#theatre acts

[blacklight-shadows]

“I’ll never be a hero, but that won’t stop me from being a warrior.”

Everyone saw this coming and if you didn’t then we haven’t met and hello! I’m Writer (they/them, 21) and this is a blog for my AU/selfship take on Macaque, who goes by ‘Blacklight’ around these parts! This blog is semi-selective, crossover/SI/OC/Canon/etc. friendly, and very much encourages madness!

Give the Law, Macaque’s Page, and Writer’s Page a read (if you’re new to my corner of the internet) and give this post a like/reblog if you’re interested! See you soon!

[perse-persecution]

anyone wanna be in a musical?

so I??? Wrote a musical???? I know have like zero posts but I’ve got 14 songs that my and some of my buds are working on backing tracks for, and I've got one, maybe two people who would like to play characters (there’s four in total!! its a simple show :D). if anyone on here sees this and would like ot help, just interact with the post in any way! I'll dm you :>> the summer of the play is like,, theres this school club called the seers club and all four members (Ronald booth, Phillip, Charlie, and Paul) all have their different ideas of what the future is, and they decide to try and figure out the real one, and eventually conclude that it is a timeline through various songs, arguments, and collective shenanigans. here’s a snippet so you know what ur getting into lol: Ronald: Oh, I’d target Phillip, you’re far too unkillable. Charlie Hah! Of course you of all people know that. Phillip: One, there you go again. Two, I have also been honing my defenses. I’m good at dodgeball– I can very well dodge your knife. And I know all of Charlie's strats– rubber band shooting, creeping people out – which won’t work on you, but –, and pencil throwing. And I’ve gotten rather good at them myself. Charlie: Well none of us can die. Did you not listen to me? We’re not– don’t tell me that you  actually believe you’re going to live to like seventy and just die. You’re better than that. Ronald: Uhh, this seems like my forte?? Weird creepy stuff? Might be eldritch? I see you looking at me, Phillip, and trust me, we are better than that, it’s just… how do I say this… Charlie: I’m not saying we’re immortal or gods or anything, we’re just not regular people. You’d think a room of so-called seers would get that. Paul: I get that. I’ve lived many years repeated, I’m already better than that. Charlie: But that means nothing because none of us believe that time is a loop, so you agreeing with me discredits both your theory and mine. Y’see? Ronald: The truth is that we all plan to in existence for our respective destructions. We want to see what we predicted come to pass. I would like to see Rans walking the world. Phillip would like to have never ending dust claim him. Charlie would like to shake hands with himself and call it a dreamer. And Paul,,, I don’t know where time loops for you, or if one of our endings is the end of that loop, but you obviously expect to live to it. And very simply that means we will.

[ladychlo]

x

[nightgoodomens]

Can you elaborate your opinion on the coincidence of that BI with DT being in CA, Michael's PR explanation and miserable pics? The fact that Enty picked this very specific Disney story out of all the sus recent accidents sounds like a choice. Or jumping on MS's answer in less than 24h. AFAIK, Enty also gets info from reliable sources, could someone in CA participate in an "act of self-sabotage" to catalyze things? It sounds unlikely cause on the other hand it wouldn't be a good look to coincide coming out with breack ups and I think they know that. It's obvious whatever unhappiness there is between 2 couples( which is being put out, deliberately by themselves) has nothing to do with DT/MS, being poly and happy is a common thing. However, there seem to be separate conflicts between couples which we're not pervy to their nature but they're out there. (G admitted in a written press that she found an identity via social media and now she complains... says something.) As for media picking things up, I'm not sure what it'll take. If it was a hetero situation with 1/10 of the material we have from those two, surely it was the #1 hot gossip everywhere, years ago. I just hope whatever solution they come up with, doesn't smear a beautiful love with unrelated breakups.

Okay so what exactly is going on nobody can say apart from them but let’s just look at the timeline

(This is loooooong)

Since the beginning of GO there has been clear hints that something happened between Michael and David. Then it was made clear that they have gotten much closer during Staged. And then we saw them going a little insane over each other after lockdown all thorough GO2 promo including Michael not stopping on Twitter.

Then GT posts about the child being a drunk accident and MS goes a little nuts on Twitter telling people he sets David on fire fairly regularly, tells one of the major accounts to ask David face to face which part of him is 2% WELSH, and likes half naked GO fanart.

Then he goes dead quiet which was sudden and clearly related.

Then comes back only the moment David is on stage in New York. Quite obviously.

Goes quiet again, we start getting a lot less Good Omens and David content until the unfortunate moment where trolls made him basically quit Twitter for a while.

The answer to his 2% was that David is still thinking about it and he will let him know…

Then this timeline begins:

The infamous Macbeth look of love between the two of them in a room full of people

David arranging Lapland and takes a couple picture with Michael

David arranging BAFTAs to be about him and Michael, making a point of wearing a kilt that’s the main point of focus during the sketch and uses Gaiman’s infamous “wait and see”, from Good Omens, that brought him and Michael together.

Michael making this face after BAFTAs and later stating during his interview “He did good, the boy did good! And he looks good in a kilt doesn’t he?!”

Happy sincere smiles from both.

David promotes Michael’s NYE twice. Shows he’s been there on the opening night - during the day before the show - as he takes a selfie in front of the theatre.

Can you see how much “content” started coming from David for Michael? Now think back to the way Michael snapped at the end of the year and asked him how much of him is his… oh wait sorry what part of him is 2% Welsh. Maybe he wanted more than 2%… maybe the snap was that he didn’t want to be so hidden anymore hence his outburst of basically telling people they’re together. Whatever it was - funny how suddenly David started controlling the narrative.

Anyway

Another selfie on the press night, this time with the “real” Michael. Over the years is a nice hint. Also it starts to become clear that these two do not have an unhappy selfie together, yet Michael makes a point to look miserable with just AL, and David is not only looking more and more miserable with GT, but GT begins post breakup songs. She’s also known for humiliating David to the point of her own kids calling her a creep on video, and we hear him saying “this will never stop” as she videos him without his knowledge again. Or later “Oh god” “no they don’t need to see that”. What a happy chap.

The kilt keeps on getting mentioned by David, after Michael made a point of stating what he thinks about it.

Michael and David keep on bringing up each other in their interviews or media asks them about each other. They’re indeed seem the happiest when it’s about the other one.

GT and AL called them husbands and boyfriends.

Meanwhile:

Now the elephant in the room - the wives.

The wives began the second AL posted her modelling pics which she automatically assured everyone of not being paid for. Darling when you scream before anyone even had a chance to say anything… but this is something about AL - she is so insecure she keeps on snapping at fans and acting defensive regarding herself and her relationship. Which makes no sense considering she’s apparently in a happy happy happy arrangement.

GT was clearly asked to do the PR for her. So what did they do? After years of showing that they’re not even close friends, they called each other wives to mirror the husbands. It was so blatant it made me cringe how quickly their fans jumped on the bullshit that even GT laughed in their faces when she sarcastically replied to the fan “sooo linked.” Fair play, GT, I’d roll my eyes too seeing people eating it up so easily.

Just them on its own wasn’t enough so obviously they based their promotion on their men. Mirroring was awkward because the reason their men are popular is because their chemistry is real which AL/GT obviously don’t have. They knew they won’t stand on their own, hence the “family” (sooo close that David nearly fell off the bench to not touch AL accidentally) and they can be called husbands and boyfriends if they can be called wives, and they can have pics together… but mostly group shops so the women get promoted with them.

Hey, if you ignored them, at least we had lovely MS/DT moments who became a little more public.

It was clear the arrangement was only until BAFTAs - because this was the end.

David did three interesting things that day.

He did massive PR for GT - both magazines and red carpet and a kiss on front of the camera, which I said then will result in a job for her - soon after she announced a new agent - his agent - ding dong.

Then the rest was all Michael and him. Go figure.

And he completely excluded AL.

Next day we learned that Michael excluded AL from The Way. A show that included GT watching an intimate scene between two men who were neighbours. Which Michael and David are confirmed to be.

AL had a bit of a mental breakdown looking for validation on Twitter and Instagram. Obsessively reposting BAFTAs, whining about The Way.

Another blow came when GT cut her out. AL tried to keep the charade going but GT was done.

When GT announced her agent, AL ignored it.

There’s no more “family” things either.

My take is that AL perhaps was meant to have something sorted out for her by BAFTAs, unfortunately her totally not paid for photoshoot that she was totally picked up for… didn’t do the trick. GT got an agent out of David’s PR though.

AL’s heart grows fonder as she realises shit is going down and she starts hardcore convincing everyone that her and MS are happy because no modelling career is happening.

Meanwhile MS stays every night with fans or at the bar to not go home as he contradicts her.

GT meanwhile gets colder regarding David, showing she basically doesn’t give a shit about his accomplishments or tries to put her attention on herself instead. It’s a cold and harsh difference compared to what he did for her at BAFTAs.

Break up songs continue.

Both GT and AL go very quiet on social media. AL posts depressing things, GT is just being an ass about DT.

Both go to separate Disneylands.

Then a few things happen at once:

Neil posts that Michael and David are still very much in love.

David looks depressed as GT posts that picture with “Breakdown” in the background, song about a break up.

Michael struggles through a question about AL - talks about them not looking for it, but -the kids- so it was worth it - refuses to say he loves AL, refuses to say anything about her personally - it’s spoken like a rehearsed statement about an arrangement that at least they both have something out of.

Michael automatically switches to David unprompted - he turns into a sunshine, goes personal about him calling him lovely and very nice, and this is when asked about the rudest actor so also an awkward Q - which he made the most affectionate thing in the world.

Michael also keeps on bringing David up. Constantly.

David still in California.

Enty releases a blind about two men who went to Disneyland separately and one wife and one girlfriend are pushing a narrative of happy families while the men only look happy with each other or while talking about each other.

AL milks Assembly to her advantage for a whole day desperately while Michael stops performing because he’s too sick.

Neil reblogs all the moments Michael spoke about David.

Michael suddenly interacts with fans avoiding thousands of tweets of people totally seeing the love between him and AL (he didn’t use that word).

So what I think… - I don’t think the family unit was ever true. That was just PR to get the women out there. Because when they didn’t need it, it abruptly stopped. Perhaps men thought if these two get work, things will get easier. Unfortunately they’re not most employable.

The problem is that it looks like Michael and David are not happy with their women anymore and it’s bad enough that they’re showing it. The women know - perhaps AL is aware things are ending hence milking it until it gets public that they’re over. GT is hinting hardcore that things are falling apart - but are they going to sort it out or not? What stage these two couples are actually at - I don’t know.

Is David so unhappy he’d tip off Enty? I wouldn’t be shocked. Especially since his and Michael’s best friend told everyone David and Michael are in love right before the assembly. Which makes me wonder whether Enty and Neil dropping a 💣 was very much planned by Michael and David. Did they lose GT/AL support and looked for it in Neil, did the women only were happy to “help” when they were getting something out of it, or is this actually following a plan since the very beginning - Hard to tell. I’m not 100% sure because with GT promoting her and him being unhappy, maybe she is on it in some way. But… it is hard to tell at this stage. Maybe DT got her his agent so the agent would make sure GT doesn’t post shit about him when/if things are over. Maybe the agent is controlling the narrative now and helping to make the breakup least damaging for both.

We will see. This can still go so many different ways… the only stable thing is Michael and David and their love for each other.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Ansa Ikonen (Kaikki rakastavat, Kulkurin valssi and Vaivaisukon morsian)— Arguably one of the biggest 30s movie stars in Finland. She also acted in theatre and radio but is mainly remembered for the 40 movies she acted in. She is especially beloved for acting as a pair with the actor Tauno Palo, who she had incredible chemistry with on screen.

Kay Francis (Jewel Robbery, I Loved A Woman, British Agent)— kay francis was an icon of glamor in her time and a top star of the 30s - she was the highest-paid actress at warner bros from 1930 to 1936. she tended to play characters who were charming, sophisticated, and elegantly dressed, and starred in at least one legitimate masterpiece, the sublime 1932 comedy trouble in paradise. her first big role was in the marx brothers movie the cocoanuts in 1929, and she and william powell made seven movies together between 1930 and 1932. even in her sillier movies she always elevates the material with her charm and presence - she never phones it in and there’s a sort of warm, knowing wittiness about her. a really good short promo from a retrospective of her movies that i think really gets her Vibe across

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Kay Francis:

trailer for jewel robbery with william powell, an unhinged movie that i highly recommend

Jewel Robbery clip

"From 1932 through 1936, Francis was the queen of the Warner Bros. lot, and, increasingly, her films were developed as star vehicles. By 1935, Francis was one of the highest-paid actors, earning a yearly salary of $115,000, dwarfing the $18,000 Bette Davis – who would one day occupy Francis's dressing room – made. From 1930 to 1937, Francis appeared on the covers of 38 film magazines, second only to child sensation Shirley Temple's 138." Source: Wikipedia. Kay Francis is like the MOST FAMOUS Actress from the 1930s you've never heard of--and it was her and Norma Shearer who wore and made classic the 1930s tall, slim, bias cut silhouette. She ALSO has a WHOLE PODCAST episode devoted to her life and career in Hollywood--it's fascinating! She is both tough and a total wet cat.

One of the TALLEST Warner Brother stars at 5’9” and known as a “clothes horse” for her glamorous roles wearing the height of 1930s fashion. She fell out of popularity in the 40s, but her 30s work sizzles. The scene with her and Herbert Marshall in Trouble in Paradise where she says she doesn’t care about his reputation (because she’d rather sleep with him?) HAWOOGA

melted my gay heart with her butch look in stolen holiday

"My life? Well, I get up at a quarter to six in the morning if I'm going to wear an evening dress on camera. That sentence sounds a little ga-ga, doesn't it? But never mind, that's my life ... As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I'll sweep the stage. I don't give a damn. I want the money ... When I die, I want to be cremated so that no sign of my existence is left on this earth. I can't wait to be forgotten." —From Kay Francis's private diaries, c. 1938

[sgiandubh]

OMG, that photo!!!! https://deadline.com/2024/03/channel-4-bonuses-bectu-slammed-alex-mahon-ian-katz-1235862074/

Dear OMG Photo Anon,

You do realize, I hope, that's really what acting is about, right?

I mean, it's not even mildly arousing. And, to be honest, it translated very poorly/clumsily on screen. Could also be me, after all, because threesomes were never my jam. There, I hope I shocked you enough for today.

On this particular pic, S is elsewhere, de Gouw is ok with it (and that's only natural for her) and Tomlinson is perfectly wooden.

That being said, the Deadline article really piqued my interest. Particularly this:

Again, I hate to quote myself, but I remember having predicted this very early ahead, as a ripple effect of the US strikes. Along with a couple of other particularly relevant things, as far as OL is concerned (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/731010968623120384/the-ripple-effect?source=share):

In the meanwhile, please continue to play dumb with meaningless promo pics, meaningless Instagram follows & drama and meaningless timelines. You make me cynically 🤣🤣🤣, Anon.

Yeah. The nutcase. Sorry, but I was right again. I know people lie a lot on Tumblr, but I somehow found it charmless and unnecessary. And when I told you I knew what I was talking about, for professional reasons, well... I knew what I was talking about, for professional reasons.

[Edit, for the people in the back]: BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union) is the UK equivalent of IATSE.

[posthungergamessyndrome]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Movie Review

I went to the opening night of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and since I had written all my reviews of the Hunger Games movies on my tumblr blog, I’d be remissed if I don’t do one for the prequel here. 

First I want to say that no matter how you feel about the prequel or even if you read it all or not,  sitting in the movie theatre in my district 12 shirt and TBOSAS cardigan and watch a new hunger games movie with other hunger games fans who were also all dressed up is so nostalgic and just bring me back to the times when we were thick into this franchise here on tumblr with the OG movies, and that alone was worth going to see this movie.

The showing I went to was a Panem Party, so they also had “merch” on our seats when we arrived, and it reminded me so much of the time when I went to the catching fire premiere in DC, and it's just amazing to have new hunger games merch in 2023.

I did purposely avoid all promos for this movie as much as I can because I wanted to go into it as spoiler free as possible, and I only read the book once and haven’t reread it since.

I did rewatch all the movies earlier this year but only rewatched mockingjay part 2 the night before, which I think was a good idea because I think a lot of the foreshadowing and parallels are with Mockingjay.

Before I go into spoilers in my review, I’d say overall it’s a good movie on par with the original trilogy. I think this prequel managed to do and succeeded in what other franchises failed to do when they tried to also revisit or expand their world. 

It delves into the world of hunger games without being redundant, it had a relevant story to tell outside of the trilogy but still very much connects to it, it gave us interesting characters  and while it gave a lot of new information about the world, it also left audience with questions and wanting more, but it in a good way.

When it comes to casting, I think they did another great job of casting the characters especially with young Snow. I think Tom Blyth was able to humanize Snow enough without - and I can’t believe I’m using this word again after all these years - woobifying him or making him overly sympathetic. 

I think both his acting and the script allowed audience to see him as a human being, which is kinda meta when in the movie Snow advocated for the tributes to be seen as human beings by the capitol enough to place bets on them and make them believe the tribute they got to know and root for will win, at the same time we as the audience was led to believe or hope or be deluded or gaslit or whatever you want to term it, that there’s good in young Snow and worth rooting for, which makes the moments where he shows no he’s not a good person and he chose to do the bad things was still shocking to the audience, even if we already knew how his story ends from the original trilogy. 

However, I do think what the movie failed to convey about his character is the bad choices he initially made weren’t because he ultimately didn’t have a choice or those are the only choices he can make in order to save sejanus, him and Lucy. 

Because in the book we were privy to his internal monologue, we know the bad choices he made were his own conscious choices, that he had every opportunity to be a good person but actively chose to not be one. 

But on the other hand that’s a natural consequence of a book to movie adaptation, we don’t get the internal monologue unless there’s a voice over, which I don’t think would have worked in this movie if they went that route. 

Although I do think it could have somewhat worked in the last scenes when he was talking to dr Gaul about what are the hunger games for and his future, coz the ending of this movie didn’t explain why the 10th hunger games wasn’t mentioned or known at all by the characters in the original trilogy. 

They could have done a montage of Snow erasing the footage of the 10th hunger games himself while we hear their conversation, and while he was staring at the screen it could even then transition to that last scene in the first hunger games movie where president snow was looking at katniss and Peeta returning to 12 and then turning around, and then the scene goes back to young snow as he exit the academy and to the last shot of him in the movie, which also was a nice parallel to katniss’ last shot in catching fire, along with the same movie score.

I do think Rachel Zegler was a great casting choice for Lucy Gray, however, I got to be honest, I found her musical numbers to be cringey. It’s like this movie is actually a hunger games musical but it’s only her character that’s singing for her character and plot development. She’s a great actress but she’s also very theatrical, which you might say makes sense coz Lucy Gray is a performer, but it was to the point I thought she was overacting in certain scenes that it really took me out of the film. 

But that said, Rachel and Tom had great chemistry, and the tension in the relationship really came through in the movie. I bought their relationship more in the movie than I did when reading the book. 

Their relationship in the book felt very insta love to me, like their tongues are in each others throat after meeting for three days. The movie made it a little bit more slow burn, that yes there might be initial attraction between them but snow was directly questioning her if she’s for real and she’s directly asking him if he can be trusted. Their one real kiss in the movie was earned instead of just kissing all the time like they did in the book.

There’s that real desire or they deluded themselves that they can be together but when hit with reality they ultimately choose themselves over the other. 

Sejanus was the character I was looking forward to the most and I wasn’t sure about Josh Rivera playing him, but he managed to pull it off okay.

For me, the real formative relationship Snow had that truly informs who he becomes is his relationship with sejanus, more so than his with Lucy. 

I’m not condoning anything he did towards Lucy, but it wasn’t unreasonable that in the end City Boy Snow didn’t choose to give up his lifelong ambition for a two-week situationship with a poor girl from another district that’s likely still hung up on her ex, and worst, to live in the woods. It was kinda expected, really. 

His relationship with sejanus however imo was far more meaningful and significant to him, because whether he admits to it or not, he did care about sejanus, even if he didn’t want to. Sejanus basically crept up on him and even though he rationalized in the book and maybe also in the movie that he was only protecting him because his mentors instructed him to or he needed to win the prize money, but ultimately he did care about what happens to sejanus and can’t help but save him from himself. That’s why Snow betraying sejanus and killing him in the end was truly the point of no return for Snow and what he did to Lucy just seals the deal. 

So I am glad the movie did spend almost the same about time developing that relationship with Sejanus and Snow, and not just with Snow and Lucy, though I still think they could’ve found a better actor for sejanus.

The relationship Snow had with Tigris was interesting as well, and I also think was more significant to his character development than his relationship with Lucy, but the movie did just gloss over it and only spent time on it at the beginning of the movie.

The biggest issue of the hunger games movies has always been pacing, but while this movie was long, the pacing was the best in this one. I already expected that they will cut a lot from the book even though it is the longest movie in the entire franchise, so the missing details wasn’t as big as a deal for me than it was in the og movies. I still think this should had been an 6-9 episode series, but as a stand alone movie, it works and I don’t truly miss the missing scenes from the book.

I did like the movie was divided in three parts, it helps with keeping up with the movie and storyline, especially for those that didn’t read the book. 

when I was reading the book, it didn’t really pick up for me until part 3, but I actually found the first two parts of the movie to be far more enjoyable to watch than the third part. Aside from Snow and Lucy, I think a lot of credit goes to the character of Lucky Flickerman, he gave the movie enough levity to help with the pacing of the film, and I like that he voices out what’s going wrong with the games like the audience would (those drones don’t work!).  

I think the arena scenes were done well, it conveyed the horror of kids killing kids without it looking like glorified violence. I do think the portrayal of what happens in the arena was much better than in the first movie, or honestly maybe even in catching fire as far as the emotional impact of the killings and deaths go. There were many moments I was horrified and looked away when a tribute gets killed. 

I do think the movie made the capitol students more self aware and empathetic towards the tributes than they were in the books. It wasn’t just sejanus that was conflicted about being a mentor, and I don’t remember the scene of the students rallying to get Lucy out of the arena happening in the book. 

Viola Davis as Dr. Gaul and Peter Dinkilage as Dean Highbottom were without a question great in their portrayal but honestly at the end of the day not the most memorable characters in the movie. Unlike woody harrelson, Elizabeth banks, Donald Sutherland, Stanley tucci, & other adult characters in the OG trilogy, who really made an impression with their character portrayals, aside from Jason Schwartzman, no adult character did the same in this prequel movie.

I often say Francis Lawrence is always on the nose with his direction and like to spoon feed the audience, but when it came to the lore of the hanging tree, that's where he finally chose to be subtle. instead of doing like a "Deathly Hallows" exposition of the origin of the hanging tree, it is the plot of the third act. So if you're just a casual fan, you'd think the only connection is Lucy sang it so Snow remembers when Katniss does in Mockingjay.

Instead, what Francis did is show the scenes from the lyrics of the hanging tree as part of the plot. "The dead man called out for his love to flee" that happened at the very first execution sejanus and snow saw in district 12, and snowballed to the rest of the movie until Snow and Lucy agreed to meet at the hanging tree the day the ran away, although at dawn, not at midnight.

The only heavy handed foreshadowing for me was the thing the Katniss plant, "it's too early for katniss" bit was a bit much. the subtle clues here and there for me was enough, with the meadow, the lake, the lake house, the jabberjays and mockingjays, the hanging tree... 

so yeah, I think that's pretty much it. If you read this far, especially if you're one of the OGs of the THG tumblr fandom, member of the Peeta Mellark Defense Squad, and everlark stan, thank you and if you're on tiktok want to talk prequel movie or discuss all things hunger games, hit me up!

[tokkias]

How about actor au hc’s for fairy tail! (Nalu centered cuz i need my nalu crumbs)

so i got like 80% of the way through writing these before i realised i may have misinterpreted this ask, and that you were in fact probably asking for an au where they're actors on fairy tail as a show. oops! but these are actually headcanons that i have (to no ones surprise) talked about pretty at length with @nalunalu which is why this was my default list.

in fact, they even drew some absolute banging art based on one of these headcanons so you should go look at it <333

if that is in fact what you meant, and you still really want to hear my thoughts on it, i would still love to write that up, just send me another ask and i will make a post, but i hope you enjoy these general actor au headcanons nonetheless <3

misc natsu + lucy headcanons

natsu primarly does actions films and lucy mostly does dramas

natsu got his start in the industry as a stunt double but eventually started getting acting roles of his own

he does all (or most) of his own stunts

lucy gets into acting in college where she's doing a business degree at her fathers demands and she takes an improv class to try and make friends

she's really bad at improv and thinks it's fucking lame, but it sparks her interest in acting and she gets a conjoint degree in business and theatre

she would have dropped her business degree but if she did that her father would have stopped paying for it and it was the only way he would entertain the idea

as soon as she graduates she leaves home, cuts off all contact with her father and goes to pursue acting

she works waitressing and modelling for a while and she's offered the chance at a full time modelling contract but as much as she likes it, she still wants to pursue acting

natsu is crazy good at spotting cameras and paparazzi

like this video is natsu

there are so many photos of natsu and lucy where lucy's minding her own business, chatting along, while natsu just stares dead straight into the camera

natsu's instagram is made up entirely of bad pictures he takes of lucy

he only posts when he's contractually obligated to promote something and it's always his stupid genre of bad lucy photos

when he's not allowed to post bad lucy pics to promote his new projects, it's bad pics of his cat happy

his agency gets so sick of his terrible instagram prescense that he has it taken away from him and a social media manager takes over

they start posting actual nice good quality photos from red carpets and other events and people fucking hate it

the comments are so flooded with demands to bring lucy and happy back that they are forced to give it back to him, which he of course announces with a bad picture he took of lucy holding happy

all the comments are just like. the return of the king.

people constantly ask if his phone/camera is like 10 years old or if his terrible quality photos are an aesthetic choice, and it's not. it's 5 years old and has a crack on both cameras because he's always dropping it doing dumb shit

lucy still does a lot of modelling for magazines after her acting career takes off, but more for fun that for money like when she first ran away from home

brands are clambering at her feet to have her as their ambassador

she becomes a style icon and still retains her expensive taste from growing up in the heartfilia household

she wears lots of designer dresses on the red carpet and she works with a stylist but most of her stuff she picks herself

while lucy is always wearing show-stopping gowns on the red carpet and to every other promo event, natsu has one (1) suit he wears to every event

the only thing he changes is the shirt he wears underneath and it always matches what lucy's wearing

nalu specific headcanons

they meet for the first time on the set of a romcom that they're starring in opposite of each other and it's both of their first time doing anything like it

they're pretty much instant besties and they surprise literally everyone with how great their chemistry and comedic timing is

lucy did not know of his stunt double background until she watched him do one on set for the first time and she was fucking mortified. she screamed

their first kiss (and probably natsu's first kiss ever) is on set and they both get a little too into it for their own good

it's just a good old friendly kiss with no meaning whatsoever except for the fact that it definitely goes on for way longer than it was scripted to

they have a sex scene in the film and lucy is super nervous because it's her first time filming one

it's natsu's first time too but he's not nervous at all because he's jumped off of moving cars before so pretending to have sex with lucy is nothing compared to that

every time the cameras aren't rolling natsu is just goofing around to try make her feel more comfortable and it works a little too well because they're laughing and giggling and goofing off the whole time

if they were good friends before that, they're basically inseperable after it

on set, it's cute sometimes and infuriating other times

lucy's hair stylists and makeup artists fucking hate him because he will not leave her alone while they're trying to do her hair and makeup

he once got himself cursed out for giving her a noogie between her hair being done and get scene

once filming wraps they're both really bummed because they go from seeing each other every day to being lucky to see each other once every few weeks

once promo for the film starts they are attached at the hip

the films marketing team doesn't even have to try to push them into a fake relationship to promote the film because everyone just thinks they're dating anyway

in fact, they're so close that they're constantly accused of being in a fake relationship and that it's "so fake and forced" even though they're not actually dating

so much arguing ensues because of the sheer natural chemistry they have together in interviews even though both sides are wrong, they're just close friends who kiss for a job

lucy desperately needs everyone to know that they're not actually dating and that they're just friends but the films marketing team shushes her because it'll be good promo for the movie

natsu on the other hand does not care about it at all because he pays so little attention to the media anyway that he didn't even know people thought they were dating

both of them were pretty well known before the film, but the dating speculation and their acting in the film itself turns them both into household names and people hardly seperate one from the other

they both make cameos, even small ones, in each others films

lucy landed a role in a soap opera and natsu, who has never worked in television before, plays a recurring role as her love interest

he is not very good at acting in soaps because he thinks they're kind of lame and he's not practiced in it at all so his role is pretty limited to scenes with lucy because they just have stupid insane chemistry that everyone loves

natsu enters stage left. natsu kisses lucy. natsu exit stage left.

it's not until years of being best friends and well after the dating speculation dies down do they actually start dating, but neither they or their reps reveal it

no one gets confirmation that they're dating until pictures of their wedding pops up online and everyone is like THEY'RE MARRIED???

lucy writes a super long heartfelt post about how she got to marry her best friend and how much he means to her

natsu posted a picture of him and happy in matching suits and then the one (1) nice photo of lucy he has on their wedding day on the second slide with no caption

[marybeatriceofmodena]

What was that crazy music video type thing you included on that post about ALW being an ass to Patti Lupone? I have never seen that before and I am both intrigued and horrified. I only recently got into Phantom, and all this craziness is just delighting me. 😂

For context, this is the video referred to in this ask:

This was a promo video done in 1985 (I think), to promote Phantom. Those are the original lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, which he wrote before Charles Hart was involved. You'll recognize a few here and there, but a lot of them are... weird, to say the least (weird enough for Cameron "Satan" Mackintosh to tell ALW to either find someone to help out Stilgoe, either outright fire him, or else he wouldn't produce Phantom anymore. And given it was proving to be a VERY costly show to make, even ALW knew losing CamMack was a no-no).

The staging is also different, because Trevor Nunn was the director at this point. And that's another funny (HA) story: ALW and Cameron Mackintosh had initially got Hal Prince to direct. And for those of you who don't know, Hal Prince is basically to musicals what Steven Spielberg is to cinema. He directed some of the most successful musicals of the latter half of the 20th century: Evita, Sweeney Todd, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Cabaret, Company... and that's the list of musicals I know even the uninitiated will recognize. So one day, on a whim, ALW decided to fire Hal Prince, which went about as well as you might expect: ALW chickened out of the dinner where he and CamMack were supposed to break the news to him, which led to CamMack having to sheepishly break the news to Hal Prince, who stormed out furious (AS HE SHOULD). Again, imagine yourself firing Steven Spielberg from making Saving Private Ryan and replacing him with, I dunno, the Russo brothers because The Avengers made a shit ton of money.

Why? My guess is that Hal Prince had the balls to tell ALW to stick it whenever he'd bring bad ideas on the table, so ALW basically decided to replace Hal Prince with the director for one of his previous musicals, Trevor Nunn (who is a decent director, mind you, making the comparison to the Russo brothers a little harsh).

Which musical was it, mind you? CATS.

IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO CATS.

And Steve Harley? He was a rock singer who got picked up along the way because they urgently needed someone to play the Phantom in the music video, and full offense but he's a worse singer than Gerald Butler in my opinion, and at least the latter could actually act. ALW realized that they needed someone else, and he basically smuggled the score to a comedic actor called Michael Crawford, who had some prior experience singing in musicals (he's in the film adaptations of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Hello Dolly, if you're interested), but he wasn't exactly the guy you'd think of for the Phantom? Thankfully, he proved everyone who might have doubted him wrong, and amazingly at that, but he was a gamble at the time nonetheless.

And as you may guess, the music video was kind of poorly received, and Trevor Nunn worked on a little musical called Les Misérables, which got piss poor reviews and ALW was at the head of them (CLASS ACT, THAT FELLOW). But the uneducated, unwashed plebs loved it so I guess that's the reason why it's still playing today, and not because it's one of the most beautiful scores ever written for musical theatre, summing up a 1,000 book perfectly and conveying emotions that could make angels cry, nah. /s Anyway, that led to ALW firing Trevor Nunn, and begging Hal Prince to come back, and he agreed - which really goes to show how gracious he is because I would have laughed in ALW's face.

And what happened to Steve Harley, you may ask? He found out with a call from CamMack that he was fired, with no explanation whatsoever, and it was only later that he found out Michael Crawford had replaced him. I mean, was it for the best? Yeah. Do I still feel kind of bad for Steve Harley? Yeah.

So yeah, thank your lucky stars Hal Prince, Charles Hart and Michael Crawford agreed to be in this. I'd also add Maria Bjornson, but I really wonder now how she got involved in the first place because if that came from ALW, that might be the single best decision he ever made in his entire life. But I don't have any trust in him whatsoever to pull that off lmao

[callmearcturus]

1) i am interest, what does the "brachtian lens" mean in your MI post? 2) i did google pathologic and seems interesting but i don't know if its for me, would you recommend it? (you have good taste)

Brechtian, a Brechtian lens.

Okay so everyone brace yourself for the most unhinged take you've ever heard. I'm gonna caveat this up front by pointing out that I don't know if I actually myself ascribe to this read, it's just the kind of thing that happens when you are at work listening to the Codex Entry performance of Pathologic: The Marble Nest and the adderall hits just right.

I'm an undereducated pleb so I'm not going to go into the full history of Brecht, hit up any of your local pretentious media nerds for that. But one of the things associated with Brecht is the Alienation Effect. One of his primary concerns as a playwright was the idea that audiences were becoming complacent and were watching plays and observing art without internalizing everything. He had this idea that as the artifice of theatre became more and more immersive, as the Theatre of the Real so to speak became more seamless, audiences weren't actually connecting to what they were seeing. It's hard to impart wisdom and propose hard questions when the audience is just out here vibin', basically.

So Brecht's whole thing was to make the artificiality of the theatre as conspicuous and obvious as possible. There were a few tactics for this, including fun stuff like spoiling the plot of the story at the very start, casting very incongruous actors in specific roles, making the violence over the top to the point of being ridiculous, etc.

The point of these tactics was to jolt the audience out of their Vibe, to remind them they were watching a play, a performance. And in doing so, in theory, it would get the audience to pay more attention to the content of the play. When you are not passively absorbing the story, you will in theory give more consideration to what you are observing and actually THINK about what is being presented to you. Audiences tend to feel empathetic to characters in media, and you wanna jolt them out of that comfy zone.

Okay so how the fuck can I apply this lens to Mission Impossible? Besides being the most pretentious bitch on your dashboard obvsly.

One common interpretation of MI is that the movies are documentaries of their own productions. I have heard this idea parroted many times by people I broadly respect. Now... I don't personally ascribe to that take, but lets hypothesize for a moment that it's true, that there is a purposeful artificiality to MI. One of the things people point to with this theory is the fact that the first footage of MI: Fallout ever shared wasn't a trailer or teaser or anything.

It was footage of TC breaking his ankle doing that rooftop jump. It was a behind the scenes moment of ultra-reality that affected production. Because the hype cycle around MI is linked inextricably to "oh man what bullshit is TC gonna pull in THIS one" as a conscious marketing tactic.

It's accurate to say that yes, some people just go to see MI for the stunts. And the marketing knows it and promos it. There is an effort to focus on the physical, practical feats of the movie.

What I find interesting is that McQ and TC both share an ethos, that the only reason audiences give a shit about the stunts is because they are a vehicle of characterization. There is more overt writing and acting in MI than it gets credit for. It's like the stunts are a Loss Leader of the movie, yanno? Here is the big spectacle to get people to show up, and once people are in the theatre, you can talk to them.

So, what I'm positing is that if you believe that there is a heightened artificiality to MI, if you think its just a sequence of bombastic set pieces, if you think Ethan Hunt is just TC's alter ego, blah blah blah (again, not my belief) then it should in theory become difficult to sink into passivity with these movies.

If all that is correct, then there is a forced artificiality to MI that mimicks the Brechtian-style, leading to the Alienation Effect. Therefore, the text of the movies, what they are saying about, for random instance, the encroaching threat of uncontrolled AI in a digital world, that message should become more stark and harder for audiences to glaze their eyes over and miss.

And ALL OF THAT is the kind of bullshit you too can cogitate on if you inflict Pathologic on yourself and let it rewire your fucking brain! If you want a primer of what the fuck Pathologic is, look up hbomberguy's legendary Pathologic video, then come hit me up for further links.

[streaminn]

Yeah i meant like a masterlist cos I find that just searching the tags hide posts sometimes, bless that demon baby au master list🙏 but totally understand that that's a lot of work so no worries about it. Not having all the characters play their wednesday book doubles on their show imo is the better option and also because I 100% love the idea of yoko being so dismayed by it even tho she wouldn't have done acting anyway *Yoko kicking down Enids door, the day of the cast announcement* Y: "First I didn't get to be the best woman at the wedding and now I'm not even allowed play myself???" E: "It was in the moment, I didn't purposefully leave you out! and you said you don't act" Y: "That's not the point, I would have liked to be asked" *Pulls up Glasses paparazzi pic of her in costume, holding up to self, the picture of glasses is almost identical to what yoko looks like currently* Y: "She doesn't even look like me" Also did the rest of the Nevermore ppl Yoko, Div, Bianca, Eugene get to go to the premiere of Lyocan Curse? If so I fully believe they wouldn't have gotten any pics on the red carpet cos they're just normal guests not stars, but there's like one slightly blurry pap picture of them hanging with Wednesday and Enid in the theatre that def has at least one online fan posting it next to the cast promo pic and theorising about how 'they've connected the dots' & the viper series is auto biographical -🐅

glad the barely there masterlist helps for the demon au people, i didn't expect so many peeps to need it :') but hey! always glad to help and it helps me in the long run when i need it

anyways, yoko would definitely be playing up how insulted she is that she wasn't even considered. Going all "oh boohoo, im being replaced by a NERD"

Enid: YOU CAN'T EVEN ACT??

Yoko: SAYS WHO?

Enid: SAYS YOU!??

the nevermore gang definitely are invited to the premiere of the lycan curse, not alot of people know who they are but they look goddamn amazing so people just think they're probably important people anyways.

There is definitely one person taking a pic of the gang with wenclair, realizing how similar they look to the cast of Lycan curse and feel so smart abt connecting the dots.

Wicked Truth @jdwicked

guys, i know its crazy BUT i need you to hear me out (There's two pictures. In the first pic, its a blurry shot of Yoko chasing Enid by a street with the rest of the gang chatting nearby shown. In another pic, is the lycan Curse cast) you cannot tell me this coincidence

LMAO DELUSIONAL @delulululand

its coincidence Joking aside, maybe your ramblings may be a lil truthful for this one 🙄

Vapeherize @hohotheyhaveapoint

can't believe im actually going to hear out a twitter theorist bc the similarities is a bit much even more me

[blacklight-shadows]

Tag Dump! (General)

[thesimscurator]

Career World Horse Ranch update is now live!

It’s finally here! Sorry this update is so late; a minor but time-consuming home repair emergency stopped my work on it for about a month. But now my real-life house is fixed and the update is finally out! The Career World save file, Career Challenge Chart, and the list of study abroad opportunities have all been updated to incorporate horses and all their associated gameplay. And the delay meant I got to add in the new Home Chef Hustle features, as well, so it’s not all bad.

Just because I already teased it, I’ll start with...

Expansion of the Actor Career:

In addition to all the sound-stage filming that comes automatically with the actor career, and the live stage acting I had already added in the form of the Starlight Theatre venue, there are now three on-location filming spots: one for Westerns, one for costume dramas, and one for fantasy/medieval/pirate projects. Each on-location filming site is a residential lot which permanently houses several horses and three behind-the-camera crew members: a horse wrangler/stunt rider, a stylist, and a cinematographer. When cast in certain gigs, your actor should now immediately (but temporarily) move in with one of these households, in the following configuration:

If you are cast in...

Making Moosic

Last Town in the West

The Sheriff from Alpha Centauri

...move your actor sim in with the PBP Western Crew in Chestnut Ridge.

If you are cast in…

Dignity & Decorum

Of Tea & Treachery

...move in with the PBP Costume Drama Crew in Henford-on-Bagley.

And if you are cast in…

Salty Suds

Dead Sea Adventures

Tournament of Honor

Treasures of Aarbyville

...move in with the PBP Fantasy Crew in Windenburg. All other gigs you should just do as normal; they have no corresponding on-location filming site.

Once on location, you will find an area set up to house you, marked with a star door (on the Western set, this is a trailer; on the other two, a room within the massive building), as well as living areas for the other crew members, a dressing room / wardrobe area, a video editing space with the video station and lots of drones (plus still cameras for doing promo shots), and locations for filming acting scenes. In the case of Chestnut Ridge, the acting area is on a separate lot located right next door to the living area with the trailers.

Your job while you are here is to get footage, in costume, of your sim (and potentially their co-stars or the horse wrangler acting as a stunt double) acting out scenes on location and riding on horseback through the appropriate landscapes. (Mostly. The pirate stuff may not need to be too heavy on the horseback scenes, but there are plenty of places to shoot acting scenes on the battlements of the castle overlooking the sea, which is why I rolled those gigs in with the fantasy stuff. Plus even pirates get embroiled in problems on land sometimes, and have to make a quick escape on horseback. Everything you do on an actual ship is shot during sound-stage day.) I strongly suggest also taking some still photos as promotional material and keepsakes for both the crew household and your sim.

If your actor sim has no horseback riding skill to start with and looks ridiculous on the horse, you may have to spend some time riding around and skilling up in your regular street clothes before you get all dolled up and dive into filming—unless, of course, you want to get footage of your sim getting bucked off the horse for the movie, in which case get into costume immediately and fire up the drone right away; the cinematographer will edit out all the extra footage of you looking stupid while you wait to get bucked off.

At some point during your on-location filming adventure, you will be called back to Del Sol Valley for the set sound-stage filming day. Don’t worry about this; Plumbob Pictures is a wealthy studio, and can totally afford to send a chopper to whisk you back to Del Sol Valley for a day of filming on set before dropping you right back on location. Take your time and don’t rush it; you are welcome to remain on location as long as it takes to get all the footage you want to get. A word to the wise, however: you will only be able to call your director and co-stars to the on-location filming site BEFORE sound-stage filming day, so if you want to record any two-person scenes, sword fights, or all-cast promo shots with your co-stars, you’ll need to prioritize doing that first and getting your horseback riding shots later. Lucky for you if you’re filming Tournament of Honor, jousting scenes are done in full armor that completely conceals the sim, so horse wrangler Cheyenne Blackwolf is able to act as the stunt double for your co-stars for footage where you need two sims on horseback. Jim Chooli, the horse wrangler in Chestnut Ridge, is a semi-retired actor himself who frequently plays minor characters in the Westerns when a second sim is needed there. And the entire costume drama crew is happy to pop into powdered wigs and ballgowns when extra sims are needed to flesh out a ball or dinner scene.

Because you live with them in the same household during this time, you will be able to control not only the horse wrangler as a second horse-rider when need be, but also the stylist to costume both your own actor sims and your non-controllable co-stars during on-location filming. Likewise, you can direct the cinematographer to control the drones, take photographs, and even operate the non-functional camera equipment for maximum realism. The end goal of on-location filming is to have the cinematographer take all the drone footage you’ve captured, edit it together into a single reel, maximize the quality, and “send it off to the studio”—a.k.a. upload it via the video station. If you get the notification that the footage has been nominated for an award, you may want to remain with the crew household through the following Sunday and all go to the Starlight Accolades together—you could even get some red-carpet shots! If not, that’s a wrap! You’re welcome to move back to your regular residence in Del Sol Valley while you prepare for the next audition.

Chestnut Ridge Townies:

You’ll notice that with this pack, I’ve been a lot more liberal with adding townies who didn’t originally exist than I usually am. There are two reasons for this: 1) there are so many ways to make money in this pack that I didn’t think I could reasonably cover all the new career options it enabled me to add with only the original townies, and 2) Chestnut Ridge does not spawn its own locals like Sulani and Mt. Komorebi do, so if you don’t add more townies, there aren’t really enough western-dressed, horse-riding folks to flesh out the community lots—and I’m sorry, but Bella Goth just looks really stupid doing the cowpoke dance in that tight dress. So for the new townies, I used some gallery sims (credited in the Chestnut Ridge credits post, coming next), but I also used a lot of the “play with genetics” feature to expand the families of sims who shipped with the pack. Everybody gets a brother! Ok, well, not everybody, but a lot of people got brothers. So here’s what I did with townies:

In early testing, I learned to my disappointment that Sienna Grove works like the special townies from Cottage Living, not like the ones from High School Years—which is to say that the instant you start to play her, she is immediately and permanently replaced as horse trainer with a randomly generated townie. I wanted to retain her as horse trainer in this save file, so (like with Sarah Scott before her), I immediately kicked her out to the homeless bin so people wouldn’t try to play her and lose her the job. That said, for some reason this makes her un-inviteable to places just like Roberto Crinkletop, the mysterious rancher. To counteract this somewhat, I’ve had every household in town make her a keyholder, so she’ll occasionally drop by of her own accord. And of course, you can always come to her for a visit: she is outside the equestrian center from 7am to 7pm every single day, so she’s not hard to find. And pro tip: you can always invite her for a stayover, but for some reason only from the relationships panel, not the phone. The programming on this is weird, man.

Don and Duke Gooseman are now actual champions, as per their backstory. This means that Duke has the special “Champion Horse” trait that gives his foals better qualities, so if you’re going to get into horse breeding as a moneymaking enterprise, I suggest just getting a mare and having her breed with Duke. House rule, though: your sim has to gift Don a thousand simoleons for the privilege. There is now an actual stud service in town! And Don’s been doing a little studing of his own—I’ve made him aromantic since he’s such a loner, but as a sim who loves the outdoors, he constantly gets wants to woohoo in the bushes: so he is now woohoo partners with Roberto Crinkletop, with whom he has the occasional Brokeback-Mountain-style al fresco tryst. Plus I gave him a cat. Don just seems like a cat guy to me.

The Nectar Making Duo have opened a duo of businesses: a country nectary where they live, grow ingredients, and craft and age their nectars, and a small shop in town where they sell them. They’re in a fair amount of debt (used the university student loan system for this), so you can have fun digging them out and making the businesses profitable! They have three main ways to make money: holding ranch gatherings at the nectary (which are basically tasting events to bring in new clientele), using the sales table at the nectary to sell bottles direct-from-the-source, and manning the retail store in town. Some quirks to know about these things:

1) You can’t do a sale on the sales table at the same time you’re throwing a ranch gathering. I was hoping you could, but starting a sale immediately ends the gathering. Sucks, but that’s the way it is.

2) The front door of the nectary is the open-barn-doors arch to allow street sale customers into the nectary so they can buy from the sales table. If you swap these out for real, closed doors, the customers will just hang out nervously at the edge of the lot and then disappear, never buying anything. So if you want to use the sales table, you have to leave the arch. That said, an arch can’t be set as the front door for the purposes of other households coming to visit, so I have put a small, unusable wooden door off to the side of the barn doors and set that as the front door. If you’re visiting the nectary as another household, just knock on this door to make the building appear solid.

3) The nectars available for purchase at the retail store include a mix of qualities and levels of aging. There’s nothing there that is poor quality, and nothing that isn’t aged at all, but the bottles range from lightly aged to finely aged and some are normal rather than excellent. This is so that you can come to the store as a buyer while playing another household and have the option to either splurge on a high-quality bottle or not break the bank and go for something more modestly priced, according to your funds and storyline. Plus bonus: The Nectar Making Duo sub-contract with a few outside suppliers for specialty nectars they can’t brew themselves, so you can find occult nectars here, as well.

And on that note . . . to get Marissa Tracey in with the occult sims who brew the specialty nectars, and also because I think she looks a great deal like him, I have made Marissa—and her new twin brother, Chip—the products of a youthful indiscretion between Wolfgang Wilder and a human sim from Chestnut Ridge. They were both born as “dormant wolves” rather than full-blown werewolves and raised by their mother under her last name, but they know Wolfgang and are friends of the Moonwood Collective. Stocking the Collective’s moonpetal nectar got Marissa’s name circulating in the supernatural community, and now she contracts with the Straud Estate and the famed Madam Zoe herself, as well.

Aside from getting a dog, The Grove family have only gotten minor edits to careers and clothing; I put Umber in the musician career as per his backstory, stuck Juniper in the athlete career (under the new sub-category of show rider!) and let her hair down. It bothers me when the sims team gives two pre-made townies in the same world the exact same hairstyle in the exact same color, as it makes them too easy to confuse. So just like with Cottage Living, where I changed Rashida Watson’s hair to the blue-dyejob teen hair from Parenthood so she wouldn’t be confused with Cecelia Kang from behind, Juniper has now left the side braid to Sienna and adopted a more flowing-hair look that will accent those horse jumps. Oh, and Umber also started a band; he’s the leader of club of local musicians who play down at the saloon most nights—though if you feel like doing an afternoon gig on occasion, I also suggest meeting at the Hay Now! Festival Grounds sometimes.

Look, with the things in this pack, I just couldn’t resist making “Chip and Dale, Rescue Ranchers,” so I did. Chip Tracey (new brother of Marissa Tracey) and his husband, Dale Chooli (new brother of Juniper Grove) run a rescue ranch / petting zoo where children from all worlds can come to learn about animals of all types. The money they get from throwing “ranch animal day” events for kids is pretty modest to support two rescue horses, a cow, a llama, a bunch of mini goats and mini sheep, several chickens, a ton of stray dogs and cats, and some semi-wild rabbits, foxes, and birds, but it sure is cute! And they can always teach kids to ride and bring mini sheep to kids’ birthday parties on the side.

Juniper and Dale’s father, Jim Chooli, has also joined the save file as the horse wrangler for Plumbob Pictures’ on-site Western filming location. He lives in one of the many trailers on location in Galloping Gulch, alongside Barb Henderson (stylist, saloon singer, and local icon) and Giovanni Carrettino, a young cinematographer from Tartosa looking to make his own “penne Westerns.” Jim cares for and trains the studio’s three horses, Molasses, Gun, and Beauty, who play the roles of native American war horse, cowboy horse, and wild stallion, respectively.

Sienna Grove’s former lot is now home to an elderly horse trader named Tallulah Heiheiwuti, who has a bunch of family in Evergreen Harbor. One of them, her eldest granddaughter, has come to stay with her and learn the family business. The problem? She’s afraid of horses! I figured someone had to be, and that storyline just made sense. It also means there is a new family in Evergreen Harbor, which was pretty underpopulated before—Talullah’s son and his wife and kids are now fleshing out the community there and justifying the existence of the Coast Salish art swatch on the Horse Ranch wall hanging, while also giving you the new opportunity to play the botanist branch of the gardener career or the life of a pop-up cupcake baker.

Other things that have changed:

This save file has never featured Faiz Jaleel, the flower-seller from the My Wedding Stories pack, because neighborhood stories killed him off before I had quite figured out that feature and how to manage it. But now, thanks to Roberto Crinkletop’s secret family recipe, he has been resurrected and is in the save file as a living sim! I could not, unfortunately, figure out a way to reinstate him as the flower cart NPC, but he still has all the grapevine gossip interactions about owning it, so just pretend he’s hired extra help to man it sometimes when he’s busy. He has moved into his old childhood home in the big square in Tartosa with the other Piazza Dwellers, where he is trying to get a second business venture, a food stand, off the ground. He’s torn between the classic Tartosan cuisine of pizza and leaning further into the romantic atmosphere with heart-shaped waffles. Can you help him decide and make his new business a success?

Speaking of returning from the netherworld, the save file also never featured Felix Psyded, ghostly founder of the University of Britechester, because the game culled him before I discovered coolspear’s “Delay Ghost Culling Indefinitely” mod. Now that I have it, I have re-downloaded the original Felix from the gallery and made him the resident ghost of Lord Drake Men’s Dorm on the UBrite campus. How did I do this, you say? I’ve enrolled him in the History degree at UBrite in order to make him a proper resident of the dorm. You can keep him there practically indefinitely by having him enroll in only one class at a time while you play with other focus sims in this dorm—and if he runs out of classes and completes the degree, just start in on another degree. By my count, this should enable him to keep haunting this dorm for 156 in-game weeks—and that’s only if he never fails a single class! If you alternate having him fail and succeed so he does it slower but never gets kicked out, that’s 312 weeks, or basically eternity in sim years. He’s here forever! Also, in setting this up, I realized I had not included any woohoo locations in the UBrite dorms, which is completely unacceptable. Who’s ever heard of a dorm without a hookup spot?! I have now added closets to both the men’s and women’s dorms in order to fix this grave oversight. My deepest apologies.

I had previously not moved Wolfgang Wilder in with the other Moonwood Collective sims because I wanted him to remain the NPC librarian in Moonwood Mill, but in the process of making him related to his new children (Marissa and Chip Tracey), I discovered that somewhere along the way the game had already booted him out of that role for some reason. Just like with Faiz, I couldn’t figure out how to reinstate him, so now he has retired from librarianship, moved in with the rest of the Collective, and embraced his writing full-time—which means he still spends a lot of time at the library, since the Collective Cabin is off-the-grid and doesn’t have a computer.

On the subject of townies with NPC jobs, there’s news on the Scotts, the not-quite-playable family I booted to the homeless bin to prevent Sara Scott being supplanted as pub owner in Finchwick. You still can’t play her without losing her job, but her husband Simon is totally fair game, because he isn’t any kind of special villager NPC. So, with the introduction of a large estate needing filming crew for the long-running TV series “Dignity & Decorum,” I decided to rescue him from the homeless bin and make him the cinematographer on the Plumbob Pictures costume drama crew. This has actually allowed me to make the Scotts semi-playable, because even though Sara is still in the homeless bin, I was able to get Simon to ask her to be his NPC roommate, and that completely works! As long as she’s only a roommate and not technically part of the household, she can both be the pub owner and live in the swanky suite of rooms I’ve marked off for her and Simon within the manor house. Admittedly, she’s rarely there because pub hours are serious business, but still! That said, in my experience the game tends to get rid of roommates when you switch households, so you may need to reinstate her as roommate if you want to play with this arrangement down the line. Luckily, that’s very easy; just head down to the pub where she’ll be working and re-invite her under the “roommate…” menu.

Derek McMillan and Ian Moody, the stitchery shop owners in Henford-on-Bagley, are getting on in years and have been finding the crops and the chickens and the llamas and the store a lot to manage, so they’ve made a few strategic decisions to help themselves out. First and foremost, they have refocused on their mission to provide beautiful, high-quality colored wool to their customers by swapping out their chicken coop for a small sheepfold, which they have stocked with a multicolored array of mini sheep dyed every color of the rainbow (except for the colors already covered by their two llamas). They’ve also hired a ranch hand to assist with animal care and the garden, so they can focus their own energy on the shop and their sewing circle club, which is going better than ever now that it’s associated bug has been fixed!

The Watson family has moved off the hilltop to a smaller, flatter, and more organized farm with fewer camera problems down in the valley of Old New Henford. They have added a small flock of sheep to their livestock, and adopted an elderly Irish Draught horse named Dobber. Rashidah has already knitted him a set of leg warmers and a saddleblanket, and animal-lover Imran is learning to ride!

Lucha Harjo has started a side hustle selling popcorn down on the pier in Copperdale. It’s more a hobby than a career move right now, but oh, that satisfying crunch when those teens enjoy their popcorn to the tinny sounds of the ferris wheel music! Truly heartwarming.

Bob Pancakes randomly came home the other day with a tattoo of kitchen utensils on his forearm. Eliza thinks she smells a midlife crisis coming on . . .

Celebrity chef Clara Bjergsen decided that she wanted a whole new expanded kitchen, so she bought one. It’s not like she doesn’t have the money. Her current flavor obsession: reconnecting with her childhood and making heritage memories for her daughters through haute cuisine experimentation with traditional Nordic waffles.

On the opposite end of that career trajectory, aspiring chef Hugo Villareal has been hard at work spending his father’s ill-gotten gains on lots of new equipment to revive the old nectary the family moved into. With his new nectar press, oak barrels, bottle storage racks, pizza oven, stand mixer, and a block of parmigiana and a grater always at the ready, Hugo is all prepped to begin his journey into vineyard-to-table nectars perfectly paired with lovingly crafted Italian dishes. And he’s really leaning into it, too—he also bought himself a whole set of food-themed shirts, so he’s always repping his future career goals. If he could only graduate high school early and get started...

Refugio dei Pirati Resort in Tartosa discovered a long-forgotten Roman bath structure beneath its foundations and, deciding this was too good a find to ignore, tore down their entire building to excavate, restore, and construct an entrance to the thing. They subsequently rebuilt completely from the ground up, and now boast a whole new building with brand-new amenities like a private reception hall alongside refurbished old favorites like the couples’ spa. To celebrate their grand re-opening, they rebranded as the Amorosa Resort. If you’ve never vacationed in Tartosa, now might be the time to start—especially with all the new pizza ovens and functional nectar cellars popping up all over the place!

The shops on the Sulani Promenade have gotten in a whole new shipment of swimsuits thanks to the Poolside Splash Kit. They are now on display and for purchase from a series of colorful new mannequins. Whether you’re looking for tourist-y beach wear or wetsuits and snorkel gear, they’ve got you covered!

That's not the only new stock in this update: The Gnome’s Arms in Finchwick has stocked its behind-the-bar shelves with nectar. It’s not top-of-the-line stuff like you’ll find in Chestnut Ridge, but it does the trick!

SimCity Pizza, the oldest restaurant on The Waterfront in San Myshuno’s Spice Market, has finally, grudgingly, updated their equipment to include a modern pizza oven alongside their so-old-the-food-inspector-banned-them-from-using-it wood fired one. They’re having a “create your own flavor” special right now, where customers can make their own pizzas using off-menu flavors and ingredients. It’s really revitalized the place!

Llamante Llama Ranch in Selvadorada wants all animals to feel welcome, including those who are traveling with their humans. They have converted some previously unused space in the front into a small horse paddock, and added some items for cats and dogs, as well. If you’re looking to go horseback riding around Selvadorada (gorgeous, by the way!), this is the place to rent for your vacation. There are also a ton of juice barrels lined up behind the bar in town—you’re welcome to use a couple of them for horse training, if you want.

San Sequoia has a few more items in the open portions of worlds, including a newly functional lemonade stand alongside the makeshift one down on the docks! It’s a great place to sell ice cream, lemonade, or scout cookies (though you’ll need to make those yourself at home beforehand).

There are no new residents in Brindleton Bay. Nope, not a one. Not a single living soul. But the price has gone down on the old lightkeeper’s house on Deadgrass Isle. For some reason, you can now move in there completely for free…

* * *

Thanks for your patience, and for your votes on the expansion of the actor career! Head to the original Career World save file post to download the update and enjoy!

[discluded]

I am trying to take P*nd's words with a pinch of salt and you have to leave room for understanding with translations but this whole it's not a Y movie think....is really doing a disservice to not only to his own argument by labeling Y movies/series as limiting/ bad but also seems insensitive towards his own actor's work who worked hard to show a nuanced relationship that had very real emotions for the characters who were as open as the characters felt they could have in that setting. It kinda feels like we are back to square one with everyone fighting about whether this movie will have romance and whether MA will be each other's love interest (which from the way the actors played in seems very much present only for the director to come out and say they are not a couple)

Hi!!!

Okay, your skepticism and criticism is valid, but I think there is a little more context as well. Let's take a look at Mile's speech from yesterday at SF Cinema.

I’m going to make a speech*… that actually, to be straightforward, Thai films have lots of potential, but it’s a shame that the proportion of Thai films that people should come see is only about 10% of all** (the films being shown)… 10 in 100 is very little na krub. I want to increase the proportion to like 50%, 70%, 80% if it’s possible… right? And most importantly, Man Suang is a film that I believe everyone can watch. When everyone can watch it, some might be curious as to… take it this way, the comments from the behind (the scene) to me said that ‘It’s at least worth watching it’ and they feel that ,hey, they profit from the happiness of some moment in the film and that’s all, krub. So I want people to spread (the news) word of mouth. If you want someone to be happy while watching a movie, show lots of love to Man Suang, and most importantly, I thank everyone who came by and I feel like they are the voice (of promoting this film). I’m making a speech very seriously na… many voices that help talk, help present in social media, really thank you, and please show lots of love to Man Suang na krub, thank you krub. [translation] *Mile making a joke about how he's always talking like a politician, and also referencing the current political climate in Thailand **Mile referring to the issue of the major cinemas in Thailand not showing local films but only blockbuster films causing Thai films to not make money and subsequently lose their funding

A little more context: the two major distributors of films in Thailand are SF Cinema and Major Group, along with a smaller group of independent Thai cinemas. Usually one of SF Cinema and Major Group will show Thai films, but not both. In terms of Man Suang promo, the Thai fans themselves said it was rare and good work that the team got both film distributors to show Man Suang while still being a smaller/new company, and that the independent theatres also agreed to show it. I believe that's partly what the Man Suang Roadshow is meant to do, because they know that their own presence will draw fans to theatres.

Remember, one facet of soft power includes making domestic products more appealing to citizens compared to imports, which sounds like a major issue for Thai cinema right now. If Man Suang can revitalize interest in Thai cinema beyond just their film too, I think MileApo will have achieved some of their goal with this project.

But back to your overall comment, one of the challenges of BL/Y series is that it's still stigmatized as a genre.

I'm wondering now if people thought Mile's acting was bad because they primed themselves to think that actors doing BL/QL series were bad at acting :/ And oftentimes, the skills to get into one of these positions isn't very high, which is why some actors will use it as stepping stone in their career in Thailand, and why so many solo fans expected Mile and Apo to part ways as an acting pair after the success of their first project because they feel like MA "relegated" themselves to doing a BL series. There is still a lot of stigma against LGBTQ people in Thailand, even though it's one of the more progressive Asian countries.

So Pond, as the Exec Producer, Director, and owner of BOC is between a rock and a hard place. They both want to reduce stigma of queer storytelling but also promote Thai cinema. Also, calling back again to this:

I don't think most people think of CMBYN as a BL. In fact, it, alongside Carol, are considered one of the best romantic dramas* of all time. (*mostly western/english films) And that's without the qualification of queer romantic drama, etc. etc.

So I'm going to give Pond a little bit of a break here. Also, this user also reminded me Man Suang was supposed to be three hours long? I thought I hallucinated Apo said that, so we gotta wonder what happened to 1/3rd of the film. I hope the director's cut makes it to streaming like the way La Forte did

[persephoneflouwers]

i used to go here a while back even though i wasn’t rlly a proper larrie (complicated lol). at one point i started talking mad shit about them and everyone hated me only for me to come back and see how different people move now. womp womp :/ i genuinely feel like everyone dislikes them a teeny tiny bit, it’s weird to see. back then it was a big deal if you got away with a tad bit of criticism and anyone who was proper bitter was ousted into a small corner of this site where they stayed bitter with their anons. and it was also like 3 people. now im checking random blogs and literally everyone has some shady thing to say. DESERVED tbh. leaving before I say more. sorry if this is annoying or unnecessary. i just wanted to say it 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️

I mean… if you’ve been following closer, they have been clearly very hard on larries for a while. Take Harry for example. This past summer he made his life purpose to destroy all things larries used as… something lol blue bandana? Here, X*nder have it. Sweet creature? It’s for Gemma and he said it in front of 90K people which was very humiliating imo. Umbro shirt? Listen, he’ll have it for a pap walk he will have to promote his brand and yall like bluegreen nail polish. And the last one, the one people willingly ignore, he has O*ivia name tattooed on his INNER THIGH. I dont think it gets worse than this lol do I even have to mention the biking sessions to promote a theatre play or…?

Louis has been a dickhead on twitter since he was in the band. Yesterday he was even more of a dickhead than he used to. If he wants to be the third Gallagher brother he should be asking them first. He was unnecessarily rude with everyone and with the chicken parmesan thing he showed to me he doesn’t even read the tweets or whatever issue with reading comprehension he has going on.

The good thing about social media instead of live or interviews is that you can take your time to write down some articulated response and that you happen to choose what you reply to.

He announced he was going to do this thing 24 hours prior, went online and treated everyone with sufficiency. Totally unprovoked. Can you see how prepared this was? That makes it even worse because he is acting like this on purpose and everyone knows it. Like what’s the point of doing that speech on stage everyone gets so emotional for if you go online and bicker with your fans? They’re not taken for granted when they buy your tickets, but when they tweet constantly about you and keep you relevant on social they’re? This tells a lot to me.

The problem is he wants to deny what he created (he mentioned the recipe even for walls promo) but he puts a target on larries’ back as always, because his fans can be unreasonably nasty and the pop world hates larries already they don’t waste a minute to start alienating them, insult them and bully them out of the safe space they have created for themselves. It’s the marketing they have chosen, their propaganda.

It’s weird when accounts with huge following interact with this part of fandom, because they never do it to “protect” them. We’re talking about a loud, mostly queer and young side of his fandom… I wonder what would happen if larries finally decided to turn their backs at them (which I encourage to do). Yes, there still might be a target on them but at least it wouldn’t be like that. I’m pretty out of the fandom, barely talk about them but I still follow some blogs so I know a few things. I’ve realised I’m not comfortable anymore here. I still want to write a few stories because it’s fun and I like the exercise but that’s going to be it.

[esotl]

Performance - Epilogue 1 (Part 24)

Writer: Akira

Season: Spring

Characters: Wataru, Hokuto, Tomoya, Shu, Nazuna, Mitsuru, Makoto, Adonis

Translation Directory

The performance will continue tomorrow, after all. Don't be satisfied with the current state of things, let's update it based on the areas of improvement we noticed while performing.

Location: Cafe

Wataru: Amazing! Great work, everyone~☆

This day's performance went off without a hitch thanks to you!

I'm truly grateful to all the staff and performers who got involved!

Today is my treat! Please, eat and drink to your heart's content, and replenish your energy for the performances to come! Cheers~!

Nazuna: Cheers~♪ Man, you really did well!

Tomo-chin, Mitsuru-chin, you did great! Usually when people I know appear in stuff like this, I end up laughing because I know what their usual behaviour is like♪

But this time I was immersed to the very end, I got really engrossed in it~♪ Seriously, that's a huge deal!

Tomo-chin's in the Drama Club, but who knew Mitsuru-chin had such a talent for acting?

Tomoya: Ahaha. Thank you~ though personally speaking, my performance was full of things to reflect on...

My screaming during the last scene in particular, that was my biggest highlight in the play, but I'm embarrassed because I feel something was missing.

Hokuto: I'd say you were exhausted by that point, so your voice didn't come out.

It didn't even feel like a scream. Though, I think using a sorrowful voice, like it's about to disappear, was good in its own way.

Wataru: Indeed. It somehow became advantageous. As the scenes went on, you got more immersed in your role, and gradually became better, Tomoya-kun~

You got a passing grade, you did your best.

Fufufu. Since you were saying pitiable things like "I don't think I can remember my lines" earlier, I was worried about you.

But in the end, you said all your lines yourself without relying on my substitution, didn't you?

That's my review. Well, there were still a lot of scenes where you weren't acting so much as you were "saying your lines", though.

Tomoya: Uu. Just when I thought you were complimenting me, in the end you're criticising me.

Wataru: It'd be an issue to be satisfied with this. Plus, while this may be a closing party for the staff, it's a review meeting for us.

The performance will continue tomorrow, after all. Don't be satisfied with the current state of things, let's update it based on the areas of improvement we noticed while performing.

Adonis: By the way, how many days will the performance last?

Nazuna: Ten, right? I'm pretty sure I remember that much being written on the promo poster...

The final performance is over a week away, if you're doing this every day I'm sure it'll be a relief when it's over.

Wataru: Well, part way through - tomorrow at the earliest - the members of the acting department who were off sick should be returning...

So each and every one of our burdens will suddenly decrease.

I truly was nervous... I was informed of the vacancies just this morning, so even I was at my wit's end.

Well, I was busy until the opening day, so I hadn't been dutifully keeping in touch with the other parties. It's my mistake.

How hopeless~ it's been a while since I've put on a proper performance, so my intuition has dulled.

Last year, particularly in the last semester, I was cut off from even the acting department, and was only able to do solo shows.

I was so accustomed to being isolated that even though there were vacancies among my associates, I was late to notice.

Hokuto-kun comes along even if I ignore him, so there's no need to contact him... Because of that, I forgot the elementary fact of theatre being a group activity.

Hokuto: Don't forget that. Also, contact people properly. I've also got plans of my own.

Makoto: Now now... But it's incredible that Hibiki-senpai was able to fill the vacancies by playing multiple roles by himself. And he acted so naturally, too-

If Itsuki-senpai hadn't pointed it out, I don't think I'd have noticed to the end.

Wataru: Oh my, so Shu suspected it after all?

Shu: Hmph... Just who do you think I am?

Wataru: I think of you as a kindred spirit, an existence equal to mine, my old friend.

Fufufu. Though, while performing multiple roles by myself isn't an impossibility, it isn't very fun...

I couldn't polish any of the roles outside of my original one, so the result was dissatisfying.

Should I recruit actors from outside the Drama Club and acting department next time?

Like with Mr "Bad Boy"... whoops, I mean, Tenma-kun this time.

As idols, there must be many children who wish to learn and try out acting.

Following after those kinds of people is more difficult than performing alone, but it makes me happy.

I want to invite people like the right-hand man~ and Eichi, too♪

Shu: I thought I noticed him, though. Tenshouin was nonchalantly sat in the audience.

Wataru: Right. I shivered at the thought of him scolding me with "stop neglecting your idol work to only immerse yourself in theatre".

He had a somewhat dissatisfied expression the who~le time.

Shu: Hmph. When it comes to Tenshouin, he wants you to be an idol, doesn't he...

I don't want to speculate what that person feels, but if he's dissatisfied, all I can think is "serves you right".

"Come now Shu-kun, mind your manners! Using dirty language will dirty your soul too, you know?"

Mitsuru: Zzz, zzz...♪

Tomoya: Huh? I thought he was being quiet, Mitsuru's fallen asleep.

Hokuto: Haha. Of course he'll be worn out... How cute, sleeping with his stomach exposed.

Oh? The transfer student brought a towel. Do you intend to use it like a comforter?

It's true that we'll be continuing the performance tomorrow, it'd be an issue for him to fall ill.

Haha. Your eyes are red, were you crying?

Makoto: She's probably lost sleep due to being busier than usual, her hair seems damaged too... It's good to do your best at work, but treat your body carefully, okay?

Wataru: Right. Being an idol, a producer, or an actor are all occupations where your body is your most valuable asset♪

Nazuna: Haha. It wouldn't be a surprise if she was crying, though~ I also teared up a bit... Not because it moved me or anything, but because it was somehow super pitiful.

It was more of a hopeless tragedy than I thought it'd be, so it caught me off guard~?

Maybe I understood the author's feelings of wanting to reverse the tragedy of the play and give those children happiness.

[Act 10 • Directory • Epilogue 2]