending she sees pine trees instead of palm trees,” and, viewers, her imagination is so darn good that out the window we do, indeed, see pines. Because this was shot near Vancouver, which is relatively short on palm trees.

I appreciate they sprung for the opening Dolly Parton song to set the Tennessee scene, and at least it’s believable when singers and entertainers have a big job they have to get to on Christmas, unlike when the big business deal is set to close on Christmas Eve…Which is never, ever a thing in real life. Kudos to this movie for even making a point about its last-minute big deal “not being official till after New Year’s,” because, yes, that’s how actual business over the holidays works. Though, if you took a drink every time Hilty’s Laney said she needs to “work on my choreography,” you’d have been drunk by the movie’s midway point.

When Laney meets up with her ex-boyfriend/mayor/Mr. Plow and they reminisce about their first date and the embarrassment of him forgetting his wallet, why do they leave out the fact that people would have been more likely to talk about a high school Hilty out with a 4th grader, which Rosner would have been at the time? 

Love that Lifetime lets his leading ladies date younger men, but I’d point out a real-life, 8-year age gap, yet pretending they went to high school together, if the roles were reversed, so would be remiss to ignore it here. 

Not that I minded the coupling. Sure, Rosner’s country accent came and went, but he’s likable enough for it not to matter, and they actually kissed twice in this movie, which on Hallmark would have made this TV-G-rated movie a hard-R.

Hilty and Rosner had good chemistry, and the “Caribbean rhythm" joke was legit funny. And Teryl Rothery, everyone’s favorite Christmas Mom™, is so magical a breakfast baker that she can cook pancakes before she even turns on the stove! This is actually the first of Rothery’s (at least) three holiday movie mom roles this season. She’s a pro, so don’t try making instant pancakes at home. (Just remembered Rothery also played Megan Hilty’s mom in Santa’s Boots, so she’s not just a professional Christmas Mom™, she specializes in Megan Hilty’s Christmas Moms™.)

It’s also clear that, for highly relatable reasons, Lifetime screenwriters don’t understand how private jets work. You don’t have to wait for them to take off later, or the next day. (In fact, having them wait overnight would be even more expensive.) They leave whenever you want. It’s why private jets are AWESOME…Or, so I’ve been told by Oprah.

There’s a few other funny nitpicks, like how when Hilty’s Laney greets her mom’s love interest, George, he’s painting a wall mural, which the actor promptly smeared (oops), then when she’s walking away from him, the (botched) words have vanished. Or, how the props department (c’mon, guys) couldn't find a single card or bill to put in her manager’s wallet/phone case, and the emptiness really stood out as it got a lot of screen time on their aborted ride to the airport. Doh! How about people online posting how the non-Christmas song Hilty’s character sings is, “the best Christmas concert ever”…Really? And it’s on Facebook Live? Not even Instagram? Lifetime really playing to their slightly older demographic there. (Facebook Live, where all the influencers the music industry courts hang out!)

Of course, if people streamed the concert, which they would, why didn’t anyone take a video of a big star singing at a podunk bar and put that on social media? Because, yeah, they for sure would have, and I actually kept waiting for this to be a plot point and blow up the weird Bahamas story. And in what universe is going home for Christmas, wherever home is, is a bad thing for any celeb’s rep? Pretty sure even Marilyn Manson home for the holidays wouldn’t tick off his fans.

But, having said all of that, I really enjoyed this, and even spent some time searching for the closing holiday song sung by Hilty and Kate Issac. Hot tip, there are way more songs called some variation on “Christmas Kiss” than I ever dreamed of, so if anyone knows this particular tune, let me know.

All in all, this is a highly encouraging start to the 2019 season. In fact, it made me feel jolly even with the windows open, the sun shining and jack-o-lanterns on the porch.

Final Judgement: 3 Paws Up (my highest, first-movie-of-the-season rating ever)

[darlingnisi]

Celebration Day 1 Debrief

Intro/Concert Footage

First, everyone started together in a sectioned off part of the soundstage. There was a big screen with the Celebration 2017 art, and a large Prince symbol in the back left corner, lit up with progressive lights. It was like he was watching over the whole thing!

We were welcomed by Damaris and encouraged to be fully present during the weekend. She mentioned it’s “up to us to continue his legacy.” And noted “if you are a fan of Prince, You are a part of his legacy.”

They then showed 45 minutes of the May 25, 2014 show at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. EXCELLENT quality! 

Songs included : Something in the Water Does Not Compute Pretzelbodylogic/Sailor’s Hornpipe/Stratus What’s My Name/Sacrifice of Victor (he crip walked during this part we fell out) Piano Segment (How Come U Don’t Call Me, Condition of the Heart, Diamonds & Pearls) Purple Rain (You may have seen the clip of this where he invites people to Paisley) Break 30 minute break in the food tent. They showed music videos while people enjoyed snacks or had their meal plan meals. Tyka was among us being normal. We didn’t attempt speak this time since we met her at the tribute last year, but somehow got some alone time with her and her husband while they waited for food. Still super nice!

Good idea to have music during that break since a lot of us were singing along as we moved along to the next session.

NPG 1989 - 2000

Panel discussion with Morris Hayes, Levi Seacer, Tony M and Damon Dixon. They shared their origin stories. 

Morris - In the house band for the Glam Slam, later in Carmen Electra’s Band. Opened for P during the D&P tour. Had a passive interest in being in P’s band but not totally enthused due to hours, pay, etc. When the tour was over, he went to thank Prince for having him on and P said “your work here is not done.” (lol) Kept hearing from others that he’d been added to P’s band, but never had official word about it. He was like “whaaat?” At a club in a “mandatory fun” type appearance...told by Gilbert (P’s security guy) that he should go speak to P and to be excited because he’d basically already told Prince that Morris accepted the invitation to be in the band, though he hadn’t yet. Went to speak to Prince...  Prince : “What’s up grandson? Needs some work? Need a job?” Morris was excited at first about the opportunity, then like...oh boy...i’m in Prince’s band now...with a dread/nervous/excitement.

Levi - Was in Sheila’s band playing guitar. Recruited to join P’s as a bassist. Funny story of P yelling out “If it ain’t from Minneapolis, it ain’t nothing” during a concert...while half the band was from the bay area (Sheila, Miko, Levi, Bonnie). Tony M/Damon Dixon - Wranglers during the filming of Purple Rain (in charge of getting the extras where they needed to be). They were hanging out dancing in the bathroom with their boombox when P walked in. P watched for a while then left. One of P’s people gave them a tape with 7 songs on it and instructions to make up dances to them all by 5am the next morning. They worked on the dances all night in Tony M’s mom’s apartment.

On Tony M’s raps  He was very aware that people did not like his rapping..even at the time. 

On Goldnigga saving a lot of the NPG “I was in a wheelchair with a tailpipe on it and Prince pulled me out...he saved me” Note : Morris is a CHARACTER OKAY?! LOOOOOL

On the band playing other people’s songs, but P not allowing other people to do his Morris questioned P about this while practicing a cover. P’s response “because this is what they MEANT to do...”

On the Creation of Diamonds and Pearls’ Lead Single After a promo concert at WB, the President of WB called Levi and said the album didn’t have a single yet...and wanted Levi to tell Prince this. Levi was like “why me?!” They felt he could deliver the message better. Levi let P know and he was upset...but worked on a song in the meantime. 5 hours later...P called Levi into the studio at 5 am...hit play...and played Cream. After it was over P asked him, “Do you think they’ll like it?”

Prince’s Guitars

With guitar tech Takuemi and Dave Rusen creator of the Cloud Guitar

- The Cloud Guitar from Purple Rain was made from scratch in 3 weeks. - Prince never broke a string on a guitar, at least while Takuemi was with him - Takuemi caught the guitar at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, handed it to Oprah, and walked off. As instructed by Prince

Special Guest Concert

Front row for George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic!

I will say...it was FUNKY!

I will also say....Ghost Prince would have made a FORTUNE for the swear jar.... Wow...

And so concludes day 1! *Pics from the Paisley Park Twitter Account

[luckycharmsd]

#DisruptionAndUncertainty

+The storm continued to rage on outside with gusty whistling winds that slapped rain steadily against the cabin, but the roaring fire within crackled and soon began to ember, keeping the occupants nice and warm.... or maybe it was just us. Her angelic moans were a perfect guide to continue with the languid licks that trailed up the column of her delicate neck and back to her lips so she could taste herself too, after all, how selfish would I be to keep those sweet nectars all to myself. The kiss was one to savor as I got a combined taste of her. She was still trembling all over, especially at her thighs. Her quickened breathing hadn't subsided at all, neither did her thunderous heartbeat, and I could still feel her muscles and nerves twitching against my massive frame which barely lay weighted on her. She may have just enjoyed this more than I did.... Damp golden tresses were tousled and splayed against creamy skin, and the perfect curves of her bare body glistened in a sheen of lightly beaded sweat while she lay sated by the fire, after I had evidently fulfilled a deep desire to please her. Nothing about what just happened was for my gain, but all about hers. With great reluctance I ended up breathlessly and slowly pulling my greedy lips away from hers but no more than a hairbreadth, her eyes so soft and sure as she looked up and held my stare effortlessly. I wanted so much to keep the stare engaged with her but there was sudden and very annoying pinging in the distance that continued to get louder and louder... the more it did, the more she faded, and more I woke up. It took a ample amount of blinks and a good run through the hair before sitting upright to scan the living room and quickly realize that not only was I the only occupant out here but my ass was obviously dreaming some very inappropriate shit about a certain female. I let out a long drawn out breath I hadn't realized I was holding and reached for the god forsaken phone that kept pinging. One missed call and one missed voice message pops up when I swipe the screen, its from Trehvor.+ (Msg: Sire, I am in route to you now, accompanied by Fritz and Saxton, son of Thym. We shall reach you shortly.) A few questions began to run through my head as I set the phone back down and headed down the hall to my room to throw something on, like what the hell was this meet for and why did it involve the lawyer? Only one person came to mind, Alex. But what was up with the male? He stopped coming around again, not even so much as call to see how Rhyan was. This has been the norm for the last couple of months now so what was this meet up for? Time would tell eventually so in the meantime I continued working into a pair of faded blue jeans and a black tee, followed up with some socks and a pair of worn in chucks. I saw nothing more needed on my end and went on to lil mans room, building an away bag for Rhyan which consisted of a spare set of clothes, shoes, and some toys. His snacks would be next in to complete after I got him ready. The signature knuckle rapping on the front door indicated that Trehvor was here and when it opened the three amigos came in, but it was Fritz who gave lead with Trehvor at his left, and the well dressed male Saxton to his right as they filed in and he made his announcement.+ "Mr. Whalker, The presence of you and the young is sternly requested at the brotherhood mansion by King Wrath himself. You have matters of which to attend to and are to be guested as long as deemed needed." +Well damn, I wasn't going to say no anyway but this sounded more on the serious side than I thought, not to mention you just didn't decline a request from the King, plus it was duly noted in his tone to make haste of being here.+ "We are ready. Just let me grab my boy and we can go." +That took a brief moment as I went down the hall to his room and scooped up a very sleepy Rhyan into my arms and made way back to the front door where Fritz had picked up our bags and Trehvor with the carseat. Saxton hadn't said a thing, more like examining with keen eyes around the cabin for some reason. I was tempted to get up in his grill for it but what good would come of it? The male meant no harm from what I sensed. Rhyan was top priority in getting situated, Trehvor had his booster secured center seat in the back just as I was ready to strap him in. The lil dude didn't even budge, he was out cold, couldn't be bothered with what was going on. Trehvor sat in the back on one side of Rhyan and me on the other, Saxton had got up in the front passenger seat right as Fritz closed the trunk and made his way to the drivers seat. A full load we were. The drive was a good 45 minutes give or take, nothing but lush forest in the vast once you bypass the lights of the city, but just as I remembered a thick layer of fog blanketed everything in sight. It made me wonder how Fritz was able to drive so damn good in it. Eyes like a eagle I guess. After passing through a few massive gates and another good mile or so back, we were finally pulling up to the front of the gargantuan sized estate. We all filed out of the Mercedes at once, I had Rhyan, the loyal pair of doggens took to the light cargo we had and Saxton again just observed. Definitely was getting under my skin now. Fritz was first at the cathedral styled door outside which he coded his way into. Both he and Saxton held it wide as we all passed into the vestibule where Fritz went through a quick cam scan and the locks to the manse main entrance were released. When the door opened, we were greeted by a face I didn't know at all before granting us passage inside, addressing Fritz and Trehvor instantly with a more than casual whatsuuup, then Saxton....+ "Hey GQ, you look like runway material. Come strut your stuff for me in the game room for shits n giggles while I get down with some Oprah Winfrey Network." +Saxton barely gave the heavily pierced up male with long blonde and black streaked hair a scoff in passing as he went up the grand staircase, which made the male chuckle before shaking his head.+ "He's too easy.... and I remember you, Whalker. Last time you were here the docs were patching you up from a three on one in a alley. Not a bad job either as I heard tell. It's good to see you again and with a young no less. I'm Lassiter by the way, in case you don't remember and in a rude need to depart your presence, as I hear Maury about to read some results on baby daddy drama. Again, good to see you." +The male took off out of the grand foyer like we was about to miss the super bowl kick off or some shit, but for Maury results? Yeah that made me chuckle some as I re situated Rhyan in my arms and walked over the massive mosaic apple tree, following Fritz down a opposite corridor that led me to something I did remember, the room I briefly stayed in the last time I was here.+ "If you find yourself or the young in need of anything that's herein naught, use the phone to dial star-four and I shall see that you get what's needed. Do rest well, Mr. Whalker." "And I shall depart back to the cabin until your return sire. I will make sure all is tended to for your return." +Trehvor added in before both doggens took a bow and left me to settle in. I hadn't seen anyone outside of Lassiter in passing upon our arrival, most likely because everyone was close to or sleeping already perhaps. Who knew. This place was a fucking palace, a massive compound that even the guest rooms made five star resorts look like cockroach motels in comparison. Too lavish for words. Rhyan hadn't budged at all throughout the drive but then again this whole ordeal was well passed his bedtime, and speaking of bed..... The king sized bed across the room was more than inviting and it didn't take long to get little man situated center of the bed and tucked in, but as inviting as it was I couldn't bring myself to fall into it just yet.... now that I had a chance to sit down again, all I could think of was that dream, with fucking HD detail. After kicking off my chucks i took up res and sprawl out on the sofa sleeper and let my head swim around her again. I had picked her up off the couch quickly, earning me a yelp and a laugh from her lips as I set her down by the fire and pull off her heels slowly. I stroked her feet, making her giggle and squirm then kiss the tips of her toes before making my way up her inner thighs, leaving trails of softly presses kisses heading north. I gazed up at her as I lift her skirt up, over her hips, and then with my teeth i hook the elastic of her underwear and pull down. I guide her legs up, so her thighs are leveled on my shoulders and I lean in to press my face closer to her sex, kissing her around her outer lips, teases her. My tongue slides out and settles over her bundle of nerves, flicking it rhythmically with my tongue and I’m just lost in her taste, in heaven, specially as I watched her stretch out like a cat and letting me pleasure her next to a roaring fire. Her dainty little hand gripped onto my hair, pulling me harder against her, I mash myself against her core and lap at her like i need it to live. “Oh shit,” She hisses, feeling the temperature of her core rising as her body suddenly arched and rolls in a wave until she's shuddering and bucking against my face, feeding me her very essence of her. She was liquefied and absolutely breathtaking as she lay sprawled out. I could see myself slowly licking and nipping my way up her creamy curves and to her lips so I could share. Fuck! I scrub a hand over my face and release a ragged exhale as I lay there reliving a dream. That's all it was dude, get over it. She was too good for a male like me and long gone from her visit anyways. I looked over across the room at Rhyan sleeping and thought I needed that shit too. Dwelling on things unknown and untouchable will just warp the mind. Sleep would prove to hold merit, specially with whatever business needed to be handled with The King, so sleep is what I soon accepted as I passed out rather uncomfortably on the couch.+

[joeygoeshollywood]

Six Celebrities Who Are Surprisingly Rational About The Election

The vast majority of liberal Hollywood is still in denial about the outcome of the election. Some of the biggest actors, musicians, and comedians simply cannot be reasoned with. However, there are a handful of brave individuals who may not have supported Donald Trump but are able to either give him a chance or simply acknowledge why he won. Let’s take a look at six celebrities in particular who miraculously expressed logic, empathy, and optimism in the wake of the election.

Oprah Winfrey

Once a huge Obama supporter who eventually endorsed Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey shared her hopefulness on Twitter when President-Elect Trump sat down with the current president tweeting “Everybody take a breath! #HopeLives”. Of course, she received a ton of backlash and she called her tweet a “mistake”, but then she went on to clarify what she meant, saying

“I couldn’t breathe after the election, So, when I saw them sitting together, and I actually took a picture of the screen that said ‘President-elect Trump honored to meet Obama.’ President Obama was being so gracious, and I heard Donald Trump say, ‘He’s a good man.’ I heard Donald Trump say, ‘I’m going to be seeking his counsel.’ I literally went…I can breathe now.”

Despite being one of the most iconic liberal women in the world, Winfrey was able to essentially make lemonade out of lemons and see some good in the aftermath of what was for her a disappointing election.

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks was once voted as the most trusted man in America. Perhaps that’s because he has never allowed himself to become unhinged about politics. Being honored at an event in New York the day after the election, he offered some sort of a pep talk, saying “We are going to be all right because we constantly get to tell the world who we are... We have the greatest country in the world because we are always moving towards a more perfect union.”. But then he added, “There’s great like-minded people out there who are Americans first and Republicans or Democrats second. I hope the president-elect does such a great job that I vote for his re-election in four years.” Here, not only was he willing to give President-Elect Trump a chance, he hopes he succeeds as president. No wonder he was voted the most trusted man in America.

Marie Osmond

Longtime entertainer and the current face of Nutrisystem Marie Osmond was asked during a recent interview about whether she’d perform at Trump’s inauguration she said this:

“I don’t get political… But when it comes to our country, I think we need to unite. And to not support our president, I think, is wrong. I think we should all support our president whether we’re happy or sad. This is America. We should come together and I think an inauguration should be a time to unite, it really should.”

Due to heavy backlash, she did release a statement that she would not perform at the inauguration no matter who won the election, but her sentiment of supporting the president even if you didn’t vote for him is the right thing to do.

Nicole Kidman

Promoting her latest film Lion, Nicole Kidman was asked by BBC News what her thoughts were on Donald Trump. The Australian actress acknowledged that she tends to be hesitant about discussing politics (and I don’t blame her), but having voted in the election as a US citizen, she stated that “he was elected president and we as a country need to support who’s ever the president because that’s what the country is based on. And however he got elected, he’s there and let’s go”. After being slammed on social media, he clarified in an interview with Access Hollywood that she “believes in democracy”. While she may be from the down under, Kidman showed that she’s American by respecting the election process and stressing the importance that the country should unite behind the Commander in Chief.

Steve Harvey

Last week, talkshow host Steve Harvey was asked by the transition teams of both President Obama and President-Elect Trump to meet with the incoming president at Trump Tower. Now having met, he says he’s glad he did. In the meeting, Trump got his HUD secretary nominee Dr. Ben Carson on the phone to discuss how to improve inner cities. He stated, “I walked away feeling like I had just talked with a man who genuinely wants to make a difference in this area. I feel that something really great could come out of this.". And he added that he would meet with Trump “anytime”. The Family Feud emcee was able to put his personal politics aside and not only extend an olive branch to Trump, he’s even willing to make a positive contribution to inner cities under the Trump administration. You can’t get more respectable than that, especially for Hollywood’s standards.

Zoe Saldana

Very few in Hollywood were able to self-reflect about this election like actress Zoe Saldana did. The star of the Star Trek and the Guardians of the Galaxy franchises, who opposed Trump during the election cycle came to the realization that Hollywood  “got cocky and became arrogant” and that they “also became bullies”. Then she added, "We were trying to single out a man for all these things he was doing wrong...and that created empathy in a big group of people in America that felt bad for him and that are believing in his promises.". This came just days after Meryl Streep called the president-elect a bully at the Golden Globes. And Saldana is absolutely right. Sure, there was plenty of things to criticize Trump about, but Hollywood’s nonstop bombardment of attacks, many of them being completely cruel, that it caused Middle America to support Trump even more, having the opposite effect of what Hollywood wanted. And sadly, judging from comments made by the vast majority of these celebrities, that’s a lesson they will never learn.

Am I missing any other celebrities that were surprisingly rational about the election? Let me know!

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-timothy-greenfield-sanders-reveals-remarkable-toni-morrison-pieces/

Interview: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Reveals the Remarkable ‘Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am’

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am offers an artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the legendary storyteller and Nobel prize-winner. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio, to 1970s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history, and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature. Inspired to write because no one took a “little black girl” seriously, Morrison reflects on her lifelong deconstruction of the master narrative. Woven together with a rich collection of art, history, literature, and personality, the film includes discussions about many of her critically acclaimed works, including novels The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Solomon, her role as an editor of iconic African-American literature, and her time teaching at Princeton University.

In addition to Ms. Morrison, the film features interviews with many of her friends including Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez , and Oprah Winfrey. Using Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ elegant portrait-style interviews, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am includes original music by Kathryn Bostic, a specially created opening sequence by artist Mickalene Thomas, and evocative works by other contemporary African-American artists including Kara Walker, Rashid Johnson, and Kerry James Marshall. I was deeply moved by this film, which could not be coming out at a better time. I spoke to director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders who has known Toni Morrison for almost 40 years.

Danny Miller: I thought this was such a remarkable film, and I’m guessing I’m not the first person who ran from the theater the second it was over to go get one of the Toni Morrison’s books that I hadn’t read.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: Oh, which one was it?

Song of Solomon, and I’m so loving it.

Oh, wow. You have such a great read in front of you!

Do you get a lot of this kind of reaction from people who have seen the film?

I do. It’s funny, I was at a screening in Florida recently and bumped into a woman before the screening and she asked me if Song of Solomon was covered in the film. I said yes, a little bit, and then she went on to quote the last 50 or so words from the book. She told me that when she first read that passage at three in the morning, her heart just fell apart. That book has a profound effect on people, as does so much of Toni’s work.

Her books kind of wash over you, and I find I experience them very differently now compared to when I read them when I was young. Toni Morrison is definitely someone that a lot of us put up on a pedestal, so it’s wonderful to see her in this film as a real human being. Still, when I inquired about covering this film, and they made it very clear up front that Toni Morrison herself was not available for interviews, my simultaneous reaction was “Oh, dammit!” and “Oh, thank God!” I so idolize her brilliance that I probably would have freaked out to be sitting across from her.

You’re not alone. I was talking to someone recently who told me they were in line to talk to Toni at a book signing and they had all these questions ready that they had thought about for a long time and wanted to ask her, but when they got up to the front, they couldn’t speak, they just handed her their book. (Laughs.) What I especially love about the film is that we do see the Toni that I have known for 38 years, this very real person who is so funny, and so quick and insightful. And at the same time, there’s a deep wisdom there and a tremendous amount of authenticity — she’s someone who has so much to say.

I would imagine she’s had endless requests from filmmakers over the years to do a film like this. Was there a courting process on your part to convince her to do it or was she on board right away?

Well, she didn’t say no when I first asked her which was a few years ago. Toni wrote the introduction and read it for me for the documentary I did called The Women’s List in 2015.  It was around that time that I started bringing up the idea of doing this film. Her concerns were mostly about what time constraints it would have on her and if it would take too much time away from her own work. I said, well, here’s what I need from you and I’ll do everything else. I told her it had to be enjoyable to her and said  how much fun I thought we could have doing it, and she said, “Okay, let’s go!”

Was it nerve-wracking to show her the film for the first time? 

I showed it to her as soon as it was finished, and after it ended her only comment was, “I like her.”

Wow, you can’t ask for a better reaction than that! You know, I’d love a two-hour documentary on every single person you interviewed for the film, they were just phenomenal.

I agree with you. I mean, look at that group of people we assembled from Walter Mosley to Sarah Griffin and David Carrasco; from Sonia Sanchez to Angela Davis, it’s just a fantastic level of intelligence and remarkable careers, all of them. I felt very privileged that they did it.

I really love your photography and was wondering if you think that the ability you’ve honed over the years to create such intimacy with your portrait subjects is what allows you to get such great results with the interviews you do in your films.

Yes, I do think, as a portrait photographer I’m pretty good at making people feel comfortable. From the moment they walk in the door, I’m reading them and trying to understand what any nervousness they might have is about and how I can encourage them to trust me. I think that skill translates over to film when I’m doing the same thing with Paula Giddings or Russell Banks or Angela, whoever is coming in the door, trying to make them feel when they’re sitting there talking about Toni that they’re in a very safe space.

Does that go both ways? Do you ever have a photography subject you just don’t feel you can reach? (And yes, I’m partly talking about that session you did with Donald Trump years ago!)

(Laughs.)  Oh boy. I’ll say it’s definitely not as much fun to shoot Republicans, It’s hard when you have such anger toward someone politically, I admit it. I’ve photographed both Bushes and I had a lot I wanted to say to them but I didn’t say any of it, it’s not my place to do that. I remember many years ago when I was photographing Orson Welles, I said to him, “What’s your favorite movie?” And he said to me, “I don’t play games like that.” I got it instantly. I’m there to take his portrait, not to act like a tourist. I should have said, “Would you like some coffee? Are you comfortable?” So I learned. But it can be difficult. Was it more fun photographing Teddy Kennedy than George Bush? Yes.

Although I have to say, I remember that photo you took  of George and Laura Bush in the White House, I always loved that photo, I think you really captured something there.

Thank you.

To be honest, with all the insanity going on in this country right now, I always try to think of people like Toni Morrison to calm myself down. I try to remember that there are so many incredibly brilliant, positive people in this country doing great things who didn’t simply vanish into thin air because of who was elected to public office and how deteriorated many aspects of our culture have become.

I agree. I can’t think of a time when we need a film like this more, if I can say that.

No, it’s exactly what I was thinking. Of course, the part of the film that makes me furious is the reaction from the white male literary community when she wins the Nobel Prize. Just outrageous. Did any of those people ever live to publicly regret their words or even publicly disavow them? 

Well, one of them is still alive, I won’t say his name because I don’t want to bring any attention to him, but I know he still feels that way. I mean, he’s just an ass. I don’t know about the other ones. That happened 25 years ago so it’s been a long time. But when I’ve watched the film with audiences, that part always gets audible gasps.

Have you been getting any reactions at screenings that surprised you? 

I’m always very moved. At a screening I was just at, a young black woman got up to ask a question afterwards. She stood there for a minute and then she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t really speak now. I’m so moved by the film, I can’t even articulate my question,” and she sat down. As a filmmaker, it’s a wonderful feeling to know that the film is reaching people’s hearts as well as their minds.

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am opens in select theaters on June 21, 2019.

[thatz-not-okay]

For a short period of time I had a really intense emotional and physical relationship with a guy. The first times we had sex were all at his place. Eventually I invited him to my place where we spent a weekend in and out of bed. When he left I noticed that the condom wrappers were gone from the floor and also not in the trash can. I wouldn't have noticed but I wanted to purposefully leave one out for my ex to see when he walked our co-owned dogs. My ex cheated on me with a bunch of people, has treated me pretty badly since the break up, and brings his new girl friend over to my house when I'm not there even though I've asked him explicitly not to. The next time I was over at the new guy's place, after we had sex and he left the room, I realized the drawer where he keeps his unused condoms was open. I noticed that he had kept all of the used condom wrappers from when we had sex at his place and collected the ones from my place as well to keep in his drawer. Is that okay?

Thatz okay.

Do you realize that your complaint about him being creepy for saving condom wrappers is hindered by the fact that, earlier in the story, you also tried to save a condom wrapper? Remember? How you were put out he took the condom wrapper from your apartment because you had already earmarked it for your own uses?

First of all, a condom costs about 75 cents, so if you were committed to the "Oops-is-that-my-condom-wrapper-did-I-leave-my-condom-wrapper-out" stunt, you could have just gotten another one. No one's going to factcheck your passive-aggressive scheme:

This type of condom is dispensed from a machine thirty miles away from her nearest fuck buddy's house. And the wrapper is still warm, meaning it must have been placed here less than a minute ago. Also, it's taped to the middle of the television screen.

Secondly, the old leaving a condom out trick is for kids. (Not young kids.) You might as well have left your journal open to an entry reading "Man, more sex with a hot, thoughtful gentleman last night! Am I doing too much banging?" BOTH TRICKS ARE EQUALLY SUBTLE.

Yes, it's a little odd that a person would save the wrappers instead of throwing them away, like most people. But is it negatively impacting anyone involved? Unintentional sabotage of your bullshit scheme aside, probably not. (And it's much more sanitary than saving the condoms.)

You and I have no idea why this guy is amassing a treasure trove of jewel-toned condom wrappers. Maybe he's a sentimental type and was compiling a Scrapbook of Our Love to give you on your one year anniversary. ("The time I loved you on my living room couch....The time I loved you behind the dumpsters of your favorite Vietnamese restaurant"). Maybe he was going to use them to make a brightly colored holiday wreath. Maybe he was engineering a beautiful art installation about contraception. Maybe he's planning to pull the same trick you were, except that he's dreaming on a scale bigger than your ambition goes. Maybe one day, six years from now, his ex-girlfriend will open the door to her studio apartment and be buried under an avalanche of gold, purple, and turquoise Trojan wrappers.

Maybe he just fucking looooves condom wrappers.

Did you confront him about it? Say "Hey...any reason you're saving all our condom wrappers?" or "Hey...please stop saving all our condom wrappers," or "Hey, I know you stole some personal property from my home in the form of a condom wrapper, and I want you to know I've already called the police."

On that note, I wonder, too, how you were able to discern that all the wrappers you saw in his drawer were from your sexual encounters. Did the condoms have your name written on them? Do you have your own private line of condoms?

The main issue here is not that a guy you slept with a few times was a weirdo about keeping condom wrappers. It's that your relationship with your ex-boyfriend is insanely fucked up. He shouldn't be bringing people into your home without your permission. You shouldn't be laying clever traps for him.

At the end of the day, the guy you had a fling with is the dude with a drawer full of rainbow foil—haha, that's odd. You are the crazy girl he dated who used your relationship with him as a pawn in a twisted mind game with your ex.

Worst of all, now that you've moved on from that guy, you won't even be able to manipulate his emotions by leaving an empty condom wrapper out for him to find. He'd see it as just a spot of good fortune; like finding a wheat penny or a Beanie Baby or whatever else other men collect.

I am 35 and have never been in a romantic relationship. Over the years, I have gone on numerous dates but never connected with anyone. Otherwise, my life is great. I have a wide circle of friends, a close family, a fulfilling profession, and (because of the constant rejection) the time and resources to pursue other hobbies and interests. I would like to bury myself in work and give up on ever meeting someone. Yet I feel like I would also be giving up on a fundamental part of being human, connecting (emotionally, spiritually, physically – what have you) with another person. Given how I have already built my life alone, this almost guarantees (absent a reformable female burglar) a life of permanent bachelorhood. Having struck out for 15 years straight, I think it might be time to give up and embrace dying alone. Is that okay?

Thatz okay.

There's a difference between being alone and being lonely.

Being alone is great. You are the captain of your own catamaran. You are having hot dogs for dinner every night because hot dogs are your favorite. No one is accidentally on purpose leaving revenge-condom wrappers scattered around your apartment for you to find. Every night is like this.

It's much better to be happy alone than to force yourself into a marriage because it feels like you really should be married by now. You know who's not married? Oprah. Do we feel bad for Oprah because her life is unfulfilled?

We do not. Oprah's life is the ultimate single-person fantasy. Unlimited resources, unlimited cream couches, and, at the end of the day, she gets to fall asleep in the middle of the bed. A married Oprah would be less magic. A married Oprah would be Ellen.

Being lonely, on the other hand, sucks. So, before you dramatically shut the curtain on dating forever, make sure you're the former rather than the latter. Relationships aren't a one-trip salad bar. There an unlimited seafood buffet, and there are always more clams casino.

If you don't feel like dating anyone because you're happy being a party of one, that's great. Be prepared to have family and friends offer to set you up with people until you are no longer of marriageable age. (If you politely decline, be prepared for them to think you harbor a secret weird fetish.) When you do die, you will make someone's day by leaving your fortune to them.

(Incidentally, 35 is a bit early to embrace dying at all, never mind alone. Are you a caveman? An ovary? Maybe, for the time being, embrace living alone?)

If you're resigning yourself from dating because you just don't think you'll ever find anyone, stop being a drama queen. Apart from planning your death at 35, you sound normal and well adjusted, which is all most people want.

Unless you are Batman (which would explain your time and resource-draining "hobbies and interests" as well as your eagerness to enter into a relationship with a female cat burglar) your lifestyle probably does not prevent you from engaging in, at the very least, online dating. Make yourself a profile. Spring for one of the paid sites since you've got money to burn.

And if you're hoping to meet a female burglar, leave your window open, I guess? But be warned that any lady who scales your home to rob you is probably a crackhead.

[stagesofabreakup]

Stages of a Breakup: Week 51

1. Set an alarm to get up and go to the gym

2. Get up

3. Do not go to the gym

4. Watch The Office instead

5. Decide you’ll go after you see the room you might rent

6. Go there

7. See the room

8. Meet their drug dealer who just got back from a trip to South America where he did Ayahuasca and got burned with frog venom

9. Smoke a lot of weed with your potential roommates

10. “Chill” for like 4 hours

11. Buy and eat half a whole chicken with plantains and sautéed vegetables from a restaurant nearby

12. Hang out more

13. Fall in love with the dog that lives there

14. Agree to live there even though it is very messy and has no windows because you like the people and it feels like college and New York is very isolating and you think this will be good for you overall

15. Go to a mic with one of the roommates and his girlfriend

16. You’re still very high

17. Your friend Molly is at the mic thank god

18. Talk to her

19. Be interrupted by other friends she has

20. One of them says the guy who moved out of the room you just agreed to take said it was very bad living there

21. But you don’t think it’ll bother you?

22. Worry a little

23. Go up

24. Do ok!

25. For how high you are this is a good miracle

26. Walk with Molly to a fancy grocery store, she buys a salad and ice cream, the essentials

27. Her boyfriend got an interview for a writing job!

28. Walk home with her

29. It’s rainy but nice

30. You take the train to a show one of your new roommates runs/booked you on that day because you were sitting on the couch

31. Get there very early

32. Also everyone else is late

33. Charge your phone

34. Introduce yourself to what you think is another comic but turns out to just be an audience member

35. The show is called “Permission to Fail” and you’re supposed to work on new material which you do but both your new roommates are watching and you wish you had just done the hits so they know you’re very funny

36. They have to know right?

37. It doesn’t seem to matter, they hang and talk to you afterwards

38. Look up where you’re going & you all take the train together

39. It’s fun and you like them

40. Pass by Mr. Mando’s, a grocery store/produce stand

41. Buy so much fresh fruits and vegetables and it’s only 7 dollars!!!

42. Also buy a 12 pack of Rolling Rock because you love beer and it was only 10 dollars

43. Carry it all on the train for like 40 more minutes

44. Get home

45. Cherish how clean this home is and how high the ceilings are

46. Wonder if you are making a horrible mistake

47. Wish you could call your mom and get her opinion

48. You’re also a little scared to get it but ultimately you gotta know

49. Clean out some DISGUSTING food from your refrigerator

50. Eat some good food

51. Look through a lot of your old Facebook posts

52. Have maybe a crush on one of your new roommates?

53. Think about what making out with him would be like

54. Want to masturbate because soon you’ll be losing this detachable showerhead

55. Do

56. Feel physically weak from cumming so hard

57. Sleeeeeeeeeeeep

58. Wake up

59. Masturbate again! You really don’t want to get this day started

60. Make a pros and cons list about the new apartment

61. Call your mom

62. Talk it over with her

63. She reminds you that you feel very comfortable around a lot of messy boys

64. Thrive even

65. Feel better

66. Put off going to the gym some more

67. Call your friend Rachel on the phone

68. She is great

69. It is Rihanna’s birthday!!!

70. Decide the gym isn’t happening for you today

71. Drink a beer

72. Eat some stuff

73. Get ready to cook all the fresh veggies you got yesterday

74. Instead make a list of your favorite comedians and a list of your least favorite comedians and publish them (just to Facebook, nothing fancy)

75. Watch lots and lots of The Office

76. Cry at Jim & Pam’s wedding

77. Make a big fun dish that’s so many things

78. Drink too much beer

79. Slow down

80. Request a day off from work to move

81. Wonder if you should do two?

82. Be excited about moving!!!!!!!

83. Have a really intense conversation with someone online about whether or not Amy Schumer raped someone

84. Try to think about packing since you have to do that in 7 days

85. Masturbate again

86. Be on the computer for H O U R S

87. Put on a dvd (Shooter)

88. Be shocked at how many people like David Letterman

89. Up

90. YOUR FRIEND JESSICA IS PREGNANT AND ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

91. Omg

92. So exciting!

93. People are at an age where they are keeping their babies so that’s always shocking

94. Eat a bowl of whatever it was you made last night (mushrooms, red & yellow peppers, brocolli, corn, kielbasa, potatoes)

95. Facebook and text and Instagram for a long time

96. Like too long

97. These screens feel like a trap lately

98. Ughhhh agree to work 1.5 hours later than you were scheduled even though you really don’t want to you just need the $$

99. Request another day off for packing cause you’re stressed

100. You should text the guy to ask him to measure to see if the bed will fit but you’re scared

101. Your friend Gabe asks if you want to talk on the phone

102. You do!!!!!

103. It helps a lot

104. You text about the bed and book a TaskRabbit which is stressful because he only has a truck and you’re not sure everything will fit in there

105. He texts back with the measurements!!!! Your bed will fit!!!! Thank the lords

106. Feel anxious

107. Start packing, decide you won’t go to the gym

108. Go to work

109. Have a fun day

110. Make not that much in tips

111. Make up for it in free shrimp that a private party leaves behind

112. Go out for drinks with coworkers/managers

113. It’s so fun!

114. Spend like 25 dollars

115. Go to another bar

116. Get a little tipsy

117. Find out one of your managers is going to be your new neighbor!!!! Like on the same block neighbor!!!!

118. You can carpool home when you’re both working and it won’t be that bad!!

119. Get driven home

120. Too drunk

121. Fall asleep without drinking any water

122. Remember to put the shrimp in the refrigerator though

123. Wake up feeling bad and with a surprisingly deep cut on your finger

124. You have a message from the guy who’s room you’re taking about a deposit

125. This is stressful, no one has mentioned this to you yet

126. Decide to ignore it? Message him back you’ll talk to the roommates

127. Ugh

128. You’re supposed to hang out with your friend Gaby today but you feel like shit and need to pack

129. See a piece in GQ about Brendan Fraser and really want to send it to your ex bc he loved him and talked about him a lot (lol) but practice restraint and don’t

130. You need to start packing!

131. Eat some shrimp

132. Talk to your friend Molly on the phone for an hour

133. Go through some clothes

134. Decide to get rid of a bunch

135. A woman posts in a secret group you’re in about a breakup and a million other women immediately start commenting & it makes you excited for the response to this project, and also proud at how far you’ve come because you realized you’re not in the thick of it anymore like she is

136. But you still need some stuff and this thread is great

137. Women are so great

138. Watch a video of Tiffany Haddish meeting Oprah

139. It’s….great

140. You really need to do laundry

141. It’s 5:53pm

142. Frame a piece of Beyonce wrapping paper you’ve had sitting next to the unopened frame for 3 months

143. You do your laundry at 8:30pm!!!!

144. It only took you the whole day ☺

145. Call your dad’s landline (which he referred to as an “LL”)

146. Get your grandma & him

147. Chat

148. Feel happy that you did at least one productive thing today

149. Bake a cake!

150. Put away the laundry while it’s baking

151. Eat 2 pieces of cake

152. Stay up way too fucking long

153. Wake up way too fucking early

154. Feel an emptiness where rest would be deep in your bones

155. Take the train for an hour

156. Babysit for 10 hours

157. Almost fall asleep 3 times

158. Get 2 free meals out of it

159. Travel another hour to Redhook to see your friend Iris and her brother Max who lives here but you haven’t seen since you moved and meet his baby!!!

160. The baby doesn’t really like you

161. Get ice cream and beer

162. Hang!!!

163. It’s so nice

164. See a video of their house you spent so much time in/grew up in now that it’s all renovated

165. Iris drives you home which is a blessing

166. Shower

167. MASTURBATE

168. Wash your hair

169. All things that needed to happen

170. Your friend Ariel offered to drive some stuff to your new house

171. You texted those boys about when to get a key and the security deposit, they haven’t responded yet which makes you nervous

172. Iris is going to stay with you the night before you move

173. Put on makeup

174. Go to work

175. Get a huge group of girls who unintentionally all wore white and only tip 3 dollars

176. Go shopping on your break

177. GET NEW SHOES FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

178. Also get 2 pairs of black jeans, an item of clothing you’ve always wanted but never found that fits you!!!!

179. You have a 20$ off coupon for the shoes so they are 40 instead of 60 and the jeans were half off so they are each 25 instead of 50!

180. Call your mom and tell her how happy you are

181. Have a conversation with your co-worker about how he and his girlfriend broke up this week

182. You can’t tell if he’s hitting on you or not

183. Your cousin comes in on a date!!!!!!!!

184. You haven’t seen him since you moved out of your Grandma’s apartment

185. It’s really good to see him and you do love him

186. Make 153 dollars in tips

187. Go home

188. Eat pasta, a crabcake and real cake in that order

189. Agonize over whether or not you should switch shifts with someone for tomorrow

190. One is more money but longer and you’re so tired and you need to pack

191. But moneyyy

192. You stay up until 5:00am

193. Go to your normal shift

194. Stop at a .99 cent store on the way, buy 12 tubes of glitter glue, 5 small notebooks for gifts and a magenta shade of mirror nail polish

195. You make almost no money

196. Retape a bunch of axes

197. But have fun hanging out with people

198. And listening to a Kanye Pandora station

199. That during a Drake song someone comes in and says, “I didn’t know you were so gangster”

200. …………………………………because you’re listening to a Drake song

201. Good lord

202. Leave

203. Think about waiting for one of your co-workers to walk with him but you don’t want it to look like you’re waiting because the last time you saw him you all got beers and he’s being a little distant since then so maybe you were flirty and he didn’t like it???

204. This all might just be in your head

205. But you don’t wanna risk rejection on any level

206. Go home

207. Plan on packing

208. Write a Facebook post about Mardi Gras things

209. Paint your nails with the new nail polish and try the nail gems you got for Mardi Gras and never ended up using!!!

210. First they look ugly but then when you add more they look cool!!!!

211. Watch a disturbing but interesting music video by someone named Melanie Martinez

212. Do literally nothing for probably 5 hours

213. Eat a lot

214. Drink 3 beers

215. Find a different coworkers ACTING website which is truly terrible

216. He also told you he cheated on his girlfriend more than once and that’s why they’re breaking up

217. Find her acting website

218. It’s way better and she’s so talented

219. Marvel at how mediocre guys treat incredible women like shit??????

220. Start doing SOME packing at like 2:00am

221. Find the part of Etsy dedicated to “Kanye West Prayer Candles”

222. Get lost in there for a while

223. Drink another beer

224. Listen to Jamiroquai for the first time

225. It’s not what you thought at all!!!!!!

226. Find and finish your two year gratitude journal

227. Answering questions about your life makes you feel really good because you like the path you’re on and where you’re headed

228. NEXT WEEK IS THE LAST WEEK

229. SO EXCITING

230. You’ve been telling some friends about it

231. Scared for sending it off into the world

232. What if professional people hate it?

233. Self-publishing is a sexy fun option

234. What if an editor with expensive glasses reads this one day

235. And is like, “Should we take out the part about editing? Feels too behind the curtain”

236. And you’ll say breaking the fourth wall isn’t just for kids discovering theatre in high school and The Office camera work

237. Be excited for the future

238. And moving

239. And living

240. Also you texted about getting a key and got a cheerful but vague response but you’re sure it will all work out somehow

241. No mention of the security deposit yet, hopefully that will just disappear!

242. Go back to packing

[mystlnewsonline]

New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/latest-veep-wins-comedy-ensemble-sag/71577/

The Latest: 'Veep' wins comedy ensemble SAG

LOS ANGELES/January 21, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) — The Latest on Sunday’s presentation of the Screen Actors Guild from the Shrine Auditorium (all times local):

5:20 p.m.

“Veep” is the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for best television comedy.

The HBO series stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a politician who schemes and abuses her staff to maneuver her way through American political life. It is the first SAG win for the series.

Matt Walsh gave the acceptance speech, riffing on his character’s inability to handle public speaking engagements. He thanked several absent cast members, including Anna Chlumsky and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who won the best television comedy actress SAG award moment earlier.

It is the first SAG ensemble win for the HBO show.

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5:15 p.m.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has won the best television comedy actress Screen Actors Guild Award for her work on the series “Veep.”

It is Louis-Dreyfus’s fifth SAG comedy win and her third for her “Veep,” in which she plays a politician acutely concerned with her place in the American political system.

The actress recently completed treatment for breast cancer and did not attend Sunday’s ceremony.

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5:10 p.m.

“Shameless’s” William H. Macy is the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for best television comedy actor.

Is is the third SAG Macy has won for his role as an alcoholic father on Showtime’s “Shameless” and the second year in a row he has taken home the honor.

He also won a SAG Award in 2003 for the television movie “Door to Door.”

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5:05 p.m.

The SAG Awards have opened with Allison Janney, Tracee Ellis Ross, Millie Bobby Brown and Kristen Bell talking about their experiences as actors.

Bell, who is the show’s first-ever host, cracked a joke during her “I Am an Actor” segment, telling the audience, “I am Kristen Bell, and I am a narcissist.”

She also tried to strike a unifying tone, telling the showroom “fear and anger will never win the race.”

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4:50 p.m.

Daniel Kaluuya is happy to oblige a playful suggestion from a fan in the bleachers outside the SAG Awards.

When a woman in the bleachers spotted the “Get Out” star, she yelled “”Get Out,” Daniel, Daniel! Get out! Get out!” Kaluuya pretended to start running and then smiled.

The calls from fans do get noticed by many of the actors walking the red carpet before Sunday’s awards show.

At one point, a fan shouted to John Stamos, “You are one handsome devil.” He appeared to blush and then hammed it up for the camera.

Another fan chatted with “This Is Us” star Sterling K. Brown about their hometown of St. Louis and which high schools they went to. Brown then tells the fan, “It’s always nice to meet someone from home.”

— Amanda Lee Myers (@AmandaLeeAP) in the SAG Awards fan bleachers.

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4:35 p.m.

Cheryl Hines is celebrating the men who are standing up for women and supporting the Time’s Up movement.

As the actress walked the red carpet on her way to into Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony, she said she has to “give a lot of props to the guys who are celebrating with us and saying it’s your time to shine.”

Hines stars in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which is nominated for best television comedy ensemble.

She says those who are worried that it’s “a bad time to be a white man” should acknowledge that “it’s been a really good time for a really long time for the guys.”

William H. Macy and “Get Out” star Daniel Kaluuya are among the men who said they supported the work of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements.

— Mike Cidoni Lennox (@CidoniLennox) and Sandy Cohen (@SandyCohen75) on the red carpet.

___

4:20 p.m.

“Get Out” star Daniel Kaluuya says every year is the year of the woman.

A double nominee at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Kaluuya says that while “everything men do is for women,” he sees a “conscious shift” in response to the Me Too and Time’s Up movements.

The SAG Awards are putting additional emphasis on female performers on Sunday, featuring a roster of almost all women presenters, its first-time host Kristen Bell, and an opening segment with only actresses describing their craft.

Kaluuya says men are examining their behavior from a viewpoint they hadn’t considered before, and he supports those who are speaking out about unfair treatment.

“It’s not about me,” he says. “It’s giving the floor to these women and men who have gone through this stuff, and I’m here to support them and take a back seat.”

— Mike Cidoni Lennox (@CidoniLennox) and Sandy Cohen (@SandyCohen75) on the red carpet.

___

4:10 p.m.

William H. Macy says the Time’s Up and Me Too movements may be “bewildering” for men, but it’s a good thing.

The Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for his work on the comedy series “Shameless” says he skipped Saturday’s women’s march but recently attended a Time’s Up meeting for men. He said he thinks “a lot of men feel under attack.”

He says the discomfort is good and he expects the industry will quickly adapt. He says, “I love our business. It’s self-healing. It’s progressive, and it’ll do the right thing quickly.”

— Mike Cidoni Lennox (@CidoniLennox) and Sandy Cohen (@SandyCohen75) on the red carpet.

___

4 p.m.

Allison Janney says not to expect any Oprah-style speeches should she win the Screen Actors Guild Award for her supporting role in “I, Tonya.”

Winfrey’s galvanizing speech at the Golden Globe Awards sets the bar high for awards show acceptance speeches, and Janney says she’s not even trying to reach it.

Janney says, “I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth if I get up there, but it’s not going to be Oprah.”

The statuesque star says she “feels like a warrior” in the body-hugging, silver paillette-covered dress she chose for the SAG Awards, and that she’s still feeling an empowering rush from participating in the women’s march in Los Angeles Saturday.

— Mike Cidoni Lennox (@CidoniLennox) and Sandy Cohen (@SandyCohen75) on the red carpet.

___

3:40 p.m.

Fans in the bleachers outside the Screen Actors Guild Awards are getting up close, and some cool photos, with some of their favorite stars.

Justin Hartley of “This Is Us” posed for photos in front of bleachers, taking a cell phone from one man and snapping a selfie with him.

Hartley also posed for a photo with Parker Bates, who plays him as a boy on the NBC drama, which is nominated for best drama ensemble.

Sean Astin of “Stranger Things” also stopped to sign an autograph and take a photo using a fan’s camera.

“Stranger Things” is also nominated for best drama ensemble at Sunday’s awards.

— Amanda Lee Myers (@AmandaLeeAP) in the SAG Awards fan bleachers

___

3:30 p.m.

Jenifer Lewis says she’s seen the effects firsthand of the Time’s Up and Me Too movements in Hollywood.

The “black-ish” star said as she arrived at the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday in Los Angeles that there’s been “a huge change in the business” since the Harvey Weinstein news broke last year.

Lewis says “every show” is having mandatory sexual harassment meetings and that she recently attended one at Disney.

She added that she’s honored to be part of “black-ish,” calling it “the cherry on top of my career.” The ABC series is nominated for outstanding television comedy ensemble at Sunday’s ceremony.

Lewis says the show is “leading the revolution” by dealing with such timely issues as police brutality, women’s rights and depression.

— Mike Cidoni Lennox (@CidoniLennox) and Sandy Cohen (@SandyCohen75) on the red carpet.

___

3:20 p.m.

The stunt performers of “Wonder Woman” and the television series “Game of Thrones” are the winners of the first Screen Actors Guild awards handed out Sunday.

The awards were announced during the red carpet show preceding Sunday’s celebration of the best acting in film and television.

“Game of Thrones” is a back-to-back winner. The cast of the HBO fantasy series is also nominated for the best drama ensemble award that will be handed out later Sunday.

___

3:05 p.m.

Hundreds of fans armed with cellphones and some in gowns themselves are shouting to stars as they walk the red carpet ahead of the SAG Awards.

One woman yelled to Alison Brie, in a striking  red dress: “You’re beautiful.” Brie replied: “So are you!”

One fan shouted to JoBeth Williams of “Poltergeist” fame: “Looking good! Go one with your bad self!” Williams beamed and shouted back: “Thank you!”

Several shouted “Sterling!” when “This Is Us” star and SAG Award nominee Sterling K. Brown walked by looking dapper and “Kevin” when his co-star, Justin Hartley, followed shortly after.

The SAG Awards will be broadcast beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on TBS and TNT.

— Amanda Lee Myers (@AmandaLeeAP) in the SAG Awards fan bleachers

___

7:30 a.m.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards will honor the best performances in film and television from the past year on Sunday night, but not without also tackling the ongoing sexual misconduct scandal in Hollywood and efforts to improve the industry’s treatment of women.

This year’s show will feature a mostly female roster of presenters and its first ever host with Kristen Bell.

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is the leading film nominee, including for its star Frances McDormand. The top television nominee is “Big Little Lies,” with three of its stars — Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern — all vying for best actress in the same category.

The show being held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles begins at 8 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on TNT and TBS.

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by Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (Z.S)

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