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#yes this is a diss on HBO max
thetiredstuff · 1 year
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hate it when companies rebrand by going by a different name. like of all the things you could have invested money in that's what you chose? really??
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kyloren · 6 years
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«you have witchcraft in your lips» —famous!Bughead
When Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper were cast as leads for HBO’s Harry Potter prequel show Magic is Might, they thought they did not know each other. They were wrong.
note: this is a collaborative work between myself and @lilibug--xx. I wrote Jughead’s POV and she Betty’s. Be warned, we are each other’s betas, too. 
read it on ao3. 
“A dress made of air and webs and you,
The wet dreams evaporate as they come true.
To anyone else just endless blue,
An invisible kite string connects me to you.”
— Pieces of Sky by Beth Orton.
CHAPTER ONE: mr jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars…
@Variety: HBO picks up four pilot episodes, including Toni Topaz’s Harry Potter prequel project.
@Deadline: Up-and-coming musical director Kevin Keller branches off from theatre and confirms working on Harry Potter prequel series with HBO — Magic is Might.
@EntertainmentNews: BREAKING NEWS: Disney darling Veronica Lodge officially casted as one of the leads in Kevin Keller’s upcoming Marauders Era project — Magic is Might.
@Buzzfeed: You will not believe who was just confirmed to be cast in Magic is Might! 
@CherryBombshell: To all my loyal, beautiful followers: Of course, I got the part. How could they not cast moi?
@NZHerald: Singer-songwriter Archie Andrews is rumoured to be involved with HBO’s Magic is Might.
@Deadline: Magic is Might Harry Potter prequel series finds its Sirius Black: “He walked in right off the street and I knew — that is our Sirius Black,” says showrunner, Kevin Keller.
@EntertainmentNews: HBO’s Magic is Might just cast its Remus Lupin, and it’s a very interesting choice.
@Buzzfeed: Magic is Might’s Remus Lupin is now — Remmy Lupin?!
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THE WAYWARD PRINCE:
The thing about Jughead Jones — he was weird, and he liked to be weird.
Jughead Jones was the following things: adroit wordsmith, razor-sharp, and a smart-mouthed asshole. He was not, however, the sort a teenage girl’s dreams were made of. He was a little too tall and a little too angular with a face that was a little too fond of scowling to be conventionally attractive. He had two girlfriends in the span of his entire life, and first one he’d acquired when he was nine for the span of two days. He was akin to a scalpel — sharp-edged, clinical, and very good at cutting people out of his life.
Except, Sabrina.
Never Sabrina.
And because of Sabrina — he was here, regretting everything.
“This,” Jughead grumbled for the nth time, “is all your fault.”
“Yes,” Sabrina agreed, throwing a dusky-blue button-down at him with a glare that clearly conveyed wear this or else, “it is my fault that you’ve landed the biggest television role of this year. I apologise for being magnificent.”
Jughead snorted. “Potter is the lead.”
“Who cares? Sirius is obviously meant to be the hot one. That makes his role the bigger fish. And you,” Sabrina said, tilting his head sideways and inspecting the carelessly casual style she arranged his hair in (read: brushed once and let it air-dry), “cousin-german, will soon be smiling from a poster on every pubescent girl’s wall and be the main feature in their dreams.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jughead’s scowl grew deeper, a feat he had not imagined was achievable before he’d done it. “I’d rather not.” 
Two hours later, two thirds of which were spent navigating L.A.’s atrocious traffic, Jughead found himself lounging in a deceptively comfortable egg chair in a Hollywood studio, waiting to proceed with the first script reading session with the rest of Magic is Might cast. Sabrina, primly perched to his right, was scanning the others over the brim of her rapidly cooling coffee cup with shrewd, pale-grey eyes, as Jughead lazily thumbed through the script.
“Stop eyeing them like you want to wear their faces as a mask, Ree,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“I am so not. I’m eyeing them like I want to make a fashionable skin suit, obviously. Get your facts straight, Jones.”
Here was the thing; — Jughead firmly believed that if you did something, you better put your best foot forward from the start; to do your very best at everything you undertook and not half-ass it simply because it required effort. (Life required effort, Jughead often reminded himself, if it didn’t it wouldn’t be so damn difficult.)
This stance seemed at odds with his disaffected and cynical slacker persona, but what could Jughead say — he was contrary like that. He could remain apathetic and be a pedantic perfectionist at heart; he had layers, like a lasagna.
But precisely that sort of attitude had landed him the lead role in Magic is Might as Sirius Black.
It had happened nine days ago, when Jughead had accompanied Sabrina to her second audition for Magic is Might — she had failed to get Lily Evans’s role and was trying out for Narcissa Black. Jughead was there for emotional support, for the sort of get your shit together, you walking waste of space pep-talks Sabrina and he excelled at. He was there to permit his hand to be crushed in a vice grip as she waited for her name to be called, and to take her to Wildflower Café by their apartment to gorge on breakfast foods and stuff their faces with toasted marshmallow milkshakes in the face of another disappointment.
Jughead Jones was, by profession, a screenwriter; he wrote seven plays, one of which had been actually made into a film. He was not an actor. The universe disagreed, however. Kevin fucking Keller disagreed, too, apparently, because the moment Jughead had walked up to a dumbfounded-looking Sabrina after her audition — handkerchief at the ready, just in case — he’d been spotted by Kevin fucking Keller’s eagle-eyed stare. Kevin fucking Keller who’d taken one look at Jughead, pointed his finger at him and with eyedrum piercing snap, barked out, “You, there — in here, now.” and Sabrina, that fucking traitor, had pushed him forward into the audition room.
It was serendipitous he knew the script like the back of his hand, having practiced with Sabrina until they were blue in the face, it was also fortuitous his reaction in the face of sheer audacity was to fall back on his most defining traits — sarcasm and generally all-around fuck-you attitude.
Both, as it had turned out, were great characteristics for one Sirius Black.
So here he was, Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third, newly minted actor extraordinaire with no education about the craft and enough talent, according to Keller, to fill the Pacific ocean and then some — out of his depth, and feeling utterly displaced.
It was a peculiar feeling, foreign and unwelcome — Jughead hated it with the blazing ebullition of pure abhorrence.
“Hey,” Sabrina called, soft as a whisper, placing her hand on his knee, stilling it. Jughead hadn’t realised his left leg had been bouncing. “Relax, bro-bro.”
Jughead opened his mouth to reply something along the lines of Shut it, hambone, but was interrupted when a tall shadow of a small person fell across his lap.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mad Max himself,” commented a small, red-headed girl on berry-red charged murder-weapons on the lam from the law and thus posing as women’s footwear. “So, tall, dark, and inexperienced, how does it feel to finally be in the real show biz?”
There was a refractory set to Jughead’s clenched jaw, so Sabrina answered in his stead, snickering, “I don’t know Big Red, you tell us?”
The girl’s exceedingly red mouth was reset out of its perpetually sullen pout into a grimace of distaste. “For a virtual nobody, you sure have a mouth on you, Emily Strange.”
There were four rules Jughead Jones instinctively followed whenever he chose to speak: Was he being rational? Was he being truthful? Were his words necessary? Were they kind? Often times, if he had not met all of his criteria, Jughead would settle on keeping his silence a while longer.
This, was not such a time.
“Is that all you can do,” Jughead found himself rasping out, “try your utmost to diss people with painfully obvious references? You’re not doing a very good job, are you?”
“You’re a pretty cool customer, huh?”
“I hide my inner pain underneath a stoic visage,” Jughead quipped. Cheryl Blossom looked like would like nothing more than to dig her red-tipped claws into Jughead’s stoic visage.
“Hey, guys,” said a guy in corduroy slacks and a blue-yellow varsity jacket of all things; he was average-height, but with a Heroic Build identifying him as James Potter material. There was a hint of admonishment in his tone, but not enough to reign anyone in. “We’re supposed to be getting along…”
Jughead was utterly unsurprised when he was promptly ignored.
Big Red sneered down on them and with a snazzy flip of gloriously red hair, pointedly perched on the corner of the oval table. Then, she extended a bedazzled with a shape of a cherry phone Jughead didn’t realise she held in front of her on a selfie-stick, and with that godawful pout, began, “See, my lovely cherries, when presented with a choice between either Tim Burton Junior and his blonde Fran Bow or a ginger Kelly Clarkson, Cheryl Bombshell has no choice but to choose herself. I certainly hope their acting is better than their personalities because those are as parched as a dry spell.”
“Oi, Cherry Bomb!” a female producer barked sharply, the one with pink-striped hair and a punk attitude, “don’t fucking live blog a closed script reading, you imbecile!”
“Don’t call me that!” Cheryl Blossom snarled, teeth unnaturally white against the vivid red of her mouth. “How are my cherries supposed to know what I’m doing at any given moment if I don’t blog about it?”
“I don’t know,” Jughead grumbled, too low to be heard by anyone but Sabrina, who promptly elbowed him in the ribs, “maybe try not to seek validation from a faceless mass of people online?” said the kettle to the pot, he mentally added.
The woman with the pink hair was even shorter than Cheryl, but when she stood up, she cut an impressively intimidating figure nonetheless. “This,” she growled, “is what we get for casting a bloody Instagram starlet.”
“She’s a solid choice, Toni,” Keller admonished, softly, gingerly prying away her fingers off his bicep, “she can act and her hair is iconic. What more could we ask for?”
“A fucking professional attitude for one. And maybe,” Topaz, that was her name, Jughead finally remembered, pointedly shouted in red-head’s direction, “not to always pout like she’s about to suck dick.”
Cheryl Blossom looked up from the highly-focused examination of her razor-sharp talons she’d been performing and pouted. “I don’t suck dick on sheer principle, you grotsky little byotch.”
Varsity Jacket raised his hands in placation. “Okay, seriously, maybe you should—”
“Toni, go smoke a fag and find your chill,” cut in Keller, and her hand immediately shot up, giving him the middle finger, but she left the room nonetheless. “And Cheryl, take it down a notch. I’m serious, you hear me?”
Cheryl turned away from him with a huff, but she hadn’t said anything. Instead, she began typing away furiously on her phone.
Huh, thought Jughead.
Kevin Keller was not a tough guy, he noticed, he did not have a commanding presence. Even Varsity Jacket drew more attention to himself with his ridiculous floppy hair, freckled face, and All-American attitude. But, Jughead decided, Kevin Keller understood women. With that in mind, Jughead settled back in his chair, reading over the script yet again.
It was fifteen minutes later when Toni Topaz strode into the room, her combat boots practically abusing the dotted, grey linoleum with the force of her steps, not looking an iota less stressed. “Fuck it,” she announced, “if we wait anymore for those two, we’ll get behind schedule.”
“All right, then,” Keller said, clapping his hands, “places, everyone.”
Like the asshole she was, Sabrina took the seat assigned to him, next to Varsity Jacket, and switched their name planks with a wink. Jughead had neither the inclination nor the naiveté to question her choices, so he dragged the chair he had been sitting for the last half-an-hour towards the table by its back, and positioned himself on Sabrina’s left, straightening the SIRIUS BLACK plaque so it was uniformly aligned with all the others.
The plague before a lounging Cheryl Blossom did not read BITCH FROM HELL, much to Jughead’s surprise, instead, it said — LILY EVANS.
A thought streaked across the forefront of his mind: We are all royally fucked.
Varsity Jacket’s named turned out to be Archie Andrews. Jughead knew that now because the first words out of that kid’s mouth were, quite literally, “Hey, there. I’m Archie Andrews, I’m eighteen, you may know me from last year’s 16 Birthday Wishes, and I look forward to working with ya all.”
Jughead could not have conjured this kid up had he even tried. He shared a concerned glance with Sabrina who mouthed, is he for real? and Jughead only had the energy to shrug. Yeah, he decided, he could see this Archie Andrews as one James Potter. If he squinted.
Cheryl Blossom did not introduce herself. She scowled at all of them, even poor golden retriever puppy personified Andrews, called them philistines, and proceeded with reading her lines. Interesting development: she could act. Expected conclusion: she packed too much malice into her lines and came of as passive aggressive. Keller had to intermediately correct her. That was, however, a correctable quality she could redeem herself from with enough effort; or so Sabrina had said, Jughead’s inescapable, little-devil-on-the-shoulder-type expert on all things acting™.  
When it was his turn to read, Jughead did what he had always done when he read out loud his scripts during editing: tried his damndest not to stutter, keeping his voice smooth and even, and detached himself from the situation, rendering himself utterly impervious to nerves and apprehension. It was not Jughead Jones who had been reciting the script from memory as the lines printed on paper streamed before his eyes in a confusing, maddening swirl — it had been Sirius Black doing all those things; teasing his friend James, flirting with prim and proper Lily, arguing with Narcissa.
Disassociating might have kept Jughead’s anxiety at bay, but it made Sirius Black come alive.
So, of course, once Jughead had gotten into the swing of things, the universe rained on his parade: the door slammed open, revealing two girls standing on the other side of its frame.
“Oooops,” said the shorter one, her dark hair reflecting light attractively as she stode in the room. She had not sounded particularly sorry, Jughead noticed. “Apologies, hadn’t meant to barge in quite so—”
“Veronica,” Toni cut in, as bitingly as a wolf, “you were supposed to be here half-an-hour ago!”
“That late, huh,” muttered Veronica assumingly Lodge, flipping her wrist to check the slim, diamond-encrusted watch on her left hand. “Apologies, Toni, darling, but L.A. traffic is simply odious, as you well know. Got held up.”
“By what — appearance of abominable snowman in the middle of Franklin Avenue?”
“Not quite,” Veronica replied, a sly not-quite smile settling on her face, “Betty and I—”
“Of course, you had hamstrung Cooper, too.” Toni cast a dirty look over Veronica’s shoulder at a willowy, nervous-looking blonde still hesitating in the doorway. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you there, princess.”
“Well, as I was saying, Betty and I,” continued Veronica Lodge, bulldozing over Toni completely and out of the corner of his eye, Jughead could see Call Me Archie Andrews’s jaw unhinge a little, “were late completely by accident, but it was all my fault. Let’s just say, a Lodge doesn’t always land on their feet.
“Still, I had to amend such an insufferable grievance,” Veronica smiled, charmingly, still sly as a fox. “Imagine how tickled pink I was to learn we are not only headed into the same building, but for the same script reading—”
“To which you are late; both of you,” grumbled Toni, but she seemed to have lost most of her heat. Kevin was rubbing her shoulders soothingly as she massaged her temples. Momentarily, Jughead wondered if she was prematurely grey beneath all that pink dye.
“—long story, short: Betty here,” Veronica said, stepping back and drawing the taller girl into her side. “Is my new BFF and I love her to pieces.”
“From a five minute meeting,” Kevin asked, corner of his mouth twitching.
“Boo, you whore,” teased Veronica, earning an unexpect snort from Sabrina, “it’s love at first sight. Don’t judge.” Then:
“You there,” Veronica snapped her fingers in the direction of a fish-eyed assistant Jughead took care to ignore — she’d been making moon-eyes at him, according to Sabrina, and there were times to be wary of his cousin’s advice, but not in instances such as this one. “Fetch me a skinny venti white mocha, one shot, with two pumps of sugarfree vanilla, no whip — pronto. I can’t think clearly without my daily recommended injection of sugar and caffeine.”
Immediately, the situation dissolved into absolute bedlam as everyone clamoured for Ginger’s attention to place their coffee order, too. She’s a sly one, Jughead thought for the third time, smart, too.
Here was the thing about Jughead Jones: he was an objective observer of life, not an active participator. An introvert and a borderline misanthrope, he regarded the world from a safe distance of cool, clinical detachment — he watched and he recorded and he understood because he noticed enough to pay attention in the first place; he was perceptive, and he used this to his advantage. 
And as if enticed by a magnetic pull, Jughead’s eyes drifted towards the leggy blonde to his right. The first thing he noticed her was this — she was uncomfortable. The second was that she was seemed nervous, displaced; and third — well, she was making her way towards him.
This girl, however, was totally throwing him for a loop.
She was dressed in a diaphanous, intricately embroidered, sapphire-coloured blouse, and when she shifted to pull out her chair, Jughead could see her laced brassiere through the silk material. Unexpectedly, she sat next to him, across from a plaque reading REMMY LUPIN. She had a striking look — blue-eyed and golden-haired with a face like a porcelain doll’s; wide-eyed, lovely, and haunting in its stillness. I met a lady on a moor, Jughead though, aureate hair, refulgent eyes; a dancing, starry sprite.
“Hi,” she greeted, turning to him, face splitting into a blooming, honeyed smile, white teeth gleaming, the streaming sunlight from the window behind them set her braid into a molten blaze, “I’m Betty.”
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THE DREAMER:
“Three creams, two splenda, please.”
Betty Cooper was already running (hopefully, fashionably) late; not exactly a good first impression. She had woken up behind schedule (she had sort of fallen into the black hole that was Tumblr, recently, and had taken to staying up late); her cat, Caramel, had thrown up all over the kitchen floor. One side of her hair had dried flatter than the other — she was never going to bed straight from the shower ever again. And her uber had been running behind. Fantastic, she had uttered when finally arriving at the address given. The time on her phone alerting her that she should would have been inside already, had her morning gone accordingly, sipping on her coffee without a care in the world.
Well, that last bit was a stretch. If you asked anyone who knew her, they would say without a doubt that, Betty Cooper cared too much, about everything.
It was kind of her thing, though. Betty had a profound sense of perseverance and applied it to anyone in need of help that she came across. Polly (her older sister and recently, albeit somewhat regrettably, her manager) akined it to her being like a new mother, babying her fresh-faced ducklings. It often impeded her own desires and well-thought out plans.
Betty was a goner for a schedule. She could plan her day like nobody’s business — rarely did it ever actually go according to plan though. She would describe herself as being meticulous bordering the edge of perfectionist — Betty actually detested that word. Being in control of the situation, however, gave her life.
This was all new to her though, at least, fairly. Acting, that is.
She had been on edge of booking a flight back to San Francisco for what seemed like months. With only $200 to her name, and a can of cold soup sitting like a rock in her belly, Betty had auditioned for a role in Magic is Might. She had been failing auditions for months, her savings account was gone, and she was exhausted from working two menial jobs in order to have money to even go to auditions.
So, by all accounts, Betty figured an extra boost of caffeine was in order to make it through the whirlwind day that had been plotted ahead. A table read with her cast mates of Magic is Might, who she had yet to meet, was slotted for the whole day. As well as some promotional pictures of the group. The whole thing came together rather quickly for an HBO show, as she understood. Betty would be forever grateful that they hadn’t found anyone for the part of Remus Lupin yet.
Somehow, her name had been misspelled (she wanted to glare at Polly) and they thought it had said Elizander, on her papers. Whoever had been manning the audition hadn’t done a thorough look-through at the time and had barely looked up at her, just shooed her through the door. They seemed desperate.
To be fair, she hadn’t realized that the part of Remus was male. Of course, she had read the Harry Potter books, who hasn’t? But Polly had simply implored her to get her ass to this audition, without much else to go on.
Everyone had stared at her when she entered the room, but the guy in the middle of the group seated before her had stood up, planting his hands on the table with a loud smack.
“Excuse me, this isn’t —”
“No, excuse me, but that was incredibly rude.” A blush bloomed across her chest, streaking upwards, despite her outward display of confidence. “I’m here to audition, so let me audition before turning me away.”
It turns out that the man was Kevin Keller, one of the showrunners. Betty had desperately wanted to curl into a ball from mortification when she found out, but instead she had been engulfed in a hug while he had exclaimed “Such fire!”, and had let her do the audition.  
They had complimented her afterwards. Apparently she had an inner voice that matched Remus’s suppressed darkness à la werewolf unequivocally. They were going to change the character and rework the script for her. Betty was unperturbed usually, but she had been floored by their sentiments.
Now, granted, they had done the same thing for the character of Snape, but that was for Veronica Lodge — ex-disney starlet who had bowed out of the limelight for several years only to return and turn everyone’s heads when she demanded the part of Severus Snape.
Betty mussed her life was going to be very different from here on out (assuming the show gets picked up after the contingent episodes), but she was looking forward to not cringing every time they ran her card through a register. She loved food, and coffee was a vice she wasn’t willing to give up.
In L.A. there seemed to be a Starbucks on just about every godforsaken block, so she had been thankful there was one conveniently close to the building she was now ardently walking toward. Betty was practically jogging as she took a sip of her drink, the mouthful of cold coffee was sweet and creamy. It was really refreshing — had she not just spilled it all over her shirt when someone plowed into her shoulder, jarring the cup from her hand.
Betty had stood frozen in place, her muscles turning tense as she panicked. Of course she had worn her favorite outfit today. Her pale pink sweater was now sticking to her skin uncomfortably, but thankfully there were only a few drops on her jeans — the dark color of them would prevent a stain from being noticeable, but her sweater…
“Oh my god, fuck, I am so sorry.”
Betty looked up from where she was still staring at her coffee soaked front, hand crushing the now empty cup. She blinked owlishly at the girl who had spoken. A dark haired girl with an equally empty cup, however stain free clothes — impeccable, by the way, in front of her. Small hands covered in white lace gloves (really? The urge to roll her eyes was strong) were reaching out for her and grabbing hold of her arm, gently albeit forcefully. Betty had no choice but to be tugged along and out of the path of the ravenous L.A. goers on the sidewalk.
“It’s… fine, really,” Betty hadn’t wanted to use the word, but there wasn’t anything else on the tip of her tongue. “I’m running late to my read through anyway, I should —”
Veronica interrupted her, raising her impeccably arched brows even higher. “Read through? As in, script?”
Nodding, Betty looked up to the tall glass front building they were almost in front of. She had been so close…
“Well, I think we’re headed to the same place then. Veronica Lodge,” the raven haired girl extended her glove covered hand and Betty raised her hand that wasn’t a sticky mess to shake it. Veronica continued, “pleasure to meet you…” she trailed off and Betty interjected.
“Betty Cooper.”
“Betty, allow me to offer you a new blouse, I simply can’t let you in there like that.”
Betty had started to shake her head, fingers itching to reach up and tighten her ponytail, but alas, she realized, she had worn her hair in a loose braid that brushed the edges of her collarbone. “No, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that.” she waved a hand, tossing her empty cup into the trash bin they had stopped by.
“I insist. Come,” it wasn’t up for debate anymore, that white glove grabbing Betty’s wrist again and pulling her toward a sleek black car that was parked some spaces down. “Don’t worry about being late, if we both are then they really can’t do anything about it."
Betty was surprised that the words didn’t sound pretentious coming from the other girls mouth, but humble. Veronica had pulled her inside the car, instructing her to pull the door closed. She hesitated before doing so, the door shutting with a soft click. She never thought being in a car alone with Veronica Lodge would ever be on her agenda, but here she was, with a collection of delicate tops spread over their laps that were distinctly not at all Betty’s style.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Her green-blue eyes examined the choices carefully, taking in the price tags still dangling from them. Her throat was dry, her swallow surely audible. Everything was more-than-her-rent expensive. Plucking the one with the smallest numbers up, a transparent (okay maybe she had made a mistake here…) sapphire-blue blouse with colorful embroidered flowers, “This one is great,” she smiled at Veronica.
“Oh, excellent choice. Can’t go wrong with Derek Lam 10.”
She scrunched her nose up, fingering the material. Veronica had leant back against the seat, arms crossed expectantly. Betty glanced around to the car windows. “You want me to change here?”
“I expect you, too, yes.”
Betty sucked in a breath of courage and peeled off the stained sweater. Thankfully, her white (unlucky, she had decided) lacy bralette would be suitable underneath the barely-considered-a-shirt. She felt Veronica’s dark eyes on her, watching as she slipped the garment on over her head. Betty tugged it down gently, it only hit the top waist of her jeans.
Veronica reached out a hand to snap the price tag off, tossing it into the empty front seat. “There, oh you have to keep it, it looks perfect on you.”
The blonde smoothed a hand down her somewhat exposed stomach, wishing she were thinner or more toned. “Sure. Thanks, Veronica.”
“You’re quite welcome, darling. Nothing bores friendship quicker than the sharing of clothes and gossiping over boys. So one down, one to go.”
Betty couldn’t help the smile blooming across her face at Veronica’s words. She could use a friend. L.A. had been a lonely place the past two years, which did nothing to help her anxiety.
“Of course, I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be spending a lot of time together after all.”
The other girl smiled back, tucking glossy black hair behind her ear. “Indeed, we might as well make the best of it.” she paused, checking the fancy was fastened around her delicate wrist. “We are incredibly late now, darling. We had better hurry along before Toni sinks her teeth into us.”
Betty nodded, climbing out the car door as gracefully as she could with shaking hands. Veronica had saddled up to her side, linking their arms together as they walked. Feeling a burst of adoration for the girl Betty felt she had wrongly judged in the past (she grew up watching Disney channel, after all) she vowed not to judge any of the other actors based on the same principle.
The ease of being by Veronica’s side made her nerves calm until they were in front of the appropriate conference room door. A wicked smirk graced the raven-haired girl’s features and she disentangled their arms. A dainty platform heeled foot kicked the door in with surprising force for such a small girl.
It had Betty stepping back, hiding away from the doorframe a ways, eyes darting around the room and taking in the scene. It looks like they had already started the read through, and the ball of nerves in her stomach started to grow again.
She did not think it would ever leave her.
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tbc.
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note: Title comes from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more eloquence in a sweet touch of them than in the tongues of the whole French council.” Chapter title comes from Mr. Jones by Counting Crows. 
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lilibug--xx · 6 years
Text
》you have witchcraft in your lips《
—famous!Bughead
When Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper were cast as leads for HBO’s Harry Potter prequel show Magic is Might, they thought they did not know each other. They were wrong.
note: this is a collaborative work between myself and @strix. I wrote Betty's’s POV and she Jughead’s. Be warned, we are each other’s betas, too. 
read it on ao3. 
“ A dress made of air and webs and you,
The wet dreams evaporate as they come true.
To anyone else just endless blue,
An invisible kite string connects me to you.”
— Pieces of Sky by Beth Orton.
CHAPTER ONE: mr jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars…
 @Variety: HBO picks up four pilot episodes, including Toni Topaz’s Harry Potter prequel project.
@Deadline: Up-and-coming musical director Kevin Keller branches off from theatre and confirms working on Harry Potter prequel series with HBO — Magic is Might.
@EntertainmentNews: BREAKING NEWS: Disney darling Veronica Lodge officially casted as one of the leads in Kevin Keller’s upcoming Marauders Era project — Magic is Might.
@Buzzfeed: You will not believe who was just confirmed to be cast in Magic is Might!
@CherryBombshell: To all my loyal, beautiful followers: Of course, I got the part. How could they not cast moi?
@NZHerald: Singer-songwriter Archie Andrews is rumoured to be involved with HBO’s Magic is Might.
@Deadline: Magic is Might Harry Potter prequel series finds its Sirius Black: “He walked in right off the street and I knew — that is our Sirius Black,” says showrunner, Kevin Keller.
@EntertainmentNews: HBO’s Magic is Might just cast its Remus Lupin, and it’s a very interesting choice.
@Buzzfeed: Magic is Might’s Remus Lupin is now — Remmy Lupin?!
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THE WAYWARD PRINCE:
The thing about Jughead Jones — he was weird, and he liked to be weird.
Jughead Jones was the following things: adroit wordsmith, razor-sharp, and a smart-mouthed asshole. He was not, however, the sort a teenage girl’s dreams were made of. He was a little too tall and a little too angular with a face that was a little too fond of scowling to be conventionally attractive. He had two girlfriends in the span of his entire life, and first one he’d acquired when he was nine for the span of two days. He was akin to a scalpel — sharp-edged, clinical, and very good at cutting people out of his life.
Except, Sabrina.
Never Sabrina.
And because of Sabrina — he was here, regretting everything.
“This,” Jughead grumbled for the nth time, “is all your fault.”
“Yes,” Sabrina agreed, throwing a dusky-blue button-down at him with a glare that clearly conveyed wear this or else, “it is my fault that you’ve landed the biggest television role of this year. I apologise for being magnificent.”
Jughead snorted. “Potter is the lead.”
“Who cares? Sirius is obviously meant to be the hot one. That makes his role the bigger fish. And you,” Sabrina said, tilting his head sideways and inspecting the carelessly casual style she arranged his hair in (read: brushed once and let it air-dry), “cousin-german, will soon be smiling from a poster on every pubescent girl’s wall and be the main feature in their dreams.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jughead’s scowl grew deeper, a feat he had not imagined was achievable before he’d done it. “I’d rather not.”
Two hours later, two thirds of which were spent navigating L.A.’s atrocious traffic, Jughead found himself lounging in a deceptively comfortable egg chair in a Hollywood studio, waiting to proceed with the first script reading session with the rest of Magic is Might cast. Sabrina, primly perched to his right, was scanning the others over the brim of her rapidly cooling coffee cup with shrewd, pale-grey eyes, as Jughead lazily thumbed through the script.
“Stop eyeing them like you want to wear their faces as a mask, Ree,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“I am so not. I’m eyeing them like I want to make a fashionable skin suit, obviously. Get your facts straight, Jones.”
Here was the thing; — Jughead firmly believed that if you did something, you better put your best foot forward from the start; to do your very best at everything you undertook and not half-ass it simply because it required effort. (Life required effort, Jughead often reminded himself, if it didn’t it wouldn’t be so damn difficult.)
This stance seemed at odds with his disaffected and cynical slacker persona, but what could Jughead say — he was contrary like that. He could remain apathetic and be a pedantic perfectionist at heart; he had layers, like a lasagna.
But precisely that sort of attitude had landed him the lead role in Magic is Might as Sirius Black.
It had happened nine days ago, when Jughead had accompanied Sabrina to her second audition for Magic is Might — she had failed to get Lily Evans’s role and was trying out for Narcissa Black. Jughead was there for emotional support, for the sort of get your shit together, you walking waste of space pep-talks Sabrina and he excelled at. He was there to permit his hand to be crushed in a vice grip as she waited for her name to be called, and to take her to Wildflower Café by their apartment to gorge on breakfast foods and stuff their faces with toasted marshmallow milkshakes in the face of another disappointment.
Jughead Jones was, by profession, a screenwriter; he wrote seven plays, one of which had been actually made into a film. He was not an actor. The universe disagreed, however. Kevin fucking Keller disagreed, too, apparently, because the moment Jughead had walked up to a dumbfounded-looking Sabrina after her audition — handkerchief at the ready, just in case — he’d been spotted by Kevin fucking Keller’s eagle-eyed stare. Kevin fucking Keller who’d taken one look at Jughead, pointed his finger at him and with eyedrum piercing snap, barked out, “You, there — in here, now.” and Sabrina, that fucking traitor, had pushed him forward into the audition room.
It was serendipitous he knew the script like the back of his hand, having practiced with Sabrina until they were blue in the face, it was also fortuitous his reaction in the face of sheer audacity was to fall back on his most defining traits — sarcasm and generally all-around fuck-you attitude.
Both, as it had turned out, were great characteristics for one Sirius Black.
So here he was, Forsythe Pendleton Jones the third, newly minted actor extraordinaire with no education about the craft and enough talent, according to Keller, to fill the Pacific ocean and then some — out of his depth, and feeling utterly displaced.
It was a peculiar feeling, foreign and unwelcome — Jughead hated it with the blazing ebullition of pure abhorrence.
“Hey,” Sabrina called, soft as a whisper, placing her hand on his knee, stilling it. Jughead hadn’t realised his left leg had been bouncing. “Relax, bro-bro.”
Jughead opened his mouth to reply something along the lines of Shut it, hambone, but was interrupted when a tall shadow of a small person fell across his lap.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mad Max himself,” commented a small, red-headed girl on berry-red charged murder-weapons on the lam from the law and thus posing as women’s footwear. “So, tall, dark, and inexperienced, how does it feel to finally be in the real show biz?”
There was a refractory set to Jughead’s clenched jaw, so Sabrina answered in his stead, snickering, “I don’t know Big Red, you tell us?”
The girl’s exceedingly red mouth was reset out of its perpetually sullen pout into a grimace of distaste. “For a virtual nobody, you sure have a mouth on you, Emily Strange.”
There were four rules Jughead Jones instinctively followed whenever he chose to speak: Was he being rational? Was he being truthful? Were his words necessary? Were they kind? Often times, if he had not met all of his criteria, Jughead would settle on keeping his silence a while longer.
This, was not such a time.
“Is that all you can do,” Jughead found himself rasping out, “try your utmost to diss people with painfully obvious references? You’re not doing a very good job, are you?”
“You’re a pretty cool customer, huh?”
“I hide my inner pain underneath a stoic visage,” Jughead quipped. Cheryl Blossom looked like would like nothing more than to dig her claws red-tipped into Jughead’s stoic visage.
“Hey, guys,” said a guy in corduroy slacks and a blue-yellow varsity jacket of all things; he was average-height, but with a Heroic Build identifying him as James Potter material. There was a hint of admonishment in his tone, but not enough to reign anyone in. “We’re supposed to be getting along…”
Jughead was utterly unsurprised when he was promptly ignored.
Big Red sneered down on them and with a snazzy flip of gloriously red hair, pointedly perched on the corner of the oval table. Then, she extended a bedazzled with a shape of a cherry phone Jughead didn’t realise she held in front of her on a selfie-stick, and with that godawful pout, began, “See, my lovely cherries, when presented with a choice between either Tim Burton Junior and his blonde Fran Bow or a ginger Kelly Clarkson, Cheryl Bombshell has no choice but to choose herself. I certainly hope their acting is better than their personalities because those are as parched as a dry spell.”
“Oi, Cherry Bomb!” a female producer barked sharply, the one with pink-striped hair and a punk attitude, “don’t fucking live blog a closed script reading, you imbecile!”
“Don’t call me that!” Cheryl Blossom snarled, teeth unnaturally white against the vivid red of her mouth. “How are my cherries supposed to know what I’m doing at any given moment if I don’t blog about it?”
“I don’t know,” Jughead grumbled, too low to be heard by anyone but Sabrina, who promptly elbowed him in the ribs, “maybe try not to seek validation from a faceless mass of people online?” said the kettle to the pot, he mentally added.
The woman with the pink hair was even shorter than Cheryl, but when she stood up, she cut an impressively intimidating figure nonetheless. “This,” she growled, “is what we get for casting a bloody Instagram starlet.”
“She’s a solid choice, Toni,” Keller admonished, softly, gingerly prying away her fingers off his bicep, “she can act and her hair is iconic. What more could we ask for?”
“A fucking professional attitude for one. And maybe,” Topaz, that was her name, Jughead finally remembered, pointedly shouted in red-head’s direction, “not to always pout like she’s about to suck dick.”
Cheryl Blossom looked up from the highly-focused examination of her razor-sharp talons she’d been performing and pouted. “I don’t suck dick on sheer principle, you grotsky little byotch.”
Varsity Jacket raised his hands in placation. “Okay, seriously, maybe you should—”
“Toni, go smoke a fag and find your chill,” cut in Keller, and her hand immediately shot up, giving him the middle finger, but she left the room nonetheless. “And Cheryl, take it down a notch. I’m serious, you hear me?”
Cheryl turned away from him with a huff, but she hadn’t said anything. Instead, she began typing away furiously on her phone.
Huh, thought Jughead.
Kevin Keller was not a tough guy, he noticed, he did not have a commanding presence. Even Varsity Jacket drew more attention to himself with his ridiculous floppy hair, freckled face, and All-American attitude. But, Jughead decided, Kevin Keller understood women. With that in mind, Jughead settled back in his chair, reading over the script yet again.
It was fifteen minutes later when Toni Topaz strode into the room, her combat boots practically abusing the dotted, grey linoleum with the force of her steps, not looking an iota less stressed. “Fuck it,” she announced, “if we wait anymore for those two, we’ll get behind schedule.”
“All right, then,” Keller said, clapping his hands, “places, everyone.”
Like the asshole she was, Sabrina took the seat assigned to him, next to Varsity Jacket, and switched their name planks with a wink. Jughead had neither the inclination nor the naiveté to question her choices, so he dragged the chair he had been sitting for the last half-an-hour towards the table by its back, and positioned himself on Sabrina’s left, straightening the SIRIUS BLACK plaque so it was uniformly aligned with all the others.
The plague before a lounging Cheryl Blossom did not read BITCH FROM HELL, much to Jughead’s surprise, instead, it said — LILY EVANS.
A thought streaked across the forefront of his mind: We are all royally fucked.
Varsity Jacket’s named turned out to be Archie Andrews. Jughead knew that now because the first words out of that kid’s mouth were, quite literally, “Hey, there. I’m Archie Andrews, I’m eighteen, you may know me from last year’s 16 Birthday Wishes, and I look forward to working with ya all.”
Jughead could not have conjured this kid up had he even tried. He shared a concerned glance with Sabrina who mouthed, is he for real? and Jughead only had the energy to shrug. Yeah, he decided, he could see this Archie Andrews as one James Potter. If he squinted.
Cheryl Blossom did not introduce herself. She scowled at all of them, even poor golden retriever puppy personified Andrews, called them philistines, and proceeded with reading her lines. Interesting development: she could act. Expected conclusion: she packed too much malice into her lines and came of ass passive aggressive. Keller had to intermediately correct her. That was, however, a correctable quality she could redeem herself from with enough effort; or so Sabrina had said, Jughead’s inescapable, little-devil-on-the-shoulder-type expert on all things acting™.  
When it was his turn to read, Jughead did what he always did when he read out loud his scripts during editing: tried his damndest not to stutter, keeping his voice smooth and even, and detached himself from the situation, rendering himself utterly impervious to nerves and apprehension. It was not Jughead Jones who had been reciting the script from memory as the lines printed on paper streamed before his eyes in a confusing, maddening swirl — it had been Sirius Black doing all those things; teasing his friend James, flirting with prim and proper Lily, arguing with Narcissa.
Disassociating might have kept Jughead’s anxiety at bay, but it made Sirius Black come alive.
So, of course, once Jughead had gotten into the swing of things, the universe rained on his parade: the door slammed open, revealing two girls standing on the other side of its frame.
“Oooops,” said the shorter one, her dark hair reflecting light attractively as she stode in the room. She had not sounded particularly sorry, Jughead noticed. “Apologies, hadn’t meant to barge in quite so—”
“Veronica,” Toni cut in, as bitingly as a wolf, “you were supposed to be here half-an-hour ago!”
“That late, huh,” muttered Veronica assumingly Lodge, flipping her wrist to check the slim, diamond-encrusted watch on her left hand. “Apologies, Toni, darling, but L.A. traffic is simply odious, as you well know. Got held up.”
“By what — appearance of abominable snowman in the middle of Franklin Avenue?”
“Not quite,” Veronica replied, a sly not-quite smile settling on her face, “Betty and I—”
“Of course, you had hamstrung Cooper, too.” Toni cast a dirty look over Veronica’s shoulder at a willowy, nervous-looking blonde still hesitating in the doorway. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you there, princess.”
“Well, as I was saying, Betty and I,” continued Veronica Lodge, bulldozing over Toni completely and out of the corner of his eye, Jughead could see Call Me, Archie Andrews’s jaw unhinge a little, “were late completely by accident, but it was all my fault. Let’s just say, a Lodge doesn’t always land on their feet.
“Still, I had to amend such an insufferable grievance,” Veronica smiled, charmingly, still sly as a fox. “Imagine how tickled pink I was to learn we are not only headed into the same building, but for the same script reading—”
“To which you are late; both of you,” grumbled Toni, but she seemed to have lost most of her heat. Kevin was rubbing her shoulders soothingly as she massaged her temples. Momentarily, Jughead wondered if she was prematurely grey beneath all that pink dye.
“—long story, short: Betty here,” Veronica said, stepping back and drawing the taller girl into her side. “Is my new BFF and I love her to pieces.”
“From a five minute meeting,” Kevin asked, corner of his mouth twitching.
“Boo, you whore,” teased Veronica, earning an unexpect snort from Sabrina, “it’s love at first sight. Don’t judge.” Then:
“You there,” Veronica snapped her fingers in the direction of a fish-eyed assistant Jughead took care to ignore — she’d been making moon-eyes at him, according to Sabrina, and there were times to be wary of his cousin’s advice, but not in instances such as this one. “Fetch me a skinny venti white mocha, one shot, with two pumps of sugarfree vanilla, no whip — pronto. I can’t think clearly without my daily recommended injection of sugar and caffeine.”
Immediately, the situation dissolved into absolute bedlam as everyone clamoured for Ginger’s attention to place their coffee order, too. She’s a sly one, Jughead thought for the third time, smart, too.
Here was the thing about Jughead Jones: he was an objective observer of life, not an active participator. An introvert and a borderline misanthrope, he regarded the world from a safe distance of cool, clinical detachment — he watched and he recorded and he understood because he noticed enough to pay attention in the first place; he was perceptive, and he used this to his advantage. 
This girl, however, totally threw him for a loop.
And as if enticed by a magnetic pull, Jughead’s eyes drifted towards the leggy blonde to his right. The first thing he noticed her was this — she was uncomfortable. The second was that she was seemed nervous, displaced; and third — well, she was making her way towards him.
The girl was dressed in a diaphanous, intricately embroidered, sapphire-coloured blouse, and when she shifted to pull out her chair, Jughead could see her laced brassiere through the silk material. Unexpectedly, she sat next to him, across from a plaque reading REMMY LUPIN. She had a striking look — blue-eyed and golden-haired with a face like a porcelain doll’s; wide-eyed, lovely, and haunting in its stillness. I met a lady on a moore, Jughead though, aureate hair, refulgent eyes; a dancing, starry sprite.
“Hi,” she greeted, turning to him, face splitting into a blooming, honeyed smile, white teeth gleaming, the streaming sunlight from the window behind them set her braid into a molten blaze, “I’m Betty.”
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THE DREAMER:
“Three creams, two splenda, please.”
Betty Cooper was already running (hopefully, fashionably) late; not exactly a good first impression. She had woken up behind schedule (she had sort of fallen into the black hole that was Tumblr, recently, and had taken to staying up late); her cat, Caramel, had thrown up all over the kitchen floor. One side of her hair had dried flatter than the other — she was never going to bed straight from the shower ever again. And her uber had been running behind. Fantastic, she had uttered when finally arriving at the address given. The time on her phone alerting her that she should would have been inside already, had her morning gone accordingly, sipping on her coffee without a care in the world.
Well, that last bit was a stretch. If you asked anyone who knew her, they would say without a doubt that, Betty Cooper cared too much, about everything.
It was kind of her thing, though. Betty had a profound sense of perseverance and applied it to anyone in need of help that she came across. Polly (her older sister and recently, albeit somewhat regrettably, her manager) akined it to her being like a new mother, babying her fresh-faced ducklings. It often impeded her own desires and well-thought out plans.
Betty was a goner for a schedule. She could plan her day like nobody’s business — rarely did it ever actually go according to plan though. She would describe herself as being meticulous bordering the edge of perfectionist — Betty actually detested that word. Being in control of the situation, however, gave her life.
This was all new to her though, at least, fairly. Acting, that is.
She had been on edge of booking a flight back to San Francisco for what seemed like months. With only $200 to her name, and a can of cold soup sitting like a rock in her belly, Betty had auditioned for a role in Magic is Might. She had been failing auditions for months, her savings account was gone, and she was exhausted from working two menial jobs in order to have money to even go to auditions.
So, by all accounts, Betty figured an extra boost of caffeine was in order to make it through the whirlwind day that had been plotted ahead. A table read with her cast mates of Magic is Might, who she had yet to meet, was slotted for the whole day. As well as some promotional pictures of the group. The whole thing came together rather quickly for an HBO show, as she understood. Betty would be forever grateful that they hadn’t found anyone for the part of Remus Lupin yet.
Somehow, her name had been misspelled (she wanted to glare at Polly) and they thought it had said Elizander, on her papers. Whoever had been manning the audition hadn’t done a thorough look-through at the time and had barely looked up at her, just shooed her through the door. They seemed desperate.
To be fair, she hadn’t realized that the part of Remus was male. Of course, she had read the Harry Potter books, who hasn’t? But Polly had simply implored her to get her ass to this audition, without much else to go on.
Everyone had stared at her when she entered the room, but the guy in the middle of the group seated before her had stood up, planting his hands on the table with a loud smack.
“Excuse me, this isn’t —”
“No, excuse me, but that was incredibly rude.” A blush bloomed across her chest, streaking upwards, despite her outward display of confidence. “I’m here to audition, so let me audition before turning me away.”
It turns out that the man was Kevin Keller, one of the showrunners. Betty had desperately wanted to curl into a ball from mortification when she found out, but instead she had been engulfed in a hug while he had exclaimed “Such fire!”, and had let her do the audition.  
They had complimented her afterwards. Apparently she had an inner voice that matched Remus’s suppressed darkness à la werewolf unequivocally. They were going to change the character and rework the script for her. Betty was unperturbed usually, but she had been floored by their sentiments.
Now, granted, they had done the same thing for the character of Snape, but that was for Veronica Lodge — ex-disney starlet who had bowed out of the limelight for several years only to return and turn everyone’s heads when she demanded the part of Severus Snape.
Betty mussed her life was going to be very different from here on out (assuming the show gets picked up after the contingent episodes), but she was looking forward to not cringing every time they ran her card through a register. She loved food, and coffee was a vice she wasn’t willing to give up.
In L.A. there seemed to be a Starbucks on just about every godforsaken block, so she had been thankful there was one conveniently close to the building she was now ardently walking toward. Betty was practically jogging as she took a sip of her drink, the mouthful of cold coffee was sweet and creamy. It was really refreshing — had she not just spilled it all over her shirt when someone plowed into her shoulder, jarring the cup from her hand.
Betty had stood frozen in place, her muscles turning tense as she panicked. Of course she had worn her favorite outfit today. Her pale pink sweater was now sticking to her skin uncomfortably, but thankfully there were only a few drops on her jeans — the dark color of them would prevent a stain from being noticeable, but her sweater…
“Oh my god, fuck, I am so sorry.”
Betty looked up from where she was still staring at her coffee soaked front, hand crushing the now empty cup. She blinked owlishly at the girl who had spoken. A dark haired girl with an equally empty cup, however stain free clothes — impeccable, by the way, in front of her. Small hands covered in white lace gloves (really? The urge to roll her eyes was strong) were reaching out for her and grabbing hold of her arm, gently albeit forcefully. Betty had no choice but to be tugged along and out of the path of the ravenous L.A. goers on the sidewalk.
“It’s… fine, really,” Betty hadn’t wanted to use the word, but there wasn’t anything else on the tip of her tongue. “I’m running late to my read through anyway, I should —”
Veronica interrupted her, raising her impeccably arched brows even higher. “Read through? As in, script?”
Nodding, Betty looked up to the tall glass front building they were almost in front of. She had been so close…
“Well, I think we’re headed to the same place then. Veronica Lodge,” the raven haired girl extended her glove covered hand and Betty raised her hand that wasn’t a sticky mess to shake it. Veronica continued, “pleasure to meet you…” she trailed off and Betty interjected.
“Betty Cooper.”
“Betty, allow me to offer you a new blouse, I simply can’t let you in there like that.”
Betty had started to shake her head, fingers itching to reach up and tighten her ponytail, but alas, she realized, she had worn her hair in a loose braid that brushed the edges of her collarbone. “No, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that.” she waved a hand, tossing her empty cup into the trash bin they had stopped by.
“I insist. Come,” it wasn’t up for debate anymore, that white glove grabbing Betty’s wrist again and pulling her toward a sleek black car that was parked some spaces down. “Don’t worry about being late, if we both are then they really can’t do anything about it.“
Betty was surprised that the words didn’t sound pretentious coming from the other girls mouth, but humble. Veronica had pulled her inside the car, instructing her to pull the door closed. She hesitated before doing so, the door shutting with a soft click. She never thought being in a car alone with Veronica Lodge would ever be on her agenda, but here she was, with a collection of delicate tops spread over their laps that were distinctly not at all Betty’s style.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Her green-blue eyes examined the choices carefully, taking in the price tags still dangling from them. Her throat was dry, her swallow surely audible. Everything was more-than-her-rent expensive. Plucking the one with the smallest numbers up, a transparent (okay maybe she had made a mistake here…) sapphire-blue blouse with colorful embroidered flowers, “This one is great,” she smiled at Veronica.
“Oh, excellent choice. Can’t go wrong with Derek Lam 10.”
She scrunched her nose up, fingering the material. Veronica had leant back against the seat, arms crossed expectantly. Betty glanced around to the car windows. “You want me to change here?”
“I expect you too, yes.”
Betty sucked in a breath of courage and peeled off the stained sweater. Thankfully, her white (unlucky, she had decided) lacy bralette would be suitable underneath the barely-considered-a-shirt. She felt Veronica’s dark eyes on her, watching as she slipped the garment on over her head. Betty tugged it down gently, it only hit the top waist of her jeans.
Veronica reached out a hand to snap the price tag off, tossing it into the empty front seat. “There, oh you have to keep it, it looks perfect on you.”
The blonde smoothed a hand down her somewhat exposed stomach, wishing she were thinner or more toned. “Sure. Thanks, Veronica.”
“You’re quite welcome, darling. Nothing bores friendship quicker than the sharing of clothes and gossiping over boys. So one down, one to go.”
Betty couldn’t help the smile blooming across her face at Veronica’s words. She could use a friend. L.A. had been a lonely place the past two years, which did nothing to help her anxiety.
“Of course, I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be spending a lot of time together after all.”
The other girl smiled back, tucking glossy black hair behind her ear. “Indeed, we might as well make the best of it.” she paused, checking the fancy was fastened around her delicate wrist. “We are incredibly late now, darling. We had better hurry along before Toni sinks her teeth into us.”
Betty nodded, climbing out the car door as gracefully as she could with shaking hands. Veronica had saddled up to her side, linking their arms together as they walked. Feeling a burst of adoration for the girl Betty felt she had wrongly judged in the past (she grew up watching Disney channel, after all) she vowed not to judge any of the other actors based on the same principle.
The ease of being by Veronica’s side made her nerves calm until they were in front of the appropriate conference room door. A wicked smirk graced the raven-haired girl’s features and she disentangled their arms. A dainty platform heeled foot kicked the door in with surprising force for such a small girl.
It had Betty stepping back, hiding away from the doorframe a ways, eyes darting around the room and taking in the scene. It looks like they had already started the read through, and the ball of nerves in her stomach started to grow again.
She did not think it would ever leave her.
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tbc.
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thegreatmercutio · 4 years
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Link: https://twitter.com/getfandom/status/1199399763642220544?s=21 and https://twitter.com/variety/status/1199334432538271745?s=21 (article)
My thoughts: (these are just my opinions...mine)
Birds of Prey and Suicide Squad getting a rated R rating...YESS PLEASE!!
Birds of Prey...reshoots? That’s kinda concerning...DC doesn’t do well with reshoot news. I am rooting for this movie. Believe me, so far the “out spoken” community (mostly fanboys...ugh, the negativity there...it’s disgusting)...wants this film to fail. Many of the comic youtubers...they already...dissing this movie. Which is sad, because it’s not out yet.
The Flash...hopefully it will happen. It’s been delayed again and again.
Aquaman 2...and obviously that will be happening. And a spin off.
Also Wonder Woman 2...and Black Adam with The Rock...very excited...of course.
GREEN LANTERNS...PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...LET IT HAPPEN. I WANT HAL...I WANT JOHN STEWART...I WANT THE WHOLE CORP. PERSONALLY, A SERIES WILL BE FINE...BUT TO ESTABLISH A JUSTICE LEAGUE...we need cinematic films. But let’s hope...things work out.
HBO Max...producing their own DC Comics contents...SUPER EXCITED FOR THOSE POSSIBILITIES.
The Batman...ummmm...I am staying as open minded as I can be...since I was a kid...7 years old...he has always been my favorite...I had Barbie dolls and my Batman. I don’t give a shit about what “today’s” people opinions about him...on how overrated he is...or how he’s this and that...that’s their opinions...he’s a character that has evolved through his 80 and counting years...and how he’s interpreted is through multiple media contents written by so many individuals...so it’s all up for subjective interpretations...Robert Pattinson is not my choice. I understand that he has improved as an actor since Twilight...(I hate those movies...sorry, not sorry...I am NOT a fan of them)...and I have watched his movies afterwards and yes, he had improved...however, it’s a different game from playing an independent character from a smaller films vs. a character with 80 years of contents...to me, I read the Twilight series and I enjoyed them...personally in my opinion...he fucked up Edward Cullen, and that’s not a very complicated character to play but he was younger and inexperienced as actor...so we will see...HOWEVER, “THE NEWS” OF BATMAN’S VILLAINS GETTING THEIR OWN FILMS...YESSSSS!! I a, very excited for that. Batman has the most iconic villains...or rogue gallery out there. Imagine...Two Faces, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Posion Ivy,....please, please, please...a better Catwoman movie!...the possibilities is endless...thou, side note...please don’t waste the Arkham Asylum arc...it’s too early...established this new Batman first before overwhelming the audience especially the newer younger-Marvel raised audience who had no idea who he is and who....his rogue gallery is...we need establishments first. The Arkham Asylum is one of the best Batman comic out there.
PLEASE LET HENRY CAVILL GET ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO FINISH AS SUPERMAN...ITS TOO...EARLY...OR INCOMPLETE TO GO REBOOT ANOTHER SUPERMAN...AND PERSONALLY...LOOK, if you follow me...I am always BIG on diversity...I hate whitewashing with a WRATH...and I AM ALSO THERE FOR MORE POC LEADS...REPRESENTATIONS MATTERS...(so, don’t go twisting my words and make assumptions about my thoughts)...THERE ARE SO MANY POC and LGBTQA OF SUPERHEROES THAT DESERVES REPRESENTATIONS FROM THE COMICS...they deserve an opportunity for the mass audience to know them too...there was a time...when most people didn’t even know Thor, Loki, etc...BASICALLY, 80% of Marvel cinematic characters. Changing the Race of some very iconic characters can be very stressed....as in...they need to be willing to take on a lot of responsibilities and unfortunately a lot of backlash (and it gets ugly)...the unnecessary drama...however, it’s important to know that it works for some characters...and some just don’t...Clark Kent is a hard one, especially with his 80 plus years of contents...If Michael B Jordan in the future will be playing Clark Kent as Superman...that will be interesting...and I am open to see what... will be come of it...it’s all about the quality of the story and the performances. It will be a difficult path to go and BOLD...HOWEVER if HE PLAYS Calvin Ellis from EARTH 23...than that will be FUCKING AWESOME...BECAUSE THIS CHARACTER HAS HIS OWN ROOTS IN HIS OWN SOURCE MATERIALS WITHOUT HAVING TO LIVE UP OR UNFORTUNATELY LIVE IN THE SHADOW OF ANOTHER ESTABLISHED CHARACTER LIKE CLARK KENT. SO....I GUESS TIME WILL TELL...SIDE NOTE THOU, MICHAEL B JORDAN WOULD BE A BEAUTIFUL John Stewart...my favorite GREEN LANTERN. THAT CHARACTER DESERVES A MOVIE.
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Soundtrack of the Week 21/07/2017
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It might be a day late but it is that time. It is time for the Soundtrack of the Week, the SYRHHT blog segment where I discuss latest music releases and other projects that I listen to over the space of 7 days. So, here is the Soundtrack!
French Montana- Jungle Rules Released July 14, 2017 Label: Bad Boy Records, Maybach Music Group and Epic Records
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I am going to start off with a confession. I can count the amount of French Montana songs I have heard on one hand; I have never gone out of my way to listen to him before. I never had a major problem with him per say and I did like what I have heard but nothing really pushed me to listen to him more. Then, French released Unforgettable featuring Swae Lee (one-half of Rae Sremmurd). The song itself is wonderful, an interesting mixture of dancehall and afro-beats with Swae Lee laying down vocals that were certainly unexpected. However, what intrigued me most about this lead single was the music video and short documentary attached to it where French would go to Uganda, to embrace the culture and witness the musical and artistic talent within the African nation. It gave me a new view on the South Bronx M.C. and built an intrigue towards his upcoming project.
I walked into this project with relatively low expectations; Unforgettable was the only song I had heard and I have never heard a previous project from French Montana. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. Jungle Rules includes an impressive mixture of hip-hop, trap, dancehall and afro-beats. The rap songs are very well produced and have catchy lyrics and melodies that stick with you while the songs that feature afro-beats and dancehall themes feel genuine and it does not feel like French just appropriating these genres amidst their rising popularity in pop culture.
I will definitely say that this album was a pleasant surprise with multiple songs that could become anthems. I see Jungle Rules taking French Montana to new heights and it is certainly a top project for this year.
RATINGS
Concept: 2/5 Production: 4/5 Lyrical Content: 3.5/5 Flow and Delivery: 3.5/5 Repeatability: 4/5 Did I enjoy this project? A lot more than I thought I would Songs to Recommend? Unforgettable, A Lie, Whiskey Eyes, Hotel Bathroom, No Pressure and White Dress
Final Rating: 3.4/5
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French Montana featuring The Weeknd and Max B- A Lie I bet you were expecting Unforgettable to be on here. As a huge Weeknd fan, I had to place A Lie here. With a bumping bassline and lyrics that are difficult to not sing along to, this is a great song to follow up the uber success of Unforgettable
Tyler, The Creator- Who Dat Boy/911 Released June 30, 2017 Label: Odd Future Records, Columbia Records
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I have two more confessions I would like to say. 
I have known of Tyler, The Creator for 6 years (which is a large portion of my life unironically) but I had never been a fan.
I first learned of Tyler from a diss toward him.
Hip-hop's dead, and I'm the lucky savior I'm kinda mad and I don't wanna pile up the anger All these no-flow, gimmicky-ass, fired-up behaviors With wack beats and gap teeth like Tyler the Creator Motherfucker, you not dope So you tryna get some attention by cussin' And eatin' a fuckin' cockroach? In "Goblin"? You get no props on it It sucks so much I get blowjobs from it
Taken from Hopsin- Ill Mind of Hopsin 4
This diss placed a certain perception of Tyler which was further supported when I would go on to listen to Yonkers for the first time. The beat was strange, I was fixated on Tyler’s weird mannerisms and how he would go on to eat a cockroach, vomit and then hang himself. It was a lot to take in as a 14-year-old. Two years later, a friend of mine would recommend Tyler to me so I said “f*ck it, let me listen to him”, I would go on to listen to his albums Goblin and Wolf and once again I found it hard to get into him so after a few listens of both, I left them. What finally brought me back to Tyler, The Creator was a combination of a few things: Tyler is one of the funniest rap personalities ever and recent verses on songs that I really like. This leads to my second confession
I spent this past week listening to a majority of his discography.
Jungle Rules and the next album on this week’s Soundtrack were listened to in between listens of Tyler’s discography. In the space of this week, I have re-listened to Goblin, Wolf and listened to Bastard for the first time. This listening experience has opened my eyes to many things and I do not know how to react. 
The reason I have placed Who Dat Boy/911 here is that, aside from being the first single for his latest album, Scum F*ck Flower Boy, I did not want to break down every single project in Tyler’s discography....on the Soundtrack of the Week...
Who Dat Boy/911 consists of two tracks: Who Dat Boy and 911/Mr Lonely, the latter of which follows the trend of having a song on the project consisting of two or more songs. Who Dat Boy is an awesome back and forth between Tyler, The Creator and A$AP Rocky while 911/Mr Lonely is a dark self-reflection of a person’s loneliness and solitude. Two very strong songs that set the tone for Tyler, The Creator’s most controversial project to date (because he came out as gay?)
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Tyler, The Creator featuring A$AP Rocky- Who Dat Boy
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Tyler, The Creator- 911/Mr Lonely
Dr Dre- 2001 Released November 16, 1999 Label: Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records
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What brought around this listen of 2001 was the release of The Defiant Ones. The Defiant Ones is the HBO documentary series displaying the rise of Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine (record producer and co-founder of Interscope Records), the build of their friendship, the impact the two men had on the music industry, all the artist they have worked with and their $3 billion selling of Beats Audio. This documentary is split into four parts and includes interviews with numerous artists as well as Dre and Iovine. Part three included a montage compiled of the parallel rises of two of Interscope’s most controversial figures, Tupac Shakur of Deathrow Records and Marilyn Manson of Nothing Records. These were two men I never saw as similar but just a few minutes of vivid imagery blew my mind. I absolutely recommend everyone to watch The Defiant Ones.
Coming back to the album., 2001 is my favourite Dr Dre project...I daresay it is his very best work. To me, this was the height of Dre’s production prime, compiling a strong showing of iconic G-Funk beats and bringing together some of the best artists to not only be on Aftermath but in the entirety of hip-hop. Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Xzibit, Nate Dogg, Eminem, just to name a few of the iconic names that help shape this timeless album. While the lyrical content was controversial (I think that is the word of the day), it was a reflection of the gangsta rap that helped Dre and many of his associates make names for themselves and it has some of the most memorable lyrics ever.
There is only one problem I have with this album and I will show you with a handy diagram.
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This pie chart is a visual representation of the artists and performers who offered vocals to 2001. I would like to direct your attention to the unattached segment of this pie chart. That is the second largest segment and it belongs to an artist some people may not have ever heard of...Hiitman. 
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Aside from sharing a stage name with one of the most famous wrestlers ever, Los Angeles M.C. Hiitman is the most featured artist on 2001, one of the most famous hip-hop albums. Despite making NINE vocal appearances on this album and being signed to Aftermath in the 90s, he had not released a project until 2005, six years after the release of 2001 and long after he had already left Aftermath. Hiitman’s most famous single Last Dayz, is a song that was on the B-Side of the far more famous Forgot About Dre. What makes this worse is that Hiitman is a spectacular rapper; his flow is smooth yet methodical and he reels off strong gangsta lyrics with ease...it is a damn shame.
Still, 2001 is one of the most iconic albums in history. It would be difficult to find some who have never heard songs like Still D.R.E, Next Episode, Forgot About Dre or Xxpolsive. If you’ve never heard this album as a rap fan, you need to really question yourself.
RATINGS
Concept: 2.5/5 Production: 5/5 Lyrical Content: 4.5/5 Flow and Delivery: 5/5 Repeatability: 5/5 Did I enjoy this project? Yes...of course, I did Songs to Recommend? Still D.R.E, Next Episode, Forgot About Dre, Xxpolsive, Some L.A. Niggaz and The Message
Final Rating: 4.4/5
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Dr Dre featuring Eminem- Forgot About Dre I had to put this song. It is my favourite collab between Dre and Em, it has my all-time favourite Em verse and even though the music video version cuts the verse short, it literally acts out the words Shady was saying...it’s just amazing And the music video version even has an extract of Hiitman- Last Dayz...which is also a very good song
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