Dreams of Stardom (Hollywood SI)

SereneDreamer: So I'm officially declaring that I won't watch any more episodes of South Park. Those guys might think that comedy has no limits, but I beg to differ. Poking fun at Troy's reaction to the paparazzi is one thing, but making fun of sexual assault is not. I don't even need to remind you guys that the woman they so crudely depicted in that episode was sentenced to 33 years in prison. Fuck South Park!

LunaBliss: I agree wholeheartedly! Troy is spending millions of dollars every year to save kids from what he had to go through, and these assholes are making a joke about it! Fuck South Park!

CynicalScribe: Not to be the devil's advocate, but the episode was funny.

TroyFan_88: I don't think so. Their brand of comedy has been going downhill with each season. Now they are resorting to making fun of kids who are not even 18 yet. Fuck South Park!

SocialJusticeStan: I think you guys are overreacting. It was just a joke. I agree that it was a little mean, but that's how Trey and Matt work. It's a parody and it is perfectly legal.

LunaBliss: Just because something's been happening in a particular way doesn't mean it can never change. In Nazi Germany, atrocities were committed, and they were all 'perfectly legal' as well.

MovieBuffGeek: Damn! Did you have to bring in Nazi Germany? Although I agree with you guys. Fuck South Park!

PixelWarrior77: Fuck South Park!

DarkMatter69: Fuck South Park!

FireStarter12: Fuck South Park!

I had not said anything about the episode. At all. Yet, people had seen it and formed their opinions already. Reading my fans' words gave me confidence that I wasn't entirely wrong in doing what I was doing in retaliation.

"Is this thing on?" I looked in the camera while saying that. "Oh well. If it isn't, I'll just record another one later. I just recently came across this website called YouTube. I liked it, so I decided to upload this video here rather than go to some news channel that will probably edit out important parts from my message. I don't know if anyone will even watch it, but that's not important right now."

I looked away from the video for a moment. I was hesitant before saying the next part because if it came out dishonest or too rehearsed, my reputation would go down the gutter.

Taking a deep breath in, I turned back to the camera and continued, "Let's address the elephant in the room. Yes, I saw the South Park episode they made about me. Most of it was good and kinda funny, but there are two points I want to address about it. First, see this unedited clip of what happened a few days ago in Los Angeles."

I pressed pause for a moment. At this point in the video, I'll get Evan to add in the clip where the paparazzi took things too far by invading Rihanna's personal space. I had the video from two different angles, and I had chosen the one that showed the entire encounter from start to end.

Getting ready for the next part of the video, I said in a firm voice, "Now that you've seen the full video, let me say this thing: It is not okay to touch someone without their permission. Doubly so when a fully grown man in his 30s touches a 17-year-old minding her own business. I am not sorry for my actions, and I won't apologize for defending my girl. You can sue me if you want, but that will not change my stance about it. I will fight you all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to."

I paused the recording to take a deep breath. Hopefully, that came out well. I had decided not to script this video to give it more authenticity. I had jotted down the major points that I had to touch, but I didn't have a full script on hand.

After taking a breather, I started the recording again, "Coming back to South Park, I don't really have a problem with them making fun of me. In fact, I would say, roast me to hell and back if you want, just keep one important thing in mind: It is not funny to joke about sexual assault."

I paused a moment before continuing, "Let me rephrase: Just because I'm a guy doesn't make it okay to make a joke about sexual assault. If I was a girl instead of a boy, this episode wouldn't have been the same. And it's not like I'm making it up or that it is debatable that I was attacked."

I took another deep breath before continuing, "Matt Stone and Trey Parker, you two are great comedians, but you need to know what is okay, and what isn't. If you don't have the sensitivity about how to broach such a topic, which seems to be the case, visit the website appearing on the screen. This is a website to a foundation I started specifically for the victims of sexual abuse, and it also has many articles about what's okay, and what's not okay to say to such victims."

Now that the boring part was done, the vindictive part of my video came next. I smiled, "To my fans out there: I know most of you guys are upset with the episode. I have seen your messages online and I'm very touched that you guys are supporting me. Unfortunately, I can't do anything legally to take it down because it is a parody and is protected under free speech laws or some shit like that. However, you guys can help me. Flashing on your screens are the personal phone numbers and emails of Matt Stone, Trey Parker, the makers of South Park, and Doug Herzog, the President of Comedy Central. All you have to do is use this information liberally and let the offenders know how much the Trojan Army didn't like the episode. Peace out."

And with that, the camera was turned off for the last time of the day. I had been planning this for two days. I had been wanting to find a way to get back at Matt and Trey, but couldn't think of something that would teach them a lesson. That is until Evan joked in passing that I should give their phone numbers to my fans. On the surface, it seemed to be a bad idea, but sharing phone numbers is not considered an invasion of privacy, thus completely legal. Just like parodying someone is. If they can skirt the law to hurt me, so can I.

I didn't really mind the sexual assault joke that much if I'm honest because I understand that it was exactly that, a joke. I'm just using it because that's the easiest way to attack them publicly, or so my PR and legal team thought.

With Dad's connections, it didn't take long to get the required numbers and emails. Let's just see how devoted my fans are.

"Seriously? Trojan Army?" Evan, who had been silently watching the entire thing, asked with a raised eyebrow.

I shrugged. "Trojan is anything belonging to the city of Troy. That's why the Trojan War and Trojan Horse. I think Trojan Army is the perfect moniker for my fans given my full name."

Evan gave me a skeptical look. "Are you sure that's the direction you want to go in? Have you thought of the implications?"

"What implications?" I asked cluelessly.

Evan smiled. "No. Nothing. I'm probably overthinking it. Let me edit it for you and then we can post it."

I felt as if I was missing something but nodded nonetheless. The sooner Evan was done with it, the sooner we could post the video. Thanks to my newly acquired stake in YouTube, I'd make sure that anyone visiting the site or watching some other video would see my video at the very top of their recommended list.

(Break)

Matt Stone was a very busy man. The success of South Park opened a plethora of opportunities for him and his best friend Trey Parker. Earlier, hardly anyone would take their scripts seriously, but now they had bidding wars going on for their ideas.

At the moment, he was working on the script for the next episode of South Park. Usually, he and Trey would write jokes separately and then come together to crack them at each other's expense. That told them quickly what was a hit and what wasn't. Comedy is such a subjective thing that what one person may consider funny could be something mundane for others.

Right now, Matt was working on this amazing idea about Scientology and Tom Cruise's involvement in it. He just had a feeling that this would be their best episode to date.

That was until his phone started ringing. Seeing it was an unknown number and that he was busy writing, he ignored it. After a few moments, it went to voicemail.

He went back to writing, but the phone rang again.

He ignored it again.

After it rang for the third time, he picked it up in frustration.

"Hello?" he asked, his irritation clear.

"Is this Matt Stone?" A girl asked on the other end.

"Yes, it is."

"How dare you!" She shouted. "Making fun of child sex abuse is not funny, you creepy weirdo! You will die and go to hell!"

Before the young lady could continue her tirade, Matt ended the call. Strange. How did that girl get his phone number? And what was this about child sex abuse? He had not made fun of that ever, as far as he remembered.

But it sounded like a good topic to make fun of.

He wrote it down for another project he was working on before remembering that he still had an episode to finish. He had written only the introduction of Scientology when…

ring

ring

Matt sighed before picking up the phone. He saw that this time the phone number was different from the last one, so he accepted the call and silently put it to his ear.

It was another girl.

"You motherfucking freak! How dare you make fun of a poor child who was assaulted!? I'll fucking kill—"

Matt ended the call and put his phone down again.

ring

ring

"You will burn in the pits of hell!" the next caller, who sounded like a younger male, shouted.

Sick of the wild accusations, this time Matt didn't sit silently. "What the fuck did I do wrong?" he asked the caller in frustration. "I didn't make any jokes about any assaulted kids!"

"Two words: Troy Armitage," the boy said smugly. "We are the Trojan Army, and we will infect your life to hell and back like the Trojan virus for hurting our man Troy."

And then the boy disconnected the call.

Matt could only sit down and stare at his phone dumbly. Trojan Army? What sort of pretentious fucks would name themselves after a condom brand?

ring

ring

Matt sighed out loud before putting his phone on silent mode. He would think later about how these eighth graders got his phone number. He had better things to do in life.

He opened up his e-mail to see the last draft that Trey had sent him. The problem was that the e-mail was taking a lot longer than usual to open. When it did, Matt was surprised to see 99+ unread messages. His eyes widened.

He saw the subject of the first one, which read: Matt and Trey will burn in hell!

What the fuck is going on!? Just one joke episode about Troy Armitage led to such a public backlash? And it was one of their tamer episodes. It could have gone so far beyond what they did. Some of their initial jokes had been omitted because of that. But this reaction was unprecedented. They had received backlash before as well, but never this extreme.

Elsewhere, Trey Parker was in a similar boat. His voicemail was full, so was his inbox, and unlike Matt, he didn't even have a clue as to the reason for it all because he didn't bother asking or reading e-mails.

Similarly, the phone lines of Comedy Central and its CEO's personal phone numbers had been flooded with complaints and threats from Troy's fans.

Breaking News: Troy Armitage calls out the makers of South Park for wrongly portraying him as the villain in their show.

A female reporter appeared on the screen, saying, "Troy Armitage, better known for portraying [Harry Potter], has called out the makers of the show South Park for not doing proper due diligence before releasing the episode 'The-Boy-Who-Judo'd.' The young man of 16 has announced a full-out war against Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the makers of South Park, by releasing their personal phone numbers on his now-viral YouTube video and requesting his fans—'the Trojan Army'—to harass the two men. While I don't condone making a defamatory parody of a 16-year-old, I also think that two wrongs don't make a right. Troy should be a role model rather than using his fanbase in such a terrorizing manner to harass his opponents."

(Break)

"Expelliarmus!" I shouted while pointing my wand at Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy. Jason, playing an experienced Death Eater, swiftly stepped aside from my curse and retaliated with a silent curse of his own.

Gary Oldman stepped in front of me with his wand raised high, shielding me silently.

Then, in unison, he and I shot a dual Expelliarmus at the blonde Death Eater. Jason, who had been fitted with generous amounts of wires, went flying back and out of the frame.

"Nice one, James!" Gary grinned without even looking at me. I grinned back with enthusiasm that my godfather was happy.

"Avada Kedavra!" Helena Bonham Carter yelled in our direction, but Gary and I both ducked in time.

"Get away," Gary yelled at me. "This is my fight."

Then the two cousins, Sirius and Bellatrix, had their big fight. Without the accompanying CGI to fill out the scene, it looked quite boring in real life. Everything was fully choreographed. Each movement, dash, punch, kick—everything. It took away the spontaneity of the scene, but it was a beautiful thing to watch nonetheless.

"That's all you got?" Sirius mocked the mad black sister. "I know you can do better."

Bellatrix shot a dark curse at Sirius, which he sidestepped, but Bellatrix had anticipated that and shot another one at him, right where he was standing at the moment. And just like that, Sirius went flying through the veil of death.

I stood there for a few moments, unable to grasp the reality.

"Sirius?" I called out. When no answer came, I yelled louder, "SIRIUS!" Then I ran toward the veil to save him somehow.

I was intercepted by Remus Lupin. I yelled and thrashed against him with all my might to somehow reach the veil and save Sirius, but Remus' grip was tight. I broke down completely in his arms as the reality of the situation dawned upon me. I would never see him again. All because of one person. Bellatrix fucking Lestrange!

All my sadness turned into rage within moments. I got out of Remus' grasp and ran toward Bella.

"I killed Sirius Black," she sang happily as she ran in front of me.

"CRUCIO!" I yelled, pointing my wand at her. She stumbled and fell down. The spell hadn't worked correctly, but it had worked enough to make her falter. She knelt on the ground and looked up at me uncertainly as my wand was trained on her. My face was full of rage, about to cast some of the worst spells, until I heard the voice…

"Cut!"

After a few moments, Helena Bonham Carter got up on her feet and walked over to me. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I frowned. "Why would I not be?"

"You're still scowling at me," she pointed out. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you want to kill me for real."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. "Sorry. Got too invested in the role. This is my favorite scene in the books, and I wanted to do it justice."

"Understandable," Helena nodded with a small smile. "Just don't get too lost in it."

I nodded silently.

"Troy," Tobias walked up to me and interrupted our conversation. "There are a few people here who want to meet you." He looked decidedly uncomfortable with whatever was going on.

"Can't you see we are shooting?" I said with slight irritation. "Rian hasn't even approved the shot yet."

Tobias shifted uneasily on his feet. "It's Matt Stone and Trey Parker."

All my bad mood about the intense scene evaporated as I resisted the urge to laugh at that sudden turn of events.

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