#they’re getting divorced fyi. that’s the news

[theclairvoyage]

Centrifugation: Chapter 1

plasmadonor!Joel x f!reader

You’re the star phlebotomist at the local plasma center, and the job has been increasingly mundane as of late… until a new and handsome Texan donor comes to the center and changes that, and the rest your life.

Series Masterlist

Series warnings:

AU, M/F, Age gap (20 years)-reader’s YOB is 1995 (purely coincidental lolol), eventual SMUT, blood, needles, & plasma talk (nothing too graphic, I promise!), a bit of blasphemy, criticism of religion, mentions of death, divorce, angst, fluffity fluff fluff, alcohol consumption, violence.  Individual chapters will have specific warnings.

FYI – this work contains criticisms of religion and reader is atheist/agnostic.  Feel free to scroll if this offends you.  If you decide to read, remember that even if you are religious, this is not an attack on you, but rather ideology.  And remember the tenets of religious freedom.  Everyone has the right to believe – and NOT to believe – in the things you do.

Plasma Center UrbanDict:

Stick = venipuncture

PR = permanent rejection, aka permanent deferral

Reception = where donors have vitals taken to determine if they are suitable to donate

Donor Floor = where the magic happens, baby! Where donation occurs, aka sticks with big 17G needles

 Processing = where units of plasma are sampled and frozen

This is my first ever fic! Excited to share all of it with you. I'm new to posting this kind of stuff on Tumblr, so please forgive rookie formatting and whatnot. Hope you enjoy! As of 03/10/24, I have 6 chapters written - I'm juggling my writing with finishing my MPH degree, so my schedule might be a little spotty until mid-May.

Chapter 1

Chapter warnings: blood, needles, & plasma talk, light violence.

WC: 3.7k

Friday, October 15th | 0755

You turn into the parking lot at the plasma center, a little later than your usual 10 minutes early.  Your shift is at 8, so you don’t have much time to walk to the center, clock in, grab your coat and face shield and get to work.  Thankfully, the parking lot is just across the street.  As soon as you step out of your car, downtown Omaha greets you with the familiar scents of cigarette smoke and fall air, along with the sounds of the city buses and commuters chugging along.

It’s a nice morning.  Living in Nebraska means you get to experience the peaks and valleys of all four seasons, and during fall, this means the leaves of what few trees are in the downtown area are painted lovely hues of orange, yellow, and even red – if you’re lucky enough to find a scarlet or pin oak tree.

The plasma center parking lot is shared with employees and donors, and it’s packed this morning.  Not a great sign.  You walk up to the back employee entrance and punch in the code.  The keypad beeps and lights up green and you pull open the ages-old, heavy-as-hell door and make your way to the break room.

The donor waiting area is just outside the break room door, and you can tell by how full it is that it’s going to be a long day, confirming your earlier suspicions in the parking lot.  Somebody definitely called in, you think.  Great.  Punching in the same code as before, you enter the break room, throw your stuff in your locker, and clock in.

As soon as you’re on the Donor Floor, donned with your white lab coat, blue nitrile gloves, and face shield, one of your best phlebotomists and good friend Keri approaches, looking flustered as hell.

“Jesus, thank fuck you’re here,” she sighs, taking a deep breath and raising her eyebrows at you.  She smooths back her frizzy hair and sets down her face shield on the counter next to you.

“Are we short today, or did corporate send out some bonus texts to half of Omaha?” you say, checking the Donor Queue on the computer.  15 people waiting, average wait time of 43 minutes.  Fucking clean up time, I guess.

“Two call-outs, but they’re newbies, so it wouldn’t have mattered, really,” she says.  “Definite yes on the bonus texts.  Regulars are all pissed off because they didn’t get any.”  You roll your eyes and sigh.  To get more donors in, the company you work for has been sending bonus texts to donors that haven’t been in in a while, which really ticks off the regular, twice-a-week donors.  It’s all about meeting that liters budget.

“Where do you need me?  Breaks need to be sent?” you ask her.  You’re the lead phlebotomist, but you always check in with whoever opened before you make any decisions.  Keri nods.  “Send Blake to break, he’s got an open section now and we’ve got to get these wait times down.”  You grab your mobile phlebotomy device and head that way.

Each phlebotomist can have a maximum of 6 donors in their section.  You see Blake cleaning up the machine from his last disconnect, leaving you an empty section.  “You can head to break, I’ll take over here,” you say, helping him wipe down the now-empty donor bed.

“Thanks… really happy that you’re here.  It’s been a shit show today,” he says, walking away from the section toward the break room.  You groan and head up to the front near the waiting area, grab a chart, and start climbing the mountain.

Thursday, October 15th | 1230

The morning turned out to be an absolute disaster.  You quickly filled up your section once you sent Blake to break, apologizing to every donor you sat for the wait times.  Most were understanding.  There were a few that gave you an eye roll or a shrug.  A few left the center, not wanting to be late for work.  The fall is generally a busy time at the center, with people seeking extra money for football tailgates and games, college students needing extra money for just about everything, and parents stocking up early on holiday savings.

Thankfully, Keri, you, and the rest of the morning Donor Floor crew knocked the Queue down to 3 donors and wait times down to 10 minutes.  Once the last morning break was done, they came over and sent you to your lunch.  Delighted, you took off your sweaty coat and hung it up, washed your hands at the sink by the coat rack, and headed to the break room.

Before you’re able to punch in the door code, a deep, velvety voice stops you.

“Uh, miss?  Can you point me in the right direction?”

You turn and look in the direction of the voice and see a taller man with dark, silvery-streaked curly hair, tanned skin and pensive brown eyes staring at you.  He’s donning a red flannel that squeezes his broad shoulders and ropy arm muscles, and dark wash Levi’s that have the outline of his wallet imprinted in the front right pocket.  He’s definitely a blue-collar guy, not unlike a lot of the current donors.  Must be a new donor, you think.  Damn, he looks good.  You feel a little zap in your chest, not unlike the fingerstick donors get during screening.

“Hi!  Are you a new donor?”  You ask, turning on your customer service voice in hopes of calming your nerves.  You step back from the door and walk toward him.  He’s got a small white paper slip in hand, which tells you he needs his veins checked, so he must be new.

“Yes ma’am, need someone ‘ta look at my veins.  Been here before, but it’s been a long time,” he says, watching you approach him and giving you the once-over.  Twice-over.  Your pulse quickens.  His voice is like icing, dripping with a sweet Southern accent and mushing your insides.  You smile and take the paper from him, hoping that you aren’t blushing.

“Roll up your sleeves for me and let’s take a look,” you say, watching him roll up the sleeves of his red flannel.  He’s got thick, veiny forearms that are tanned and covered with freckles.  He wears a watch on his left wrist that you assume hasn’t been removed in years, judging by the pure white skin peeking underneath.  His hands are big and scarred.  Definitely works with his hands, you think.  He has a small, circle-shaped scar on his right arm near the venipuncture site, so he was telling the truth about donating plasma before.  You grab a tourniquet hanging on the cabinet near the chart area, wrap it on his upper arm, and feel.  His veins are huge and muscular, and you realize you didn’t need the tourniquet in the first place.  Rookie mistake.

“Guess I really don’t need this,” you say, removing the tourniquet and feeling his ropy veins with your index finger.  His skin is warm under your clammy finger.  He chuckles.  “Heard that one before,” he says.  You laugh and make eye contact with him, noticing the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and his salt and pepper beard.  His gaze is amiable and filled with something else you can’t quite pinpoint, and your stomach twists.  You look away before you can decipher it.

“I don’t think you’ll have any issues with the stick,” you say, and he laughs.  “Are you hydrated?  Had a good meal in the last hour or two?” You ask, writing your name on the vein check slip and circling “Pass.”  You see the name Joel Miller written at the top.

“Yes ma’am, I do a lot of workin’ outside and with my hands, so I know better,” he says, confirming your earlier assumption.  His voice is sending a wave of tingles from your ears to your neck, and you feel goosebumps start to erupt in their pathway.

“Good man, Joel,” you say, noticing him perk up at you saying his name, “Take this back to the front desk and we’ll get you processed as quickly as we can.”  He nods, gives you a handsome-as-fuck lopsided smile, and walks back to the front.  You head back to the break room and turn to glance at him once more to find that he's already looking at you.  Fuck, you think, looking back at the door.  Don’t need a hot donor making me feel nervous like this.  He’s older than you, but he might be the most handsome guy you’ve ever seen.  You can only imagine how homely you look, clad in your scrubs and sweaty from the morning hustle and bustle.

You see every part of humanity at your job: young and old, foreign and domestic, all races and ethnicities, handsome and near homeless.  There have been a few men that have caught your eye, and a few that you’ve met up with outside of the center, but none like this one.  As tedious and mundane as the job can be, it’s the people that make it exciting, especially attractive ones.  Well, hopefully he passes screening so I can see him on the Donor Floor, you think, contemplating what you’re going to get for lunch in the short time that you have.

Thursday, October 15th | 1430

Your break went by too fast.  You decided on some fast-food place just across the street from the center.  It’s good and cheap, but you know the greasy food is going to put you in a late-afternoon lull.  Oh well.  After you got back, the lobby was still relatively empty, so you started working on doing the monthly machine cleanings in the meantime.

The plasmapheresis machines are complicated and like everything else in the plasma center, they come with lots of rules and regulations.  You’re a seasoned pro, though, so the cleaning and documentation are a breeze.  You’re heading over to clean the last of the machines in the third row of the Donor Floor when you see a familiar, handsome head of dark salt-and-pepper curls walk behind Keri to one of the donor beds in the first row.  He smiles at you as he lies on the donor bed, and you feel your cheeks heat and curl up into a smile of their own.  Get a fucking grip.  You’re relieved that Keri is taking care of him, because you’re nervous just seeing him in your work area.  You can only imagine how shaky your hands would be with a needle if you were the one sticking him.

While cleaning the machines in the third row, you periodically look over at Joel and Keri.  Keri is great with the donors, and it’s evident when you see Joel laughing with her.  Each time you look up, he’s either already looking at you or looks up right after you do.  You try to play it off like you’re scanning over all the donors, making sure everything is going as it should, but the sweat sheen forming on your face and neck betray you.

You see the light on his machine turn green, indicating he’s been stuck and is running smoothly.  You imagine what it would’ve been like to feel his veins again, feeling his warm, tan skin underneath your fingers… and underneath other things, like—

“Oh my god, that man is such a charmer… and asked about you at least three times,” Keri states, snapping you out of your horny daydream.  Your eyes widen and you turn so he can’t see your face from where he’s seated.

“Shhh!  Keep your voice down!”  You hiss, making both of you giggle.  “What was he saying?”

“Oh, nothing much, just asking what the cute girl that checked his veins was doing all the way over here,” she smirks.  “He used to donate here over 25 years ago when the center first opened up.  Can you believe he’s that old?  He does NOT look like it.”  Odd, you think.  He didn’t sound like he was from here when you spoke to him earlier.  Wait, did he say I was cute?  Blushing at his remark about your appearance, you remember the scar on his arm and think he’s probably telling the truth.  “Wow, he looks good.  How old is he?”  Keri pulls him up on her mobile phlebotomy handheld and you see he was born in 1975.  Damn.  20 years older than you.

Before you and Keri can gush further about Joel, the front door slams shut, echoing throughout the center and catching everyone off-guard.  You watch as one of the younger regular donors, Cedric, storms past Reception and the donor waiting area over to the Donor Floor front desk, near where you checked Joel’s veins earlier.  He practically spits your name, his brows pinched in a rage.

“Cedric, is everything alright?”  You ask, approaching the front desk slowly.  The once-noisy Donor Floor is quiet, save for the quiet whirring and clicking of the machines.  Donors not wearing headphones are anxiously watching the front desk.  You give Cedric the once-over and notice that his arm wrap is soaked with blood, and some of it has gotten on his white shirt and shorts and the floor around him.  First rule of donating: Never wear white to a plasma center, dude.

“Does it fucking look alright?  My arm wasn’t wrapped right and now I have blood everywhere!”  he fumes.  The entire Donor Floor is watching, including Joel and poor Blake, who must’ve disconnected Cedric.  Blake approaches tentatively, tail between his legs, but you put your hand up to him, saying I’ll take care of this.  Blake gives you a thankful nod and tiptoes back to his section.

“Cedric, I’m sorry about that.  Come over to the sink and I’ll rewrap it for you,” you say, putting a fresh pair of gloves on.  “Keri, can you clean up the blood spots with bleach, please?”  You ask.  She nods and grabs a Clorox bottle near the front desk, putting her face shield on and quickly walking around Cedric to search for the path of blood droplets.  Cedric raises his voice again.

“Not good enough.  I need that kid fired for his incompetence!” he points aggressively at Blake, flinging some blood droplets on the arm of your coat and on the front desk.

“Everybody makes mistakes, Cedric.  Blake is a great employee.  We can fix this.  Let’s get you cleaned up, and maybe we can compensate you a little extra on your next donation,” you offer.  But Cedric isn’t having it.  He rips off the arm wrap and gauze and throws them at you while screaming expletives.  The bloodied wrap nearly hits your face shield.  Oh, hell no.  He’s a long-term donor, so he’s probably clean, but it’s too close for comfort.

“Blake, call Trina and call the cops.  Get this guy out of here.  Cedric, don’t ever come back to this place,” you calmly instruct, walking backwards to find a biohazard container a safe distance from Cedric, never turning away from him.  Trina, your manager, doesn’t put up with this kind of stuff and will make sure he’s permanently deferred.

“Fuck you, bitch!”  Cedric yells, sprinting out of the center with two fingers on his free hand holding his venipuncture site, some blood dripping underneath.  Once the front door slams shut, you turn around and take off all your PPE and toss it in the biohazard container, saving your nametag and pen.  Frustrated and tired, you walk to the sink to wash your hands.  Keri and Trina approach you.

“You alright, hon?” Trina asks.  She’s a good manager, always looking out for her employees.  She used to work on the Donor Floor, so she’s no stranger to these kinds of mishaps.  Tensions can be hefty in this area – some donors are desperate for money, some fear needles more than death itself, and some are just grumps.  Phlebotomists usually get the brunt of it.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just need to cool off.  I told Blake to call the cops.”  She nods.

“Go ahead.  When the police get here, they’ll want your statement, so I’ll come find you then… I’ll put in the PR now,” she says, giving your arm a supportive squeeze before walking back toward the offices.  You give her a pained smile and look to Keri, equally concerned as Trina.  “Take your afternoon break, love.  I’ll handle everything else,” she says.  “Thanks, Ker.  I’m gonna step in the freezer to cool off and then I’ll go.”  She nods.  You head toward Processing, located at the opposite end of the center.  Processing has two giant walk-in freezers that always maintain temps of -40ºC – great for keeping fresh plasma frozen solid and an instant cool down.

You step in one of the freezers, shutting the heavy door behind you.  You walk over to the fans and stand underneath.  The sweat on your neck and back quickly freezes in its downward track, leaving behind a sting that could soon turn to frostbite.  It doesn’t take long to cool off here, and anybody staying in for longer than a minute is supposed to put on a heavy coat, gloves, and a ski mask.  It’s a popular spot for blistering summer days and after heated interactions like this.  Satisfied with the pink blooming on your fingers and the crunch of your frozen, sweaty hair, you step out of the freezer and make your way outside for your break.

Once at the picnic table at the outdoor employee break area, you do a quick scan for Cedric.  You can see the trails of blood drops leading to and from his car, and an empty space where his car must’ve been parked.  Heaving a sigh of relief, you plop down at the table and massage your temples.  Fuck… glad this day is almost over.

“Sweetheart, you alright?” A soothing, Southern voice rings in your ear and you look up, seeing Joel approach from his truck.  He says your name, surprising you.  Keri must’ve told him it while she was going through the process with him.

You take this moment to return the once-over he gave you earlier.  Twice-over.  His sleeves are still rolled up and you can see his arm wrap.  His jeans crinkle at the hip with each step, his strong, toned quads flexing as each foot contacts the pavement.  You can only imagine what he looks like from behind.  His cowboy boots are worn, the leather cracking around the toes.  He’s probably the type to wear a pair until they crumble to bits.  He walks with a quiet bravado, taking long, smooth strides until he reaches you at the table.

You’ve no doubt you look exhausted.  Though your sweat has frozen, you can feel how frizzy your hair is, especially around your face.  Your eyes sting with fatigue and the skin underneath your eyelids tug downward.  Your throat feels dry and tight, like you might cry soon.  He must notice because the look in his eyes morphs from concern to anger.

“Hi, Joel,” you state, forcing a smile.  “I’m okay.  Not my first rodeo,” you wink, giving him a sarcastic “yee-haw” motion.  He laughs, but his eyes betray him, still showing anger.

“Mind if I sit?” He motions to the spot across from you.

“No, go ahead, but the cops are on their way and who knows if Cedric will be back,” you caution him.  He waves you off.

“That fuckin’ kid don’t scare me, and I saw everythin’ anyway.  I can talk to the cops if you ain’t comfortable,” he says.  He puts his hands on the backs of yours, and you feel another zap in your chest like you did when you first saw him earlier.  You notice now that he doesn’t have a wedding ring.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to.  I’m well versed in this department,” you say, feeling the tears reaching their boiling point.  You do everything you can to keep them in, but one betrays you and falls down your cheek.  Angry that you’re crying in front of Joel, you try to move your hand out from underneath his to wipe the tear, but he beats you to it.

“It’s okay, darlin’.  You did the right thing, stickin’ up for your people,” he soothes, his thumb wiping your tear from your face.  He moves his hand to cup your jaw and swipes his thumb gently over your cheek.  His angry eyes softened back to concerned.

For what feels like an eternity, the two of you stare at each other, exchanging more communication nonverbally than words could ever.  He’s looking at each of your eyes back and forth, and you feel yourself start to get embarrassed under his hot stare.  You try to turn your head away from his gaze, but his hand stops you.  “You’re alright, darlin’, got nothin’ to be ashamed of here,” he says, reading your mind.  You bring your hand up from the table to gently grasp his arm as a sign of appreciation.  His gaze follows and he swallows loudly.

“Thank you,” you say, giving him a genuine, close-lipped smile.  His eyes move to your lips and then quickly dart back to your eyes, like you caught him doing something forbidden.  He removes his hands and stands up, walking over to your side.  He offers a hand to help you up and you accept, letting him pull you to your feet.

“Sorry your first visit back here was so crazy,” you say, and he laughs.  “Hopefully next time it’s not so… exciting.”  He moves his hand up to your shoulder and gives it a quick squeeze before dropping it.  A tingle rips up your spine.

“Oh, I’m sure it will be.”  He gives you that same look that he did earlier, the one where you couldn’t quite figure out what it meant.  This time, though, you think you know exactly what it means.  Your stomach somersaults.

“I’ll see you soon, darlin’.  Hopefully your day gets better,” he says, turning to walk toward his truck.  Once he gets to the driver’s side door, he turns to look at you again and pauses.  You stand and stare at him, wanting to say something in return, but too overwhelmed by all your emotions.  He smiles and gets in the truck, starting it and driving off while watching you with a small wave.  You smile as he leaves.

Fuck.

Next Chapter

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #joel miller #centrifugation #pedro pascal fandom

[thewritetofreespeech]

Hii!! Thought I'd stop by and drop a request! This one's for Joe and Cherry from SK8 (separately): They both were high school skateboarding rivals with reader who is a sporty and tomboyish girl but later develop a crush on her.

Unfortunately, they haven't spoken to her in years after she left to study in a prestigious college recommended to her by her strict dad (fyi her parents are divorced, she does not get along with her dad, her mother still lives in Okinawa giving them updates about her).

Years go by and they hear of a small yet popular bakery that recently opened that sells a bunch of tasty goods and so, hungry and curious, they decided to pay a visit. As soon as they walk in, who do they see amongst all the yummy treats? The reader. Now a beautiful woman, even with her hair in a messy ponytail. The boy(s) decided to ask to speak with her and she's surprised (but happy) to see them after all these years.

Kojiro

Kojiro sighed as he covered his eyes from the blaring son. Figures the one day he decided to walk and not board it would be a scorcher. Squinting his eyes, he checked the address again. Only a few more blocks. He could make it.

He’d heard of this new pastry chef in town that was making some big waves in the community. Not usually one for flash (except with himself of course) he had ignored it until he tasted one of their treats from a pop-up downtown. It had been delicious! A true marvel of culinary arts. No, no, not that. Alchemy. Kojiro decided he had to meet them and see if they would be willing to collab on a menu for his restaurant. His desserts always fair, but weakest area of cooking.

Turning the corner, he came to the end of a narrow alley that listed the name & number of the business but little else. ‘No wonder they’re doing pop-ups’ He thought. This place wasn’t big enough to house more than a dozen customers at a time, and completely non-descript. Kojiro kind of liked it though. It added to the mystique, and he wanted this partnership even more.

“Hello.” He called out as he let himself into the, hopefully, open shop. “Anyone here?”

“Be right there!” A voice called from the back. A woman’s voice.

‘Good.’ Kojiro thought as he posted up by the counter bar. A woman would be much easier to deal with. He’d put on his charm and a devilish smile, and he’d get his way in no time. ‘Maybe even get her’ He added lecherously. ‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

“Sorry about that. What can I get started for you?”

“Well actually I was….” His voice trailed off as he came face to face with a ghost. “…[Y/N]?”

“Hey! Kojiro! I thought that was you.” She replied. Beaming at him like old times and coming up to the counter. “I’d recognize that green mop anywhere.”

“What are you doing here?” He was still in so much shock that he couldn’t get past basic questions.

“You mean, why am I not in America in some fancy high-story law firm?” That was the last he had heard of her. That was the last that any of them had heard from her after high school. That she was going to go off to some fancy school, then law school, and make it big as a lawyer in some major firm like in all the movies. To his knowledge, and updates from her mother, she had. So, what was she doing here? “After everything that happened the last few years, I realized that I wasn’t very happy. I did what I was supposed to, but not anything I wanted. Plus after mom got sick it kind of put everything in perspective. So, when things opened back up, I moved back here and opened this place up.”

“This is your shop?” Kojiro asked. Looking around with a fresh set of eyes.

[Y/N] giggled. “Yeah. Putting that law degree to good use hn? But if I ever get sued for food poisoning or someone burning themselves with a hot coffee, I’m covered.”

Kojiro scoffed as she went over to the espresso machine to make them some coffees. “I guess. You seem to be doing well. I actually came here to sweet talk the owner into doing a collab menu with me at my restaurant.”

“You really opened that then? I thought mom was joking.” [Y/N] teased as she set the milk to steam, then came over a few minutes later with two cups. “Seriously Joe, I’m happy for you.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up hearing his nickname from her. She gave it to him. ‘Joe’. She gave them all their names back when they used to all be so close and were stupid enough to think that’s how it would always be.

“So you want to collab on something?”

Kojiro looked up from his coffee and memories. Startled back to adulthood at the reminder of work. “Oh…yeah. I thought we could work out a pre-fix menu for the season crowd coming up. My dinner, your desserts. Maybe even a sweet/savory board thing?”

“That sounds great!” [Y/N] agreed. “Why don’t I come over this week and I can try your food, and then work out a menu. I usually do French classic, but Italian desserts are a pretty easy spin off. We’d make a great team!”

“Yeah. We would.” His tone was a little wistful. Then he pulled out his phone to ask for her number so he could text her. “I’m closed on Thursdays. So come over then and I’ll make you something special.”

“Just the two of us?” She asked, with a hint of a smirk, getting his attention. “How scandalous.”

Kojiro blushed. Probably for the first time in 10 years. “Just be there!” He clipped. But then smiled and thanked her for the coffee before he had to leave. He couldn’t stay there all day reminiscing, even if he wanted to, with his own restaurant to get ready for the dinner rush.

KaoruHe thought the gorilla was lying when he told him. Some cruel joke. Or wishful thinking in that big dumb head of his.

Kaoru been shocked beyond reason when he invited [Y/N]’s mother over for tea and she told him that yes, she was back in Okinawa for good. He felt a little jilted that she hadn’t told him before; making him regret all the times he had invited her over for tea in the past. At least he knew now, he supposed.

Heading down to the small shop, he let himself in and found [Y/N] cleaning off the counter in an apron. The smell of fresh bread & coffee in the air. This surreal feeling of walking into a dream, rather than a small café run by an old friend.

“I wondered when you’d show.” [Y/N] said, not seeming surprised he was there.

“Your mother mentioned that we spoke?”

“No,” she said as she flipped the dust rag onto her shoulder. “You know her policy on gossip. But since Kojiro was here, I guessed it was only a matter of time before he told you.”

“You should have told me.” Kaoru hissed in irritation.

Who could she not tell him she was back? Sure they had grown apart when she went abroad for school, and then work, but he thought they were still close. With her back, it changed everything. And he was angry she didn’t feel the same.

“I figured you were busy. What with being a big shot calligrapher now and all. Who would have guessed?” [Y/N] mused as she poured a cup of green tea and sat it on the counter. A peace offering.

Kaoru scrunched his lips, but walked across the café to the counter. Taking the cup. “I had to get a job eventually. Calligraphy just sort of worked out.”

“The things we do for our parents, ney?”

He looked up from his teacup. Watching [Y/N] wax nostalgically. His parents were never happy with his alternative lifestyle in high school. Pressuring him to be a more suitable young man they could be proud of; like her father pushing her into law. After high school he decided he had to grow up and be an adult. Plus with Adam and [Y/N] leaving, being ‘edgy’ just wasn’t as much fun anymore. So he became the suitable young man his parents always dreamed of, and they weren’t around to even enjoy it.

“I take it your working with the gorilla on some secret menu promotion?”

“Hehe, yes,” [Y/N] confirmed with a giggle. “He wants to do a collaboration. His food. My desserts. Should be fun.”

“When is it?” Kaoru asked nonchalantly as he sipped his tea.

“Why? You want to come?”

“Tsk. Hardly.” He rebuttaled. “I detest crowds. And I’m at Sia often, so I’d like to know the dates to avoid such commotion.”

“Awww. You think we’re gonna draw crowds?” Kaoru balked and blushed a little at [Y/N] turning the tables on him. “But, if you don’t like crowds. We’re picking the menu next Thursday. Why don’t you come by? We could use another taster. That way you can try the menu and help decide what’s on it. It’ll be like old times!”

“Old times hn?” It was Kaoru’s turn to wax nostalgically. If only for a moment. He quickly cleared his throat and sat his empty teacup down. “I’ll have to see if my schedule allows. I’m very busy.”

“Of course.” [Y/N] said in that know-it-all sort of way he just remembered he hated. “Well, if you can. Kojiro said to come over at 5:00. Again, if you can.”

Kaoru grunted, but made a mental note of the time (and to show up at 5:10 as to not seem eager). He thanked [Y/N] for the tea, and told them he was happy to see her. She smiled and said she was happy to see him too, and to come back anytime.

He made another mental note to come back in two weeks. As to not seem eager.

#;ask and ye shall receive (request answers) #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #sk8 the infinity scenarios #sk8 the infinity imagines #sk8 scenarios #kaoru sakurayashiki #sk8 cherry #sk8 joe #kojiro nanjo #female reader #scenarios #imagine

[cargopantsman]

I was tagged in a thing by @kwarrtz. You’re supposed to answer the following questions and then tag 25 people, including the person who tagged you.

Last...

Beverage: Orange Gatorade Zero Phone call: My sadist sister from another mister. Text message: My birth sisters this morning making fun at today’s Worldle Song you listened to: "I Don’t Love You Anymore” - Real Friends Time you cried: I ugly cried at the My Chem concert in Dublin. I am not afraid to admit this.

Have you ever...

Dated someone twice: No Kissed someone and regretted it: Yes Lost someone special: Lots Been depressed: "Been”? ahaha ha ha ... ha Been drunk and threw up: Oh yeah.

Last year, have you...

Made a new friend: Yeah. . . I have. Fallen out of love: Yes. Laughed until you cried: No. Only time this ever happened I think I was just really stoned. Found out who your true friends are: I mean... the roster has been pretty stable for a decade so... no. I haven’t. In the last year... Found out someone was talking about you: Yes. There’s a reason there’s a subset of my friends called “The Tribe.”

General

How many people on your fb friends list do you know in real life?: I deactivated my account a long time ago, but prior to that, all of them. List 3 favorite colors: Green, Blue, Purple. I only like cool colors.

Firsts

First surgery: Tonsillectomy. First piercing: None. On purpose... it healed though. First best friend: Probably Aaron back in elementary school. Knocked a guy near out cold in 2nd grade cuz he was messing with him. First sport you joined: Soccer in 3rdish grade. . . First vacation: A few multi-state (USA fyi) summer roadtrips as a kid, but the first big one was Ireland after graduating high school. First pair of trainers: Assuming this is a type of athletic shoe, probably a pair of Reeboks. . . i dunno.

Right now

Eating: Nothing yet. Drinking: Jamesons I’m about to: Do laundry

Your future

Want kids: Nope. Get married: Just got divorced... so kinda biased against. Career: 41 years old and I still don’t know what I wanna be when I grow up.

Which is better

Lips or eyes: Eyes. They’re where fear, love, joy and lust mingle. Hugs or kisses: Kisses. Shorter or taller: Shorter. Most people are shorter than me as well... Older or younger: Within 10% of my own age either way... Things get weird after that in my experience. Romantic or spontaneous: Spontaneous. It is a key ingredient to romance. Nice stomach or nice arms: Define nice. A squishy belly is a comfy pillow after all. Sensitive or loud: This is an awkward dichotomy, but... sensitive i guess (with the ability to be loud). Hook-up or relationship: Relationship. Can’t learn all the buttons and switches and get in their heads as well in a hook-up. (Broadly demi-sexual anyway so...) Trouble maker or hesitant: Give me a brat or give me death.

Have you ever...

Kissed a stranger: Oh yeah, kinda hard to make it through Boystown without. Drank hard liquor: *sips above mentioned Jameson* Never touch the stuff. Lost glasses/contacts: Yes. Best one was I was drunk at a hotel party and asking if anyone knew where my glasses were while I was. . . wearing... my glasses... Sex on first date: No. Broke someone’s heart: Yep. Been arrested: Yep. Turned someone down: Yep. Cried when someone died: Oh yeah.

Do you believe in...

Yourself: Uh. . . my sense of self is pretty nebulous, but I guess I “believe” it exists. Miracles: No Love at first sight: Yep. Heaven: No Santa Claus: I think I made it to five, but my sisters put a lot of work into maintaining that illusion since they liked me believing it for some reason. Kiss on the first date: Is this supposed to be under “Have you ever...”? Angels: Not as anything other than a manifestation of a psychological complex.

Tags: 25 is a lot... gonna pull the cheap trick of “Anyone that sees this from me can do it and tag me as your source so I can read it later.”

#tag ask game #stole a lot of kwarrtz's answers so I guess we have some stuff in common #good to know #have fun y'all

[oopsabird]

days like today are when I really think we make a mistake when we get super deeply invested in the personal lives of celebrities, or pretend we can know and judge them deeply based on their public personas. especially when these people are clearly dealing with difficult things like addition, in the midst of the most tumultuous and life-altering year of any of our lives. long story short leave John Mulaney and Anna-Marie Tendler the fuck alone about their choices and don’t be a judgemental ass. we don’t actually know these people and their personal lives should not be our business

#they’re getting divorced fyi. that’s the news #just saw some people being fucking stupid about it already

[scuttling]

Stay at Home DILF

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 5,863 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Dad Bod Hotch, Insecure Hotch, Oral sex, Fingering, Unprotected sex, A little angsty by accident Summary: Aaron retires from the BAU when the new baby is born, but a year later the lack of structure, sleep, and time for himself means changes to his body he's not very proud of. When the thought of having another child is brought up, how will he and his wife work through his insecurities to make the perfectly imperfect, happy family? *Requested by anon Link to A03 or read below! “Honey, I have to get going—do you need me to drop Jack off at school, or are you good?” Professor Hotchner slides her foot into a flesh-toned pump, leaning against the kitchen table for support and stealing a grape from Jack’s fruit salad. He narrows his eyes, then sticks out his tongue, and she does the same. “Do you want me to starve, Jackrabbit?”

“You won’t starve. Get your own grapes.” So full of sass, that one. Seven is such a fun age. She decides to blame the mixture of Aaron’s genes and Haley’s, and she pulls out her phone to send Haley a quick text.

Your son is a menace in the morning.

Haley: Gets that from his dad.

Aaron enters the kitchen, holding their one year old daughter Mia, and he sticks her in her highchair, puts her breakfast in front of her, and leans toward his wife.

“I’m good, I’ll take him,” he says, and kisses her lips. “Mia and I will take big brother Jack to school, won’t we?” Mia is obsessed with Jack—her first word was Jack, or rather, Ack, which was super cute—so she giggles happily, and her mother can’t help but smile. Their little family is absolutely perfect.

She leans in for another kiss from Aaron, and then another, and then maybe one more...

“You’re getting distracted,” Jack says, and she looks over at him with a raised eyebrow, then back to Aaron. He shrugs.

“It was on one of his vocabulary sheets.” Figures.

“Well, maybe I find my boys distracting. Let me give you kisses and we’ll find out!” She launches herself at him, kissing his head and his cheeks, and he laughs, and she knows she’s going to be late for work, but she can’t pass up moments like these, she just can’t.

She gives him a hug and tells him to have a good day, then she kisses Mia, and then she puts her arms around Aaron’s neck and kisses him goodbye. Before she pulls away, something comes over her—the warmth of this perfect morning, the overwhelming love for both of their sassy, silly kids, or maybe the fact that they’ve been too busy for sex lately and she’s constantly horny for him—and she looks up at him and whispers, “we should have another baby.”

Aaron grins immediately.

“Yeah we should.” They kiss a few more times, quickly, smiling against each other's lips, and he pats her hip because he knows she has to go. “We’ll talk more later, but yes. I want to. I love you.” He takes her face in his hands and kisses her deeply, and she sighs, grabs her bags, and heads out the door. Work is work; as the youngest professor in the English department, her schedule is jam packed with classes, lectures, morning office hours, but despite all that, it seems that Aaron is having the more difficult day.

They both love that he was able to retire from the BAU early to be a stay at home dad when Mia was born—he does consult for them occasionally, but has no official title, doesn’t have to travel—and he’s amazing at it, but she knows her baby can be a handful even on a good day. The texts she’s been getting all morning only solidify that knowledge.

Aaron: FYI - Mia hates bananas this week.

Aaron: What do they put in this applesauce, crack? She’s tearing around here like a bat out of hell.

Aaron: Okay, she’s your child, I officially renounce her. I put on The White Album and she started crying.

Maybe she prefers Abbey Road?

Aaron: No. Unlike her mother, she has taste.

You wound me, Hotchner.

She works through lunch, grading papers on The Call of the Wild, but when Aaron’s name lights up the display on her phone, she puts her pen down and smiles, puts it on speaker.

She’s sorry she did, because Mia is wailing in the background, and it’s very clearly her, I’m exhausted, asshole, leave me alone, cry, which makes her wonder why she’s not taking a nap. She knows she resists Aaron sometimes, doesn’t want him to leave her alone in her room, which is so sweet and also so, so annoying.

“Hi, sweetheart. Are you having a little trouble over there?” He takes a deep breath and sighs.

“She won’t go down, baby, even if I sit in the rocking chair beside her. It’s been twenty minutes.” Wow. He put up with it longer than she would have.

“Put her in her crib with Stuffy Bear and just let her cry; I know you hate that, but she’ll give up eventually.” He groans softly.

“I can’t; I feel so bad.”

She smiles. Her warm-hearted man.

“She does this because she knows you’ll give in and do whatever she wants. I promise you, she’ll be happier for it; she sounds miserable.”

“I don’t know…” he says, and she can tell he’s not going to do it. She picks up her pen and skims the paper she abandoned.

“Are you tired?” She doesn't wait for an answer, because she knows he is: Jack had a bad dream last night and woke them both up, and Aaron went to lay with him until he fell asleep because he knew she had an early morning. It was almost time for her alarm when he made it back to bed. “If you want to try to nap, she’s going to have to nap. Do it for her, yourself, me, a combination of the three of us. She won’t be mad at you; she won’t even remember.”

“What if I give her abandonment issues?” he presses, and she closes her eyes for a moment.

“Aaron, I love you so much. You’re such a great dad, and our kids are lucky to have you. But you have to loosen the reins just a little, especially if… if we are going to have another baby.” The thought makes her smile, and she can tell he’s smiling down the line, too.

“Right. Loosen the reins. Just put her in her crib,” she can hear that he does that, “and give her Stuffy Bear, and let her cry.” He blows out a breath, and she can hear the door click shut behind him as he leaves her room. She’s proud of him, but she also knows he’s going to sit in front of the video monitor and watch to make sure she falls asleep, and that he’ll probably work on laundry after that and not actually take a nap of his own.

He insists he’s doing fine when she brings it up, but the way he sacks out like a corpse when they get into bed doesn’t exactly have her convinced.

“I love you, and miss you,” he says when it’s slightly quieter, though she can faintly hear the cries through the monitor. “It made me really happy this morning when you said we should have another baby. We make perfect babies, have you noticed?” She hides her grin behind her hand, because if anyone walked by her office they’d think she’s insane with how widely she’s smiling.

“I have noticed, but since we only have the one and I can’t take any credit for Jack, I figured we should probably make another. Maybe the same way we made Mia…” They’re both convinced it was a weekend when Jack was at Haley’s and the two of them went to town on each other, true marathon sex where they only stopped for food and water and she coaxed him to hardness so many times she felt like a damn sex goddess.

“Hmm. I remember that with fondness, and would love to do that again. You know Haley said she’d take Mia on one of Jack’s weekends if we ever needed her to.”

Her life is pretty damn perfect, with her gorgeous, caring husband, and her two awesome kiddos, and a job she loves, but the most unexpectedly sweet part is that Haley is so comfortable with her, and that she and Aaron were able to get past the ugliness of their divorce to eventually become friends again. It’s not something they take for granted.

“Maybe we should take her up on it this weekend,” she says, trying to sound a little sultry. “We’ve both been so busy; it’s been a while since you pet my kitty.” For some reason, this particular phrase makes Aaron blush and get insanely horny, and she’s hoping to tease him so much the rest of the week that their weekend is one neither of them ever forget, so she’s pulling out the big guns.

“It’s been far too long, and I’m sorry. I can’t wait, baby. I’ll call her here in a few; I know you have to get to your next lecture.” She looks down at her watch, and it is about time to clean up and head over. She sighs happily down the line.

“Okay, I love and miss you; try to take a power nap. I promise, she’ll be fine.”

“I will.” He won’t. “Talk to you soon.” When she gets home, Aaron has dinner ready; she told him to hold off, that she’d help when she got there, but he has always been an overachiever.

Mia is already in her high-chair, waiting patiently for once in her little life; she kisses her forehead, breathes in her sweet baby smell, and then makes her way to her husband.

“Looks good, honey,” she says as he sets the table, and she leans up for a kiss, but when she presses her hand to his stomach like she always does, he pulls back a little. “Is everything okay? Did you have a bad afternoon?”

“No, it wasn’t bad after the nap fiasco,” he responds, but he sounds distracted. Maybe he was asked to look at a case, or something, and that’s still on his mind? She leans against his shoulder, puts a hand on his back and attempts to push up his t-shirt, to skim her hand up along his spine, which always comforts him, but again, he shifts away from her touch. She sighs and steps back.

“You're going to give me a complex, Aaron. If I did something to upset you, please tell me so I can apologize and try to make it better.” He turns to look at her face, and his formerly tense jaw softens a little; he presses his lips to hers, just a peck.

“No, you didn’t do anything. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” He smiles softly, and she’s sure he is tired, but this seems like something more.

“You’d tell me if something else was bothering you, right? You know I’m here for you.”

“Of course I would, and of course I do. I love you,” he breathes against her mouth, and then he goes in for a longer kiss and she gets, as Jack said earlier, a little distracted. When the kiss breaks, she sighs happily.

“I love you. Missed those lips,” she murmurs, and then she runs a hand over his hair. “If the kids wake up again tonight, I’ll get them. You need to rest.” He shakes his head.

“You have another full day tomorrow,” he counters, and it’s so sweet that he keeps up with the schedule she has posted on the fridge, but still. She puts her hand on her hip.

“And you don’t? It’s my turn. Let me help.” He looks like he wants to argue, but she gives him the glare he knows means she will talk about this all night if he doesn’t agree; she’s not the sponsor of the university’s debate team for nothing, and even his prosecutorial ways have nothing on her.

“Okay,” he sighs, and she smiles and kisses him and then goes to get Jack and make sure he’s cleaned up for dinner.

That night when the two of them are getting ready for bed, she’s surprised as hell when he stops her from pulling one of his t-shirts—her typical sleepwear—over her head. She sets it down, arches her brow, and he guides her back onto the bed with a grin and puts his hands on her hips.

“What’s happening right now?” she asks, because before Mia, sure, Aaron would treat her to all manner of orgasm-inducing behavior at random, and she would do the same, but since Mia—especially in the last six months or so—their sexual encounters have been few and far between. It’s no one’s fault, and they’re both very clearly still attracted to each other; it’s just one of those things that falls by the wayside when you have a new baby and a hectic life and you don’t get enough sleep.

Needless to say, she is a little confused by this turn of events.

“I’m attempting to worship my gorgeous fucking wife,” he murmurs, and he leans up and kisses her stomach, licks a long line up from her belly button. Her breath hitches. “Gonna put another little baby in here—but it’s always beautiful.” He slowly moves his lips higher, over her ribcage, and holds her there. “You’re perfect, you know?”

“Aaron.” Her fingers come up to sweep through his hair; her heart aches with love and tenderness. He moves up, presses open-mouthed kisses to each of her breasts, then covers them with his hands and squeezes. She’s a panting, dripping mess, and more than anything she wants to strip him naked, pull him closer, get him inside her.

“I love you just as you are; I want you just as you are. Always have, always will.” He smooths his hands up over her throat, and brings her mouth to his for a deep, soulful kiss. She hadn’t even realized she’s been feeling repressed, but his touch tonight makes her feel so beautiful and special… It's incredible how close she is from only that.

“Make love to me,” she whispers, and he kisses her again, but then he slides back down her body.

“Want to taste you,” he says instead, and he gets his hands on her hips again and his mouth on her pussy, looks up at her while he licks and sucks like he’s gone without for ages—which he has, she figures, but it’s blowing her mind, her fingers scratching at the sheets, her neck arched. He massages her hips as his tongue works, as he grinds against the bed, and she comes with a whimper, because her body is so overwhelmed by how good she feels that she can’t even properly vocalize it.

Aaron comes up, just a little, rests his head on her stomach, and she smooths her hands over his hair and his shoulders, since that’s all she can reach.

“Come up and let me touch you—or you can come inside me.” She will happily take either option, but he just kisses her belly and shakes his head.

“No, I’m good. Just really tired.” She frowns, can’t recall a time in her life when they didn’t both get off during sex; he catches her expression and runs his hands up her body. “Really, I’m okay. I just wanted to do that before I passed out.” He smiles, and she doesn’t like it, but he climbs off of her and goes to the bathroom, and she pulls on the t-shirt and crawls into bed. Two days later, she’s sitting in her office grading tests when she hears a knock at the door. She looks up, and it’s Aaron, of course, looking so gorgeous in a black polo and jeans.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Where’s Mia?” she asks with a smile. He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“She’s with her Aunt Penelope for a few hours.”

“Why? Is everything okay?” Penelope is at work, she knows, because she texted her earlier about something unrelated and she’d mentioned that she and Spencer were having coffee and that he said hello.

“Everything‘s fine,” he assures her, and he enters the room fully, closes the door behind him… and locks it. “Can’t your husband come visit you during your super secret not-really-office-hours?” She raises an eyebrow, both at his question and the fact that he locked the door. What exactly is he planning to do, she wonders?

“You can, but you don’t. I guess I’m just surprised.”

“Well today I decided to. I missed you so much.” He walks around her desk and leans over her for a couple of kisses. “Have you missed me?” She rolls her eyes, smiles.

“Of course I missed you. I miss you every second I’m away from you.” She reaches out, wants to hug him, pull him closer, but he takes a step back and crooks his finger, encouraging her to follow him.

He’s being really weird, but he’s also being really hot. She decides to play along.

She stands, walks over to him, and he carefully clears a spot on her desk, knows she has a system and doesn’t like a mess; when she’s within reach, he puts his hands on her waist and lifts her up onto it, her ass where a stack of tests had just been. Fuck.

“I want to get this dress off of you,” he says, voice low, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses her, rough and deep. “Can I take it off, baby? Can I make you come?”

Everything is happening so fast her head is spinning—it’s not like him to just show up at her office, to try to have sex with her there, especially when their dry spell has been, up until recently, like the damn Sahara.

He must sense her confusion, her apprehension, because he kisses slowly along the side of her throat, down the v-neck of her dress, making her eyelids flutter.

“The door’s locked, and no one even knows we’re in here. Can I take it off?” She pants, thinks about this for a second, but then he slides a hand over her thigh, pushing her skirt up, and she gets a little distracted. She nods, and he kisses her hard and unties the sash of her wrap dress, pushes it off her shoulders. She’s glad she wore a matching set of bra and panties, because this is like prime fantasy material and she wants to try to remember every detail.

He kisses her mouth, soft and sweet, then tugs the straps of her bra down her shoulders, pulls the cups down so her breasts fall out of them. She moans, a little startled, and he dips his head to mouth at her nipples, rests one hand on her lower back and one on her stomach—probably because she looks like she’s about to slide off the desk and onto the floor like a blob of jelly. She knows that’s how she feels.

When he’s gotten her thoroughly worked up, almost trembling with the need for more, he pushes her panties aside and presses a finger into her, and she whimpers, wraps her hand around his neck for support when he starts to pump it deeply inside.

“What has gotten into you?” she breathes, and her hips chase the pleasure he brings; the hand on her back moves to her ass, squeezes it.

“I love you and I want you. I want to make you happy, I want you to feel good.”

“Me—me too,” she gasps as he moves faster, staring right into his eyes. “I love you, want you. Want to make you happy, feel good.” She cards her fingers through his hair and stretches for a desperate, eager kiss. “I want you so badly, baby, please.”

“I’m right here. You have me,” he murmurs, but that’s not what she means and he has to know it. Just in case he doesn’t, though, she makes herself loud and clear; relationships are all about communication, after all.

“I want you to put your cock in my pussy, I want you to come in me. I want you to fucking ruin me, Aaron, I want you to shove your dick in me and keep shoving.” She sounds unhinged, but she can’t stop.

He adds a second finger—not what she wants—and roughly gropes her breast—it feels so good, but it’s not what she wants. Why won’t he give her what she wants?

“Shh, just come on my hand, it’s okay. I’ll fuck you later, in our bed, baby,” he promises. “Just come now, okay? Right here, right now for me.”

She does, because even if he’s being unnecessarily aggravating, it’s still Aaron. She’s desperate for him, always has been, always will be. She comes loud and high and she clutches him tightly and he kisses her and coos words of love and affection into her ear. She gets cleaned up, and they go for lunch, and they can’t take their eyes off each other.

Something’s very wrong, and she can’t quite put her finger on it.

That evening when she gets home, Aaron is feeling guilty. She’s not sure why, but he’s executing all of his patented guilty trademark behaviors: he offers her a glass of wine, runs her a bath, rubs her feet, even though he’s been the one home with the baby all day. She’s tempted to ask if he’s cheating on her, as a joke, but that’s never funny, especially when she knows he’s being shifty and weird about something.

When they’re laying in bed, he sets down his book and looks over at her.

“I meant to tell you, Haley isn’t able to take Mia tomorrow. Maybe the weekend after, we can have our special alone time.” She won’t say she’s not disappointed, but she doesn’t want to inconvenience Haley, when she’s already being so great. She smiles softly, covers his hand with hers.

“That’s okay. It was short notice, anyway. I’ll still enjoy my weekend, with you and Mia.” He smiles too, but it doesn’t quite touch his eyes.

The kids sleep through the night, but she doesn’t. On Friday, she picks Jack up from school and takes him to Haley’s, who sends him to wash up so she can make him a snack. When he’s gone, she smiles warmly and invites her into the kitchen for coffee; she takes a cup, and they make pleasant small talk like they always do.

“Are you sure you don’t want to bring Mia over?” Haley asks after a few minutes. It sounds like she’s double checking. “It’s really no trouble.” She frowns, sets her cup down.

“I thought you weren’t able to watch Mia this weekend. I thought… I thought that’s what Aaron said. I must have misunderstood him.” That’s the only logical conclusion, because Aaron wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t.

“He was being a little weird on the phone the other day. He asked me if I would watch her, and I said yes. He told me about your plans,” she says with raised eyebrows, “and then I told him, you know. That he better treat you right, because you just had a baby not that long ago and you might be a little self-conscious about jumping back into the sack like that; not that you should be, because you look amazing.” She racks her brain for the first time he started acting strangely, pulling away from her, and it would have been after his conversation with Haley. She asks, just to confirm.

“Is that when he got weird?”

“Actually yeah. He changed his mind, said you might not need me to watch her after all, but I told him the offer stood. He was pretty quick to get off the phone after that.” She would sip her coffee, but she’s pretty sure her hands are shaking. Why would he lie about that?

“You know, I should go. I’m sure Aaron’s pulling his hair out with her, she’s been a devil today. Tell Jack I love him and I’ll talk to him tonight, will you?”

“Of course. If you change your mind about Mia, just let me know,” Haley says, and she gets into her car with tears stinging her eyes.

When she gets home, Aaron is playing with Mia on the living room floor. He looks up at her with a smile that abruptly falls when he takes in her facial expression.

“What’s wrong?” She composes herself, takes a deep breath. They vowed a long time ago not to argue in front of Jack or Mia. She tries to sound conversational.

“You lied to me. You said Haley couldn’t take Mia this weekend.” He swallows and looks properly guilty. She’s not sure how he was able to lie to her in the first place; he’s never been any good at it.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I just didn’t know how to say it.” She looks up, shakes her head, wills her eyes not to water while she’s trying to have this conversation.

“You didn’t know how to say what? What is it that’s made you distance yourself from me?” She recalls him physically pulling away, then doing a complete 180 and initiating sex, but never penetrative sex, never letting her touch him or return the favor in any way. “Haley told me about your conversation. So do you think I’m unhappy with my body, or are you unhappy with my body?” He has the nerve to look confused, gets Mia set up with some toys she can play with safely on her own and stands up, comes close to her. She’s not sure she even wants his touch right now, which is saying something; when she’s unhappy, that’s usually all she wants.

“Neither of those things. I swear to god. I love you and I love your body; you’re so beautiful. Too beautiful for me, you always have been.” He’s looking down at her so seriously, and she wants so badly to believe him, but how could she, when faced with the evidence?

“Okay. If it’s neither of those things…” Her voice is small when she says the one option that hurts her most. “Did you change your mind? Do you not want to have another baby with me?” He sighs, deflates, and she takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“No, listen to me. It’s not that I don’t want that; I want that more than anything, but it will… further complicate, things...” He trails off, and she tries to follow what he’s saying. “The problem isn’t you in any way. It’s me.” She huffs, squeezes her eyes briefly shut.

“You? How can it be you, when you’ve been the only man to catch my eye for years? From the moment you set foot on my campus looking for your bad guy, I’ve been attracted to you, aroused by you, wrapped around your finger. You’re so perfect for me: perfect husband, perfect dad, perfect lover. My best friend. Never a day has gone by where I haven’t wanted you.” He wets his lips, sighs.

“Surely you’ve noticed that since I quit my job and started staying home with Mia, I… I don’t look the same. I’ve… let myself go.” His brows are deeply furrowed, and he’s clearly struggling with this; she reaches for him, no longer angry—at least for the time being—puts a hand on his arm.

“I’ve noticed that you don’t quite look the same. Doesn’t mean you’ve ‘let yourself go,’ or that I’m not still attracted to you; you just have a dad bod now instead of an ‘FBI guy who punches people for a living’ bod.” Her other hand hovers, then comes to rest on his stomach, and she smiles. “I’m actually really into the way you look now. I’ve been fantasizing about it for ages. I wish I’d known you were feeling self-conscious.”

“I’m not used to feeling… self-conscious, vulnerable,” he breathes, but he presses into her touch, so she considers that a good thing. “I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“I get that baby, I do, but this is me. I would have done anything I could to make you feel better. You didn’t have to hide it from me. You didn’t have to lie. We could have talked about it.” She moves the hand on his arm to his face, guides him down for a loving kiss. “We’re equally to blame, because I know you haven’t been getting good sleep, and I know you barely have time for yourself, and I didn’t step in; but you never let me help. If roles were reversed, and it was me staying home with Mia, you would never expect me to do all the cooking and cleaning and homework and bath time without your help. So you need to let me help, Aaron, please.” She looks up at him, eyes warm and sincere, and he nods, bends to press a kiss to her lips.

“I’m sorry. I still don’t feel great about… myself, but maybe I could. If I let you help. If I took some time for me.” She nods and wraps her arms around him—finally—for a hug.

“I love you so much. Just like this. Big, cuddly papa bear, taking care of our babies, making our home a safe and happy place for them. How could I not love the body that brings me so much happiness? That makes me excited to get in my car and come home at the end of every day?”

They kiss some more, deep, healing kisses and soft, sweet kisses, but she doesn’t get distracted by them. She’s very focused, caresses him and brushes loving fingertips over his chest and arms and sides. But speaking of distractions…

“Were you doing all those sexy things to try to distract me from wanting you to get all up on me?” she asks, pulling back, and at least he has the decency to flush.

“Kind of? I figured if it was sex you wanted, you’d be happy to get off however it happened; it was great for me too, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t really want to be touched, feeling the way I felt.” She frowns, rests her head against his chest and holds him tighter.

“That makes me sad. What I wanted was an intimate moment with my husband, and while yes, what you did for me was great, because you’re super hot and very capable,” she says, leaning back in his embrace with a soft smile, “it’s not what I’ve been wanting. I want you all naked and sweaty and heavy on top of me, going to pound town.” He presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows.

“Pound town? What are you, twelve?” She grins, shoves his chest, and he laughs.

“I’m surrounded by college kids all day, please forgive me. I think it got my message across though.” She touches his cheek, looks up into his eyes, and sighs. “Can we take Mia over to Haley’s and give it a shot? I’ll do anything to make you feel happy and comfortable, any position that makes you feel better—though what I’d really like most, if you’ll trust me, is to suck your dick, and then hop on your dick, and then later when we’re ready to go again, we do the pound town thing and make another goddamn baby.”

She’s so serious, and he looks so serious, and then he kisses her and says yes and they pack up their kid and take her to his ex-wife’s so they can get it on, which sounds so much crazier than it actually is. She gets him out of his clothes, doesn’t move slow or spend lots of time focusing on what he thinks are flaws; instead, she proves how desirable he is by practically tearing his pants off and pushing him against the bed and swallowing around his dick just so she can hear all those delicious moans she’s been missing.

After that, she rides him hard, kisses him harder, plants her hands on his chest and stomach and moans and groans against his mouth. “So fucking hot, seriously so fucking hot, Aaron—if I saw you across the room today I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing, I would still pursue you, I’d make you blush like I did back then. I’d be so forward because I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about how good this would feel.”

She’s rocking his world, no doubt about that; it’s written all over his face, in the hardness of his hands on her hips as she grinds down on his cock, in the way his chest is heaving despite not actually doing any of the work at all. He comes first, and then rubs her clit while she continues to fuck him until she finds her own orgasm; she scratches her nails down his stomach, and he leans up and grabs her face for a rough, perfect kiss.

They take a break, cuddling and kissing and enjoying the feel of bare skin, comfy bed, soft lips. Aaron touches her cheek, tells her how much he loves and appreciates her.

“I’m so sorry I’ve been keeping this inside, and not being truthful. It’s hard, when you’re as perfect as the day I met you, and I’m…” She presses a finger to his lips, shushes him, kisses him.

“You’re as perfect as the day I met you, too. More perfect, even, because every day since then you’ve chosen me, and our family. I could not ask for a better man. Simply could not, Aaron. And if you want me to come home early so you can go to the park to run, or to the gym, then that’s what I'll do, but if you look like you do right now, forever, I’ll be happy with that too. Whatever makes you happy.”

They snuggle and kiss and talk and laugh, and then laughing becomes sex in that way everything becomes sex when you’re genuinely obsessed with the person in your bed.

He gets her on her back, kisses all over, teases her—“mmm, rubbing your kitty, baby, how does it feel?”—and then puts her legs over his shoulders, plants his hands, and fucks, taking every ounce of his pent-up frustration out on her, and it’s incredible.

“Yes, Aaron, yes, baby, oh, god.” Her head is thrown back, and she’s torn between laughing, because she’s been wanting this for months and it’s exactly as awesome as she’d dreamed it would be, and crying, because she fucking loves him, so much it puts a lump in her throat.

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, speeds up, sweaty and gorgeous and smiling. “You’re going to come with me—not just for me, but with me, so my come gets deep inside, so it works and we get another perfect baby who never lets us fucking sleep.” She nods frantically, presses her hips against his, and it’s not simultaneous, but it’s a near damn thing, when they both come groaning each other’s names. A little less than a year later, they have Mason. Aaron is at home in his dad bod, Mia doesn’t cry at naptime, Jack is still a menace in the mornings, and their perfect little family got a little more perfect. Taglist ❤️: @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x female reader #hotch x female reader #hotch x reader #dad bod hotch

[phrynewrites]

🌍🎂🥰🤕 for blind date au pls!

OOOOh these are such good ones thank you!!

🌍: When Jasmine finally makes it in the fashion world and is invited to show her designs at different fashion weeks around the world, she always insists on taking Bosco. It's basically a line in her contract that if she's going to have garments at the show, Bosco is going to be the one photographing them. Not only do they just have a fabulous shared vision and they're the person Jasmine trusts most to help her convey it (especially because when she was first starting and still in fashion school, Bosco was literally there, hand stitching clothes, helping her execute that vision but I digress), and because it's always a big moment for her no matter how many times she does it and she always wants Bosco there for those moments.

🎂: At Cam and Angie's wedding (date 10 of the blind date sequence), Cam and Angie do that cute little thing during the cake cutting where they go to feed each other a piece but smear a bit of frosting on each other. And as Jasmine and Bosco are clapping for them, Jasmine, reaching the territory of wine drunk, leans against Bosco and mutters that if they do that at their wedding, she'd divorce them on the spot. And now Bosco, who just sorted out their feelings for Jasmine and has gotten to the place of them being girlfriends, now has a new thing to worry about, which is Serious Girlfriends Who Talk About Marriage and Stuff.

🥰: Whenever Bosco's got a big presentation or some sort of battle with Janet the demon coworker or has to convince the president of the agency to go with their vision, Jasmine's sure to write encouraging little notes for Bosco to stick on their desk, explaining that it'll help them focus during the day. Jasmine's pulling these from all sorts of inspirational quote websites and drawing little teeny hearts around them. Bosco starts doing the same thing when Jasmine has to present pieces for fashion school, but usually Bosco's notes have some sort of sexy drawing and "get an A and we'll do this later" written on it, sealed with a lipstick kiss.

🤕: Once while on set, Bosco’s trying to fix the lighting, balancing on top of a table to adjust it real quick, and ends up falling off. Even though they broke an ankle (which Jasmine blames on them wearing stupid heeled boots to work instead of being a normal person and wearing sneakers or flats), they still insist on coming right back to work. They fully know that Janet’s been lying in wait to strike and is going to get their kicks by hobbling around the set, yelling at Janet whenever she tries to do something. Jasmine insists on coming along for emotional and physical support, and ends up taking lots of pictures of Bosco in their stupid cast, still controlling the whole set. When she sends them to the gc they’re like “we know you’re trying to roast them but it’s actually coming across super soft fyi”

💅🏻send 🧅 me 🎟 a ship 🚢 an au 🥵 and emojis 👽 and I’ll write ✍️ headcanons 👯‍♀️ based on the emojis 🦑

#not your gf #not finacee or wife #whenever jasmine unearths these notes and her fashion school friends see it #they're all like ok who's that from #and when jasmine says bosco they're like...so that lady who brought in all your stuff and did your presentation for you #who basically lectured your professors on fashion #who you said was in fact and #but now you have these? Jasmine on god do not tell us that these are just from a friend #and then jasmine does explain that now her and bosco are dating and her fashion friends are like...you should have done that ages ago #also “we know you’re trying to roast but it’s coming across super soft #is such a common phrase applied to both jasmine and bosco #especially in the earlier parts of blind date au #and it used to infuriate these two because they were like No absolutely not I am not soft for them #but now they give in and are like ugh you guys suck but there’s no real bite to it #fully acknowledging that their *roast* texts are gonna end up in Daya’s state of the union PowerPoints #detailing their progress on getting jasmine and bosco together #asks answered #for anon #jasco blind date au

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Continuing on from part 1 - 

https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/635068926214258688/tangled-salt-marathon-rapunzels-return-part-1

Summary: When Rapunzel tries to defeat the Saporians by herself she gets captured; but once Varian realizes that the Separatists plan on using one of his potions' destructive properties to destroy Corona, he and Rapunzel work together to stop it.

Let’s Talk About What a Let Down the Sapiorans Are

Throughout seasons one and two the Sapiorans were built up to be this intriguing race of people with a complex past and real problems that are sadly relatable to this day. They had a history, goal, motives, and special abilities like magic.  

Yet all we got was a really bad hipster parody. 

Heck, the crew can’t even keep it’s stereotypes right because they mostly slide into hippy territory instead. Hipsters, Yuppies, and Hippies are three distinctive counter culture movements for three different generations with completely different social concerns and fads. 

Basically Chris tried to “stick it to the kids” again and just wound up insulting his parents' generation instead because he’s that oblivious of other human beings.

And that’s not even taking into account that previously the Sapiorans were living on the run as nomads in caravans not dissimilar to common Romani stereotypes, so the show is once again making negative racial connotations due to thoughtlessness.

Why Do You Have a Secret Underground Room Hidden Behind Your Workshop Xavier?

Like that not a thing normal people happen to have lying around there workspace. We still are given zero explanation for why Xavier has all this plot convenient knowledge and rare unordinary plot useful stuff. 

Given his previous connection to Saporia and Zhan Tiri wouldn’t it not have made more sense to reveal that he is an actual plot important character in season three rather than keep him as just the exposition fairy? 

So Was This Before or After the Saporian Take Over? Cause Either Answer Makes This a Dumb Plan.

Why would the guards, especially Cap, just give up? Did they even bother fighting and then lost to Varian’s weapons or were they told to stand down by a brainwashed Frederic? If they knew something was wrong then why not stay and help? What makes them think they even could find Rapunzel given how no one knew where she was heading and her letters were infrequent? What difference would they think finding Rapunzel would do? 

Basically, just like with the “former cellmate” line, we needed to actually set up and establish this conflict rather than relying solely on exposition dumps. Because what we get here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It goes against established character and leaves a lot of unanswered plot holes. 

More Promotion of Authoritarianism From the Show

Remember that these are the same people who formed a lynch mob to hunt down a fourteen year old all because the king told them to. The same king who had been lying to them for years and placed their lives and homes in danger for months. The same king who persecuted the poor and orphans for years. Him suddenly sending townsfolk to the mines isn’t anything new, so what are these people’s breaking points? Anyone else would have revolted by now.  

But noooo, they need Rapunzel to do it for them. Cause Rapunzel is royalty and they can’t do anything without royal permission because they’re sheep. Sheep that’s been subjugated for years and conditioned to be afraid of their “beloved ruler”. 

I understand from a meta point of view why you would want your main character to take charge but...

Like this isn’t inspiring.

It’s disturbing. 

Why are we promoting blind loyalty to a person who’s not earned it just because they were born special? In a freakin’ kids show no less! 

Oh and still no one bothers to call out King Frederic’s abuses here, FYI. 

Take Note That Quirineon is Activated By Heat

This will be important later on in the review. 

He’s Already Built Grenades For You. Wouldn’t Those Be Better Because They’re Easier to Control?

He’s already built explosive chemicals for you. You just used them in part one of the episode. And it came in an easy to use form rather than an unstable, and untested, mess that could literally blow up in your faces since no one, not even Varian himself, knows how to control it yet. 

You Don’t Hammer Out a Cast Iron Pan

It’s literally in the word. To make a cast iron pan you pour the metal into a casted mold. You don't hammer it out like you would with a sword or something. And you can’t even go with the “rule of cool” here cause Rapunzel surrounded by molten metal and fire would have been far more impressive looking.  

Yes I’m being picky cause I’m stalling. I don’t care. This is just yet another instance of the crew not paying attention to details like they should. 

Behold The Final Time Eugene Will Ever Call Out Rapunzel’s BS

This is the last time Eugene will hold an honest discussion with Rapunzel like an equal to her. By the end of this episode he will have transitioned into full on doormat mode. 

Also burying negative feelings and not addressing issues is who Rapunzel is. She’s been pulling this shit since day one. It’s what causes 90% of the conflicts in the show. Have you not noticed Eugene?  

So This Episode Has Contradictory “Lessons” 

The episode presents this idea that Rapunzel needs to open up to others and trust again after Cassandra’s betrayal. The problem is that the episode doesn’t follow through on that. It makes a knee-jerk decision to go with a “responsibility” lesson that wasn’t built up to instead at the last minute. 

More on this later.    

Varian Doesn’t Actually Interact With the Saporians at Any Point.

The only person Varian interacts with is Andrew. We have no concept of how he fits in with the rest of the group and what his dynamics are with them. What do they think of Varian? What does Varian think of them? The consequence to this is to further divorce Varian from narrative, even though this is supposed to be his redemption episode. 

As I said in the last part, you can easily write Varian out of this episode and nothing really changes plot wise. That’s bad writing. 

Also I was robbed of Khary Payton and Jeremy Jordan exchanging lines. I was this close to having audio material for my BH6 crossover, dang it! 

Behold The One Time the Black Lady Gets a Line!

I think her name is Juniper? 

You can tell it’s her because of the shadow on the wall.

Anyways they casted this part and only bothered to give the character a single line? What a waste! 

But this just goes back to the series' poor representation. The only WOC in the show are presented as “shifty” and untrustworthy, even when they are ultimately “good guys”. The majority of them are straight up villains tho, and even as antagonists they’re not afforded any real screen time. 

And the only other outright black women on the show is the inventor lady who was given zero respect and the ghost of a barbarian. 

Once again, I don’t think the crew are intentionally racist. I think they’re just sloppy. They wanted to be more inclusive but they failed to actually give voice to minorities behind the scenes and so failed in representing them well. This is a problem with the industry as a whole, not just this one show, and must be talked about as such if we wish to change things for the better. 

None of this “Stuff” Holds Any Real Meaning

We get several callbacks to season one through Cassandra’s personal things that she left behind, but none of this stuff holds any real personal meaning. It’s just there. They wind up triggering these big emotional reactions from both Rapunzel and Cassandra but the audience is just left confused because what they’re crying over are things that have little significance to these characters. Even this line from season one is just dripping with sarcasm and not some pleasant past memory that either Cass or Raps holds dear to their hearts. 

Way To Go, Dumbass

It’s not that she went alone, or that she broke down when it finally hit her that Cass left, that I’m making fun off. The episode already addresses those two points. 

No, what ticks me off is that Rapunzel has taken down killer robots, ghosts, and monsters before now with her magical hair but a handful of regular dudes can just bring her down? I don’t care how much alchemy they got. Depowering your main character for no stated reason just for narrative convenience is poor writing. 

Because If He Didn’t He Would Have DIED, Rapunzel!!!

He literally would have freakin died had he not done something! He was left inside a jail cell to rot away! Before that he was threatened with hangman’s noose! Before that violence from an angry crowd! Before that he was left alone to starve and/or die from exposure! There was no way out for him except to fight! 

And here you are inside the very prison that you kept him in and you still don't have the fucking self awareness to put two and two together! 

This Right Here the Assassination of Rapunzel’s Character and the Killing Blow to the Series

Yeah, and what about after the storm? Hun, bitch!?

We’ve spent two damn seasons watching Rapunzel stepping on people and making excuses for herself and the one time when she should realize her actions are wrong and finally own up to her behavior and she still does not fucking change.

This is supposed to be a coming of age story! That means the main character is supposed to grow and learn shit! But when it matters most, Rapunzel only digs in her heels and refuses to change! 

Why should I care about this character anymore if she’s just going to keep on being selfish no matter what? Why should I bother watching the show if it fails to deliver on its premise? How is this in any way shape or form an appropriate message for children!? 

If you’re watching the series for the first time, then it’ll take awhile to register just how awful this scene is and how it really is the beginning of the end, because they did have time to turn things around after this. But they didn’t, and here we are. 

This Isn’t a Real Apology

It’s not a real apology if all you do is make excuses for yourself. Rapunzel doesn’t address what she actually did wrong here and it has nothing to do with her stupid promise. 

She neglected and enabled the abuse of a child for a year and three months, and she’s not even sorry for it! 

You Were Never a “Friend” Rapunzel

Friends, actually do shit together. They enjoy each other’s company. They care when the other is hurt or in trouble. 

Rapunzel only came to see Varian when she needed him for something. Even now, after this confrontation, that’s all she’ll ever do. She does not actually care about Varian, because the creators will not let her care. 

And Here Comes the Death of Varian’s Characterization

In order to make this stupid, forced, “redemption” work the writers had to do a complete 180 with Varian’s character and his motivations. Instead of freeing his father, seeking revenge, or just, you know, surviving, he now suddenly cares about “being friends” and “being accepted by people”, only he has no reason to want any of that! 

Rapunzel is a shit friend. Heck all the mains are crap friends to him. They ruined his life and the townspeople tried to kill him. Why would he want anything to do with any of these a-holes!? 

Varian doesn’t get assassinated in the same sense as Rapunzel and Cassandra do. He doesn’t suddenly become a hateable dumb douchebag or anything, but he nevertheless has his character retroactively sabotaged by the writing.  

Uh, Were You Not There When Your Dad Rounded Up a Lynch Mob Against Him, Raps?

I believe you were. Also Varian literally told you to your face that he had to go into hiding cause the townspeople were willing to attack him just because those rumors that you failed to stop and pretended not to know anything about. 

Just because the characters shout something repeatedly does not make it true. The audience isn’t dumb. They can remember what happened only two seasons ago. 

Where Was the Inciting Incident For This Change of Heart?

Why should he even want their forgiveness? Why has he given up on freeing his father? Why is he having second doubts about overthrowing the kingdom that persecuted him? 

If you’re going to drastically change a character’s motivations, goals, and moral alignment then you need to present an in story reason for that change. We don’t get that. There’s no inciting incident on screen for us to see the shift in his character development. 

The audience is left to only infer, and that’s poor writing. The audience shouldn’t have to do the work of the writers for them.  Characters’ motivations and goals  should not be guess work. 

The only thing we can glean from this is that he had a change of heart while in prison and that’s a horrifying thing for the show to suggest. That’s basically justifying Frederic’s abuse. It also recontextualizes Varian’s arc into one of submission to his abusers and not one of learning to do the right thing simply because it’s right. 

Once Again, Were You Not There For Season One Rapunzel?

They had a year and three damn months of chances. These people actively tried to do him harm just for simply seeking help. He has no reason to trust them nor you. 

Why Are We Shoulding All of the Blame Onto the Abused Child?

Yes, he did do all of those things, technically, but they’re being presented here without context.

The Queen enabled his abuser who was threatening his life and destroyed his home. He kidnapped her as a last restore when all other methods to get out of his desperate situation failed. 

The princess he threatened neglected him for three months and repeatedly refused to help him, even throwing him out into a deadly snow storm. Despite him being her responsibility, thereby making her neglect a flat out abuse of power.  

He would have died a slow and painful death in prison had he not helped to overthrow the kingdom that persecuted him. 

I’m not going to pretend that what Varian did was right or that he shouldn’t feel sorry for what he did, but this is a highly skewed version of events that are being recounted here just to create bias in the viewers. It’s manipulative writing intended to gaslight the audience. 

Also, why does he even want a second chance!?   

Doesn’t This Undermine The Saporian’s Goals?

The Saporians wanted to reclaim their ancestral homeland so that they would no longer be a displaced people. How does blowing up that homeland help them? 

Season three just throws all logic out the window. There’s barely a single villain who doesn’t undermine their own goals at some point with their stupid actions. 

So Why Varian and Andrew Not Some Other Team Up?

Out of all of the various recurring baddies in the show Varian and Andrew have the least in common. I’m not saying that they couldn’t work together, but doing so required more set up than this. Because as is, this is a very contrived teamup. 

They have diametrically opposed goals and moral alignments. Varian doesn’t bring anything to the table that the Saporaions couldn’t have supplied themselves. Meanwhile the Saporians have failed to offer Varian anything that he could want. 

At best it’s a marriage of convenience for them to both break out of prison together, but even that is contrived because we don't know why neither of them were sent away on the prison barge with the rest of the season one villians.  

Better combinations would have been 

Varian & Lady Caine

Andrew & Lady Caine 

Varian & Cass

Andrew & Cass 

Varian & Zhan Tiri

Andrew & Zhan Tiri

Varian & Hector

The Baron & Varian

Andrew & Staylan 

King Trevor & Varian 

Like there were tons of options here that the writers just ignored, even though any of them would have made more sense than the one they went with.  

The Andrew and Varian Dynamic Can Be Seen as an Allegory for Grooming; Unfortunately the Writers Didn’t Consider That Implication.

Yeah... That’s pretty much what Andrew has done here. He’s groomed this desperate and lonely teen to become a child soldier for him. And one only can only pray that’s all he tried to groom him to do since they were trapped inside a confined and enclosed space together for several months. 

Listen, I don’t mind children’s shows touching upon darker subjects. Often fantasy is a good way for people to process complex themes and uncomfortable real world situations through the safety of fiction. It can even be helpful for those who have had the misfortune to experience certain traumas. 

I’m not complaining that TTS is too dark. 

I’m complaining about it being shit. 

All of the crap Varian goes through is just thrown in there for shock value. It’s not here to commentate on the real world nor provide a complex story. The situations are brought only to then be outright ignored. This isn’t thoughtful nor deep. It’s not meaningful nor heartfelt. It’s just hollow drama done in bad taste. 

You’re Not In a Position to Judge Rapunzel 

You got captured first because you decided to throw yourself a pity party. 

Would He Though?

I’m pretty sure Quirin is very well aware of how shitty Frederic is. If anything I would think he’d be pissed that his son, that he tried so hard to protect, was mistreated in such a hordenous way. 

This isn’t some satisfying ending to Varian’s arc. It’s a heartbreaking revelation that he’s been beaten down by his abusers.  

Varian’s Arc Isn’t Actually About Validation, and Rapunzel Giving It Here Doesn’t Really Change Anything 

I spoke about this before on its own, but Tangled the Series places far too much stock in validation. Yes, it’s an aspect of his character arc, but it’s not the end all and be all of his motivation. It’s not the force that drives him to do what he does. 

His primary goal is survival, both for himself and for his father. His secondary goal is gaining his father’s approval, but that’s not because he’s seeking generic praise, it’s because his father is emotionally distant. The “validation” is a mask for the real issues which are to fix his relationship with his dad and avoid the guilt of having possibly killed him in an accident. 

Rapunzel has fuck all to do with that. 

He doesn’t need to hear approval from her. He needs her to get her shit together and help him! 

Rapunzel’s and Varian’s Situations Are Nothing Alike and Rapunzel Doesn’t Know Jackshit

Rapunzel you were dumped by your bestie because you’re a shitty friend. 

Varian was neglected and abused by those who were supposed to take care of him. 

Unless you’re drawing parallels to how Frederic and Gothel treated you, and even then neither of them denied you basic fucking needs! 

This should be an “Oh Shit! I’ve become just like Mother Gothel” moment for Rapunzel, not an “Oh yay! Someone to share in my personal misery” moment. 

Man, Rapunzel suuuuuucks! 

Also This Still Isn’t An Actual Apology

Once again, Rapunzel is not admitting what she did wrong here. She’s not actually acknowledging Varian’s pain, nor what she needs to do to make admins with him. 

What she’s doing is making things all about herself again. She’s talking about her feelings. About what she is facing. Rapunzel is an incredibly selfish and egotistical person and the show is trying to present this as a positive thing by rewarding her for such behavior. 

Varian’s Redemption Should Have Nothing to Do with “Friendship”

Varian has no reason to want to become friends again with the woman who ruined his life and abused him. 

But more than that, redemption shouldn’t be dependent upon Rapunzel’s friendship, nor even her ‘forgiveness”. Varian should be able to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing, Rapunzel be damned. 

This cheepens not only his character development but also Rapunzel’s development as well. Rapunzel is not allowed to grow as a person and accept that not everyone wants to be her friend, and that people may have valid reasons to hate her even, and that doesn’t make them evil. 

It also rushes through Varian’s arc undermining what the audience had to get through to get to this point.  

OK, Let’s Talk About The Goatee

I wouldn’t have minded the beard had it just not looked like a fucking barcode. There’s production art where it looks fine. But just wiping it away ties back to what I was talking about in part one. It’s denying Varian the chance to grow up. This is supposed to be his coming of age story as well but the crew won't let him do that because “rule of funny” apparently overrides what the characters actually need in order to develop.  

Once again, the show isn’t a sitcom. You can have comedic moments but the comedy doesn’t need to outright undermine the drama. 

Once Again, Shouldn’t Eugene Be the First Person to Jump to Varian’s Defence?

You mean the orphan on the streets who stole stuff and fought to survive when the adults failed to take care of him? Is that what you’re talking about Eugene? Cause if I remember correctly that was you not just three years ago. 

You Mean Rapunzel Needs Him To Make Her Feel Better About Herself

Spoiler alert, but Varian doesn’t actually do anything after this point in the episode. His entire “redemption” is just about making Rapunzel feel better about herself after Cass has rejected her. He’s literally become the rebound. 

How Come Varian Suddenly Became Shorter Just for This Shot?

I know the meta reason is to reflect that scene back in Queen for a Day when Rapunzel promised him that she'd help him before everything went tits up. Where he was also drawn shorter in that episode to make him seem more verunable, but here he’s just suddenly shorter for only two shots and then suddenly back to his usual height. 

Crap like this is why I insist that Varian didn’t actually get any taller in season three. The show just has always been inconsistent with his height and most of the “evidence” for his growth are cherry picked instances where the show drew him smaller than usual for reasons, like here.   

So Where Did They Get That Much of the Explosives and How Did They Get Them So Fast?

Only Varian knows how to manufacture that stuff. Why would he make that much of it if he was still in the experimental phase with it? He’s even surprised that they have so much, so where did they get it? If they made it then, how did they make it so fast? 

So This Plan Goes Nowhere

Spoiler alert: Varian doesn’t actually get to do any of that. In fact he’s kind of pointless for the rest of the episode. 

Why Would the King and Queen Care About a City That They Can’t Remember?

Like this revenge doesn’t make sense. It’s just a contrived way to get Eugene and Lance out of the way.

If the Quirineon Explodes From Being Exposed to Heat Then What Good Does Just Dropping It Do?

Yeah, remember? The stuff explodes when heated. Simply dropping it shouldn’t do anything other than make a mess on the ground maybe. 

All That Build Up and Varian Still Doesn’t Get to Do Anything Useful

Up till this point, Varian was shown to be the most competent threat in the show. Yet here they have him be a screw up twice in a row just for comedy antics and to glorify Rapunzel again. 

If you got to nerf other characters just to make your main look good then you’ve failed to establish your main character as being capable in their own right. 

Remember That This Boy Was Trapped in a Jail Cell With This Guy for a Year!

No, I’ll never be over this.

Andrew is the most directly violent and scummy out of all of the villians in the show. 

If he’s willing to do this now, if he was willing to do this to his ex-girlfriend, then what the heck was he willing to do when he and Varian were trapped alone together? 

So Andrew Just Willingly Sacrifices His Own People Here....Even Though His Goal Was to Give His People a New Home....

People need to use this gif more often when concerning this show and the villains’ ass-backwards plans.

And yes they survive because of Varian alchemy. But that was on accident. Andrew had no way of knowing that would happen. He’s willing to destroy his own people just to blow up his ancestral homeland and for what!? What does he gain from this action?  

The Mind Wipe Kills Frederic’s and Arianna’s Characters; Littraly

Frederic and Arianna are effectively dead at this point. Anything that made them, well them, has been wiped away. Their personalities, hopes, dreams, their on going stories and development, just gone. And we never get them back, even when their memories supposedly return. 

Varian’s Not Even Allowed to Get the Idea On How to Save Corona...In His Own Redemption Episode No Less

This is his episode! We’ve spent two years building up to this point and you can’t even let him help? He’s denied the chance to make up for his own mistakes! Just so Rapunzel can play hero and be a very shallow representation of what a bunch of men think a “strong” woman should be! 

It’s fucking insulting. That’s what it is. 

Making a female character the center of the universe to the point where other people are just props for her is not empowering! 

No It’s Not!!

Uh you wouldn’t even be here had you just fucking helped Varian to being with you dumb bitch! This is very much you and your father’s mess! 

Even now, while pretending to be responsible, Rapunzel can’t actually be responsible and own up to what she did! 

She’s fucking 20 and the 16 year old shows more maturity than her! 

Also Your Hair Can Protect Two People at Once Rapunzel; Remember?

There’s no excuse for leaving Varian out of the action. We’ve been shown multiple times now that Rapunzel’s magic hair can protect her and other people at the same time. 

Having Rapunzel Save the Day By Herself Undermines Everything the Episode Was Trying to Establish

What happened to needing to “trust again” and letting other people help you? Having Rapunzel save the day alone just tosses out the lesson that the show was trying to build up to. 

The show tries to frame this as Rapunzel learning “responsibility” but that also does not work. For one it was never established that she needed to learn that within the episode itself and secondly, she doesn’t actually do anything different from what she usually does. 

Being an action hero isn’t the same thing as being responsible. Being responsible is being considerate of others, doing the borning shit or mundane crap that you hate, and being mature enough to recognize your own failings and admitting when you were wrong. 

So in the end Rapunzel is neither responsible nor more open to others. 

And There’s the Death of Eugene’s Character

Lance, who has maybe exchanged all of three sentences with Raps, is more distrught than the guy that supposedly wants to marry her. This isn’t heartwarming, nor it is growth. It’s just lobotomizing a character right in front of our eyes. 

In this very episode he was worried about Raps going to face the Saporians by herself and was, guess what, fucking right to do so. But he doesn’t give two shits if she gets blown up!? 

Ooookaaaay.....

This is the completion of turning Eugene into a doormat. From now own he shan’t be allowed to have any thoughts or feelings of his own that disagrees with Rapunzel. 

The Eugene we knew is now dead. 

But Of Course the Show Rewards Everyone for Behaving In the Dumbest Way Possible Anyways

Don’t expect any of these grossly out of character moments and oxygen deprived logic to be addressed nor fixed within the show. The series will keep on shoving unearned endings into our facing while insisting that this is positive development. 

How Did Y’all Get Here Before Varian?

Yes, he was left on a roof, but he can climb and y’all were outside of the city. 

Yeah... A Year and Half Fucking Later!

Ok, a year and three months, but that’s still not any better. Worse, all this implies is that Rapunzel would not have ever concerned herself with trying to free Quirin had Varian not broken out of prison. She would have literally left them both for dead and we’re supposed to find her suddenly doing the bare fucking minimum heartwarming and inspiring?

Where Was the Inciting Incident to Use the Decay Incantation for This? 

How did Rapunzel come up with this plan? When did she come up with it? 

When the hurt incantation was first found no one mentioned how it could be used to save Quirin. No one even gave Quirin a thought. Since then the incarnation hasn’t been brought back up, ever. This is a pretty big leap in logic for Rapunzel to suddenly think of this. 

All it highlights how Varian was originally meant to be there to translate the scrolls and incantations in order to establish all this but of course it got cut so now it just comes the fuck out of nowhere. 

Not Letting Varian Have Anything to Do With Saving His Father Is Even Worse Than Not Letting Him Save the Day

This has been his motivation since the beginning. It’s been the driving plot for a season, and now that the time has finally come what does get to do? 

Hold a dang bucket. 

Part of coming up with satisfying endings is following through on what you’ve established. The audience needs closure. Simply freeing Quirin isn’t enough, we need the carthartis of Varian specifically fulfilling his goal. 

I don’t know how to break this to you Chris, but this isn’t Rapunzel’s story. Not this segment of it anyways. It’s Varian’s and it just so happens to connect to Rapunzel’s. She shouldn’t have been center stage for this. 

The Series Blows It’s Load Too Early with the Incantations

This is the last time we’ll hear any of the incantations sung on screen, cause someone in budgeting didn’t know what was important to throw the money at and what was not. 

It’s not bad here, but if we could only hear one incantation only once this season it needed to be in the finale with the final heal incantation. 

Varian Was Right All Along

Also, all this does is justify Varian’s actions in season one. Rapunzel was indeed the only one who could free his dad according to this. For a series that desperately wants to shove all of the blame onto an abused child’s shoulders they sure go out their way to prove him right. 

So How Is the Hurt Incantation Suppose to Work?

There were so many fan theories after this scene because Varian and Quirin don’t respond to the hurt incantation the same way previous characters had. 

No one is gasping for breath, Varian can touch Raps without burning his hands, and Rapunzel can control the direction of her power. ect. 

Turns out there was nothing there, the writers just didn’t know what the fuck they were doing and made the hurt incantation very inconsistent just like all of the magic in this show. 

BULLSHIT!!!

You literally turn into a villain because she gave up on you!!!!

She also didn’t give two shits about you throughout the entirety of season two. 

Why are we just pretending like season one didn’t exist!? 

Why!?

The Note!!!

No It Fucking Didn’t!

Does That Look Like “I’m Proud of You Son” To You?

Chris went on to confirm that, yes, the note did hold more information that then got cut. Pretty much confirming all that we suspected. That Varian was cut from season two and his story hastily shoved back into season three at the last minute. 

Below is the link to the tumblr post he made.

https://cnotes.tumblr.com/post/190534585146/apparently-one-of-the-writers-said-a-while-back

What’s worse is that his defense is such bullshit. The below exchange pretty much sums it all up.

This Doesn’t Actually Resolve Anything and Is Therefore Unsatisfying to Watch

Part of the reason why this conclusion doesn’t work is because it doesn’t actually address any of the problems that they have in their relationship. Quirin never owns up to what he did wrong. There’s no discussion of what Varian was up to while he was entrapped, no conversation about what secrets Quirin hid from his son, and zero admission of wrongdoing on either side.   

Also Varian has done nothing significant to earn those particular words. Saying I love makes sense, but in context saying “I’m proud of you” does not. It doesn’t even work on a meta level cause the episode prevented Varioan from accomplishing anything. 

It’s empty. 

There Could Have Been More Screen Time to Fix This If Not for Season Two Mucking About

https://discord.com/channels/427940661589704715/569296212218347522/777635115978457098

Above is the link to the original storyboards. It doesn’t fix everything but there’s a lot more satisfying emotional beats including adding Ruddiger back in who is suspiciously absent for the entire episode for no stated reason. 

This version was cut due to time. Which, like with the Crossing the Line song, didn’t need to be had they been more effective with their usage of time in season two. 

They also could have had a better conclusion to Varian’s arc in general had he not been cut from season two altogether. 

So What Does Freeing Quirin Add to the Series?

I’m serious. What does freeing Quirin at this point and time do for the story?

It doesn’t add any character development, Quirin just wanders around aimlessly in the background until the finale and even then his part in that is a pointless dead end. Varian doesn’t gain his emotional closure, just empty, hollow “praise”. Nor is he allowed to accomplish any of his established goals. No new lore or history is exposed. No mystery uncovered. 

There’s no reason why this couldn’t have been done later in the season. Provide more tension and keep up the consequences of the characters actions. Give the mains something to do and work on until Cass and Zhan Tiri show up again.  

The only reason why this is here is to wrap Varian’s story up as soon as possible so he won’t “steal Cassandra’s spotlight”. That’s it. He’s rewarded for conforming to Rapunzel’s will and all the fans should shut up and be grateful, at least according to Chris.

I Like This Song But It Wasn’t Needed

It doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s just a generic celebration song. Which would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a limited number of songs, even less than in previous seasons, and the story isn’t over yet. This is the wrong place to put a victory song at. 

Especially when we could have had a song that furthered Varian’s redemption instead.  Yeah, that was cut too. 

So Is Varian the New “Lance” This Season?

He’s right there! This is his dang focus episode! 

Why hire Broadway singers and not let them sing!? Why waste talent and money like that? 

Also These Lyrics!

Did Glenn Slater just not read the scripts before writing the songs? That’s all season three ever does! Give the mains what they want without earning it. Even in this very episode!

So Is This Rapunzel’s 20th Birthday or Not?

Ok I have gotten into many a heated debate about how long season three is supposed to be. And that’s because what the crew says doesn’t match what the series shows us. 

By all accounts this should be Rapunzel’s birthday. According to season two she’s been gone for one year, and there’s the lanterns that they fly specifically on her birthday. 

But no one verbally says it’s her birthday and I’ve heard conflicting accounts from different members of the crew. Some stating that it is her 20th birthday and some disagreeing that it is. 

Well I’ll take what evidence that the show actually presents to its audience on screen over what the cast and crew says after the fact any day of the week, so I’ll be gathering up this evidence and proving by the end that season three is two years not one. 

But the fact that I must comb through series to prove this, the fact that we can even have this debate, and the fact that the crew have to state basic info after the series is over is just proof of the bad writing. 

Fun Fact: Cupcakes Weren’t Invented Until the 20th Century

Yeah, that’s the fault of the OG film, and yeah it doesn’t really mean much, but still it’s one more thing to add to the pile of stuff that doesn’t fit. 

Plus I’m just a hardcore nerd for historical cooking and I like to share my knowledge.  

Yeah But How Can He Trust All of You Again?

You’re the ones who let him down first; repeatedly. And you only started to make things up to him once he became useful to you. What assurance does he have that you won’t mistreat him again next time he’s in trouble or is no longer of any use to y’all? 

Yes, Let NOT Show What the Main Character Is Actually Going Through

Yup, this is “Rapunzel’s show” but we’re not going to let Rapunzel have any focus on her feelings or give any insight into her thought process about what is the main conflict of the series now.

Conclusion

Ducktales was robbed! 

I can’t believe this shit won an Emmy for “best writing.” It utterly fails on every possible level. It fails to be a continuation of the ongoing story and it fails to be a stand alone episode. Even the very structure of the story is fundamentally flawed. The only reason why it’s not the worst episode of the entire series because the finale and the penultimate episodes exist. 

Anyways...I finally made it through. It literally took my entire weekend but I’m finally caught up. Next week I’ll be going back to the usual one episode a week schedule. 

#Varian #tangled #anti-rapunzel #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tangled the series #Eugene #andrew

[ofbeaufort]

( william moseley. cis male. he/him. cowboy casanova & carrie underwood. ) have you seen HARRY BEAUFORT strolling around central park at lunchtime? rumor has it they’re actually 202 years old, but i’m pretty sure they’re only 32. they’re currently posing as a SERVER at LUNAR DEFIANT, but when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to MANHATTAN of choice by UBER. apparently they DID NOT attend the met gala this season! ( deanna. 26. she/her. est. )

harry was born to leilana beaufort, a dhampir since birth. the eldest of two, harry was always most like his father. he loved his mom, but it was dad who he looked up to, a chip off the old block. it's from his father that he gets his charm and charisma, but he also inherited his air of superiority and short temper.

he’s lived in new york city most of his life, feeling like the king in a castle with his mom and family’s status as a founding family. harry loved to use and abuse the power he had as a well-known name, taking what he wanted from people and using other vampires to hide his mistakes. he’s the type to act first, and think afterwards, but harry’s not an idiot—he’s really good at cleaning up his messes  ( and if he doesn’t do it, his sister is always there to do so ) .

in the early 1900s, harry became a part of a public vampire scandal when he killed a human in front of an o’riley hunter. the rules had been a lot more strict back then, and harry could’ve easily been killed for his crimes, but leilana and his father were able to get him off with a banishment. for fifty years he wasn’t allowed in the city of new year, and harry was on his own. 

it had been an adjustment for awhile, being on his own, not used to having to look after himself. but harry quickly made friends of all different species, and found that he enjoyed traveling. he saw europe, the rest of america, anywhere that his charm and vampire compulsion could take him. when the fifty years was over, harry didn’t want to return to new york. he kept in touch with his family somewhat, but a resentment had started to form regarding them, even if it was irrational—he knew they had to stay in new york, but he felt like an outcast anyway. so he stayed out of new york for a few extra years, taking his time to return home. 

despite his wariness to see his family again, harry fell back into routine with his parents and sister pretty easily, almost like he never left. there were a few people in new york who still didn’t trust him for his past transgressions, but most had moved on. but a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and if the time away from new york had taught harry anything, it’s how to be more subtle. 

harry is basically a chaotic lil vampire who does what he wants and has fun, but he’s smart about it !   he’s not the same vampire he once was getting banished from new york. now he has a job at lunar defiant, enjoying doing something during his days, and at night he could be found all across manhattan at the hottest bars & clubs. he can be charming when he wants to be  ( usually around his mother ) ,  and can be a lil asshole when he wants to be  ( usually around humans ) . 

currently not the happiest with mama leilana because of the divorce, feels like it’s a personal betrayal of the family.

here for a good time AND a long time 

he’s been back in new york for about forty years fyi

more to come, this is trash i know

wanted connections :

vampire friends to be chaotic with

other supernatural friends he can be chaotic with

humans he can use & torment 

o’riley family members that still have a grudge from running him out of town

hunters that don’t trust him

exes 

one night stands / flings / etc etc

a roommate ?? 

give me anything tbh

#can you tell i rushed this #intro ; #dusk:intro

[zebrawuzhere]

Super cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix to make holiday AUs out of or just to watch

So, I ADORE holiday aus and these movies are just so fucking cheesy that they make great fanfiction. Also, even if you don’t write fanfiction, they’re great 1 am binge movies (I know from experience). FYI, these are all straight couple movies, buuuuutttt.... that’s what fanfic is for! Here are a couple of my personal favorites, and I’ll add more later. Please spread this across the fanfiction community, I want this to be seen! (Also, if you end up using these, please send me the links, I want to read them!!)

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish

Despite her vain stepmother and mean stepsisters, an aspiring singer works as an elf at a Christmas tree lot and finds her own holiday miracle. 

It’s basically a vine girl meets this rich boi and they’re like “ooh hoo hoo I like youuuuuuuu but i don’t know who you truly are hmmmmmmm”. It’s amazing.

A Christmas Prince 

When a reporter goes undercover as a tutor to get the inside scoop on a playboy prince, she gets tangled in some royal intrigue and ends up finding love - but will she be able to keep up her lie? 

These three are my personal favorites, they’re just.... pure fanfiction material. Like, royal AU, sass, a cousin who’s a bitch, and plus.... two sequels!!

A Christmas Prince 2: The Royal Wedding

A year after helping Richard get to the throne, Amber is about to become his wife. But is she really made to be queen? 

(Spoiler alert: she isn’t) This one... is great. All of them are great. But, weddings are really hard to write (at least in my experience), so...

A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby

It's Christmastime in Aldovia, and a royal baby is on the way. Amber and Richard host royals from a distant kingdom to renew a sacred truce, but when the treaty vanishes, peace is jeopardized and an ancient curse threatens their family. 

This one is cool because there are 2 plots, the baby and the cuuuuuurse!!! Fun!!!!

The Knight Before Christmas

A medieval English knight is magically transported to present-day America where he falls for a high school science teacher who is disillusioned by love. 

This one makes a truly fantastic AU, I mean, time travel?? Her not believing the knight and then he disappears, and she’s like “oh shit he was telling the truth oh well, now I can’t tell him so sad alexa play all by myself” then poof poof love love ahahaha

Christmas with a Prince

Pediatric specialist Tasha Mason is focused on keeping the kids in her ward as healthy as possible. But when the handsome Prince Alexander Cavalieri breaks his leg on a nearby ski-slope, Tasha is forced to allow him to secretly get well on her floor, and she's furious that a spoiled Royal is interrupting the precious healing time her kids need. Soon, however, Tasha learns that some tough love and a lot of Christmas spirit could turn this royal pain into a knight in shining armor. 

Medical AUs, let’s go!! Plus, childhood friends, a crush spanning like 20 years, what’s not to love?

Holidate

Fed up with being single on holidays, two strangers agree to be each other's platonic plus-ones all year long, only to catch real feelings along the way.

Welcome to cliche-land! Complete with people thinking they’re weird, fake betrayal, love confessions loudly in-front of other people, and their family members shipping them. This basically is me, but without the romance.

Hometown Holiday

Krista is starting this New Year with a new business and a resolution to be more selective with who she dates. When Krista meets Ryan Rourke, an entertainment lawyer from LA, the two really hit it off. Ryan is in her hometown to sign a local rancher turned viral signing sensation as his new client. Now with Krista also in Rust Creek, maybe there is more of a reason to stick around. Both are holding onto things from their past and are forced to make some decisions if they truly want to be together.

A flower person, and an Entertainment guy meet-cute, what’s not to love??

Christmas Wedding Planner

Wedding Planner, Kelsey Wilson, is about to have her big break: planning her beloved cousin's lavish and exclusive wedding. Everything is going smoothly until Connor McClane, a devilishly handsome private investigator, shows up and turns Kelsey's world upside-down. Hired by a secret source, Connor quickly disrupts the upcoming nuptials but wins Kelsey's heart in the process.

OOH HOO HOO DO I SMELL DETECTIVE HOLIDAY AUS?? MY FAVORITE!! No, but seriously, this movie is greaaaaaaaaaat.

A Christmas Catch

A small-town policewoman falls for a suspected diamond thief at Christmas time.

Aw yiss more detective aus. This one is great because it’s just so fucking awkward, with the detective constant being watched and told what to say, as well as Sir Oblivioso.

The Holiday Calendar

A struggling but talented photographer inherits an antique holiday advent calendar, the contents of which seem to predict the future. Will this magical calendar lead her to love this holiday season?

Oh yeah, magic au, with them not believing it and constantly denying it, and I mean the romance isn’t the best, but oh well.

Midnight at the Magnolia

Longtime friends and local radio hosts Maggie and Jack fake it as a couple for their families and listeners in hopes of getting their show syndicated.

Fuck yes, the “we’re pretending to be lovers, when we’re just friends trying to deny our desire to actually be lovers” au! Woohooooooo!!!

Christmas With a View

Secret aspirations between a failed restaurateur and a celebrity chef threaten their blossoming Christmas romance.

Ah yes... the classic chef au. Lovely.

Christmas Inheritance

To be the CEO, an heiress is challenged by her dad to deliver a Christmas letter in person to his ex-partner in their hometown - traveling by bus, incognito and with only $100. Will she learn something from the people there?

Basically, weird, spoiled rich girl meets this guy who’s just trying to be nice to her, but she’s like “i don’t know how to survive ugh daddy help me”

Holiday in the Wild

Jilted by her husband on the eve of embarking on an African safari, a woman travels to the continent alone where she meets an elephant conservationist.

Divorce, wounded elephants, meet-cutes, what’s not to love??

#fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 #netflix #christmas #christmas au #holiday #holiday fanfiction #netflix is my only consolation #trigger warning: cringe #this is so cheesy oh my god #destiel #stucky #sabriel #johnlock #ineffable husbands #hannigram #drarry #holiday au

[josiehvrt]

Anonymous said to josiehvrt:

YOU REALLY READY TO H A T E ME?? DO THEM ALL XOXO - @daddyvinny

Send “✆” for a MORNING text.

josie: beating you to the good morning text :) i made pumpkin waffles and whipped coffee so wake up

Send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT.

josie: if you stopped loving me, you’d tell me right? :(

Send “☎” for a RUSHED text.

josie: honor. blowout. changing on a shoulder ON THE 405 !!!

Send “⁇” for a DRUNK text.

josie: baaaaabe :p im gonna need you to come pick me up from the bar bc i lost my phone and cant order an uber :( 

Send “✿” for a SUGGESTIVE text.

josie: you’re not gonna make me shower alone, are you? i need help getting the mirrors steamed up ;)

Send “ø” for a LATE NIGHT text.

josie: dont know if you’re still playing your game or if you fell asleep but i made cookies and i will eat all of them if you don’t come down in the next five minutes

Send “✘” for a HATEFUL text.

josie: babe. i swear to god and your italian ass ancestors, if you don’t stop leaving clothes in the washer and forgetting to put them in the dryer i’m going to cut the cords to the xbox and all the tvs 

Send “#” for a RANDOM text.

josie: i just made your moms marinara sauce. if i screwed it up, don’t tell me 

Send “@” for a SCARED text.

josie: vinny i swear i just heard someone walking outside the house. can you please go check it out??? im gonna cry

Send “&” for a LOVING text.

josie: i still can’t believe we’re actually married??  josie: like i married my actual soul mate? the love of my life? do you know how rare that is?? josie: i love you more than anything in the whole world. thanks for loving and wanting to marry my crazy ass <3

Send “%” for a CURIOUS text.

josie:  soooo you do know that jordyn and i have a pregnancy pact kind of thing, right? just a little fyi :P

Send “ツ” for an EXCITED text.

josie: i just picked the most amazing tile for the backsplash in our new kitchen !!! and they’re gonna use a glittery grout?? it’s gonna be so pretty!!!

Send “$” for an ACCIDENTAL text.

josie: dude. i hate being on my period :((( i sneezed and i’m p sure i gave birth to a lil jelly fish josie: uhhhhhh please do NOT read that text LMAO 

Send “♀” for a HEARTBREAKING text

josie: i had a dream last night that you wanted to divorce me because you were gonna get back with ronnie’s mom and it made me sad. so i’m a sad lil josie bean today. </3

[paradigmaticsims]

18th Century Pleasantview: Unhappy Marriages

Ok, that’s not really fair two of them are not necessarily unhappy but they’re not based on romantic love. This is just me setting up the same kind of thing the game tells you to do, but hopefully after that I will do more different things with these sims.

This post is like, really long, too long, its stupidly long.

......

I know I said I would go to Pascal Curious next, but then I thought of how glorious it would be to see Daniel Pleasant in a powdered wig and how could I deprive anyone reading of that?

This shot is not historical, just kinda cool looking. I will take that swimming pool away from you Daniel…. When I can be bothered to makeover the house.

So Daniel has the affair with Kaylynn and all that, Mary-Sue finds out.

Daniel apparently didn’t want that to happen and goes into aspiration decline. They’re staying together though, cause divorces are difficult for women to get and I think it’ll be more interesting this way.

Cassandra and Angela enjoying the stereo while they still can.

Then Angela and Lilith start fighting and Cassandra just keeps dancing awkwardly like the useless lesbian she is.

Now featuring proper underwear, Daniel is balding underneath the wig.

Lilith has ANGST! Which I mean, I don’t disbelieve her, her family is in shambles.

Angela and Dustin’s first kiss

Lilith sneaking out with her son of an artist bf: Lol Angela would never do this.

Me: I mean Angela’s dating a peasant (and in my mind a revolutionary) so I actually think she wins.

Lilith sneaks back and Daniel is like, right there, but they just blank each other. I guess he can’t really lecture anyone right now.

..........

Onto the Goths now! I’m in the process of actually caring about making over their house.

I like the piano shots.

Cassandra and Don’s wedding (but it’s a sham marriage that they’re both in on). I forgot I must once have had a hack that makes sims wear their formalwear instead of the default wedding gear?

Ahh I figure out how to force them into their formal wear too late, so hear is Cassandra’s ironic wedding dress, and Don’s frock coat. Mortimer and Alexander dancing is cute.

Don, Don, Don, Don… DON we have multiple baths on this lot. You married a rich sim you no longer have to wash like a poor person…. in the kitchen... in view of everyone.

Don: Hey I married a rich sim, this means I can have a sponge bath in the bathroom… wait bath what?

I like the piano, piano shots are cool.

Oh hey Don finally figured out the bath! Good for him.

This is cute, Don tucking in Alexander.

Here’s my attempt so far of trying to Georgify the Goth house, while maintaining an old and creepy vibe. I probably don’t know enough about 18th century houses but who cares it’s not like there’s enough cc out there to make it accurate to within the 1790s or something so close enough is good enough.

Cassandra embarrassed by her father marveling at the fact that rain exists.

I want to use colours in the interior design! But still colours that are unusual, or a bit sickly, something to show that the Goths are still weird.

Don is bi cause I think that makes him easier to like. He thinks the butler’s hot.

Cassandra: And once day we’ll have a baby, we’ll give it toys, and play with it and give it all the attention a child needs.

Alexander, an actual child who exists in the here and now: Wooo! Look at me I got an A+ I crave attention!

Everyone: *ignores*

..........

Random scene from the Broke house.

This will only make Dustin more acab.

..........

At Nina and Dina’s house:  I forgot the burglar’s sack uses cartoon logic and is thus able to carry hot tubs.

Mortimer is awake while this happens, but just decides to dip instead. I guess when you’re rich you don’t care about poor people’s problems, even if you are dating courting one of those poor people.

Dina goes into full on meltdown over this, I don’t usually play fortune sims so I underestimated how much it would affect her.

Dina’s memory of this trauma inducing event is just ‘nice to meet you stranger’

MOOD

I wish this guy spawned in a different hood, so I could just leave his magnificent hipster aesthetic be.

..........

Back at the Goths and unfortunately my game crashed when I was playing the Goths before they hired a butler, so this time we get a new guy and he looks fun. (I would like an 18th century butler outfit default, that would be a cool thing that I have no idea how to do).

Mortimer I know you might not be the most social ques aware guy, but talking about the hotness of your new fiancé to your daughter is weird, just fyi.

To my great disappointment Don is not attracted to the new butler, which I do not get, Don are you seeing this?

I see Cassandra as being mostly gay and their marriage as mostly a sham, but she is at least bi enough to initiate trying for baby this one time. Cause sexuality on sims and in reality is more fluid and complicated than we give it credit for. Though I think she mostly just wants the baby cause maxis inexplicably made her a family sim. She’s the sims version of Wednesday Addams and they made her goal to get married and have babies? I do want her to have one kid for the sake of inheritance, but after that I’m making her a knowledge sim. Anyway despite all that I think this is a pretty picture.

I love the custom greetings.

Dina and Mortimer’s wedding, during the day and at the Goth house, cause it makes no sense for Mortimer to move in with Dina and Nina in their tiny house, wouldn’t Dina want to move in with Mortimer in his big old money house? I think she would. Plus her being in the same house with Cassandra and Don makes for maximum awkwardness.

Dina: Hey congrats on your hotness! Meanwhile Cassandra is applying far too much logic to be interesting to Nina.

Don and Cassandra have an open marriage with no jealousy set for both of them. Even so Nina just openly serenading Don right in front of Cassandra does seem a bit tactless.

On his own wedding day all the young people just ignore Mortimer.

Nina and Dina get to a point in the grief cycle where they feel it necessary to bad mouth the burglar.

Don asking the important questions: But did you… have sex with the burglar?

I forgot that reading kids to sleep was a thing you could do in game. This is cute.

Maybe Don and the butler were just meant to be bros.

The ‘Legacy Career’ is just a living off an inheritance. I 100% believe this is how rich people operate.

Cassandra, starting with how your Mum got abducted by aliens is probably not the best way to impress a girl. You ease into that.

Cassandra, who is pregnant, wet herself and then passed out and apparently these were things she was scared of so much that she hits aspiration failure. And I’m here to say that is just way too high a standard to be setting for yourself. Also the butler served people beer as food which is the real problem rn.

I like this picture, I don’t know why there’s not food when there is, but I like it. Don should get a new coat.

Look at these three queer, and mostly pregnant disasters.

I made over the butler, I took some liberties, but I mean he’s blue. I imagine he used to be a pirate. Don, I don’t understand you.

But at least he has learnt the ways of the bath.

The end. Now I have to see if I can fix some bugs.

#sims 2 gameplay #premade sims #pleasantview #cassandra goth #mortimer goth #don lothario #dina caliente #nina caliente #daniel pleasant #mary-sue pleasant #angela pleasant #lilith pleasant #dustin broke #alexander goth #butler is a pirate #18th century pleasantview #18th century sims #1700s pleasantview #1700s sims #historical sims #kinda #once again everyone is bi #sims 2 #pianos and baths #rococo sims #why oh why can't i edit this post? #sorry for typos

[bladekindeyewear]

Bloggin’ bout HS^2 Commentary from start to Mid-Jan-2020

Sigh.  Time to pay the piper.  Someone’s gotta extract whatever plot-important and plothole mentions get mentioned in this commentary, even though reading behind-the-scenes stuff about Homestuck makes me even more nervous than reading frontend stuff ever could so I don’t really want to.  FYI, that’s what you’re going to get out of my posts on these -- anything regarding plot stuff and plotholes, things we would’ve misinterpreted or missed otherwise, not any of the other paid content such as sketches or full quotes from them about things.

TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS A MONTH!???!??  Is Andrew even seeing any of this cash?  --no, not much of it I guess, he would want to make sure the WP folks get paid enough after the--

Yeah I’m not gonna even think about that.

Fuck it.  I’m ponying up.

Alright, first commentary post on the Patreon, commentary and bonus sketches for Ghostflusters... whoa, this is long and extensive.  Is it going panel by panel??

I guess I’ll give you a small quote just for a taste of how this starts...

Page 33:  Not sure what any of this shit means. It’s pretty deep though. We were going for an echo of the beginning of the epilogue when John is dreaming in anime. Except here it’s Jake, and nobody is dreaming, at least not yet. Also an anime dream wouldn’t be a nightmare for Jake, since Jake likes anime. Or he used to. Now anime probably just reminds him of Dirk.

Good thing we’re never gonna hear from that guy ever again.

...because this commentary is sort of stylized.  They’re kind of riffing on what they’re doing, and I get that -- when you have to write commentary you’re asking people to PAY for you can easily feel like you have to be entertaining.  But they are describing the rationale for the shot choices they made and such.  They’re also going for a sort of Andrew-recap sort of attitude, and I don’t blame them for that choice, either.

[Candy] Jade is...well, you’ll see.

GOD DAMNIT.  Don’t remind me that Dave vanished on her forever while they were doing pro-revolutionary work and she’s probably going to be in a bit of a state!  Stupid knowing author future allusions...

Then again, that’s exactly why I’m here blogging about the commentary for you guys -- for me to relay Authorial Intent on Stuff That Happened That Seemed Plotholey and Hints About What’s Going To Be Relevant.

I just, uh... didn’t expect there to be that MUCH of it.  And that casual phrasing for that Candy Jade Is Going To Be Seen And Or Relevant hint is... kinda indicating to me that there’s gonna be a LOT more of that here than I wanted.  :|

Continuing... there’s talk of why they started with Jake here, being unused to writing for middle-aged characters in Homestuck terms, et cetera, but again, I’m only here to relay anything with plot impact or SERIOUS perspective on how we should / the authors are viewing this.  The rest stays behind the paywall for whichever of you all think it’s worth $20, I don’t really have a choice.  At least now I know why there was no one to tell me what details were actually BEHIND the paywall.  Seriously, that’s steep.

Speaking of how stylized the commentary is here, I can get why some might read it and view the authors as slightly callous -- I’m giving them PLENTY of benefit of the doubt, though.  Andrew was FAR from callous and he hurt us worse out of love of artistic intent with the Epilogues than the HS^2 folks could EVER hurt us.  Real Dirk-like, actually.  Dirk is practically half of a self-insert, as we well know.  No wonder Andrew thought the right thing to do was to take his hands off the story, what with Dirk’s villainous action being putting his own hands ON the story.

We like to make fun of Jake English as much as the next guy, but he probably is actually pretty good at “doing things” if the need arises. 

Mhmm; there are some jibes at how screwed up Jake has made his life, but I don’t believe these authors actually disrespect Jake at all.  He was dealt a bad hand by the story leading up to this point (quite INTENTIONALLY by Dirk’s narrative control in the Epilogues, too) and HS^2 and its bonuses so far have been exploring the heap of merits and potential he’s still got in him.

It’s kind of sweet how he wants to clean out his ecto-son’s house, even if most of that is to prevent the slow creep of mounting existential dread and narrative relevance. 

Huh.  So they think Jake can sort of feel that narrative relevance is seeping in around him, to him?  That’s not out of the question at all.

Continuing... they’re going on a bit about the same sort of things I mentioned about their choices in detail or detail-less-ness when depicting people in this new format, considering ages and the paired text descriptions and such.  That’s the sort of thing you’d traditionally want to pony up for commentary for, so rest assured that all that IS in their commentary posts if you want to do that.  I’m kind of extracting the plot stuff out of the paywall just on principle.

A lot of making this comic--and every other comic ever--is trying to convey as much information with as little space as possible.

Quite so.

From this conversation we find out a couple things. 1) that Brain Ghost Dirk knows about Ultimate Dirk, and he thinks he’s a dickhead. 2) Brain Ghost Dirk knows who Jeff Bezos is, and Jake doesn’t. This could be a sign of a couple things, all of which are probably stupid. 

This is ALSO what I came here for:  Legitimate “don’t worry about it” handwaves about stuff that shouldn’t matter to us.  I never ascribed the slightest bit of relevance or inference to BGDirk making a Jeff Bezos reference, and I’m glad I was completely justified in ignoring it.  So far I agree with this probably-plural-but-acting-like-a-singular author’s train of thought.

Come to think of it, it’s maybe strange that in this Cool Future Earth where all of our characters are rich as hell, none of them have bothered to have any sort of corrective eye surgery. Jane, Jake, John, and Jade all still wear glasses. I guess they do have “signature looks” to maintain in regards to their brand. 

I had to include this, I was legitimately curious.  Understood it was probably an artistic decision to stay on-brand a fair bit -- and losing glasses even temporarily has a lot of thematic significance whenever it happens in Homestuck Proper -- but it’s nice to have some confirmation that this was the understandable rationale behind the choice.

Here we find out what Dirk thinks about Jake’s behavior of the last few years. In other words, we find out what Jake thinks about Jake’s behavior over the last few years. [...]

[Brain Ghost] Dirk is manipulating Jake here, but he isn’t actually saying anything demonstrably untrue. 

Again, most of this was obvious at the time, but it’s nice to have authorial confirmation on what was being brought across as per the strange divide between Brain Ghost Dirk’s independent will and his mostly-part-of-Jake status.

Seriously though, shoutout to the conceit that god tiers can just fly endlessly, with no visible effort. It’s a really excellent form of narrative shortcut that fits perfectly into the bonkers vibe of earth c as a whole. Oh there goes one of the Creators, just flying over the Wal-Mart like an asshole. 

You know... who IS doing the commentary here?  One of the authors, all of them?  One of the artists??  This really is a COLLABORATIVE effort between the authors and artists involved here, I think, and it shows in their clear surprise and appreciation for each others’ work that only settles into a full understanding instead of just knowing what one intended off the bat.

It calls into question exactly how much of the Condesce’s mind control was actually mind control at all, and how much was just a lowering of inhibitions. 

Right, right.

We see Jane greeting Jake here with open arms, which makes you wonder exactly what is going on here. If you’ll remember from Candy, Jane has already served Jake divorce papers. A mystery in need of solving, for sure. 

HERE we go!  This is the potential plothole we were concerned about that got me alerted that the commentary had something to add in the first place.  John mentioned toward the trail-end of the Candy epilogues that divorce papers had shown up for Jake.  (And we also saw an HS^2 update ago or so that Jane hadn’t actually KNOWN Tavros was “awol” at all until he was literally a part of this whole clowncorpse logistics business.)  So in light of what this post continues to say:

It could be that Jane has put aside the nasty business of their divorce in order to have a strong chest to cry on. Can’t really say I blame her. Jake English has many flaws but he does seem like a good person to drape yourself across and really let loose on. And without Gamzee there, Jane needs another punching bag. 

...it all finally fits as pretty logically consistent, although the author is being deliberately coy in a way that leaves it open for more to be revealed later about exactly how this is happening.  Good!  No obvious plotholes in HS^2 (yet).  That’s an honest relief.  The more often they have something in mind where I’d previously worried they’d screwed up, the more often I can give them credit and speculate properly on those gaps in story-logic expecting something there, like we so often got to with Andrew before the retconsplit made even THAT kinda fucky.

If you’ve ever had a friend or family member go evil, you’ll know that one of the hardest parts is there’s always still elements of them that you like.

I can definitely say that from nearly personal experience.

Also, at this point in the story there is no lingering doubt that Jake and Dirk have had a sexual relationship. There’s a familiarity there that wasn’t around when they were teens. 

I assumed so, but I guess I never thought ABOUT how I assumed so.  Huh.

Do any of the creators have a moral leg to stand on if all they’re doing is curling up into a ball and hoping the world gets better without them? Actually, does anyone have a moral leg to stand on if they do that? 

Almost Riddley, there.

These posts are certainly interesting!  Steeply priced for what they are, but interesting.  Moving on to the second of four so far... this one’s about Catnapped Part 1.

Taking over Earth C's business world certainly would have required rubbing shoulders with the already-powerful on the planet.

--yep, which I never doubted even when brought up in the Epilogues is a large part of her supply-side government views.

Ah, looks like the bonus commentary is a good deal shorter!  But that bonus section was a good deal shorter than the story section covered earlier too, so.

On to the next one, for Clown Logistics.

Page 58: If you love Vriskas, i hope you enjoy more Vriska content. If you hate Vriskas, well. Here is another one that is kind of different. Feel free to contemplate nature vs nurture and how best to apply this dichotomy toward emoting about the vriskas of your choice how you see fit.

I’m starting to really enjoy this author commentary.

Tavros being named Tavros sure was a decision. Go back and reread the commentary for panel 58 but stop before the nature/nurture thing, since they are not clones, or even the same species. They just have the same name, which, in this universe, means you at least type kind of the same.

Hmhmm.

Page 65:  Sometimes you try and come up with something to say about a page, and you cannot, and so you wait 8 hours, and go see Knives Out, and then you have 2 white russians, and then you still can’t come up with anything to say, but oh well! Commentary needs writing. Tavros is experiencing an emotion here.

Now THAT’s a mood.  I gotta go see Knives Out sometime soon.

...Alright, I can see why some people think MAAAAYBE this author might be being a little disrespectful to the audience, but if they’re going based on THIS, I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.  This comment could have come from Andrew’s fingertips any day of the week!!!  I honestly wouldn’t WANT replacement authors who couldn’ comment like this in there for a page in paid commentary, especially in a lighter section of the story that doesn't need too much said about it.

And I paid $20 for this shit.

...Continuing, I’m loving all this commentary on Harry Anderson.  Representative excerpt:

Again, direct your eyes toward the boy. What a fucking asshole. 

...these commentaries are honestly improving my mood!  I didn’t expect that, really.

Ah, I didn’t even notice that the flying cars appear to be self-driving.  I think maybe the back of my mind MIGHT have noticed but only a bit.

Referring to the corpse-carry crew:

Page 82: Pokedex entry for Magneton in Pokemon Sun: When three Magnemite link together, their brains also become one. They do not become three times more intelligent.

Ain’t THAT a mood.

(...I just had an internal “Wait, am I using that right, it being a “mood”?  Isn’t that the hip new term, how do I have any right to latch onto that however much I feel it?  Ohhh gosh I’m so fucking old” moment.)

It’s clear from the commentator’s complaints that the crew never viewed this commentary ALONE as worth upping the pledge to $20, but that’s... not quite a bad thing?  I think it’d have been more disrespectful to think that they COULD make the commentary worth that.  I doubt there’s a single person on their team who feels quite right about the business model (besides the artists they have plenty of context to know how deserving they are of a living goddamn wage), but it’s what they have to live with and go with, here.  I feel weird for honestly understanding ‘em, and more than slightly pitying for how many people will look at all this and read “these assholes don’t care about us”.  I really can’t think that’s anywhere CLOSE to true from this without more context.  (And I really DON’T want more context, don’t send me any.  I’ve got to read HS^2 and I’m enjoying reading it so far so let me keep enjoying it please.  Background drama details make me nauseous, DON’T give me any if there is any (which I wouldn’t know about in the first place beyond an opinionated friend or two dropping hints in a bad mood).)

Did you know there are people who I’ve seen honestly believing “Undertale is pretty good but the creator is an arrogant asshole”?????

Because they saw his tweet about the game score passing Kojima’s MGSV on metacritic briefly and misinterpreted his wide-eyed disbelief, disbelief honed to nervous laughter to maintain sanity by Toby’s insecurity about his unprofessional work and work product???  They thought he was SERIOUS without any of the context of the usual insincere little dog persona they should’ve read into the game of his they played??

Awh man.  That just ticks me off.

Anyway where were we.

Page 91: This is a flashback so I didn’t write this one, which means I thankfully don’t have to say anything about it. 

Wait.  What?

Are they trading off writers between chapters, or...?  Hm.

Whatever they’re doing, it fits together pretty darn well SO far.

Alright, that finishes that off, time for the last commentary post on the second bonus update.

I don't know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don't mean just in Homestuck's dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth.

Now that’s a mood.

I've been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you're making in 2019 has to either address what's going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus's sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

Now THAT is a god damned MOOD.

The author(?) goes in about why this is happening, why Jane is being confronted this way, why she IS this way, et cetera.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it.

That’s one of the biggest goddamn reasons for the inequality and political landscape we have today IRL, yeah.

She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

Jane's favorite comic, a noir-detective drama steeped in the pop-cultural trappings of pulp Americana, reflects this mindset.

So, our catgirl Seer of Light takes us through the looking glass, and we get to see an old friend.

Hm!

Nothing really to say, I just had to share this fitting context the author is giving.  How things fit together even better than they seemed to, and this was all far from random.

I feel warmly ensconced in the womb of nostalgia, gently cradled on Norman Reedus's chest.

Pffffffff

Yep, more of what we already surmised and appreciated, how Swifer and Cliper were giving us some much needed perspective... the commentary post even has little traditional-Homestuck sprites for ‘em.

And... that’s it for the commentary so far!  Again, I enjoyed all that more than I expected.  $20 doesn’t sting for me as much as it does for others in general, but it stung a lot less after I was through reading all that honestly somewhat-entertaining stuff confirming a lot of the insights I’d thought the plot was having.

I’ll probably wait to check for further commentary posts until like... after bonus updates come out, in the future, and then just blog about whatever I’m not caught up on.  Sound fair?  I’m going to blog as often as a real or bonus upd8 comes out, but I’m not going to pop in more often than that for my own sanity’s sake.  Have a good MLK weekend, y’all.  :)

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #Homestuck Commentary #blastyoboots

[the-real-slim-shady]

OK so I'm in the middle of this show called LOST and it is so fucking crazy. Like 40 people on an airplane crash on this island, and at first it’s like normal survivor stuff like finding food and water, but then shit. gets. real. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD (obviously) 

This dude John was paralyzed because his dad shoved him off an 8 story building, but now he can somehow walk???

This lady Kate fucking murdered her abusive stepfather and was arrested for murder, and she was on the plane with a US marshal who was taking her to jail but he died in the crash?? And her MOTHER fucking turned her in to the police??

This dude Hugo was in a freaking mental hospital and had an imaginary friend that HE DIDN’T KNOW WAS IMAGINARY UNTIL A PSYCHOLOGIST TOLD HIM. Then THE FRIEND APPEARED AGAIN ON THE ISLAND AND ALMOST CONVINCED HIM TO KILL HIMSELF??? 

This guy Jack was a surgeon, married this lady who’s life he saved, then they got divorced and he thought that she was cheating on him with his dad?? It’s not even clear if he was or not!! Also, the dad is like a total asshole, but he died, so Jack was taking his body home to be buried, but Jack KEEPS ON SEEING HIS DAD JUST CASUALLY WALKING AROUND THE ISLAND??

This Korean couple, Sun and Jin, they’re hella shady, cause Jin works for Sun’s father and like straight up murders people because it’s the only way the Sun’s dad will let him stay married to her??? And only Sun speaks English but Jin doesn’t know??? 

This adorable Australian lady Claire is pregnant and this fortune teller fucker told her that she couldn’t give the baby up for adoption even though she wanted to, and he kept on calling her and telling her to keep the baby, which CROSSES SO MANY BOUNDARIES. But anyway she kept the baby but then the fucker was like “no go give the baby to these people in another country” so she GOT ON THE PLANE THAT CRASHED. THEN she GAVE BIRTH ON THE FUCKING ISLAND?!!??? 

This guy Sawyer has an awful backstory, basically this dude conned his mom into sleeping with him so he could get her husband’s money, but then the husband killed the wife (for cheating on him) and then killed himself. So Sawyer grew up seeking revenge on the con man, but then ended up BECOMING a con man and sleeping with married women for their husbands money, and accidentally killed a guy because he thought that he was the con man who drove his dad to commit murder/suicide??!!

This guy Sayid is an Iraqi torturer who spent the last 8 years of his life looking for the woman he loves, but he’s been through the absolute craziest most traumatizing shit ever it’s like bro are you ok??

AND THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING

CAUSE THEN they find this hatch thingy on the island and this guy Desmond is inside and he’s like “you have to enter these numbers and press this button every 108 minutes otherwise the world’s gonna end” and they’re all like “ok sounds legit” but Hugo freaks out because the numbers they have to put in are the numbers he used to win the lottery and then after he won the lottery he had like crazyyyy bad luck, like this news reporter interviewing him literally had a rock fall on her head, his mom’s house caught on fire, his grandpa died, etc. etc. so Hugo freaks out that these numbers are like following him. 

ALSO they found this like radio thing and they tried to send a signal to people to get them off the island, but they heard a transmission of this French lady saying “they’re all dead, the thing killed them, I'm alone on the island” and it’s been playing for FUCKING SIXTEEN YEARS. Then Sayid finds this lady and apparently she came to the island as like a researcher with a whole team including her husband, but then they got sick and she had to kill them all for some reason. Then these other creepy people called “the others” took her baby, Alex (she was pregnant and gave birth on the island).

If I were to explain the whole story, it would take literally forever and I'd probably miss a million details but if you haven’t watched this show GO WATCH IT it’s on Hulu and it’s soooo good and sooo scary, just fyi, there’s like a ton of blood and gross stuff so if you dont’ like that, don’t watch it. 

#shitpost #LOST #tv show #jack shephard #sawyer #Kate austen #explanation #tw: gore #tw suicide

[seenashblog]

Nash Watches & Rates Cheesy Hallmark Original Christmas Movies, So You Don’t Have To (2019)

This is the thing where I recap and rate cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies (mostly - if other channels do "original" holiday movies, like Lifetime, I may sneak those in there, too). This post will be updated with new entries as I go, all below the cut. I'm rating based upon The Cheesy Christmas Movie Bingo Card. Here it is, and feel free to use it for your own watching:

More quick clarification on ratings: 

When something's pulling in a 4 or 5 star, that means the Bingo only popped a few squares. When something's hitting at a 3, it's a handful of squares, maybe came in the ballpark of having a Bingo. The 2s mean definitely got a Bingo. The 1s mean anywhere from more than one Bingo to nearly filled the damn card. Outside of the card, stars can also get docked because of piss-poor writing, embarrassing acting, draggy flow, and shitty casting (read: lack of chemistry).

Put another way - 3 stars means they aren’t exactly a waste of time, 2 stars are debatable/up to personal taste, and of course 1 star means I will never get that time back and I’m that much closer to death because of the movie and what it drained from my soul.

Here's the 2018 list

And remember: never, EVER watch “My Christmas Love” 😉

Let’s roll. Most recent entries will be first.

#6

Once Upon A Christmas Miracle (Hallmark, 2018 - Brett Dalton, Aimee Teegarden - the latter of whom will make you think "I know someone who looks like her" because she looks like that girl you went to school with or worked with or was a friend of a friend, or maybe is a friend of yours - she's just got that look about her. My Aimee Teegarden's name is Jessica.)

This movie is infuriating.

Brett is a great actor, Aimee is serviceable, let's just get that out of the way. Matter of fact, you're not going to find any of the acting grating. Overall, everybody's fine.

Here's what you need to know: this is based on a true story, and that story is that a woman who needed a liver transplant gets a random donor (no one in her fam was a match apparently). And donor's this awesome dude, and they end up falling in love. Cool story, right?

Yeah, then Hallmark got their hands on it.

Everything is shmoop. Everything. The family (including the - way to go casting - sister who looks nothing like her, I mean NOTHING like her) is on Christmas like it's crack. Details include her hand-making wreaths, and oh by the way she does it for every holiday. Okay. Whatever. Some of us have more time on our hands than others. Look at me, I pause in housework to type this shit up when I could be doing said housework. It's all about priorities.

There's of course The Conflict, which is that he gets a job offer out of town. But before all that, he organizes a Christmas Eve party focused on fundraising for her because of the medical bills and because she won't go back to nursing school since money. Welcome to the USA, the only advanced, developed country on the planet where they don't consider investment in our populous as important as investment in, well, you pick. I'm furious. I'm also grinding my teeth over the gross medical inaccuracies in this one, but I won't go down that road or we'll be here all day. I bring that up because the thing upon which this story pivots is the medical issue, so some realism there is important so that we as the audience can understand the gravity of what they went through, the sacrifice he made for a stranger, why this bonded them, etc.

I hate this movie. I hate it. The family is insufferably perfect. It's so overblown it's unrealistic. And that wasn't needed - it's okay to show them stressed and worried, this is a big deal. But nope, they're just perfect. And she's perfect, everyone loves her, she's pretty and smart and sweet and EVERYONE LOVES HER. There's not one moment of her being, say, bitter and resentful  that she's having to go through this, and again - THAT'S NORMAL. Just some normalcy is needed to balance the "Wow!" of what happened which is that they ended up falling in love, because that truly is not the norm and is extraordinary.

So I got curious and wondered what, if any, of this - beyond what we know - was actually true. Okay: he and his motorcycle club did arrange a fundraiser. They did end up several doors down from each other at the hospital and would take their walks together (that's mandatory post-surgery, they want you up walking ASAP, just FYI). But here's what I was looking for: this didn't happen at Christmas. He overheard a coworker talking about a sick cousin in January 2015. The surgery happened in March. They started dating, and in July he actually asked her father for permission to ask her to marry him. And THEN at Christmastime, he proposed to her, which was the very last scene in the movie.

I guess what I'm getting at is, why couldn't this have just been a regular Hallmark movie at a random time of year. They made the focus Christmas instead of it being on Heather and Chris. They had an opportunity to dig in a little deeper than they usually do, they were handed a wonderful love story that was filled with a major REAL trial, and they blew it. They swapped true love and loyalty, for romance and fluff. Yeah, love and romance are on the Venn diagram together, but they ain't the same thing.

This can't be a 5 because it was so schlocky, not to mention because there were zero character arcs, our two leads were the exact same people at the end as they were at the beginning. I can't in good conscience make it a 4 because of what I've said above. But the production value was fine, the acting was fine, the script dialogue-wise was fine, and the pacing was fine. IT WAS FINE. You may be into this, but I was greatly disappointed, especially after learning about the material with which they had to work. So I have to drop it from a 3 to a 2. Be warned, though - if you google, everyone rates it off the charts. [shrugs]

2/5 stars

The Christmas Note (Hallmark, 2015 - Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Leah Gibson - the former of whom you better know, and the latter of whom is incredibly familiar to me - and there's also several other familiar folks, namely the guy who plays the lawyer who is a great actor and should be in more stuff)

Now, even though this isn't based on a true story it is a good example of how to dig into tough situations and allow people to be imperfect, along with elements of lightness and sweetness and happiness. (The next one does this well, too, but hang on let's knock this one out.) Both our leads - and thank god on high this isn't a romance for once - are excellent actors with great chemistry, so no worries there. This *is* a love story, however. Because not all love is kissing and sex and romance.

One more time for the people in the back: meeting someone and growing to love them is not always about sexy times and kissy face and shmoopy romance.

So here's the scoop, and I'm not looking up their character names: Jamie-Lynn, along with her son (who, despite being a good lil' actor, is mildly annoying, but it's the script, not him) has moved back to her small hometown and gotten a little house to be closer to her parents, because her army hubby got nearly blowed-up overseas and he's in the hospital recuperating enough to where it's safe for him to travel home. Next door lives Leah who seems stand-offish at first but it's just because her life is basically work-home-work-home, wash-rinse-repeat. They start to get to know each other because this dude shows up and knocks on Jamie-Lynn's door and is like "I can't get hold of your neighbor but her mom's died and she needs to come clean out the apartment, like, yesterday." Jamie-Lynn goes with her to do it, being all - Nobody should have to go through this alone - and Leah accepts the offer, because this is gonna be hard, and double-hard because due to a falling out, she hadn't talked to her mom in like 10 years. They end up finding a letter her mom left her, and in part of it, she tells that before Leah was born she gave up a child for adoption. That's it. No other leads.

And after Jamie-Lynn and various folks around town encourage her, Leah decides she'll make effort to find her sibling, and Jamie-Lynn helps, and as they follow up on various things in mom's possessions, they get closer and closer, and end up becoming friends. There's no silly misunderstandings as excuse to farm emotion - there's just actual emotion because jesus, did you read what this plot is?! Nothing is smothered by shmoop and nobody is shoving Christmas spirit up your ass. Nobody's family is perfect (you know the scoop on Leah, and as far as Jamie-Lynn's, turns out husband may not make it home for Christmas, and her parents are divorced and slightly cantankerous), so again - it's keeping grounded in the midst of what's about to be a (kind've) fantastical ending.

Skip beyond the next divider if you don't want to be spoiled.

While they don't look alike, they do both have dark hair and dark eyes (I can't tell if maybe some dark hazel is happening, but their eyes ain't blue and brown is my point). And note the way they occasionally part their hair (far to one side), the way they'll occasionally move in sync (standing from chair, for instance), similar style purses and coats. You may've guessed the ending - and it was mentioned early on though not heavy-handed that Jamie-Lynn is adopted - but Jamie-Lynn is Leah's older birth half-sister. And of course, husband makes it home for Christmas.

The only thing - and I mean THE only, even the music is on point - I would've changed about this (but it's based on a book, so Hallmark couldn't, so I guess I'm critiquing the author) is that I'd have made it that the husband is her older half-brother. So that when he gets home on, say, Christmas Eve the lawyer could've shown up at the house being like "Sorry if I'm intruding but my contact at blah-blah-blah agency came through, I just read the documents, and you have to know this right away", etc. Otherwise, this movie is solid, top to bottom. I would give it a 4 vs a 5 because it is highly, highly, HIGHLY improbable that they'd be neighbors. Better for them to have met via work or at the coffee shop or something. But let me tell you, the thing that puts this over the top? In the scene where they find out the truth, they nail it. In lesser hands (including the lawyer actor), this would've failed and ruined the entire movie. Instead, it actually made me a little teary-eyed.

5/5 stars

The Santa Con (Lifetime, 2014 - the very stacked cast of: Barry Watson, Melissa Joan Hart, Melissa Sagemiller, Jaleel White, Scott Grimes, Wendy Williams, Alimi Ballard, John Ratzenberger - every single one of whom you'll recognize or know right off the bat)

Lifetime does this better than Hallmark, and tenfold: casting. And this is a drama vs. a romance, but they all nail it. It helps that the director was Melissa Joan Hart, and I'll put in my disclaimer here that I said last year....

I am slightly biased because Melissa is a friend of a friend (sister-in-law, specifically) and she is good people, a hard worker, and a smart cookie. She knows what roles she nails (sharp wit, no shmoop, strong chicks), so that’s what projects she and her mother choose (they produce most everything Melissa’s in), she stays in her lane, is my point, so if you agree with that assessment, then you’re good to go, this is classic Melissa Joan Hart fare.

Except this time? It's not exactly her typical fare, but it's just as solid. Here's the basic summary, and I'm not going too far down the road because with all those characters, as you can imagine, there's lots of back-and-forth as far as who's interacting with whom at a given point. So Barry plays a conman who finally landed himself in prison but he charmed the warden (Ratzenberger) and the board and gets parole. His goes to live with his sister (Hart) and we meet his fellow conman buddy (White), and the job he gets is part-time gig as a Santa at the mall (sister has a shop there). He is just going through the motions, and he promises this kid - the only bit of poor casting, IMO, but kid actors are six of one, half dozen the other - that his wish of his parents being back together will come true (Sagemiller and Grimes).

Problem: Grimes' character is an alcoholic, and the kid finally gets an eyeful and quits being pissed at his mom for the separation when dad shows up absolutely lit to the school play. In any event, Barry feels like he needs to make good on the promise somehow because he feels guilty and he insinuates himself into their lives (I am absolutely going blank how, sorry), and he at least wants to give Grimes a fighting chance at being reunited with his family (Sagemiller says she would totally take him back if he got the drinking issue taken care of because she genuinely loves him, she just can't tolerate that shit anymore). So Barry's doing things like helping Grimes get to AA and revealing that his boss at work took credit for his awesome idea (that, coupled with the drinking, is why he got fired if memory serves, I'm writing this post-movie).

There's one angle that irritates me - the issue with Grimes shouldn't have been alcoholism. That's a tough topic to tackle, and I don't know that a Lifetime Christmas movie is the place to do it. I didn't mind him coming drunk to the play, I think that would've been in line with him being, broadly, Mr. Fuck Up. Like losing his job - we learn that the reason is because his idea was stolen, but from her perspective it's part of his pattern. And maybe he kept missing things he'd promised to do with the kid. Whatever, fill in all those blanks. In addition, it irks me that Sagemiller's romantic choices here are a felon and an alcoholic. Are all felons bad? No. Are all alcoholics bad? No. Because people vary. My point is, both of their lives are messy at this moment and they need to work on themselves before involving another person and her kid. Barry's also been lying to her this whole time, and regardless of the good intentions (and that's debatable, his reasons, at one point), it's still a bunch of deception.

But I have to give credit where credit's due. It's a very original plot, both the writer and Hart did a great job balancing it out and keeping it streamlined to the degree that they could, and, again, I cannot praise the casting enough. Because there is a distinct lack of shmoop, and because there's some humor, and because the pacing was on point, and because I think it maybe hit 2 squares on the card if that, I deem this not even close to being a waste of your time. Like I say, there's just that thing that I feel like could've been better, but it's kind've a big thing, so I gotta ding for it. I'll say this, though: seeing Urkel and Sabrina flirt cures a lot of ails.

4/5 stars

The Perfect Christmas Present (Hallmark, 2017 - Sam Page, who I recognize, and a gal called Tara Holt, whose parents should be popped upside the head for naming their child Terre Haute; I mean, unless they've got a real hard-on for Indiana, in which case you do you)

She's from Chicago (as in, grew up there) but then her mom moved them to L.A. (after dad died, so check dead parent box), but she's moved back to establish a charity there, and also because boyfriend lives there (I missed how they got together if she lived across the country). She wants to hold a charity event, and he helps arrange for a former client's historic home to be used for free. Pertinent info: he's essentially a personal shopper but his specialty is figuring out the perfect gif t for people (hence the subtle title ::sigh::) by getting to know them really well. My presumption is this usually happens by targeted questioning about said person via the client, the more obscure stuff, but I'm writing this after the fact so I can't be sure. But I get the impression it usually isn't - really, it can't be - direct interaction with the person themselves, because the surprise would be ruined. Unless he goes around being a lying liar all the time, and if there was a person - especially at the behest of a loved one - who integrated themselves into my life under false pretenses (read: anything other than they enjoy my company, I intrigue them, etc.) I would be both absolutely livid and absolutely crushed. We'll come back to this.

Side note: Let me tell you right now, re: former client - I love this chick, she is the highlight of the movie, the snark is real with her, she's upfront about the fact she's into our lead male, did I mention she's snarky? I liked her the minute she came on the screen, continued to like her up until her last scene (spoiler: no she's not a villain, she's just snark and if you don't like it, piss off).

Back to plot: basically, that's the "in" - she doesn't know that boyfriend hired him to figure out perfect present, all she knows is that this is boyfriend's old fraternity buddy who's a make-things-happen, got-connections-all-over sort of guy. And he's happy to help with the event, because that means he can use the opportunity of them working together to get info on her and essentially profile her - like for instance, when they were touring that house, when in kitchen, she snitches a macaroon (or one of those fat almond cookies from wedding showers with which I have a love-hate relationship), he makes a quick note of "sweet tooth".

Also to know, the relationship between her and boyfriend is struggling a little, so that's why he's going to the extra effort, and - spoiler alert - as I'm sure you've guessed he gets the shaft for his trouble. He's an okay guy, I guess, and I do give them props for not making him this complete dickhole or something, but with that comes the issue that you kinda feel shitty for him. On the other hand, it's only been a year and he's jonesing to get married and have kids, and she's like "Whooooaaaa". While I'm here, though, talking about secondary characters, I also have to shout out best friend who she's Skyping with off-and-on, she is dynamic and runs any scene they're in, every line is delivered realistically and casually, you feel like you're talking with a person in real life. Having said that? This is a weird, unneeded gimmick. Matter of fact, the character isn't needed at all, but if it had to be done then they should've just had her there, as the partner in the charity.

Regarding casting: it's cool that Terre Haute went into acting because she has these big, expressive eyes and I think it helps because she's not got an "it", if that makes any sense - as opposed to the ladies I mentioned above, there's not a dynamic presence, at least in this she's easily forgettable. Regardless of her character and dialogue, it's delivery that sells it, and while there's inflection and facial expressions (she's not flat, not at all), it still smacks of her just delivering lines. And that's fine! There's a need for actors who are on it and that the studio gets what they pay for, that they do what they're hired to do. My point is, she's serviceable and I think in a meaty role she could step up. He's great but also only serviceable in this particular movie, and I honestly don't know what else these two could've done - while the idea of the story is decently creative (though event planner - which he essentially is - has been done, and done better), it plays out as pretty much how you'd think. I'm typing this as I'm about an hour in, and here's my guess: Yes, she'll end up falling for him but she'll also be pissed when she finds out that he's been collecting facts on her, regardless of the reason. Also I predict that in rich gal's moves to get dude, she'll be the one to go "You know that he's stuck around because he's fallen for you, right? That this ain't about the gift anymore?" and be the one to give her a kick in the. At least, that's what I'd write.

Because the alternative is actually realistic, which is that she says what I said above: you ingratiated yourself under false pretenses, when we started having feelings for each other - or at minimum when we started being friends - you should've told boyfriend you couldn't help with the present anymore, and told me the truth. Period. End of story.

I'll leave it here, I think. Watch if you want to see how it ends - not that it matters, of course she ends up with him. And I gotta go with my gut, here, even though this doesn't hit a ton of bingo squares, not at all, but the issue is it's.... well, it's not dragging, the pace is decent, it's just.... well, it's boring. It's *shrug*. It's meh. There's just no spark to it. I can't justify giving it a "Don't miss this one!" type of rating. It's a "Maybe you'll enjoy it", "Not entirely a waste of time" sort of jam. Which makes me wonder why I wrote so much on this.... eh, I'm avoiding housework.

3/5 stars

Northern Lights of Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Ashley Williams, and that's the only cast that matters... besides, won't recognize anyone else)

Let it be said that anything with Ashley Williams, I'm giving a minimum of 3 stars. That's the lowest it can possibly get, merely due to her presence. She's a great actress, and I don't just mean by Hallmark standards, she should be in all the things, that's how magnetic and scene-stealing she is. No, I'm not her cousin or something. I've just yet to dislike her in anything I've seen her in, she even lit up the screen in How I Met Your Mother which going up against Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders and Jason Segel (I don't mention the guy that played Ted because beyond not liking the character, I will never understand that casting).

Now, stay with me, here. Because this is one of the more ridiculous summaries on one of these things (and by "things" I mean Hallmark and/or Lifetime Christmas movies, AND I MEAN IT WITH LOVE OF COURSE) that I've seen. *clears throat*

"Zoey has been working hard to own her own plane but everything changes when she inherits a reindeer farm."

If you're anything like me, my What The Fuck radar shot right up. The story is she's left a reindeer farm/ranch by the old man who taught her how to fly who has, obviously, died. And by "farm/ranch", I mean 2 reindeer and y'all, again, huge props when Hallmark bothers to have real animals on these farms and ranches they make their settings, double points when the characters interact with them. So by flying, they mean Cessna-type planes, though we're about 25 minutes in and I've seen no plane. Anyway, she lives in Seattle now (our setting is Alaska) and is a commercial pilot but as summary says, she wants her own. For crop dusting? I have no idea why, they don't really say (or haven't yet) if it's for personal reasons or a new career venture.

Ashley - and I won't be calling her by her character's name in any of these, get used to it - meets the live-in handyman/animal tender/etc. person who is a real pill. Like, he's not exactly rude but I'd just call him brusque and blunt. He initially wants to quit even though he's paid through the winter, but she convinces him to say explaining she needs him to be a partner of sorts, help her decide who she should sell the place to. Ashley grows on him when he sees that even though she had to move away, she genuinely cared about Gus and his wife (the dude who died and his wife who had died prior) and the farm/ranch (they call it both dunno why I think ranch suits better) and that she's a hard worker.

Gus and wife were beloved by the town, and they did it up right at Christmas - part of the barn where the reindeer aren't chillin' is filled with decorations, most notably a sleigh, and it's not lost on me that they're way up north, there's reindeer, there's that sleigh, and he taught her to fly. I mean, "Gus" and not "Kris" or "Nick", but we'll see where this is going. Oh, also? Wife had a box of recipes that Ashley's best friend (whose hubby is the son of the cranky man who owns the local hang-out diner, Americana-type restaurant in town, the menu of which she's always trying to nudge him to add new things) was dying in particular to find a certain cookie recipe that everybody in town loved because she's always wanted to know how to make them. Sounds like Mrs. You-Know-Who To Me. But again, not enough info, I'm writing this as I go, but I tell you I almost don't want it to turn out as that, I like the inference much better. May dock a star if they go full-court-press You Know Who.

I'm eating homemade soup for breakfast because it's getting really nippy here, and there's no oatmeal. I just felt the need to share this with you. I mean, it's hella awesome soup, I'm a good cook. I heated it up during the part where she's going around telling people she's doing up the old Christmas festival like it used to be, the one Gus and wife would host at the ranch. Her angle is, she wants to attract the right sort of people as buyers, people who get the small town mentality and want to keep the ranch essentially the way it is, and people are pumped and excited about the booths they'll have and the food and the post-fair barn dance, and I got bored. Not painfully bored, just wishing-they'd-speed-this-up bored. Put it this way: I was able to make coffee and walk the dog and flip the stove on and heat up said soup whilst only needing to pop in to look at the TV to make sure I hadn't missed something. I hadn't. I get it's necessary, I just think it could've been montaged instead of introducing us to a bunch of side characters by name and hearing what they're gonna do, all we need is showing us their faces during montage, then we'll see them and what they're doing at the fair. Because they're inconsequential to the story. This is classic Hallmark padding runtime when it's simply not needed, not everything has to take up a 2 hour time slot.

Hey, if you want good soup, go on and cook the veg you'll be adding a little more than halfway, and *then* add it to your base, which should consist of some water, yeah, but either beef broth or chicken broth (or I guess veg broth, but gross), your choice, and the other trick is to set it on low and go about your day, homemade soup's better when left to do its own thing over time. I've digressed.

Ah, charter flights. That's what she plans on doing. She mentions it because she's calculating how much she's invested getting stuff up to speed and cost of festival. We've still yet to see Gus' plane. Also, I don't care much for the leading man, he's Dollar Store Brett Dalton (Ward from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and if you're familiar with Dalton, I'm telling you that all you'll be thinking is "Damn, Brett Dalton would've cleaned up in this role", because this dude's a bit flat. Dalton's been in one of these cheese Christmas movies, too, so the chance is there; matter of fact, he should be either above or below this in one of the other recently reviewed. I can't be bothered to look for the title. None of this matters, moving on.

We see them ride his motorcycle together to go out to the local airport - mainly cargo and quick charters and such - and wouldn't ya know it, the dude that owns/runs it is retiring at the end of the month. Hmmm, wonder where that's going. And I also wonder if this is where the plane Gus flew came from, if he picked up work there, too. If it's been said, I've missed it. Anyway, owner needed her because his dude is sick or something and he says it's 6 towns, mail delivery gig, she is jazzed because as she says "This is the longest I've been on the ground in a long time". Our co-lead doesn't like to fly but he does like to take pictures, so that's how she sells him on coming with her to deliver the stuff.

Kinda like You-Know-Who. Ahem.

Kudos to Hallmark for (a) not going with shitty FX folks, re: the greenscreen for when they're in the cockpit, and (b) for some nice aerial shots of somebody flying a plane. The aurora/northern lights effect also ain't bad. I mean, if you've seen photos of it, it almost looks fake anyway because it's one of those too-good-to-be-true natural occurrences that shouldn't be that vivid. It's like reverse of animal camouflage, I'm thinking specifically of octopi (apparently you can say octopuses now and it's acceptable, but it's not in this house) and if you've not seen that, get yourself to You Tube and get ready to be shocked at those undersea aliens. We've (okay I've) digressed again.

There's a moment of her reminiscing about Gus, but it's short, and this is when our leading dude learns she's gonna be going to Florida to be with her parents for Christmas, and I like this for two reasons: one, these pseudo-dead parents have only been brought up once in a sorrowful way, people have been focused on remembering the good times, and second, she's not leaving because she gives no shits about Christmas and is gradually learning to love it or the usual garbage, nor is she being called away for some career-related thing, it's a legit, understandable reason. Neither of those are getting a bingo square, because even though they may skirt the line, they're being done well.

All right, I'm not going to tell you the ending, because you should put it on your list. As whack-a-doo as the summary has it sounding, they make it work. So because of good casting and a solid script and a unique premise and tied up something in a great way (and because I got ever-so-slightly teary-eyed at one point shut up), this one gets a score of....

4/5 stars

Here’s your 4-and-5 stars so far (in no particular order):

Trading Christmas - 5/5 stars Christmas In The Air - 5/5 stars Mingle All The Way - 5/5 stars The Christmas Card - 5/5 stars The Christmas Note - 5/5 stars Fir Crazy - 4/5 stars Small Town Christmas - 4/5 stars Switched For Christmas - 4/5 stars The Christmas Contract - 4/5 stars Rocky Mountain Christmas - 4/5 stars Christmas A La Mode - 4/5 stars Northern Lights of Christmas - 4/5 stars The Santa Con - 4/5 stars

#5

Christmas A La Mode (Lifetime, 2019 - Katie Leclerc who I've never seen before in my life but who is quite good in this, and  Ryan Cooper who is really hot depending on the angle, that's the best way I can explain it)

Let me be clear: the *only* reason I am watching this is for y'all. Well, and I'm mending dog toys and need something to semi-stimulate my brain. The title is incredibly off-putting, it's too sweet right out of the gate. But I shall give it a chance.

Your basics are that a dairy farm was left to two sisters by their deceased father and the farm's been in the fam for several generations. Older sister has long since been in the city and sounds like she's some sort of real estate flipper (acquisition, buff up, then sell) because she and her partner, Sometimes Hot Guy (who frequently drops his American accent), are going to sell the farm to a dairy corporation... well, that's what we're told. Put a pin in that, shiftiness comes up later unnecessarily. Anyway, the agreement has a provision that one sister can buy out the other's shares and fully own, so little sis has to raise a hefty six figures in a short amount of time. Older sis is a major dick; having said that, the farm has been circling the drain for awhile now, so she ain't totally out of line.

The summary I saw neglects to mention that they also own an ice cream parlor in town that's typically closed during the winter because of course it is. But, I mean, Baskin Robbins and fro-yo joints and Ben & Jerry's stay open year-round, and yup they bank in hotter months, but why not keep making money? Throwing out stock over, what, 4 months of slow time? Is just stupid. No wonder they're going under. But all right, we'll let that go. Anyhow, her plan is to get some money via opening the ice cream parlor and doing a little contest for people to submit their best Christmas-themed flavors, and she'll whip 'em up, people can try them, then vote on the winner and the winner gets a year of free ice cream. She also does a crowd-funding site.

The summary also neglects to mention (and this is okay, it's supposed to be a plot "oooh") that business partner Sometimes Hot Guy is from the family who is essentially like Mrs. Fields or some shit. So there's this cute moment where her co-worker friend is like - You know, now that we are aware of this, we don't really need his recipe (he won't - and I guess, legally, can't - give it to her), we can just get them from the store. Yeah, co-worker. Yeah. But we can't have pie-baking scenes where she wipes flour off his cheek if they aren't in the same room together.

Oops, left out that part: the killer flavor is this pie he made for her mom mixed in with their vanilla and they call it, fuck my life, Christmas A La Mode.

Compliment: This actress is likely average size IRL (camera adding pounds and all, plus wardrobe didn't do her any favors on her lower half) but I mean in terms of body shape? She's built like a farm girl, she's got actual thighs and rosy, round cheeks, she's not some coathanger in skinny jeans up in there. I am applauding casting department wholeheartedly.... though they whiffed in that she and sis look *nothing* alike. Sis is discount Eva Green, and mom and leading lady are redheads. C'mon casting, just the hair color, that's all we're asking.

Issue: She's a really good actress, I was very pleasantly surprised. But initially there's something slightly juvenile about how she's playing this - "this" being determined to save the farm. She's kinda petulant and refusing to accept reality - and, I mean, maybe they save the farm now but with a disinterested sibling and a mother that's getting older, unless she cranks out some babies (read: farm hands) like, yesterday, I'm not quite sure how this is gonna be sustainable long-term.  (Granted she'll end up with incredibly wealthy pie guy, but I'm saying if she's a business owner, this is something she needs to learn.)

I'll tell ya this, talking about characterization, the gal playing the sister can flip a switch and play the cunt card like a dream, she's a scene-stealer, though my issue here is we have zero background on why she's ice queen about the farm save a mention that when they were little, she was always dying to leave farm life and go to the city. Right, fine, lots of farm kids I am sure feel this way, but why the vitriol? Why not sit down and be kind and explain the financial situation to her mom? Even if little sis is being a brat, why wouldn't she be kind to her mother? I'm fine with her being Bitchy Mc Cuntface, I just wanna know why.

Continuing from above about the pie - it's not just once, he tells her three separate times, and one of them vehemently (and then a follow-up of "You can't tell ANYBODY where these pies came from, say you found the recipe online or whatever") that he ain't telling her the recipe so she can make it herself. Which, I suspect this is gonna come back to bite her in the ass if it's not her original recipe. And it should be - anything they come up with needs to be theirs or else they owe $$$ to whatever the featured product is in a given flavor. So like, early on one of the flavors is Christmas Kiss and she comments that she unwrapped all the Hershey's kisses herself. Well sugarsnap I hope you have some sort of blanket licensing agreement because that ain't cool. You can buy other company's ingredients, of course, but when it's the core of it, the key feature of it, you're in trouble. That's why if a product's "cincher" revolves specifically around another company's product, it'll be noted clearly with a "C" copyright or "TM" or whatever, because that company is - and should be - getting a kick off the profits.

I bring this up because this is an excellent opportunity for a plot point - unless they partner with the pie company or get direct permission (and no, random son saying it's cool matters nothing to a board of directors) then they're out of line. An interesting storyline would be if sister finds out and threatens her that she has to stop or it's gonna mean big legal probs for Sometimes Hot Guy so if she doesn't want that, needs to let sis sell the farm. Then of course Sometimes Hot Guy comes in and says "Hey meet my dad, he owns the company and not only does he give permission but he's investing by way of making up the difference of whatever sum's left over so she can buy you out, Dollar Store Eva Green."  They've not given us any real reason to empathize with our villain of the story so go whole hog, keep her the villain.

All in all, we've ticked a good handful of squares, but we're not in danger zone, miraculously. And even though it ticked the farm box, I have to give compliments that for once one of these stories involving a farm has actual animals shown and the characters interacting with them. The side friend character is also fantastic, I wish I could see her in more stuff, she was great. I know I was nitpicky about the stuff I didn't like (and my resolution is close to the ballpark of what they end up doing.... my tweak is more interesting #humbly), so overall my non-nitpicky complaints are that (a) Sometimes Hot Guy is hit-or-miss with his acting, and (b) the ending scene is fine but they tack on this weird post-end scene that completely takes you out of the moment and is wholly unneeded. But because this was a creative attempt at a unique plot and - above all - our leading lady sells the shit out of it, the score is.....

4/5 stars

Rocky Mountain Christmas (Hallmark, 2017 - Lindy Booth who is great across the board, Kristoffer Polaha who I swear I've seen in something non-Hallmark but I'm not looking it up, and Treat Williams who is and has always been a solid actor)

Let's get the tropey-ness out the way: the bingo boxes this ticks are as follows - family home in danger of being lost; character(s) not really into Christmas for reasons; town festival/celebration; dead parent(s); somebody's famous; somebody owns a ranch; playing in the snow; I stopped counting but I think that’s all.

Lindy is an interior designer and is back home on the horse ranch not only because she had a bad breakup that was really public (a Zuckerberg-esque computer dude who broke up with her for an actress) but it's good because also turns out uncle (who, with his wife, raised her and brother after their parents basically dumped them) has been growing increasingly bummed missing his wife who died recently, and he's gonna sell the ranch. Now this famous dude shows up (I refuse to type "Kristoffer" continuously) and he wants to stay at the ranch and learn the life and horses and whatever for an upcoming movie role, and uncle and brother are actually cool with it even though she's all "Ehhhh..." understandably. But props to them, they do it right, he's put to work and has to stay in the bunk house and the whole nine yards, they ain't just having him follow them and observe or whatever.

She also makes it part of the deal that he's gonna help her finish getting the Christmas parade organized - and by the way, this isn't because she's a Christmas fanatic, it's because her aunt did it every year and she's doing it in her stead. And he is good natured about it, and is happily taking pictures with fans while they're out running errands and afterwards giving them flyers and being like "Here's a couple more, share with friends, you better come!" etc., and basically using his celebrity for good - he also combos it with getting donations at the same time when he gives the streetside bell-ringing Santa a coffee break,  and I genuinely liked this little touch, these are the touches that these canned movies miss that endear us to characters by showing us who they are, not telling us who they are.

The only part that really made me roll my eyes hard in terms of plot is that Lindy's brother (and good casting here, they click really well and are believable as bro and sis) happens to have dreams of being a Hollywood stuntman in the field of horses. Oh and also, their mom was an actress (not Hollywood, I mean working actress). It's just a little too much, we got the point that she's meh on Hollywood types given what she just went through, and the second you hear about brother's deal it's like "Yup, Actor Dude's gonna learn cool shit from him and then he'll get him work on the upcoming movie." I mean, duh. It's overkill. It's fine if it was like - Hey you have taught me so much, have you ever thought about trying to be a stuntman? I'd recommend you, etc. And it was definitely unneeded for the mom part. It's like: we got it. Really. And the songs used (2 if memory serves) are grating, to me, at least but you may disagree.

Otherwise, this is a unique story to my knowledge and the production value is good, and kudos to them for doing a ranch vs. a tree or poinsettia farm, and they actually got horses and had the actors riding/interacting with them - some of these other movies say they're a farm and there's not an animal to be seen and it's fucking weird. So lotsa props in this respect. Also great is that the rando pseudo-girlfriend is actually just a nice person, she's not fake, though I will say this part of the plot is hamfisted and not needed, it just served as a tiny divide between them, that she's shown up wanting to have a real relationship with him (it was a publicity thing, them being together), when the divide of her being gunshy about being with a celebrity was already there, it was fine, the writers didn't need to add anything else. (And also, she seems to care not one flip that he's spending more time with Lindy than herself, and on top of that she is way more into the brother anyway. ???? Ya got me.)

On the whole, this one's really good, it's not a waste of your time, most all the dialogue felt natural and even if shaky it was delivered naturally, everybody's acting is solid across the board, he's not a douche, she's not a bitch, and most importantly your two romantic leads have chemistry, and they got to know each other gradually, and she wasn't all starstruck so if you're into this particular trope and wanna see it done well, then check this one out.

4/5 stars

Matchmaker Santa (Hallmark, 2012 - Lacey Chabert, two basic bitch white dudes, an old man playing Santa who can't act, two really good character actresses who've each been in a lot of stuff, Florence Henderson who I just love seeing in anything, and John Ratzenberger who played Cliff on Cheers and who is a breath of fresh air in this stupidity)

Yup, stupidity. You heard me. This is somehow about the third time I've caught it, so I'm giving in. Boy howdy, does it suck.

Surface area irritation: Everybody's hair is from the 90s. I hated 80s hair but at least it had distinct style; the style of 90s was nobody had any idea what the hell they were doing, particularly when it came to styling and color. Our lead guy's haircut doesn't suit him and is too gelled and sticky-outy in the front (and second lead male, the cut suits him but same with gel and purposeful cowlick look), then Lacey's looks like Helen Keller did the color (at least when she's standing in certain light).

Here's some summary according to googlings because I'm not taking the effort:

As a little girl, Melanie Hogan wished to find her own Prince Charming, just like her parents found true love. Now an adult, Melanie is running her own bakery and dating a handsome CEO, Justin. Although things seem perfect when Justin asks Melanie to spend the holidays together at his beautiful lake house upstate, and meet his mother, Melanie finds herself spending more time with Justin's best friend and loyal assistant, Dean, who just might be harboring a secret crush on her. When complications arise that throw Melanie and Dean together over the holiday, will the two realize they're meant to be?

They get thrown together because best bud went to pick her up from airport, they run into Santa along the way and give him a ride, the car breaks down in a little town that's en route back to the lake so they stay the night. They then have to share a room :::sigh::: And of course as movie goes on, boyfriend is more concerned about anything but her though I will say he's not acting particularly dickish, it's more that he invited her for a romantic evening then planned this party to essentially introduce himself to the board of directors and also to spring introducing her to his (difficult, bitchy) mom all in the same weekend and didn't bother to tell her that the plans had changed. Also in a convoluted turn, his high school girlfriend is the daughter of the head of the board and his mom absolutely loves her, and honestly? She's better suited for him than ol' Lacey is anyway, they click better.

Lacey Chabert, IMO, is not a good actress because she plays the same character in everything she's in (excepting Gretchen Weiners in Mean Girls), and that character is - I have to assume - Lacey Chabert. I mean she's fine in the sense of she isn't a talking stick, there's tone and inflection and actual facial expressions and all that, I'm saying that with the exception of Mean Girls I've never not been like "Yeah that's Lacey Chabert", I've never forgotten it's her. But I mean at least people know what they're gonna get when they hire her. Thing is, I've seen her in several of these movies now and I gotta say, if she's had chemistry with *any* of her male leads, I've yet to notice.

Bottom line: this story is just dumb. It's basic. There's nothing creative or noteworthy about it. Person makes Christmas (or birthday or falling star or New Year's or what-fuck-ever) wish when they were little and now it's coming true, and here comes romance. We've seen this and iterations of this a thousand times. Add in tropes, stir, bake at 350 til gold and bubbly. It is obvious nobody tried - except the Santa man, he tried, but he's ill-cast so oh, well. Flo Henderson and Ratzenberger ain't in it enough to help it skate by on charm. The pacing is bad, too, at an hour in we've only just gotten to the hotel.

Let me give you an example of how stupid this movie is: When boyfriend and old prom date are walking outside to leave to take her car to go pick them up from small town (where, by the way, they are presently dressed as elves and helping Santa I shit you not), glitter-shiny-whoosh-fade-in, it's a grizzly bear by the car growling, because ooooooh Christmas magic. I'm not against "magic" in these movies but can we be a little more subtle? I have no idea how the quality/old school actors got roped into this trash.

Also? If you make it to the end? The final scene is possibly one of the worst, most ridiculous, most implausible (yes, even for this movie) things I've ever witnessed in these movies. It gets a star for the good side character casting. 

1/5 stars

A Crown For Christmas (Hallmark, 2015 - Danica McKellar, other people)

The plot's what you think, re: see title.  He's a king, she's the nanny to precocious princess child. They have negative levels of chemistry, it's that bad.

As discussed last year, something's happened in the time since Wonder Years, and Danica McKellar absolutely positively cannot act. There was one exception (again, see last year) but that's one out of like, a half-dozen of these Christmas movies I've seen - or have *tried* to see - with her in them. 

This movie isn't worth a write-up, it's seriously that bad. The kid does remind me of a young Lindsay Lohan circa Parent Trap, and the guy playing the king is an okay actor. Problem is, the character of the king is a real bitch pussy. I hate this movie, even the sets and costumes look cheap. Ugh. Seriously, don't bother, it is garbage. 

0/5 stars

The Christmas Contract (Lifetime, 2018 - Hilarie Burton, Dannnnnnneeeeeeeeeel Ackles guest starring botox, a dude called Robert Buckley who seems familiar, apparently fourteen other people from an old-ass teen show called One Tree Hill which I never watched, Cheryl Ladd, Bruce Boxleitner, and Jason London who you will not recognize even a little, and you'll see this movie and think I'm wrong, and I'm not wrong, I swear it's Jason London, he's the brother in law, look it up)

I avoided this one last year for Reasons, but upon catching it again, it cannot be denied.

First, the ticked boxes: there's a Christmas festival. Pretend to be my boyfriend. Lots of Christmas activities. Someone is a lawyer. Someone is an author. Character demonstrates a talent.

Basically dude agrees to go with Hilarie back home and act like her boyfriend - they literally sign a literal contract - and while he's at it, he's supposed to be working on a ghostwriting assignment about romance wherein he's given a list of plot points and told that the characters have to tick off every item on the list. But he feels a little lost about how the scenes should play out so he starts sneaksy playing them out with Burton under the guise of "Hey we need to make this look good for everyone".  There's an ex boyfriend who reveals the plan, which, you know, whatever, by this point they're genuinely into each other, but it's when she finds out that he's essentially using her for a book plot, she understandably gets pissed.

I will give 'em this: no one went bugfuck crazy with affecting super thick Creole accents or something. And minus Ackles and some of the randoms (Ackles in particular cannot act in a natural manner to the point it's distracting in any given scene), everybody can act. Burton especially deserves to be in higher caliber stuff. And she and the lead dude have solid chemistry. She has chemistry with everybody, honestly, she's just a good actor, period. Well, at least in this, it's not like I've seen her in tons of stuff. But I recall liking her in White Collar. Okay, I digress.

Irksome is that music is a featured artist so I don't know if this is another friend of theirs from that old show, or something? If so then hey, meta. But his music plays a couple times, then they even have him in person at the festival or whatever it is, and we get to hear him sing "live" and so that all takes up precious minutes we'll never get back. I mean, he can carry a tune and all, it's just that it's basic bitch music. And he actually pimps his album, it's awkward. Now, I will say the score itself though is overall great, really a step up from the usual fare in these movies. They do have a moment where she is supposedly playing fiddle and it looks horrible. I don't care if she can play in real life (I'm not looking it up), the way it was filmed, then, made it look as if she can't, and I don't know why they did this, it was completely unnecessary.

There's some schlock (especially the end), and family's just a hair too far on the shmoop side, but it's not intolerable. Also good is that Ackles' screentime is limited. I can't express enough what a poor actor she is, but again, as I've said about others, this is a prime example: if you dream of becoming an actor, someone has hired this person and therefore you can get hired, too. Here's the thing: it is such a shitty plot, so lazy. This is one of the granddaddies of all the tropes. I mean, the official summary doesn't mince words--- "It’s Jolie’s first time going back home to Louisiana since her devastating break up with Foster . Seeing him is inevitable as their parents run the town’s annual Christmas Market together, but when she discovers Foster is bringing home a new girlfriend, Jolie cannot bear the thought of going home alone and seeing them together." ---so you can't say you didn't know what you were getting into.

But.

And I can't believe I'm saying this.

Minus a slightly stilted kick-off the pace is even, the chemistry of the leads (+ with her family) is there, they elevate some dialogue that in other hands could've been clunky, we've got a unique setting that isn't fucking Vermont and snowing (blessedly this means we have no awkward snowball fights and snowman making and pine tree cutting down and snow angel making and ice skating), they show her making hot chocolate but there's no big gingerbread cookie making scene so that's refreshing, and nobody is like coked-up elves about Christmas, they dig it, they run a fair at this time of year, but no one's foaming at the mouth over it.

I do have to dock it stars because of the music thing and because of the premise of it - we could've gotten to this same place differently, re: these 2 people who don't really like each other needing something that the other can provide without it having to do with the chick being insecure over another guy. On the other hand? Burton doesn't play it insecure, she is not weepy or looking longingly at the ex or what-have-you, she's actually dodging him for the most part. Because of that, I'll give a star back. And if they'd not done the hamfisted music thing with that guy it'd probs be 5. In any event, the ending was pretty damned good and creative.

4/5 stars

Here’s your 4-and-5 stars so far (in no particular order):

Trading Christmas - 5/5 stars Christmas In The Air - 5/5 stars Mingle All The Way - 5/5 stars The Christmas Card - 5/5 stars Fir Crazy - 4/5 stars Small Town Christmas - 4/5 stars Switched For Christmas - 4/5 stars The Christmas Contract - 4/5 stars Rocky Mountain Christmas - 4/5 stars Christmas A La Mode - 4/5 stars

#4

Fir Crazy (Hallmark, 2013 - Eric Johnson and Sarah Lancaster, both of whom I've liked in non-Hallmark stuff and both of whom are good actors, and Colin Mochrie who is typically a delight but is miscast here)

I could've sworn we did this one last year but nope.  Anyway, out of the gate we're kickin' it on the bingo card: somebody isn't into Christmas, family owns a tree farm, family business in danger of being lost, precocious children - but it doesn't tick too terribly many.

So she gets laid off from her big city exec job but it is kind've fortuitous because her parents' prime time for the family business is upon the horizon, because Christmas, and because they have a tree farm upstate (we're in NYC). Since she's got free time, she calls a headhunter and is like "Holla when shit comes up" (a side plot we don't need, as well as smarmy ex-boyfriend, neither were needed, just have her lost job), as she has to run the tree lot in the city this year because for some reason the parents can't, I forget why, so it's basically her and her cousin (who is great) trading off staying nights in the trailer they've got parked next to this sidewalk area that the fam has had an agreement with the city to rent for a bazillionty years now.

Okay, so, the store next to where the sidewalk area is, is some accessories-furniture-type thing (Restoration Hardware-esque, but more expensive, but looks cheaper) and the owner is a real Scrooge. That's Mochrie's role, which is why I say he's miscast, and it's a shame. He should've been allowed to be in a fun role because I think the intent was for his character to be snarky-funny but it's just coming off as obnoxious, so it's not fun (though of course, this is a Hallmark movie, so he un-Scrooges by the end). But as far as good characters - there is this one little girl who is a hoot and the barista had me chuckle once, too.  Then we meet this great couple who bounce off each other well and are just completely wonderful and they come in at about 45 til the end and it's a shame they weren't utilized more. Actually all the side characters are great, from the homeless man who they hire to the manager of the store to the customers.

And your leads click, both in ease of convo and believability that they could be romantic, though only to about the 90% mark - I could see them as best friends more (it's one of the poorer kisses I've seen in romance movies, eeeek), but both are charming and likable and nothing is shmoopy. Seriously, there's no barfy shmoop in this movie, there's sweetness and sincerity. Plus, even though it's tree farm trope, this is creative. It's putting them smack in the middle of NYC instead of everybody being upstate. I say that to say, it's a mix of hometown (a "forest" as it were) and the city (though we're not subjected to the typical ice skating at Central Park and the like) and hey, I'm even gonna give it props for the title being only mildly eye-roll cutesy and ::gasp!!:: not having "Christmas" or "tree" in it.

Guys, this one's solid. The only thing that's not smooth is the store owner being a PITA angle, so it gets a touch grating, like, you know what's coming so you're more than ready for them to get on with it, but that's really the only thing that is a hitch in the pacing, otherwise this one is worth your time.

4/5 stars

The Nine Lives of Christmas (Hallmark, 2014 - Brandon Routh, Kimberley Sustad)

Official Summary: 

Fireman Zachary Stone (Routh) is a confirmed bachelor who doesn’t believe in love or commitment. When a stray tabby cat named Ambrose shows up at his door, Zachary takes him in and slowly starts to see that a little companionship might not be so bad after all. Zachary’s commitment to solitude is further challenged when he meets Marilee (Sustad), an animal lover and veterinary student who teaches Zachary how to care for his new feline roommate.

Nope.

1/5 stars, don't even need to see it, and that 1 star is because Brandon Routh is awesome

Welcome To Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Jennifer Finnigan, Eric Mabius - both of whom I recognize from non-Hallmark stuff)

So, Christmas is the name of the town.

We're getting fucked, just right out of the gate. ::sigh::

Squares ticked: town in danger of being lost, dead parent, children, somebody's not into Christmas (the holiday, not the town), celebration/festival in town. shmoopy activities, main characters sing carols, etc.

All right, she's a real estate something-or-other who's there to scope out the joint for development purposes. They tell the town everything will be the same, just that they'll have a ski resort and it will bolster income. However, towards the end, she discovers the firm does want to modernize the town, and blah blah blah you know where this is going.

I thought of, right off the top of my head, three other movies with this plot, one of which we just covered in the last entry.

He is the handsome sheriff with the dead wife and two adorable daughters who, of course, immediately take to her. I mean, this is just basic bitch shit, there is nothing original whatsoever about any of this. The leads have chemistry and both are good actors. Matter of fact I really like Mabius, he is talented and haaaaaandsome, I wish he were the lead in all these.

It's the standard fare, you may like it, but otherwise it's fine background noise. Other than an intolerable song at about the 20 'til mark. * cringe *

3/5 stars

Switched For Christmas (Hallmark, 2017 - Candace Cameron Bure x 2, Eion Bailey and Mark Deklin, both of whom you'll recognize)

Mentioned this last year but for whatever reason didn't go over it. Again, and I'll keep saying it - no matter how shitty the script, Candace elevates everything she's in, but in this case the script ain't shitty, it's actually a solid premise, however fantastical. Chris and Kate (both Candace, of course) are identical twins and they decide to switch places for Christmas. Several people are in on the secret - Chris has 2 older (teen/pre-teen) kids and they are pretending to be her niece and nephew around the dude who becomes her romantic interest because... reasons? I'm not certain. But their dad also knows the scoop, which I actually liked because there ain't no way any of those 3 would've been fooled so it was - shockingly for Hallmark movie - sensible.

Here's Hallmark's summary that tells more about why they did it:

"Just because they are identical does not mean these twins even like each other. Estranged twin sisters get together for an obligatory pre-Christmas lunch, a year after their mother's death. Both women are unhappy and frustrated with their own lives. Though not close, each is envious of the other's life. What's a twin to do but take advantage of this? And who would be the wiser? They do what any identical twins in need of new outlooks would do: they swap lives until Christmas Day, and by doing so, each woman discovers the true meaning of her life and gains a deeper perspective and appreciation for what she already had."

They each fall for somebody, and the dudes in turn fall for them, but the issue is that the twins think they've fallen for the personality/the life/etc. of the opposite twin so they each kinda feel like they aren't the one the dude is interested in, that they're into the other sister.  These guys should be pissed but they aren't, not really. I'll let you guess the end.

Your three leads are awesome, all can act, and - as said - especially Candace, and this had to be exhausting to pull off. Not only is each scene probably done at least couple times to get a handful of takes, she has to double-back and do it more times because of the opposite twin role. The amount of lines she had to memorize is astounding, not to mention developing two different characters with different (although not drastically) personalities. She nailed it.

Bottom line: this movie could've gone trash in a hot minute, but it didn't, because they did some stellar casting (Candace's daughter Natasha actually plays her daughter) and everyone can actually act. The premise is unrealistic and likely unsustainable for longer than a couple days in real life (the mention of them being "estranged" is particularly odd to me because there's definitely no way they'd be able to pull this off without being close so that they knew a lot about each other's lives), but what saved it was, like I say, the sensibility of having some key players in the know who supported them. This also, surprisingly, didn't tick a ton of bingo boxes, and I didn't find it a waste of my time. It's a fun flick, I'm only dinging it for the making estranged thing and the dudes not being more upset for being lied to than they were because in whack-a-doo stories, you gotta write everything else as real as possible so that the audience is more accepting of the whack-a-doo, and they slipped a touch there.

4/5 stars

I have two stupid ones for you to avoid that are just over-acted and either totally ridiculous + poorly acted (the first one) and totally typical + poorly acted (the second one). Let's just make this quick for all our sakes:

Magic Stocking (Hallmark, 2015 - nobody you'll know... well maybe this dude called Victor Webster, he's actually decent, hate he got stuck in this dreck) Official summary:

"Lindsey, a single mom with an adorable daughter, is closed off to life after losing her husband a few years back. When she buys a stocking at her town’s Christmas craft fair, the family begins “magically” finding items in the stocking that they learn have importance in their lives."

It's schlock and just plain insulting to your intelligence, and I didn't give a shit if they got together or not, something about the leading lady worked my nerves. I didn't need her to believe in the "magic", I just needed her to be able to investigate it without being so dialed up to 11 about it, she looked like she was close to exploding in the majority of it.

And....

Christmas At Pemberley Manor (Hallmark, 2018 - that chick Jessica Lowndes from that movie we covered in prior entries who can't act, and Michael Rady who you may recognize, too)

I mean, she can't act, so it's irritating the whole way through the basic bitch plot. Also? Check what they did with the names, which is absolutely positively insulting, and Austen has triple Salchow'd in her grave. Official summary:

"As Christmas approaches, Elizabeth Bennett, a New York event planner, is sent to a quaint, small town to organize their holiday festival. When she arrives, she finds William Darcy, a high-profile billionaire lacking in holiday spirit, in the process of selling the charming estate she hoped to use as a venue. Determined to make her event a success, Elizabeth persuades the reluctant Darcy to let her hold the festival on the historical estate once known for its holiday cheer. When they wind up working together to arrange the festivities, the unlikely pair begins falling for each other. But when complications arise and the festival is unexpectedly shut down, the couple parts ways and Darcy moves forward with his plans to sell the estate. On the night before Christmas, a wistful Elizabeth hopes for a Christmas miracle to revive the festival, save the estate and rekindle her holiday romance."  

For both of them: 1/5 stars

Here's your 4-and-5 stars so far (in no particular order):

Trading Christmas - 5/5 stars Christmas In The Air - 5/5 stars Mingle All The Way - 5/5 stars The Christmas Card - 5/5 stars Fir Crazy - 4/5 stars Small Town Christmas - 4/5 stars Switched For Christmas - 4/5 stars

#3

Picture A Perfect Christmas (Hallmark, 2019 - Merritt Patterson who is familiar to me from other of these movies, and a dude who I've never seen before in my life)

We kick off the movie with single dad who has custody of his nephew, and they're talking about how they have to pick out a new nanny for him for the two weeks kid is off school for the holidays and Uncle Daddy has big shit going on at his office. Then we cut to her, and she's having dinner with her boyfriend, who she is completely uninterested in even though right now he seems like a pretty decent dude. We cut to see that kid's babysitter is an elderly woman (their neighbor) who is really nice and mentions her granddaughter... or niece, I can't remember even though I just heard it... and guess who she is, and she's coming to visit?

This is what kills me about Hallmark movies: They front load you with so much information that you're like "Baaaahhh!", and then they drag out the movie, and then it abruptly ends. 

Okay, it's her grandma. And she's on a Christmas pageant planning committee. (Box ticked) Kid's an orphan, so dead parents. (Box ticked) And of course, kid himself, who is precocious and will likely bring everyone together. (Box ticked) I have to take a shower, I bet money I can be away from this movie for 15-20 minutes and not miss a damn thing. Let's find out, for science.

[time passes]

Yeah, I've missed nothing. Here's what's kind've odd - it's like she's falling for the kid and not him. They have zero chemistry, and it's like she's wanting more to be the kid's mom than wanting to be this dude's wife. Also, his haircut is really distracting, it is some kinds of awful.

Okay, well, this is just cookie-cutter. There's nothing remarkable or original or super-egregious about it. So if you just want something to pass time, here you go.

3/5 stars

Mingle All The Way (Hallmark, 2018 - chick named Jen Lilley who should be in more shit, and dude named Brant Daugherty who is discount John Krazinski but still great)

I checked, and we talked about this one last year so I'll re-post the scoop below, but anyway it came on and I re-watched it while I was ironing, and it holds up, it's just solid from top to bottom. I rated it 4/5 last year, but it's getting top score this year upon reconsideration, because there's so few flaws. It's creative, the script has sharpness to it, and acting's good across the board, and most importantly our 2 leads click. Here's what I wrote last year:

Inventive concept here, though they kinda shit the bed with naming their business something affiliated with Christmas if it’s clearly a year-round affair, but okay. What it is: a dating app that’s not a dating app, it’s purely for folks who need a +1 to specifically business/work social events, but also more formal family and friend events (so, say, Christmas party where it’s not just family, or friend party that’s not just show up in your jeans and sweaters - the cocktail stuff, is my point). The thing is, no one is pretending to be the boyfriend or girlfriend, it’s supposed to be like “And this is Susie/Steve, an associate of mine from ____ business”. Nothing romantic, no false pretenses, no lying to others (well… not supposed to wink-wink).

The chick - who runs the biz/came up with it/helped develop it - is needing to take on investors, and one of them is like “Sold! But can I get some firsthand testimonial? Have you yourself tested your product?” and since she’s got shit coming up on her agenda, she does. Plus, her mom’s on her ass about working so much and not dating since a bad breakup years ago, and it’s compounded because baby sister just got engaged. (Mom is bionic woman Lindsay Wagner. She’s not really bionic. Google it, youths.)

Dude is in a situation where he’s not advancing at work because scuzzy kiss ass co-worker is shmoozing with boss during off hours because boss doesn’t invite the single people to brunch or whatever with him and his wife, he’s only inviting the ones who he knows has a partner to bring. I know to some of you this may sound absolutely ridiculous but, um, I’ve experienced this many times. This is not out of the realm. Not even a little bit. I had a gay boss who understood how this happens (likely because he experienced it) and he was wonderful about including everybody. Otherwise, yeah, I been there. I’ve digressed.

The leads have good chemistry, there was great snark and back-and-forth when they met each other a couple times prior to the set-up (‘cause you guessed it: the app paired them with a high %age of compatibility - his sister suggested he do it after he heard about it on the news and he told her of his situation) and they click really well. There’s touches of shmoop, of course, but this was an above-average story amongst the typical Christmas dreck.

5/5 stars

Last Vermont Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Erin Cahill, Justin Bruening - both of whom I recognize)

Hey guess what, this may be their last Vermont Christmas. ::sigh:: Main chick and her 2 sisters and her daughter (single mom, dead husband, box checked, as well as adorable child, check) have converged on the family home in Vermont to find that mom and dad are selling, and I get it, it's huge and they're ready to scale down because they're retired. But, selfishly, one of the sisters - oh, and PS? they look *nothing* alike, casting couldn't even be bothered to get women with the same hair color - decides to sabotage things. So like, when the inspector comes, she and her sorta boyfriend follow him around and make little comments about stuff like termites, then they made sure the fuse box had all kinds of fat wires with caps protruding out of it - you know, like what you'll find if you're changing a light fixture, which is not how fuse boxes work - and I think there was something with some steps.

Anyway none of this matters. What matters is that lead dude is a contractor and is also lead chick's ex from way-back-when, before she met man of dreams and had daughter and moved away to some far off state, I wasn't paying attention. But they get along great and are occasionally a little cheeky with each other, so that's fine. So now he's around doing these faux repairs and they're kind and looping him into their Christmas stuff, which they are disgustingly picture perfect. They cut down their own tree. They go caroling. They bake cookies. They hand-make their ornaments every damn year. I hate them. Well, the writers. It's too much. That was all in roughly the first 45 minutes, too. I'm sure some families out there take it to the mat with Christmas, but holy shit. Okay, add gingerbread houses from scratch (they made sure to show the baking pan with more squares so you know this) to the list. 

This is blowing up the bingo like 'Nam. There's now a snowball fight. Family tree decorating scene with, of course, these special handmade ornaments plus ornaments from years past where they're recalling special times. Ohmigawd, I need to fill out a card for this one, it's insane, I almost can't keep up. Oop, "Grandma's special hot chocolate". Character demonstrates talent (one of the sisters, singing). I legit am not lying, these are coming so fast I'm having trouble keeping up.

He's also somehow in cahoots with the realtor, because he had committed to buying the house, but he says it doesn't feel right now that he's back to getting chubs from his ex, and she's like "Well if you don't then we're still gonna settle up" and I have no idea what that means, does that mean she expects him to pay her the commission she'd have gotten? Is this normal practice? Realtors must have stuff fall through all the time, they'll end up selling and get a commission and who knows, maybe at a better price, so.... ????? The hell? 

Speaking of him, two things: one, his name is Nash (heh) and two, I went to imdb to check the summary to see if I forgot/missed anything and the reviews are hilarious, a ton of them mention how distracting his hair is - he just has lots of it, seems really thick, and it's shaved tight on the sides, so he's got a decent amount atop his dome, but it's only really noticeable when it's slicked straight back. But people were losing their shit over it. I don't find it that distracting, but you may, I find youngest sister's perpetually greasy 1970s hair (not her fault, that's hair and make-up's fault) more irritating.

Okay, so, there's no way this can get a 3, there's too much bingo hits. But aside from that, the acting - especially from youngest sister, who overacts - is very stilted and unnatural, and on occasion the editor left in these pauses in dialogue that are just a touch too long, so I think that's part of the issue. I don't mind the story at all, it's not something we see all the time and thank the lord it's not "family business in danger" - though oh shit, I forgot, this counts as "family home in danger", so there's another square. This is trope-a-palooza. Wait, snowman building. Town has celebration. Okay, I'm done listing, I think we all know where this has to go.

1/5 stars

Reunited At Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Nikki Deloach, who you'll recognize, and other character actors you'll recognize)

So lead chick's mom and dad are making everything weird with all these passive-aggressive comments about the past via mom and shmoopy comments about the past via dad. (They're divorced so I can't figure why they're all shacked up in this house for Christmas with their adult children and their partners.) Lead chick also agreed to her boyfriend's proposal - and he seems like a great guy - even though she's not ready, which is mature. At least within about 10 mins. of it happening she ponies up that she's not into being engaged, and he's a good actor, and it really is kinda sad, I feel for him. So he's all - Imma finish chopping this wood then head back to spend Christmas with my family and we'll regroup after the holidays, and she's all "For real?!" and I'm all "Are you surprised?!"

Y'all this one bored me, I didn't make it past roughly the first 45 minutes, I just didn't care if they got back together and I presume based on the title that they do. Nobody's acting was egregious or anything, it was just slogging and I wasn't engaged because this plot isn't creative at all - I mean, here's the official summary:

Frazzled and struggling with writer's block, novelist Samantha (Deloach), along with her boyfriend, heads home to her late grandmother's home to spend Christmas. While at home with family, her grandmother's wise words reveal the true meaning of Christmas with Samantha at a time when she most needs encouragement.

But again, based on the first part, that doesn't seem to be the plot - I mean seriously, we go through all this family activities stuff, and her and the boyfriend having several different conversations about the not wanting to be engaged thing (one at skating rink, one whilst he's chopping wood, one while back at the house), so there's literally no real mention of grandma by that point, and we're almost at an hour what with commercial breaks and such. So that's it. That's all they've accomplished in basically the first half of the movie. And they managed to hit a bunch of squares (someone's an author, someone gets engaged, skating, tree decorating, baking, etc.) and I'm sure there was more to come. It's the pacing that kills this one, as well as the basic bitch plot, but hey it'll serve as background noise.

2/5 stars  

Small Town Christmas (Hallmark 2018 - Ashley Newbrough who is poor man's Denise Richards, Ryan McDonell who you'll recognize and is a really good actor)

She's an author (check box) on a national book tour and her last stop is the town she's from, upon which the book is based, and her name is Nelle and you'll remember this because for some reason every time someone speaks to her they have to say her name. Okay, maybe not *every* time but it caught my ear, even when I was distracted doing something else or had stepped into another room, they just say her name *constantly* and I don't get it.  The bookstore owner is an almost-was from the past, and there was some mix-up back when they both lived in New York about her leaving him a note and saying to meet her for some reason but he didn't show because turned out he had to leave because his sister had unexpectedly died, but then also he'd written her a letter explaining that she never got but he assumed she got and never contacted him. But then she had texted him a few times over the years and he'd never responded. Because everyone is twelve. I'm not tracking with this completely, though I do get the feeling of just wanting to let something go and let it be in the past. 

Anyway, more drama is that his sister had died so he - name is Emmett - has custody of niece, who is a great little actress and not one bit irritating, she's very cool. Also, her dynamic with uncle is great and like I say, he's a fantastic actor. Poor man's Denise Richards is fine, too, I've got no complaints, honestly. Also pleasant are the peripheral characters of the townspeople. Seriously, across the board, nobody is annoying or eye-rolly, everyone's acting is natural. All right, so close-knit town and some drama is that Brad, this real estate agent who's repping a big dawg firm wants to essentially buy up the town, at least the entirety of the main street/the shops to redevelop, and the part that's cool is that they all talk about it reasonably - some of them being hold outs, some of them really considering it - like adults, nobody's fighting or being douchebags. Then it gets to where the last hold-out is Emmett and he's thinking of Marnie, the kid, because this was her mom's store and so it's technically hers though he has power of attorney. 

Also happening is that Brad is trying to sell the investors on the fact that this town is Ideal Christmas Place, that it's super traditional and the townsfolk do it up right and whatnot, and they are thus far not impressed by what they are seeing. ???? I don't get it, if they want to redevelop then aren't they more concerned about the land/the property value? I'm missing something. Emmett finally agrees and Nelle fusses at him and because Brad's been into her, he's shared what the plan really is with her, and she swipes his notebook and shows Emmett "Look this is some shitass mall or something, you dun goofed". And Brad whiffed because the promise was that the stores would be left alone and they'd all still work there/be the management, it'd just be owned by the corporation and - oh I get it now, they want it to be a big tourist town like thing during the winter holiday seasons. Okay, gotcha. Anyway, I'll let you guess how everything turns out in the end.

I actually liked this one, it could've gone majorly shmoop and tropey fast - I mean, it popped on more than a few bingo squares (bookstore owner, dead parents, author, Christmas tree decorating, town festival/celebration, family business is in danger of being lost, child character) but again, the whole vibe of this movie is casual and natural and it flows and the pacing is on point. The reason for their initial fall-out is a bit "Huh?" but I appreciate that it wasn't something complicated, it was more to real life which is that it is more often than not that it's silly little misunderstandings that drive us apart and if we'd just friggin' speak the hell up, we'd realize it's not a big deal. The two leads really clicked and that was so nice to see since the majority of these movies they don't. Guys, this is one worth watching, I'm only dinging it because too many squares were hit.

4/5 stars

The Christmas Card (Hallmark, 2006 - Ed Asner, Alice Evans, John Newton)

Ed Asner is a gift, and I won't hear otherwise. You'll also recognize the two leads, I've seen them in other stuff. And no, that date's not wrong, this is an oldie and by my estimation these Hallmark movies get more solid on the whole the further back you go, it's like they gave a fuck about nuance in the script vs. recycling plots for the most part so they can crank these babies out like rabbits in perpetual heat. I suspect that's the reason for the 2 star rating you'll see when you hit "info" on the remote. But fuck that, because here's a factoid - other than that I'm about to give this one a 5 (spoiler), Ed Asner was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for it, so I assure you, it's better than that 2 star will indicate.

So here's the first part of the plot from Wikipedia:

In the midst of war in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Cody Cullen (John Newton) is given a Christmas card from a fellow soldier who had received it from his hometown, Nevada City, California. The card was sent by Faith Spelman (Alice Evans). As months pass, the card never leaves his side. Cody, who has no family, and whose father was killed during the Vietnam War, is deeply affected when the soldier who gave him the card is killed. A few weeks before Christmas, Cody travels to see the soldier's widow, back in Nevada City. Just as he is about to leave town, Cody runs into Faith at a local luncheonette, where they happened to have placed identical orders. They part, but on his way out of town, Cody saves Faith's father, Luke (Ed Asner), from being hit by a speeding car. Luke takes a liking to Cody and convinces him to stay on as temporary help at his family's logging company. Paul (Ben Weber), Faith's longtime boyfriend who travels much of the time, and who selfishly wants Faith to move away from her close-knit family in Nevada City, arrives to meet her.

Everyone nails it. You believe that a part of Faith genuinely cares about the asscrack who's been stringing her along, and that actor nails the whole dickbag routine without being so obnoxious it makes you want to drop-kick the TV. Cody is quietly charming and sells you on the fact that yes, he loves her, and so much that he's not willing to potentially ruin her life, even if it's a life without him. Ed Asner is perfection in his role as the loving and slightly meddlesome dad. The mom is great. The friend is great. All the side characters are great. There is not a bit of cheese in this movie, nothing is tropey, nothing is schlocky, it's just heartwarming. And there are *zero* of the typical cliche elements that arise in these movies featuring troops/veterans. It was so goddamned refreshing as compared to 95% of what Hallmark cranks out now, I genuinely can't believe this is from the same braintrust. 

If it comes on, do yourself a favor and watch it. 

5/5 stars 

Here’s your 4 and 5 stars thus far:

Trading Christmas - 5/5 stars Christmas In The Air - 5/5 stars Mingle All The Way - 5/5 stars The Christmas Card - 5/5 stars Small Town Christmas - 4/5 stars

#2

Christmas Made To Order (Hallmark, 2018 - THE DUDE WHO PLAYED AARON SAMUELS IN "MEAN GIRLS"!!!! and a chick who can't act even a little bit)

I cannot emphasize how bad an actress the leading lady is, it is painfully bad. It's not as intolerable as Kellie Pickler, but she's a close damn second. That's how bad it is. I looked her up to see who the fuck would've ever hired her, her name is Alexa Pena Vega, which I tell you so you can immediately change the channel if you see her name in the credits. The only thing from fairly recent past that's of note is that she appeared in 7 episodes of the TV show "Nashville", 90% of what she's done I've never heard of but she's had steady work since she was a kid, and I tell you this because you, too, can be an actor if this person can. 

This movie's plot is bland, the script is stilted, the tone is shmoopy, the pacing is draggy, and it hits way too many bingo squares. Everything about it is irritating. The part that irritated me most was where they're singing "Angels We Have Heard On High" and when getting to "in excelsis deo" they pronounce it "egg-shell-sees", which is wrong, it's more like "eck-chel-sees", hitting that "ch" and last "s" light. I've sang in choirs in Carnegie Hall not once, but twice, you can trust me. There, now you know. 

I feel sorry for Aaron Samuels (Jonathan. His name is Jonathan Bennett. I'm sorry also that everyone, including me, probably calls him Aaron Samuels). He ain't that great in this, and I feel like it's because of the material/people he had to work with. The peripheral family members are overall kind've stiff or something, too. So maybe this is also a director issue? But ol' Alexa, man, she is of the suck, high school kids do better than this. I'm not bothering to give you the summary... I mean, it's basically the title, she's a Christmas party coordinator who's hired by him. I will say I'm happy it reminded me I need to pull a recipe for crockpot mulled cider, so there's that. I'll give it a star for that. We'll file this under background noise, because if you pay attention to it, she's gonna work your nerves then squeeze the last. 

1/5 stars 

Holiday For Heroes (Hallmark, 2019 - Marc Blucas, Melissa Claire Egan)

This one ain't too terribly bad. It's the second military-at-Christmas movie that Blucas has been in for Hallmark (that I've seen) and I have to confess, I was subconsciously comparing that one to this one because that one was pretty damn good (see last year's list, linked above). But Blucas is a really solid actor, everything I've ever seen him in, it comes off naturally. Having said that, I feel like he's been some sort of military something-or-other in most everything I've seen him in (*waves to fellow Buffy fans*), so it could just be he's nailing this shtick. 

She's a little too Mary Poppins - you know, practically perfect in every way - except without the sass, so it's saccharine but I don't blame her, she seems a decent actress who's playing the cards she's been dealt. One of those cards is that her phone ring is a Christmas carol. ::sigh:: I actually laughed out loud at the skating part because any full shot to where you could potentially see her face coupled with a body that had feet wearing skates was either super-far away like they were filming from Mars or, I shit you not, her face was obscured by a hockey net. Girl, it's cool if you got weak ankles or were traumatized by a zamboni or something. But like, don't take the role, ask for a summer movie. 

Okay, here's the problem - this movie is pretty boring. I looked at the clock probably every thirty minutes because I kept thinking "This has to be getting close to the end, right?" These two don't have any romantic chemistry, but they click, it's just I could picture them playing more brother and sister. But the story is blah, I simply didn't care about her getting her party to happen and yeah, it's not for personal, self-serving reasons, it's for a good cause (kids! soldiers!), but I just couldn't find myself caring if she pulled it off or not.  And then he's struggling between choosing a teaching job  or re-enlisting, but he didn't seem particularly stressed, so I wasn't stressed, and you know what *would* have been interesting? How the whole thing started out: somehow (and I can't recall how - maybe through her brother? because he's in the same unit?) they were paired up writing letters while he was deployed and so they knew all this cool stuff about each other, not terribly intimate but definitely personal tidbits, and I could've gotten into a movie that kept them writing letters for a little longer - there was actually a brief thing about his last letter that was lost, and that definitely could've been something interesting, when it finally turned up, that he'd written something very personal/important that he opted not to tell once he met her in person, but that potential firework turned out to be a dud. 

Instead he's back and they meet in person in essentially the first 20 minutes, maybe the first 10 - it was fast, is my point. I think maybe if they had them meeting a little later, we could've gotten to know them better and then we'd be rooting for them in both their individual issues and be rooting for them to get together. Or not, fuck, I don't know. All I know is that the title is deceptive because there were no "miracles", not in a magical or spiritual sense, and also because nothing exciting or unexpected happened, everything unfolds precisely how you expect it will. No really. What you guess early on is exactly what happens. Eh. It didn't hit enough squares to launch it down to 1 or 2 stars, it's not a complete waste of your time, but man is it dancing on the line. 

3/5 stars

Merry And Bright (Hallmark, 2019 - Jodie Sweetin and her new teeth, Andrew Walker who's that guy in lots of these movies upon whose cheekbones one could cut diamonds)

She owns a candy cane company. That's it. That's all they do, candy canes at Christmas. The red and white standard kind. They have business at one time per year and are super successful, mega rich judging by the offices and the houses in which they live. 

Suspension of disbelief, check.

Classic "family business is in danger" story, bonus dead grandmother which is the catalyst for her taking over the company. Side storyline of her mom fostering a dog that's going to end up being her Christmas present. There is no reason for this side storyline, but doggie is cute as all-get-out, so we'll give it a pass. Of course there's a baking scene. Somebody who's not into Christmas gets converted. It hits multiple boxes. 

So, Cheekbones is a consultant sent to advise Jodie on where to cut costs and consolidate, and I hope he tells her first and foremost that one cannot sustain a business for, broadly, two months out of the year, not unless they are the monopoly on candy canes. Which, they aren't. So my first thought is "make flavored canes" and "make sprinkles of said flavored canes" and "make frosting and cake mixes based on said flavors" and liqueur and patent a certain stripe pattern for the canes, then sell wrapping paper in these patterns. You know, shit that sells all year. I majored in business and minored in marketing in undergrad, I can't control when it kicks in.

They find each other difficult, which means of course they'll fall in love. Let's just jump to the end: they diversify with different flavors and they fall in love. PS: no chemistry PPS: her last name is Merriweather and the town's name is Brightwell. Get it? Merry and Bright? Yeah, they didn't just mean the song.  ::sighs::  This is just Typical with a capital "T". I was bored, but it's well-made production value-wise and is fine for background while you're cleaning or something. 

3/5 stars

A Christmas For The Books (Hallmark, 2018 - people you've neither heard of nor will recognize... unless they've been in other Hallmarks, which I'm sure they have)

This one drags so, so badly. It hits too many boxes. There's a Christmas gala. Pretending to be someone's boyfriend. Somebody's famous. Somebody's an author. Did I mention it drags? It draaaaaaags. And I am 99% certain the plot is identical to another one of these movies I've seen (perhaps on a different channel, though). The deal is that she's a romance "expert" but her own relationship just fell apart so she asks her show's producer to pretend to be her boyfriend for the benefit of the higher-ups who are giving her said show, which he does but then his on-again-off-again girlfriend shows up. She's pissed, naturally, and our lead gal lies to her and says "No I'm counseling him so he'll be a better boyfriend to you" and she's an idiot and falls for it, and they end up being best buds. ??? Okay. But here's the thing: she still ends up with dude at the end. And they have zeeeeeero chemistry. Just skip this one. Draaaaaaag. The acting is flat across the board, excepting aforementioned girlfriend who is over-the-top. 

Swear I've seen this exact plot, though. I can see one of the early scenes clear as a bell in my mind. Beautiful brunette lady, they're all outside by a gazebo or some such, she's about to go live or tape in front of audience for her show, and fiance breaks up with her, and I want to say that the guy she pretends with is either a long-time friend, or that they dated in the past. Possibly both. I'm googling this. 

* time passes *

Holy shit, it's another Hallmark movie. It's called "The Convenient Groom" from 2016, summary: "Dr. Kate Lawrence, a celebrity relationship expert, plans to publicly announce her engagement to Bryan, a handsome and perfectly polished businessman. As Kate prepares to share the news, Bryan shocks her by breaking up with her and calling off the wedding. Wanting to save her from humiliation and protect her public image, Lucas Wright, Kate’s childhood friend, steps in and pretends to be Kate’s fiancé. Stars Vanessa Marcil and David Sutcliffe." It also looks like this one was based on a book. 

Ugh. We don't do plagiarism. 

0/5 stars

Christmas In The Air (Hallmark, 2017 - Catherine Bell, Eric Close)

I don't think we did this one last year, but even if so, worth mentioning again. If you don't know him by name, you'll recognize Close, he's a good actor, and Catherine Bell is just solid across the board in everything I've seen her in. So he's a single dad who owns a toy company with his brother and of course they're slammed at this time of year and on top of that they've got a new toy (a drone-type thing) that they're trying to sell an investor on so they're busting ass trying to perfect that, too (on top of, investor and wife are coming to town to see it and somehow they get roped into having them over for dinner). Plus the kids are of an age (looks like maybe 4th grade boy and 6th grade girl?) that they're really getting into activities they've chosen for themselves now so that's on top of the usual parent stuff and we all know it's a lot for single parents at that age, it's almost like they're back to the amount of work of toddlers, they're just back to going in all directions again and starting to get more independent and need more attentiveness. I am pleased to report the kids are not brats nor are they sugar sweet, they're just normal kiddos. Now, she's a professional organizer and they meet by chance at Target or wherever and I forget the circumstances but it is evident to her that he needs some organizing and she gives him her card. I bring this up because it is not a "meet cute", it's just somebody who's astute at networking and she's polite and so's he and it's a normal interaction. 

That's the thing I like about this movie - everything unfolds in a natural manner, nothing is far-fetched. Their jobs make sense, such as - see above - they aren't limited to the Christmas season, even though people do/may need more of their services at this time of year. Close and Bell click and they're both attractive in their own ways and it's believable they grow to fall for each other. Nobody's cutesy and precious and obsessed with Christmas and hyperactive, they're adults going about their daily lives who end up realizing they kind of need each other. And on that note, they don't portray her as this lonely 40-something single woman, it's just evident that she's maybe getting dissatisfied with her routine and maybe actually needs a some messiness in her life because sometimes a little messy can be interesting, if she lets loose to a degree when it comes to all her self-imposed rules that help her keep control on her life. The only thing that was eye-roll worthy was the cookie-making montage scene and the cheesy music that backed it, but! It was incredibly short.

She also has this adorbs little greenhouse out back of her house of which I'm jealous. Not that I can grow plants particularly well. But I'm good at keeping those suckers alive. I want an herb garden when I grow up. [checks watch] Shit, I'm a grown-up. Anyway, this is a well-made, well-written, well-casted (in addition to the leads, the brothers actually resemble each other and the kids click, too), well-paced movie with well-developed characters and my final verdict is that it is most certainly not a waste of your time.

5/5 stars 

Here's your 4 and 5 stars thus far:

Trading Christmas - 5/5 stars Christmas In The Air - 5/5 stars

#1

Once Upon A Holiday (Hallmark, 2015 - some chick, a guy called Paul Campbell who's vaguely familiar)

Princess of tiny country wants some Christmastime to herself without all the royal obligations, she of course has dead parents because somebody has to. But listen, the 2 leads can actually act, nobody's shmoopy, nobody overreacts when the truth comes out, the ending is simple, it's basically very... well, basic. It's calm. It's sweet. It's not *not* worth watching, though I'd classify it as simply nice, non-irritating background fare. You're not going to go ga-ga and love it, but you're not going to loathe it, either. 

3/5 stars

A Shoe Addict's Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Candace Cameron, the lady who played Charlene on Designing Women)

Candace Cameron is a solid actor and she elevates everything she's in. However. This one is just stupid. It's convoluted in its premise, which is this: when this chick puts on a pair of shoes, it takes her to a certain point in her life where pivotal decisions were made (whether or not she knew at the time), and is giving her an opportunity to play Choose Your Own Adventure and see what could've happened if she'd chosen differently. We don't need the shoes for this story to happen, is my point, because just have her hold an object or have a magical person take her there a la ghosts of Christmas past. Which, well, okay - here we go.

It's also *very* convoluted in how the magic happens and how the love interest comes into it, and is as follows: she works in a department store and gets locked in there randomly one night, and meets her fairy godmother-esque guardian angel who is klutzy and quirky and initiates this whole flashbacking in time with shoes jazz, and in addition Ditzy Angel Fairy is always there kind've interfering and being bumbling while Candace and love interest are working together planning some charity thing involving his firehouse (yeah, he's a fireman, there’s additional backstory for him about following in his dad’s footsteps and something-something-something), and the department store, which somehow necessitates awkward moments in stock rooms and whilst cookie baking, oh and by the way he's also her new next door neighbor. 

Did you follow all that? Congratulations, and pass the liquor. Holy shit. Again, Candace elevates this dreck, as does - oh damn, now I remember her name, it's Jean Smart! - so a star for that, and it doesn't tick like a thousand boxes on the Bingo, but those things don't rescue the bizarre nature of this one. It's all over the place. And so it loses its charm. The shoes are a stupid shtick to try to make this be *not* the same story that we've all seen and heard a million times. And then they piled on all that other extraneous stuff to distract us from that? I guess? Question mark? You may enjoy it because it's chipper and moves at a quick clip, but... yeah, it just didn't do it for me. This type of thing has been done elsewhere, and done better. You make the call.

2/5 stars

Jingle Around The Clock (Hallmark, 2018 - Brooke Nevin, other people)

Career chick gets overwhelmed trying to balance work and the holidays, then she and the dude who's one of many in a pool of potential candidates for a job she wants end up falling for each other. Nevin's a decent actress, and she and the other lead have decent chemistry, and the plot is... you know, it's... well, decent. The only thing that really irked me is that - as in a lot of these movies - there's a stupid misunderstanding that could easily be remedied by one person holding up their hands, interrupting the person who's doing the misunderstanding, and saying "Whoa, hold on. I know what you heard/saw, but here's what actually happened." 

And in this movie's case it was reeeeeally a stretch - like, in other movies, sometimes they'll have one person get pulled away or some other thing where the misunderstood person kinda doesn't have a chance to explain, but this time it's a convo where they're both standing there for minutes upon minutes. Fucking SAY SOMETHING. Anyway. Whatevs. Some of the acting from the peripheral characters is clunky, and pacing is a little off, but overall not intolerable. And it doesn't check a metric shitton of bingo boxes. So, it's cute, not a complete waste of your time.

3/5 stars

Trading Christmas (Hallmark, 2011 - Faith Ford, Tom Cavanagh, Gil Bellows)

Outstanding production value, above-average script, and the 4 shared leads can all act. It's one of those happenstance stories, where - as in real life - no one would've been expecting to meet someone they click with when they're doing what they're doing, and what they're doing isn't some fantastical thing, they’re just trying something new (traveling/staying somewhere else for the holidays).

Everybody behaves like the grown-ups they are, there's no drama, and a tiny spat that occurs between two of them is cute, not grating. Speaking of, particular kudos to best friend character who pulls off the nosy-sassy vibe without being irritating. Even the occasional pop-over scenes to the daughter and her boyfriend at college are fine, they also can act, and they're sweet together, no shmoop, just average folks you'd have been friends with in college, and boyfriend is supportive of daughter when she has a change of heart about them doing their own traveling for Christmas. 

Everything was balanced, no one interlude at a given location lasted too long before getting back to the parallel stories going on elsewhere, and since the scenes with daughter and boyfriend are secondary, even less time was spent with them, and good, that's as it should be. And here's the part I like the best, because it's *different* and *interesting* - your 2 primary leads? Ford and Cavanagh? They aren't each other's romantic will-they-won't-they, so how's about that? This barely hits anything on the bingo card, ergo the score is....

5/5 stars

Time For Me To Come Home For Christmas (Hallmark, 2018 - Josh Henderson, Megan Park) 

I should take off a star right now for the long title. You'll know by the end of the review what I've decided. Anyhow, out of the gate, understand that I had to make myself watch this one because the synopsis tells me part of this has to do with the dude being a country music singer and that means somebody's gonna sing - likely, him - and it'll probs be a Christmas song, and that also carries with it the risk of *original* Christmas song, which is infinitely worse. I also have no idea who this Josh Henderson person is - if he happens to be a singer by trade and this is what got him the role, well, I'm not looking it up, I'm reserving my judgment for when I actually hear him sing and see him act.  

Second thing to know, there's something very important that sold me on watching this: turns out Megan Park is the actress who played my favorite character in one of these Christmas movies so far - and some of you will understand the gravity of this, but if you don't then go now and read my write-up on the worst of the worst, My Christmas Love. Folks, Megan Park played Janet. *The* Janet. Light of my life during that shitstorm Janet. She who kept me afloat in a sea of dreck Janet. I owe this to Janet. 

Henderson's a fine actor, Park is way above average and should be doing more than Hallmark movies, and they click together, so good casting, there. (Also good casting? He's actually Southern, the accent isn't fake - though on the occasional word he bumps it up a bit but that could've been because of director, who knows - and for my Southern ears that is so re-fucking-freshing). The dialogue is better than usual for these movies (read: it sounds like things real people would say), and it's elevated by the fact that our two leads are delivering it well. The story unfolds in an easygoing, natural manner (as in, it's not smitten at first sight, they grow to fall for each other over the course of their journey), while at the same time moving at a nice clip. The quick and dirty: they're both from nearby towns/cities in the same state in the midwest, she thinks she knows him from local choir competitions so he's appreciating her treating him like anybody else vs. famous, they're both kinda dreading going home - her because breaking news to dad that the family business is in worse trouble than they thought, him because it's going to be first Christmas since his dad died, plus he's stressed anyhow because he's got songwriter's block. 

A run-down of the songs, so you're fully prepared.... I'll give you the length too because I'm a super nice person... okay not really, but Christmas miracles and hope and bleccccch....

Song one: Deck the Halls, piano, solo, shortish

Okay, he can carry a tune but there's nothing exceptional about his voice. I'm still not looking him up.

Song two: Jingle Bells, acoustic guitar, two old people harmonizing (poorly), short

Bless.

Song three: Joy To The World --> O Come All Ye Faithful, acapella, choir, shortish (but most part in background), they're ever-so-slightly flat which is worse than being completely flat (hi, choir nerd here)

Sigh.

Song four: Away In A Manger, him & 2 precocious children, acoustic, shortish

Twice.

Second time longer.

Second verse with him. 

Fuuuuuuuuu--------

Song five: 

The original song (which isn't entirely bad), acoustic, she inexplicably knows the tune and words well enough to harmonize and so does the mom and then there's inexplicable ability for sister to play 2nd guitar, and inexplicable background somebody to fiddle along, as well. It's a brand new song. He just wrote it. He essentially had just finished it in his mind. Length: Long, as it finishes the movie.

Stupid. So, so stupid. Just have him sing it. I don't mind the 2nd guitar or the fiddle because people skilled on such can pick up chords after watching another person run through it once, and can insert a little complementary medley in between verses, respectively - it's the people magically knowing the lyrics that's irritating and takes you out of the movie completely.

Major Complaint: there's three separate misunderstandings. One: she thinks he was trying to make a fool of her (huh?) by not telling her who he was (re: famous) and he reacts calmly; two: she sees a tabloid saying he had a girlfriend, acts pissy til he finally gets her to pony up what the hell is wrong, she says, and he reacts good naturedly; three, he offers to invest in the fam business so they don't have to rely on bank loans, and she gets all offended saying this must mean he doesn't believe in her (::sigh:: no, it doesn't), and he again takes it well. What annoys me is that all three of these are stupid and are on her, and she's not a stupid person, so her behaving this way is contrary to the other 90% we've seen. I don't get it. It was really odd.

Okay, I won't give it stars off because of the title, fine. But the title *is* cumbersome and kept me from this movie last year, it should've been called A Sweet Christmas Song or something of that ilk - sweet since she makes preserves and candy bars, then of course him writing the song, and also we can't possibly have one of these movies without Christmas in the title. 

Here's the problem: this ticks way too many bingo boxes. The family business is in danger of being lost. There's a dead parent (one for each lead, bonus sick spouse of random friend). There's Christmas songs sung by lead character. There's precocious children (three, specifically). One of the lead characters is famous. Character performs an instrumental talent. Group baking scene. Visit to a town with a holiday event. Characters make Christmas wishes. 

Those coupled with the annoying triple-play of Standard Hallmark Movie Misunderstanding Moment means this should be in negative star territory. But we're going to break the rules. I am docking it only one star for all the tropes, then another star specifically for song overload, as it would've been more impactful to hear his voice for the first time (bits in background as he comes on radio/TV notwithstanding) in the song he's been struggling to write when it happens at the end. All the music was just too much, between him and rando touring couple and choir and kids (twice), then the family sing-a-long. Good god almighty, I actually got tired just typing all that out. This movie is so strange because the components are of the suck, but afterwards you'll be like "Eh, that wasn't bad". 

Bottom line: if you're going to watch a Christmas movie, this one is way far from the worst, it's not a waste of your time, just beware the huge trope minefield and know it's only saved by the quick pacing and very natural acting on the parts of your two leads. 

3/5 stars (but just barely, and easily could've been 5/5 which is much disappoint)

Magical Christmas Ornaments (Hallmark, 2017 - people named Jessica Lowndes and Brendan Perry, the latter of whom I recognize from something)

So, I caught part of this last year and I don't think I went over it, but don't worry if I did because I am not going over it now. Brief synopsis: Mom, who has a real hard-on for Christmas, sends daughter ornaments and they turn out to be "magical", because they are reminding her of happy anecdotes from Christmases of her past so it's changing her attitude, plus coincidental great stuff is happening after she receives each one. To sum: anti-Christmas person starts to get into the spirit, lady lead is really focused on her career, falls in love with physician neighbor, precocious kids - it's trope-a-palooza from what I've seen (about an hour). 

Here's why I'm not bothering to get into it - well, beyond the fact that the lady lead couldn't act her way out of a paper bag, plus (and this is *not* her fault) her hair and makeup are poorly done and it's very distracting - it's a commercial for Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments. The very first one she opens, it's an over-the-shoulder shot and she's got the box tilted precisely to where the logo is clear-as-a-bell into the camera. Fuck that noise. I'm not sticking around for the rest of the ornaments, it may've only happened with that one but I don't care. Also, the pacing is soooo slow. 

1/5 stars (the one only because the male lead can act, and may make it tolerable for you)

#nash rates and reviews #hallmark christmas movies #cheesy christmas movies #cheesy movie talk

[ah-maa-zing]

Unmasked (Arrow 7.08)

Hmmm. I had to reflect for a while on what I think of this episode. 

On the one hand, my expectations were sky-high in anticipation of Oliver and Felicity’s reunion, after 7 episodes and 7 months apart, and there was no way the show would ever be able to live up to those expectations (Unless it gave us 40 solid minutes of Oliver and Felicity of getting reacquainted with each other, obviously). So any disappointment is clearly of my own making, in part at least.

On the other hand, after 7 episodes and 7 months apart, you’d have thought they could dedicate at least one episode – one episode! – to fully unravelling the fallout of Oliver’s imprisonment, and dealing with how it affected both him and his wife, rather than just rushing headlong into the next thing.

I’m fully cognisant that most of my ire is directed towards the fact that this doesn’t get picked back up next week – thanks a lot, crossover literally no one asked for – and then we head off into hiatus, effectively making this episode our mid-season finale. That’s unsatisfying, especially because the Oliver and Felicity storyline seems to hang on a dramatic cliffhanger (ZOMG WILL THEIR MARRIAGE SURVIVE?!?!?) in a way it wouldn’t have done if the next episode actually followed through on this. It’s the television equivalent of clickbait.

Side rant – generally speaking, I don’t have as much hate for the crossovers as a lot of people; I find them fun diversions for the most part. But I do resent the formulaic structure we’ve developed around them – they’re always at mid-season, they mostly ignore the main SLs of the individual shows (last year was probably the exception), they usually involve alternate earths or magic or shapeshifting or body swapping or whatever the heck is going on this year, and given that this year, Arrow gets one less episode overall than usual anyway, I do feel short changed and quite irked by the whole crossover shebang. Imagine if we could have allowed the events of this episode to percolate and develop in the next one, so that the storylines would have some time to breathe.

I think that’s my general disposition regarding the episode – there’s so much happening and not a lot of it is given time to breathe. One of the great things about the prison arc was that there were two arcs running in parallel – Oliver in prison, and Felicity trying to get Oliver out of prison. There were C and D and E storylines too, of course, but those two were the primary thrust that moved the story forward. Each episode advanced those SLs forward in a way that brought progress.

It's a bit like the weapon the Silencer uses – 701-707 felt a little like when the device is on, and all extraneous sound is extinguished. There is only the fight, the main purpose, and everything else is muted. Episode 8, then, feels a bit like that moment when the Silencer’s device is switched off, and all sound comes rushing back in, and everything is muddled and chaotic and you have no idea how many people have entered the room, limbs flying everywhere.

‘Unmasked’ feels like a transition episode, and for that, I can’t fault it. It gets most people to where they need to be, or at least somewhere along that path. It seems to want to draw a direct line from the events in the present to what happens and is happening in the future. It’s just that, for all that it is a place-setting episode, it loses a bit of the focus and quiet intensity of the episodes that came before it.

In true Arrow fashion, the party was fun for approximately 30 seconds before it all went to shit. Can I just say, I cannot believe that of all people, Laurel was the only one who acknowledged that Felicity was the one who did everything she could to bring Oliver home; nobody else in that group of people seems to have that awareness, to the point that Rene is actually complaining that no one threw him a party when “we” captured Diaz? Sorry, Rene, but as I remember it, Felicity had to fight you all tooth and nail to get you to help her even one step of the way. If anyone deserves credit for taking Diaz it’s not you and it’s certainly not the others. This lack of self-awareness from the former team really bugs me, but what bugs me more is that I don’t think the writers see it that way, which means we won’t ever get a resolution to this.

The Oliver and Felicity storyline was, unsurprisingly, my favourite and also the most affecting. They have spent so much of the first year of their marriage apart – the fact that Felicity is surprised he even remembers is testament to how much shit they’ve had overtake their lives over the course of the year. So their reunion felt a little bit muted – not because they suddenly don’t love each other, but because they both appeared to be so drained by what has happened to them. Felicity softly telling Oliver that she’s missed him, or Oliver talking about how he thought of her and William every day in prison – both show us in quiet ways how much of a toll this ordeal has taken on them. Oliver’s hesitation to join the world, to talk to people, to put the hood back on again (not wanting to risk being separated from his family again, as he tells Rene) was an interesting way to show his anxiety about being back in the world manifesting, and I liked that Felicity ran interference for him on that aspect, coaxing him to go to the party, dealing with the media and fobbing off Max Fuller, who was a joy to see returned. I had hoped that Max would meet Felicity and that he would bring up Oliver sleeping with his fiancée (then wife, then ex-wife), and both of these things happened and it was glorious. Then Felicity essentially rolled her eyes at him and waltzed past with her husband, and I appreciated that also.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I loved the scene in their apartment where Felicity pulls out a gun – when she’s had time to practise her shooting skills I don’t know – and the disbelief on Oliver’s face that she would a) have a gun and b) actually use it really tickled me for some reason. I recognise that Oliver not believing Felicity would go as far as she has seems a little inconsistent with what we know of their relationship – Felicity has crossed lines in the past and Oliver has been there to witness it – but I do think it is in character for him to be shocked by that particular moment. Every time he’s seen her with a gun, which is very rarely, he’s been shocked by it; in the past she’s also declared her distaste for them. So the idea that she now not only carries a weapon but is willing to use it is, of course, surprising to him. He also hasn’t seen her the way we have the past few episodes, and he doesn’t know what she’s had to go through to get to here, and how little support she’s had from her so-called friends. 

Oliver has also been influenced by all that “circle of violence” talk that was drummed into him by the Level Two doctor. He’d been worried about passing it on to William and hadn’t even considered that it would be Felicity who would be most affected by it. To me, part of this feels like Oliver, in the past 7 months, has put her on a bit of a pedestal; he’s stared at a picture of her every day since his imprisonment, but a picture is not a person, and I think he’s lost sight of how his imprisonment has also been her imprisonment. This is highlighted when he tells her that he’s apologised endlessly for his decision at the end of S6, and she (thankfully, rightly) tells him that she can’t do anything with apologies. When she tells him what she’s had to go through in the last few months his instinct is to cringe and apologise – that’s what he’s always done, he’s always blamed himself for the actions others have been forced to take in his name – and she tells him that it’s not on him. It’s just a fact that her life has been upended because of this, and she’s had to re-form the person she is out of the debris.

I also believe that, in the heat of that conversation, they misunderstand each other – she calls her old self weak, and Oliver is horrified, telling her that he fell in love with that person. Felicity sees this as him re-affirming her claim that she used to be weak and judging who she is now, whereas I think Oliver was trying to say that he never saw her that way, and that in fact he fell in love with a woman who was already strong. We know that he believes this – he’s said it countless times over the years. In many ways she’s stronger than he is, and perhaps his dismay is that she suddenly doesn’t see it. Felicity, to my mind, seems to have lost sight of herself. I don’t think she is particularly “dark”, like the show is trying to present (in order to link it to the future where she’s apparently evil), or no more so than Oliver has been at various points over the years – but given that everyone around her has been telling her she’s “losing herself” or is on the path to not being a hero anymore (thanks, Diggle), she’s started to believe it. Felicity has always had a little bit of grey within her, from her days as a hacktivist to her dealings with Helix. Just because she’s chosen over the years to “find another way” does not mean she’s not capable of making the difficult choices.

But right now, Felicity is starting to believe that, so perhaps she sees Oliver’s incredulity as him also telling her that she’s losing her way, so she becomes defensive and tells him that version of her is gone for good. To their credit, they both do talk about this in a mature way later, by recognising that they’ve  grown in ways the other hasn’t yet seen or had time to reconcile with. That reconciliation of their new selves is key to their relationship and it will be hard work they have to do as a couple. I have no doubts they’ll do it, and I’m excited to see them do it; I just wish it didn’t have to be presented in this shock-horror kind of way. FYI I don’t think Felicity is suggesting a separation and I don’t think they’re going to get divorced, but like I say, the clickbaity nature of it all bugs me.

As for the rest of the episode –

I’m not sure why John and Lyla “need” Diaz to help them with whatever the heck Dante is, other than the fact that it plays into an already widening separation between Diggle and Oliver/Felicity. It’s the kind of action that is pretty much a betrayal of everything the latter have been through, and though John acknowledges that he hates lying to them, it’s not clear why he does. Perhaps if he’d told them what was going on, they might even be okay with it. It feels like John’s arc is leading somewhere, and perhaps he has to walk this path before he can come back to the man we know and love; they’ve told us time and time again that the theme of the season is redemption, for everyone, so maybe this is part of it. Either way, that storyline is still not interesting enough to me.

I liked the brief moment between him and Oliver in the old bunker, but really only because of what Oliver says about accountability – it was a truly heroic moment for Oliver to accept that if the city wants to hate the Green Arrow, they also have to hate him; the “new Green Arrow” may be borrowing his name and hood, but Oliver was the “OG”, and it’s him the city has loved and loathed over the years. It’s his legacy, so the accountability is his. Seeing him in the suit without the mask is weird, and him working for the SCPD is even weirder. I’m not sure who the Green Arrow is without Overwatch, but I guess we’ll find out.

I haven’t even touched on the flashforwards (and this is already overlong) -- to be honest, I don’t know what to make of them at this point. The introduction of Blackstar (Maya?) was great -- she seems to be an intriguing character and clearly has a lot of secrets yet to be discovered. It was interesting that her base seems to be Max Fuller’s new club, but what it means, I don’t know. Also interesting that Roy didn’t go along to see her -- is this because he knows her? I’m not sure what to make of her involvement in the bomb plot, or why Zoe is so apprehensive about going to see her father in the Glades. The mention of Oliver was nice although it did seem like they were implying that he, too, is long gone. Interesting to find out about the Mark of Four -- that Oliver created it as some kind of vigilante call to action -- I wonder how many people it applies to. I also wonder how William has no idea about it -- when exactly did Oliver and Felicity leave him? 

I also have to say this -- lately I’ve been beginning to see Dinah as a bit of a personality black hole. She’s just so dour all the time, both in the present day and future, and it’s really becoming tiresome. Her scenes just aren’t that interesting to me at the moment, which doesn’t bode well considering Oliver’s just started working at the SCPD. I don’t know -- I feel like Dinah’s become a bit lost as a character since 6B, and hasn’t recovered as well as perhaps Rene has. Who, incidentally, hasn’t used the word hoss even once this season. Miracle. 

Finally -- new Green Arrow. Emiko, I assume. She wasn’t as much of a presence as I was expecting her to be considering the title of the episode, but I enjoyed her two bookend scenes. She clearly knows who Robert is, so I want to know a) how, b) who her mother is, c) how long she’s known, d) why she’s in town dressed like Oliver, e) does she have a list too?, f) is she technically working against Oliver?, g) why? So...basically everything. 

The addition of Maya and Emiko to the roster, as great as they were this ep, is yet more proof at how bloated this cast has become. We don’t need 90 million members of Former Team Arrow hanging around doing nothing (seriously, was it necessary to have Curtis dress up and come in for one line that could have been delivered by someone else?). I can only hope that 7B takes a lean approach to their character roster -- between the present day and the future, I’m beginning to get lost in the noise. 

I don’t expect the crossover to address any of the SLs brought up in this episode, so I suppose the next time we find out anything more on Emiko, Maya or how Oliver and Felicity reconcile will be after the new year, which...is a depressing thought, but c’est la vie. 

I enjoyed Oliver and Felicity’s scene at the top of the ep, but really, I need more. These are two super hot people in their first year of marriage who’ve been separated for 7 months -- give them some happiness!

That said, I laughed out loud at Oliver’s face when Curtis asked what his first meal as a free man had been. I don’t think you want to know the answer to that, Curtis, so good on Felicity for jumping in.

I love Oliver’s reaction every time Felicity tells him she loves him. His face just lights up. 

Oh, and the red pen callback! Ohhhh that one hurt. 

Oliver’s reticence to re-enter the world was really well done.

Good to see that finally Oliver and Felicity’s place has a proper security system even if it was breached. But it does seem like the new flat is just the old flat re-dressed up. Sigh. I wish they would refurbish the Queen Mansion, especially since apparently nobody’s bothered clearing all that debris away from the fire??? 

Wasn’t it odd how Curtis asked Felicity “what will you do now?” as if he’s totally forgotten they had planned a start-up together and even had angel investors at one point. It looks like the writers have abandoned Helix Dynamics in favour of Smoak Tech, so I’ll take that and run. 

I don’t care for the new mayor. 

Wasn’t there supposed to be another party, one Oliver and Felicity don’t make it to?

I guess they’ve decided to keep William in boarding school. Which means it’s unlikely we’ll see him for a while (boo), seeing as we’ll bypass Christmas on the show thanks to certain other events. 

Speaking of, ughhhh crossover. 

#Olicity #Oliver x Felicity #Oliver Queen #Felicity Smoak #Arrow reviews #my reviews #ah-maa-zing reviews #Arrow #Arrow: Unmasked

[lisa-lostinlit]

💬 What new authors have you found recently that you’re obsessed with? . For me, it’s definitely @devneyperry! I started reading her books a couple of months ago, and now I can’t get enough! I read Tattered and Timid back-to-back, then did the audio of The Birthday List, and now I’m going to get back to the #LarkCoveSeries with Tragic and Tinsel!! I’m loving her books SO MUCH!! 🤓🖤📖 . Tinsel, the fourth book in the Lark Cove Series, releases February 19th! Check out the summary below. And be sure to add these to your TBR! They’re fantastic reads! 💕 . FYI: Tattered and Timid are available on @scribd! 😉 If you’d like to try out a free month, click the link in my bio! . A HUGE thank you to @devneyperry for gifting me these signed copies. I’ll cherish them forever. 🥰♥️ ________________________________________________________ 📖Summary: Sofia Kendrick has always cherished her tiara. As the youngest daughter of a wealthy New York family, she’s lived the life of an American princess. But after two scandalous divorces and a breakup smear her name across the society rags, the shine from her crown has dulled. People call her superficial, even gaudy. She’s nothing more than tinsel. Desperate for escape and starving for peace, Sofia heads to Montana for a holiday weekend with her brother. But she doesn’t get the relaxing vacation she planned. Instead, she’s put to work in a bar alongside Dakota Magee—a man who does not want her help. A man who is set on teaching her a few lessons about real life and hard work. But Sofia has a couple of life lessons of her own to teach. Like how to fall in love. ________________________________________________________ #devneyperry #romancebooks #cozyfeels #booksofinstagram #thebookstagram #readersofinsta #libraryofinstagram #ilovebooks #bookish #bookaesthetic #ofquietmoments #bookstagramming #mybookfeatures #bookfeaturepage #toberead #bookhoarder #pursuepretty #readinglife #bibliophiles #bookpage #booklover #bookseverywhere — view on Instagram http://bit.ly/2N3fq4U

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