#i get the vibe that for paul it’s a bit ‘out of sight out of mind’

[franklyimissparis]

“if paul was bisexual/queer why wouldn’t he just come out by now?” why WOULD he tbh 😭😭 like idk i just think at 81 years old it’s probably not something PR man paul particularly feels the need to share publicly

[justnatoka]

Late night snack

Paul x GN! Reader

A/n: Guys, I'm down bad for this man😩

Word count: 1.1k

Warning: slight nsfw themes (minors dni), a lot of sexual tension, allusions to smut, but nothing too explicit, Paul being a delicious looking mf

Prompt: "Is that my shirt?"

One person wearing their lover's clothing with a little spin on it. ;)

Hearing knocking on your window in the middle of the night wasn’t an unusual occurrence. It came with having a vampire for a boyfriend. So when the familiar noise interrupted your lazing-around-in-bed-staring-at-the-ceiling-listening-to-music-and-vibing session, you weren’t even surprised. Getting up, you strolled over to the window, and upon opening it, you were met with the grinning and blood covered face of your handsome lover.

“Boy, you are a messy eater,” you marveled at the sight. “Come on in, but watch the carpet.”

Paul climbed into your room, carefully navigating around to not smear any remnants of his dinner onto your stuff. His eyes took in your figure as you turned your back to him. His hungry gaze roamed over your bare legs, his stomach twisting in excitement as he caught a glimpse of your underwear peeking out from under the oversized T-shirt when you plopped back down on your bed.

“Cute pj’s, babe. Maybe I should come over more often if you greet me like this every time,” he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Maybe I will let you see more,” you flirted right back, positioning in a way that rid your shirt further back up, showing off more of what was underneath. It earned you an audible groan. “But only if you take a shower first. I’m sorry, Paulie, but you reek of death.”

He looked at you like a kicked puppy, lips pouting and everything.

“I don’t even get a greeting kiss?”

You rolled your eyes affectionately. “Fine, come here, you big dork.”

His beautiful face lit up as he almost pounced on you, only stopping because you held out your hands, barely avoiding a disaster.

“I swear to god, Paul, if you get blood all over the sheets you don’t get anything tonight.”

Your warning had an instant effect on him. Now being much more careful, he leaned forward, and you cupped his face between both hands as you pressed soft kisses on his lips. His hands made their way to your bare thighs, supporting his weight on them, fingers digging into your flesh. You let out a sigh as he licked your lower lip, allowing him entrance and deepening the kiss. You were practically panting by the time he finally drew back and let you breathe, his heated gaze boring into your own, before a cheeky grin made its way onto his face.

“You know, you could join me in the shower.” Your face flushed at the mental image, and you forced your thoughts to stop before they could run away with you.

“A tempting offer, but maybe another time,” you patted his cheek. “I have to take care of your clothes.”

He looked down at them, seemingly only now realizing what a mess they were. “Oh.”

“Go ahead, the bathroom is the second door to the right. Just leave your clothes outside on the floor,” you instructed. “There are towels under the sink, and you can use my shampoo.”

He turned back from your bedroom door.

“Then at least everyone will know I’m yours, if I smell like you.” He sent you a wink and disappeared down the hall, leaving you dumbstruck and beat red.

You pressed your hand to your cheek, feeling how hot you got. “Damn, you’ll be the death of me one day.”

When you heard the slamming of the bathroom door and the shower turning on, you made your way over there to pick up the bloody clothes lying on the floor. Through the sound of rushing water you could faintly make out a tune, realizing that Paul was humming a song from a band you introduced him to. You stood there and listened for a bit with an endearing smile on your lips, wondering how the hell you managed to score such an amazing guy. Humming soon turned into off-key singing, and you chuckled to yourself, finally deciding to get on with your task.

After chucking his clothes into the washer, you first cleaned up the blood he got all over your floor, a trail leading from your window to the puddle in front of your bathroom door. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that there were smears on your skin as well, signs of your earlier makeout session. You made sure to thoroughly wipe those down too.

The washing machine just finished when you heard the bathroom door open and Paul making his way into your room. You put his stuff into the dryer, then went to see what he was up to. The sight that greeted you made you stop in the doorway, your breath caught in your lungs.

Paul stood next to your open closet, towel sinfully low around his waist, his clean, freshly dried hair cascading down his back in fluffy waves and sticking up at odd angles around his face. With hands on his hips and head adorably tilted, he seemed deep in contemplation as he surveyed your clothes, a few of them already lying discarded on the floor by his leg. But it was the realization of what he was wearing that made you bite your lip, unable to tear your gaze from the view.

“Is that my shirt?”

His head perked up at your voice, blue eyes locking with your own. One side of his mouth curled upward as he turned to you, letting you take in all of him. He was wearing one of your T-shirts, the fabric pulling tight around his shoulders and on his chest, the poor thing entirely too short to cover all of his torso, showing off the lower part of his stomach and the little happy trail leading down under the towel. You were practically salivating.

Your eyes met his and he chuckled at the look on your face.

“See something you like?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

Instead of answering, you strode over to him, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him down into a hungry kiss. Your hands got lost in his hair, tugging lightly on the strands, making Paul moan into your mouth.

“You know, you’re not making it easy for me not to just eat you up when you’re such a snack,” you purred as you separated for some air.

“Who said I had any intention to stop you?” His husky tone made goosebumps rise up on your skin.

“Oh, you’re bad.”

“Only for you, babe.”

He giggled as you tackled him onto the bed, making fast work in ridding him of the towel, but leaving your shirt, not entirely ready to let go of such a sight yet. Needless to say, his wish about a shared shower was granted afterward.

[santiagonex]

I can’t sleep. Let’s talk about the four sacred top fives of 2022 as in top 5 gay movies, top 5 gay tv ships (or shows as whole), top 5 short gay movies and for the next one, let’s change it up a little bit and I’ll provide you with top 5 upcoming gay movies (2023) I’m looking forward to and are currently in the process of pre-production, production or post-production.

Top 5 Gay Movies of 2022

5. La Santa Piccola - very different from your usual gay movies, but the scenery is gorgerous and the story made me feel things 4. Badhaai Do - amazing queer representation in Indian Cinema, "gay guy and a lesbian woman enter into holy matrimony to appease their families”... just pure comedy and romance and the friendship is beautiful 3. Fire Island - a classic rom-com, must-see 2. In from the Side - rugby gays, affair, romance... all of that 1. Sublime - since it’s finally available on VoD, I had a chance to watch it this weekend and the soundtrack and story got me... Mi mejor amigo vibes but actually gay

Top 5 Gay Ships/TV Shows of 2022

5. Heartstopper - a classic, it was honestly hard to rate the shows because they’re all equally brilliant in my eyes 4. Heartbreak High - australian Sex Education, obsessed 3. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself - magic, witches, gays... c’mon 2. Prisma - very important show 1. Patrick/Iván in Élite - they’re literally everything to me, if you get it you get it, if you don’t you don’t, if you know you know and if you don’t know I honestly feel bad for you like I literally cannot explain it, I don’t have the vocabulary to sit here and explain like either you get the vibe or you don’t

Top 5 Gay Shorts of 2022

5. Catalina - a queer man and his two childhood best friends reunite for a weekend camping trip on Catalina Island... could there be sumn more? 4. Too Rough - Nick wakes up next to his boyfriend Charlie and must conceal him from his own homophobic and dysfunctional family... very sad 3. Jean est tombé amoureux - two football players of opposite teams falling in love... mm very good! 2. Swim - two swimmers develop a strong friendship during their weekly sessions, but their relationship is tested outside the pool, when true identities are revealed... this one fawked me up good 1. Hard - Mikey experiences awkwardness and struggles to navigate the uncertainties of his sexuality after his first time with a girl doesn't go as expected, forcing him to confront his feelings of desire for his best friend... this was so much fun to watch

Top 5 Upcoming Gay Movies in 2023

5. The History of Sound - Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor in a gay romance period drama? We’re looking forward to that actually! Anyways, they were supposed to film it this year, but they had busy schedules. Current plan is next year. Also Paul was hanging out with the director last month, so maybe something’s cooking. 4. Glitter & Doom - described as a summer romance musical feature told with the iconic tunes of folk duo Indigo Girls. Film follows a musician who wears charisma as camouflage and a carefree guy about to run away with the circus as they fall in love at first sight. Sounds fun. 3. Nuovo Olimpo - any Ferzan Özpetek fans? Any Manuel from Un professore fans? Well, looks like we won. Period drama set in Italy, following two men who have a chance encounter and then fall deeply in love, and then are torn apart. The film then follows them both over the next decades as they attempt to find each other again. 2. Strangers - yes, another one with Paul Mescal... yes, I’m crazy. And hi Andrew Scott. Directed by Andrew Haigh (Weekend, HBO’s Looking). Word on the street is that their characters will be romantically involved since Mescal's character corresponds to a woman who has a romance with the protagonist (Scott) in the original novel. We will be tuning in. 1. Bonus Track - film set in 2006, follows a small-town boy with dreams of being a gifted musician. When the son of an iconic musical duo enrols at his school, a powerful bond between the boys begins to grow. Based on an original story by Josh O'Connor (yes, him) and Michael Gilbert.

Anyways, that is it. There are a lot of movies that weren’t released THIS year yet, and I’m looking forward to them (Punch, Aristotle and Dante, Spoiler Alert,...). But I would be just repeating myself, so I’m not gonna talk about that.

[rookie-critic]

Fast X (2023, dir. Louis Leterrier) - review by Rookie-Critic

Here we are... at the beginning of the end of the road. This, for better and for worse, might be the fastest and most furious of the films to date in the sense that you are being constantly bombarded with cameos, callbacks, crazy action, and cars for the entire 2-1/2 hour runtime. This means that anyone who isn't already familiar with the intricacies of the character relations of the franchise at this point will most assuredly be lost during a good portion of the film. Which isn't necessarily a knock against it, what do you expect from the tenth (eleventh if you count Hobbs & Shaw, which you should) installment in a franchise. We're neck deep and sinking at this point. Chances are if you're still with it this deep into the story, you know what you're getting yourself into and you're in it for the long haul, and I most certainly am. As a new convert into the Fast & Furious cult, I love these things. They're dumb, largely nonsensical, and overly sentimental to a fault, but those are all pieces of this messy web of a puzzle that endear the fans to it, myself included. Fast X is no different, it gives you everything you've come to love about and expect from the franchise, but as far as where it ranks amongst everything, I'd put it more towards the middle of the pack. Yes, it is very fun and I will talk about the things that I liked in a bit, but it also has a lot of issues that are impossible to ignore.

The first, and biggest, detriment to the film is the Justin Lin-shaped hole in the director's chair. Longtime Fast & Furious director Justin Lin (who directed Tokyo Drift, 4, 5, 6, and 9) takes a backseat in this one, opting to just be a co-writer on the film, and the style of the film suffers greatly as a result. This film just looks strange. Obvious and poorly constructed green screen backgrounds are used in places they have no business being in, lines of dialogue have been noticeably dubbed in during post-production, and the entire vibe of the visual style feels very non-Fast & Furious. It just doesn't mesh visually with any of the previous films. Also, and this is a problem I had with the eighth film, too, they never really give a good reason as to why Brian (Paul Walker's character) isn't there. Yes, I understand that Paul Walker is dead in real life, but Brian is 100% still very much alive in-universe, and everything the fans know about who he is as a character knows that he wouldn't be sitting by and allowing this to happen to the people that he loves. In F9, the story of the film allowed a pathway for a very reasonable and believable excuse for his absence, and this film just didn't have it. Fast X also continues the time-honored tradition of this franchise having next to no clue about how to use Mia (Jordana Brewster's character) effectively. She's almost always a part of the top-billed cast, and she's almost always relegated to a glorified cameo appearance. Outside of the first film, 4, 5, and 9 are the only ones that have been able to use Mia effectively (I would like to point out that those are all Lin-directed entries). She's an interesting character, and I'm tired of seeing her get sidelined. All of this on top of the fact the the story of this movie feels a lot like setup for the actual endgame that will happen in the next two films and not like an actual film story in its own right.

However, even with all of that, the movie is still insanely fun, and a lot of this is due to Jason Momoa. The villains in this franchise haven't ever been the strong points of each installment. Most of the time, they're are a template of a stereotypical, hyperbolic bad guy archetype with little personality and next to no motive. Momoa's character, on the other hand, has a motive and more personality than this movie even knows what to do with. He's Marvel's Kingpin mixed with Heath Ledger's Joker à la Fast & Furious and it's a pretty marvelous sight to behold. He injects so much fun and humor into the film that we might have lost otherwise as a result of the central family being split up for the entire film. We get Tyrese's Roman Pierce bringing the comedic relief to his sequences, and in the scenes that focus more on what Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto is up to, Momoa steps in to pick up the slack (not to mention the pieces of the film following John Cena's Jakob Toretto, who fits like a glove into this franchise). On that note, the segmented nature of this film is handled way better than any time this kind of thing has happened in previous installments. We're following three or four storylines at any given moment in the film, and, for me, it never once felt disjointed. We also get some classic Fast & Furious car-action setpieces (including one truly inspired sequence involving a gigantic bomb rolling its way towards the Vatican) that fully deliver on the promise these movies have set up for the fans. It's not without some heavy issues, but I gotta say, there's something about these movies that is just infectious, and even the worst installments have redeeming qualities that keep me coming back for more.

Score: 7/10

Only in theaters.

[gayleviticus]

I think the Gospel of John is the book of the bible which has changed most to me over the years without my objective understanding of it having changed. like, I read the pastoral differently knowing they probably weren't written by Paul, I read Revelation differently knowing its probably a coded drama about Rome and persecution (but that nonetheless has timeless things to say about God's justice and human empire and martyrdom and the eventual coming of Christ and new creation), I read the Pentateuch differently knowing all about Jahwist and Priestly source and blah blah blah.

And there's a little bit of that w John - mainly, the fact it seems to be one of the more recent gospels that reinterprets the life of Jesus thru the lens of the Christian community at the time and its painful divorce from Judaism (like John has people being exiled from the synagogue for believing in Jesus as the Messiah, which historically speaking seems a bit premature).

But I think mainly just the vibes feel different to me now than they used to. I haven't unlocked a secret historical understanding of John; it just has this almost melancholy, spiritual loneliness to it at times to me.

Instead of the monster of the week episodic exorcisms and healings of the synoptics we get a carefully chosen sequence of miracle stories that escalate quite dramatically into the plot to kill Jesus; his relationship to the Pharisees is quite consistently one of being persecuted and threatened w violence rather than them being more equal rivals throughout the synoptics; instead of parables and moral teachings he goes on long and honestly confusing speeches that make him out to be someone truly mysterious and otherworldly.

He speaks at length of returning to the Father and his kingdom not being of this world, and yet there are also very tender moments of love and human connection - the frivolous joy of turning water to wine at Cana, weeping at Lazarus' grave, Mary and Martha's honest accusation that 'if you had been here Lord, he would not have died', washing the disciples feet, 'I have not lost any of those you have given me', 'having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end' 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends', 'I no longer call you servants, but friends'.

there's an interesting depth and ambiguity to John I find, almost. The synoptics are a bit like the weekly episodic adventures of Jesus - the happy, golden years of Jesus' ministry marred by a horrific tragedy that breaks out into resurrection. There's room for countless more stories on the road to Jerusalem of bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and sight to the blind.

Whereas John feels a bit more like the miniseries, or even movie version- denser, tighter.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

AAH promo time 😬😬

OHHH NOOOO

Wait he better not blame TK for this :O >:OO

Not mad at Carlos mad at the writers XDD

That better get sorted before he leaves

Oh nooo 😭😭 Carlossss my poor boy :'(((

Themm <33

OPE oh no a body :o :(( 😬😬

I don't think it will be

😬😬😬 hey 126 :'))

That crying smiley's for me trying to smile xdd

Ahh okay so Owen's fine too that's good lol

We know he ain't kidnapped if he's here XD

AAAHHHHH

Nah there's no way

😭😭😭 Oh NOOOO Carlosss 😭

Nah nah she gotta be alive she gotta be xdd

I don't think that's her <33

It BETTER NOT BE anyway >:((((

A H okay xddd

I live in fear :')

That's the last of my last thoughts, now it's time for the. . .

REVIEW

I absolutely LOVED this episode!!! I thought it was amazing :DD. It was super funny lol, but it had some really great heartfelt moments throughout too! And some other stuff too, like drama o.o 👀👀. It's 40 minutes later since I was catching up on my liveblogging and I'm STILL freaking out lol. I was heating up some food and I was literally like "I am having so many thoughts about blorbos" while staring hauntedly in the distance XDD.

Lol, anyways, time for the individual bits!

I was missing Paul, Mateo, and Marjan this episode 😭😭. Ever since the beginning lol (not like they were missing which they were but I mean I miss them xD) - I don't think we saw them once after that call XDD. But, hey, at least they were awesome during the short time we did get to see them :D. The rescue was really cool!! With Marjan of course being awesome lol. And good on Paul for finding the route!! And Mateo, I love you 🥰. Lol, I don't think he did anything specific, sorry bud XD. Anyway, yeah, they're my babeys and I love them :)).

Same for Nancy - I love her lol. But, at least we got to see more of her this episode :D. Than the others lol - not bc her over them or whatever but yk. I mean, it was still only one scene, but it was basically two, so it was long, and she spoke a lot more than the others xD. Anyway lol, she is of course an icon 🥰🥰. We got her and TK siblings content :DD; amazing as always. And, we got her and Tommy content!!! Also amazing as always :DD. Her making fun of Tommy for this whole situation is the funniest thing ever XDD.

Grace and Judd!! My lovelies 🥰🥰. I love Grace trying to get Tommy to let herself have this, but also for supporting her either way. And giving her a little nudge when she treated the poor guy like that XDD. Plus, in her calls, she was of course amazing :)). She was, as always, an icon <333. Also I love how Judd was just there lol, at the dinner XD. Man was just vibing, had no idea what was going on (not that he knew it) and he did not care lol (though again, he didn't know XD). Amazing lol, an icon <33. And of course for the rest of the time too 🥰🥰.

Plus, AAAH, Charlie sighting!!! My little girl 🥰🥰🥰. Her <333, your honor :'DDD :)) ❤️❤️❤️. I love them (their family) so much :')) <3333.

Anyway, Tommy! And the reverend guy lol. I should really know his name xdd. Anyway XD! Their scenes were HILARIOUS lol! I was just dying this whole episode XD (and at some bits from the drama). Plus, her conversation with Owen? Pure gold, lol. Anyway, it was fun seeing her off-kilter lol :). We only really see it concerning her love life, and I think it's fun :D. And clearly, funny XD. But I think her conflict over the whole situation was completely valid - that's something kinda crazy XD. I'm glad she went with it in the end though :)). Even if she invited the poor man over for a group dinner under false pretenses XD. This poor guy lol. But, AAHHHH THAT KISS!!! THEY KISSED!!! :DDDDD Good for them :)). I'm really interested to see where their relationship goes in the future! I think it'll be a fun journey to watch :D.

And can I just say again that I'm so glad we got rid of Julius 😭😭😭. XD As a love interest, that is. Although imagine if he shows up at some point and it's awkward- o.o . Hmmm, interesting 👀👀. Anyway, lol.

Owen timeee!! I really enjoyed his plot this episode! It almost had some really hilarious moments XD. Just a second ago I was thinking about how funny the episode was and somehow I completely forgot about him for a second lol. Anyway, this plot is really interesting!! I really think Sergeant O'Brien's undercover. They like misdirects and what not (apparent from that promo - I ain't believing that's Iris XDD), and I just think they wouldn't throw this in here. Plus, he covered for Owen, he just didn't want him coming back. But hey, they also like drama lol, so who knows! It's certainly interesting, though 👀. Anyway, I'm nervous for where this is gonna go, and Owen 😬😬. I mean I'm sure he'll be fine, but yk, I guess how everything's gonna down with him wrapped up in this lol. I definitely think it's gonna be interesting, and he's not gonna stop trying to stop them - be that by request of the FBI or not. Also, I'm just wondering where O'Brien took him 👀. I was kinda joking to myself that imagine he goes missing as well as Iris XD (while I was talking about O'Brien saying let's go when catching up on my liveblog lol, so I'd already seen the ending), but then I remembered that he's in the promo. Given said promo though, it looks like we'll be picking right up after the end of this episode, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get a scene near the beginning between Owen and O'Brien, wherever he took him. Idk though! Also, OWENNN STOP MAKING ENEMIESSS 😭😭 XDD. Bro walks in as undercover and calls people Nazis lol - like I respect it, but man, you're on a secret mission xD. Also "as undercover" is kinda a weird way to say it but idk it kinda makes sense so we're going with it xD. Anyway, lol!

Now, of course:

TK and Carlos :DD - and Iris, of course :). If you'll excuse me, ahem, AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! XDD. Y'all how dare they do this to me 😭😭😭😭. The DRAMA this episode!! Though lowkey I loved it lol. The drama, but also the plotline and episode as a whole xD. Anyway, let's go in chronological order here lol - TK doing the rescue with Marjan 🥰🥰🥰. Amazing, 10/10 lol. But genuinely, I thought that was really cool :D. AAAAHHHHHHHH that scene with Iris! Oh and of course TK stressing beforehand (😭 <3 my heart - just like Carlos is TK's hAURGH-), them being sweet 🥰🥰🥰, and Carlos's joke lol. We wanted TK to make those jokes but I'll definitely take Carlos lol - I didn't think he would XD. But I do think he was mostly trying to make TK laugh lol. Not quite accomplished but hey, he tried XD. Presumably lol. Anyway! Back to the scene with Iris lol. It was. H I L A R I O U S XDDD. Dude, possibly the funniest of the entire episode lol. Maaaaybe Tommy and what's his face talking at the station, or her asking Owen for help, but idk lol XD. Anyway, I've said most of my thoughts on the first half of this scene already because of the promo, but I'll say them here - especially now that we have everything xD. No, I don't think Iris was out of line with the questioning; we knew she was blunt and so did they, it may have come off as a bit rude but she wasn't trying to be. And also, just- Carlos supporting TK :'D. He loves Iris, obviously, and he wasn't against her or anything, but those little looks of reassurance, saying "Yes, don't worry about it, it's okay" :'))). Amazing <3. The tarlos body language and expressions in that scene was just 😭😭. Amazing, thank you Ronen and Rafa :'DDD. Continuing on! AGH I wish Iris would've been more clear about the papers, but I'm assuming she didn't know she was gonna go with annulment yet. Still 😑. It was funny though, I'll give her that xD. But tarlos going :DDD!! And then :D? And then -o- XDDD amazing lol. Also Carlos saying that they love each other and that's all that matters - stop 😭😭❤️❤️❤️. And not that I don't want them to get married, far from it, but Iris is kinda right in that they basically already are. Still, though, everything's gonna change for me when they get married 🥰🥰🥰. Not that anything actually will but idk, it's just different XDD. When they want to get married, anyway lol. But yeah, amazing scene 🥰🥰🥰.

Okay I was gonna try and hurry this up but clearly that's not happening XD. I just wanna get through everything without it being TOO long, lol. But, eh, whatever, let's just roll with it xD. Now, I'd already seen it mentioned in an interview, but I love love LOOOVED what TK said about getting legally married. He's so right - they (we) fought for rights for so long, and he definitely wants everyone to know that they did, and that he and Carlos got married :'DDD. It's also super sweet :'))). And of course, love him and Nancy <3. Especially since she suggested talking to Iris :p - because I definitely don't think it's TK's fault she went missing XD. And it did bring about the angst of knowing what she meant with exactly what she expected, but otherwise it would've been later angst or just the unknown, and this meant that we found out about the annulment sooner :DDD!! Bc I'm sure she would've told them eventually, she had to XD. Anyway, TK being so adamant about his love for Carlos - STOPPPP I'M DEAD 😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️. It was just so amazing :'D. Like I said, they're giving us plenty of dramatic love declarations, and I think it's making up for the storyline /hj /lh XDDD. But seriously, I love them <33. The declarations, but also Tarlos :D. And TK saying "he's mine" 👀👀👀. Aight, I see you XDD. And even though obviously Iris isn't jealous or anything (thank GOODNESS, I would've hated that), we love to see it :DDD. I think he deserved it 😌😌. And it was iconic too, lol. Plus, I saw it on the subtitles and I was like o.o but I did NOT expect it to be that intense lol - TK said it even more intensely than I thought he would, and it was awesome lol xD :D >:D. Anyway, AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH AN ANNULMENT 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎊🎊. THANK GOODNESS!!!! And hey, now all the people who've been wondering why it hasn't been can be satisfied lol. It was just for the drama XD. But like, AAAHHHH!!! A) we don't have to go through the drama (just like all that it involves) of a divorce, and B) aGH yes, TK deserves to be Carlos's first and last husband 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️. That is amazing :'))). Also, of course, it's great that that was the reason she wouldn't sign lol. But you could've said it earlier girl XDD. Jk lol, I know it was for the drama and I can respect that lol - I'm the one watching the drama show, after all xD. But anyway! YESSSSSSSS!!! Also that hug was so cute 😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️🥰🥰. Now xdd. The angsty, dreaded bit lol (not really, just kinda 😭😭 now the angstttt agh feelings lol). Then of course, TK had to ask what she meant 😭😭😭 xD. I mean, I'd rather this then it just be left forever lol, unknown, or that it comes out later, but still xD. And like TK's face and his voice in that scene 😭😭😭. AGH I don't deserve it xdd. It was nice that Iris said they were more :'D, and life long project is KINDA sweet, but not really 😭, girl, wrong words XDDD 😭😭😭.

And then of course, that brings us to that last scene with TK and Carlos. Though, not the last one of one of them lol - we'll be there in a minute xD. Finally, we're back to Carlos lol - no offense TK, it's just been a hot minute. I was like "wait I'm not talking about Carlos at all in the tarlos section, not for a while anyway" lol. Anyway! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔😭😭😭😭😭😭😭. Y'all that S C E N E!!! I did not deserve that 😭😭. I did not come here to be ATTACKED, have angst about my boys thrown in my face like that 😭😭. Luckily it wasn't really and "I relate" kind of attacked, but still lol. Anyway, TK SAYING MAYBE THIS MARRIAGE IS A BAD IDEA 😭😭😭❤️. Sir how dare you xdd. I don't deserve that lol /lh. And Carlos's "That surprised me." XDD. But seriously, the domesticity 🥰🥰🥰🥰. With TK looking like the most heartbroken man ever in the foreground xdd. Kinda ruining my vibe, man XDDD, lol /j. Anyway, it was such a good scene 😭😭😭😭. The vulnerability, the comfort <333. Them and their weird sitting positions xD. I do wish we saw a bit more of a conversation, but having just re-watched it to see what I thought, I'm feeling better about it :). I still would've liked it little more, but TK did seem to be feeling better by the end :)). And I feel like "You're a hot mess. But you're my hot mess" is kinda proving that Carlos doesn't see him as a project - he loves TK, hot mess and all, and isn't trying to fix him. Like I said, I do think it could've been a bit better (and we may see a bit more about it in the future, but I doubt next episode with everything going on, and idk about the likelihood after that - still, it's possible), but I really loved the scene, so I can move past it :D. Oh and also, totally different times, but "He's mine" and "You're my hot mess" 😌😌😌👀. Cinematic parallels XD. Anyway, Carlos saying "the day I met you" 😭😭😭 :')) I knew it <333. I suspected he would say that lol. And also those KISSES AAAGH!! They were so tender and sweeeet 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰😍😍. And TK's little "Shut up" and "I hate you" xddd, he is adorable your honor <333. Also Carlos's little "yeah" as he leaned in to kiss TK again reminded me of 3x04 🥰. And about the conversation itself, I like how Carlos explained it - he didn't marry Iris because she was broken (not that she was showing signs of schizophrenia at that point - which I only say because TK specified, and I'm glad he did so that Carlos could point that out. It's something I feel like needed to be said), he married her because he was. Or. thought he was, anyway - and he found out he wasn't when he met TK. Like. Y'all. 😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️. That is the most adorable heartwarming thing xdd. Also, it's another thing that's actually answering TK - Carlos wasn't broken, and neither is TK. I only fully registered that as I was writing this lol xD. But yeah, I love that :')). Anyway, then the CALLLL AHHHHHHH 😭😭😭. By the way I think TK starts looking slightly concerned there (I think so, you can just barely see it - I might judt be reading into things though lol XD maybe it's just the remnants of his sad boy face xDD), which just- augh 😭❤️. Oh, also, I figured while watching that Carlos would figure out or ask (or both if TK was cagey lol) what brought this on, and I was s bit confused when he didn't. But, having seen the promo, I now see it's for the drama :D lol. It wasn't strictly necessary he realize there, but it does make room for the drama of him finding out/figuring it out (again, probably a mix, unless they find out she was seen with a man who'd never been at her place of work before earlier in the day lol, and had a description or something XD - as in Carlos might figure it out lol) next episode :). So, it would've been easier now, but even though I'll probably scream and shake and throw up and die, I love me some angst so I'm glad we get it next time :D. Hey, at least we get to see it lol. I'll take that with Tarlos XDD (not that they're particularly bad about that, show wise I mean, but yk lol. I'm pretty much that way with any of my ships XD). Anyway, I loved this scene <333. It was adorable 🥰🥰🥰🥰.

Lastly, the final scene 😬. AAAHHHHHH IRIS IS MISSING!! Also how dare he call her Carlos's wife 😤. Lol, I'm mostly joking xD. Too bad they couldn't have been the annulment papers left in there, though xd. Also, Carlos just looks in shock this whole scene 😭😭😭. Or most of it, anyway. And the way he looks up immediately when that guy said Iris's name - :((((. She doesn't deserve this 😭😭. And he doesn't either :'((. I hope she's okay <333. Anyway! I have absolutely no idea as to who took her, but given that in the promo we saw Carlos carrying someone while in uniform and it might have been Iris (I don't remember but I think some people said it was), and we've also seen him get hit over the head, I'm wondering if whoever it was gets Carlos but Iris is kept somewhere else. Idk! I'm also wondering if they specifically have a fridge against Iris or they were just kidnapping people ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠∵⁠ ⁠)⁠┌. Although I will say, Carlos's comment made me think: "She used to be one of them". Iris's case will probably not be taken too seriously since she has a history of mental illness and disappearance. That would add extra reasoning to why Carlos is immediately going to search for her - there's a good chance she's not very high on the priority list. And speaking of a history of mental illness - she was taken without her meds, most likely. So, if she, for example, were the one to hit Carlos, I wouldn't be surprised. Or at least, it would make sense. Not only would (I imagine) her schizophrenia symptoms would return, but it is Not a good idea to go off meds suddenly. So, idk! It'll certainly be interesting though :O.

But yeah, it was heartbreaking 😭😭😭💔💔. I imagine next time will be even worse xd. Even just in the beginning, lol, from Carlos - the promo definitely makes it seem that way xD. Speaking of the promo, I think he may half-blame TK in the heat of the moment, but TK will realize it's just because Carlos is scared and emotional, and that they'll leave that behind before Carlos leaves. Also, since that's almost definitely the same night as the end of this episode, Ronen saying that still was Episode 3 and not Episode 2 makes more sense now xD. I was like "huh, yeah, Carlos can repeat shirts I guess lol", even though the next episode would be kinda soon, but this makes sense XD. I may have vaguely considered that they were just super close together in time, but eh lol, I didn't think about it for that long xD. Anyway, I loved TK and Carlos this episode :DDDDD :')))) 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🥰😍😍. Also Iris 🥰🥰🥰❤️❤️. Loved her too :DD. And all three of them together - that was fun lol :D. Anyway, t h e m <333.

Overall, I absolutely loved this episode!! I thought it was really great, and it was just SO FUNNY XDD. But, it definitely had a lot of drama too! Overall just a really eventful and good episode :). I did miss seeing more of the 126, but I'm sure we'll see more of them next time :). Though I imagine it'll be largely focused on Iris, with maybe some of Owen's storyline. Still, we know they're there for the rescue (or whatever you would call it)! Anyway, the calls (call?) today were amazing :D. I just checked, it was only the one xD. Besides Grace's side of that 9-1-1 call lol. But, to be fair, it (the real call) was 10 minutes long, so it makes sense that there was only one xD. Anyway, it was cool :DDD. Plus, Marjan being lowered from a helicopter!!! It was cool, and bringing in O'Brien (plus him owing Owen a drink) set it up nicely for him to show up at the Honor Dog's bar. Well played! Anyway, all the storylines were amazing, and I'm excited to see where they lead :). I'm also very scared for next episode! Less of an immediate conflict thing, more just :(( and I hope Iris is gonna be okay. She better be, lol xD. But yeah, I'm a little nervous for the tarlos bit at presumably the beginning, but I don't think it'll be too bad. Mostly when I say I'm scared I just mean I'm tense and stressed, about next episode but also the situation as a whole lol. Still, I think it's gonna be amazing!!

So, yeah! I really loved this episode. It was so funny, which balanced the drama. I'm super interested in seeing what happens next! This has been my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 2: The New Hot Mess

It was so good! I'm really excited for the next one, if a bit scared. I'll be back next time for my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 3: Cry Wolf

See you next week!

[fantastickkay]

Album Review of the Week: Paul Revere & the Raiders - Just Like Us! (1966)

Just Like Us! is the 4th album from Paul Revere and the Raiders, and their first after they starting appearing on television regularly - which had propelled their popularity among many similar groups. This album also features liner notes written by Dick Clark, host of Where the Action Is. This is during the height of the British invasion, so I wonder if the hyper-American image was used to set them apart! This is also their last album comprised of cover songs, they begin writing their own material with Midnight Ride, released later in the same year.

The album opens with Steppin' Out, which highlights their garage rock roots! Besides their image, garage rock and blues elements also set their sound apart from other groups of the time. This track is very gritty and picks up at the very end with some really fun energy.

Doggone gets a little more poppy with a bouncy instrumental and harmonies, while still retaining the grit.

Out of Sight leans more into the classic blues time signature in the verses, with some rock-y moments in between! With the additions within the blues beat, they inject some energy to get you moving!

Baby, Please Don't Go opens with a pulsating bass rhythm, I believe I hear an organ in there as well! There is a lot of different instruments going on, resulting in a cacophony that is a little hard to follow. I can sort of tell this is the point, but the vocals also sound hurried and not very good.

I Know devolves a bit more into the unorganized sound, this one is much more obvious in its humor - filled with tons of silly studio chatter! It seems like this was a trend of the time, The Righteous Brothers and The Monkees at least have one song like this in their discographies as well. Just a short little diddy to make the chicks laugh!

Night Train is a fun little instrumental! The journey through side one of this record is quite interesting, we weave through multiple genres in just a few songs and yet all of the songs braid together creating a decent linear evolution.

Just Like Me is the big hit off of this album, and it sounds like it! This is more the sound I think of when I picture music of the time in general and Paul Revere & the Raiders specifically. Interesting that the big hit begins side two and also kicks off some of the more obvious covers on this album.

For example, next we get a tepid rendition of Donovan's Catch the Wind. Even without listening, I can imagine they were talked into this by the record label but the vocals definitely sell that point! I don't blame them, but they do not sound enthused to be singing this song! It is also an incredible departure from the sounds we have been hearing so far.

Hopefully this next song was more fun for them to do. Their version of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction sounds quite cut and paste, but hey at least it is more in their style!

I'm Cryin' is a great song to begin and their version is lots of fun as well! Their vocals hold up quite well against Eric Burdon. I haven't been able to find anything about studio musicians being used, so at least we can (presumably) say they played their own instruments on these covers, which is good! Especially in this song, the tempo is quite fast and a lot is going on. Given the copy and paste nature of these covers, I would not be surprised if they had studio musicians for them, but hopefully they got to play their own!

New Orleans is another fantastic track! Their version does damper it a little bit, there could be more energy. Maybe it was recorded on the same day as Catch the Wind.

They dabble in surf rock for the last track, Action. I really like how their voices sound in the last line of the chorus, it has a minor chord vibe. The instrumentals are tons of fun!

Side one of this record is fantastic! Things waver a bit on side two, but it is still a solid album in the days when everyone covered everyone.

[themovieblogonline]

223 Wick is Proof That Great Settings Can Only Take a Plot So Far

Initially, this “thriller/fantasy” 223 Wick film caught my eye because it was very moody and scripted by Melanie Clarke-Pettiella and Jess Byard. I’m always in favor of letting more females write horror, as a former active voting member of the Horror Writers’ Association, so I bought into this Amazon Prime movie, filmed on location in Youngstown, Ohio. Let’s start with the good things: the music (Rolaz) is good---with the possible exception of a song at the end with the lyric “trapped under the ice.” There is no ice in sight; that line made as much sense as the rest of the plot. But on with the positive: great settings, although, if the film had answered an early question asked in the script (“What is this place?”) we would all have been better off. The synopsis on IMDB says, “Plagued by visions and nightmares, a Catholic priest is ousted from his parish. With nowhere to turn, he follows the sinister visions calling him and discovers a deal he alone must stop.” That synopsis bore little resemblance to the movie’s plot, (such as it is). Father John, played by Alexi Stavros (he has a great voice!) is in a seminary and seems to be locked in a power struggle with the Dean of the seminary, Father Murphy (played by Jack Dimich). There is a second priest named Father McAndrew (Eric Vaughn) and a third named Arthur, who is played by the director himself, Sergio Meyers II. The film really does establish an appropriately creepy vibe, but almost nothing makes sense from then on out. Father John is not really “ousted from his parish.” He is admittedly in conflict with the head priest (Father Murphy) but he seems to get in a cab of his own volition and asks to be taken to 223 Wick Avenue, which is as creepy as the seminary building he has just exited. The plot becomes even more incomprehensible once Father John has relocated, starting with much falling and the fact that, for the rest of the film, he will wear a bloody bandage around his head. Visions do plague Father John, but the idea is pretty much the same one, over and over. It looks a bit like a nuclear explosion. Another character who resides at 223 Wick Ave. (Paul) also seems accident prone and, at one point, after Father John has spent the night at 223 Wick (because he fell down on the front steps and hit his head?) Paul asks him to bless the building, room by room, before leaving, because its owner (Kat, played by Dawn Lafferty) thinks the building is haunted. The dialogue is stilted, along the lines of “Give humanity back to the Ancient Ones” and “Come with me. Rule like a god.” Most of the principals in this largely incomprehensible plot do not live happily ever after . The Brixton's own 223 Wick Ave. and there is some mumbo-jumbo about “secret societies” and an all-male fraternal order that is over 100 years old, but we see little of that. The relationship between Kat and her sister is also shrouded in mystery and remains that way. The setting, music, cinematography: okay. The plot: is not okay. The writers really need to pick up the writing pace if women in horror are going to gain a better footing than they had back when I dabbled in the genre. Overall, this was a moody mess with no idea where it was going and no ability to convey a coherent plot to its audience. Read the full article

[joshscurlyhair]

☽ 𝕕𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕠𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 - 𝕛𝕠𝕤𝕙 ☽

Summary: Y/N has been dreaming of an unknown man for a while now that it is making her wondering who he is. After doing some research she finds out he’s a musician for a band. One day she walks around her town to get some air when suddenly she bumps into the man who’s from her dreams. Has he been dreaming of her to?

Word count: 1.6k { AUTHORS NOTE: Thoughts on Part 2? I also really enjoyed making this and thought the song fit perfectly along with the story vibe. Happy reading! 🍂🤎} ☾Join the Taglist!☽

Everything about him was ethereal

His pretty brown eyes

His fluffy curly hair

His perfect smile along with his perfect teeth-

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Your thoughts were then cut off by your coffee machine beeping. You poured yourself a cup of coffee into your mug for the morning. You then walked over to your windows and opened the blinds letting some light into the house showing the pretty leaves that were outside on the fall crisp morning. You sip on your coffee and softly smiled at the sight. You then decided to sit down at the kitchen table and wrote in your planner, writing some to-do’s for the week. As you were writing your to-do’s you couldn’t stop thinking about that man in your dreams you were dreaming months about.

MONTHS!

You’ve never seen this man in your life before and you were dreaming of him for months now. You snap out of your thoughts and quickly grabbed your laptop and headed to Google and decided to do some digging on who exactly this man was, or even if he was real. You took another sip of your hot coffee feeling the hot liquid in your mouth. You pushed your clear glasses up to your eyes and started to stare at the screen for a bit thinking exactly what to search for first and how to word it.

You close your eyes to see if that would help you remember him more.

You were at their concert, all you could focus on was him and all he could focus on was you just staring into your eyes

His beautiful brown curly hair

His perfect smile

His facial hair that rested above his lip and on his chin

“Goddammit what can I type?” I say to myself staring at the Google search bar trying to think what to type. You shook your head and began to type:

Lead singer with brown curly hair and facial hair

Your eyes began to look through the images seeing if any of them were him.

Nope nothing

“Umm” you say as you began to think again of what to type.

Singer with curls and wears jumpsuits

You began to search with your eyes again looking at the images and found nothing again. You let out a loud groan and began typing more things that could possibly fit to get any picture or information of who this man is.

—————-

It’s been almost two hours now searching this man up and no luck. You let out a groan and started looking at the ground thinking what to do.

Guess I’ll never know who this man is

You stood up and put your coffee cup in the dishwasher then began to make some lunch for the day. You opened the fridge and start to assemble a sandwich. You decided to bring your computer up to the kitchen counter and put on a YouTube video while you made your lunch. You opened the YouTube app and began analyzing the recommended videos that popped up. You then just decided to click on a suggested playlist that was on your feed and began jamming to a couple of songs, swinging your hips side to side along with the music.

Once you were done making your lunch you sat your plate down onto the kitchen table about to sit down when suddenly you hear a guitar riff coming through your computer speaker. You never heard of the song but it sounded really good. You bobbed your head along with the music. Sounded like it was a live version since you heard what sounded like people screaming in the background.

“Champagne, caviar anyone?”

A male voice said though your computer speakers. You look up from your plate and furrow your eyebrows. Something about that voice, you couldn’t put your finger on it. You decided to turn your computer around so it was facing you and you laid eyes on the video that was right in front of you.

“Holy shit..” You let out

It was HIM

You dropped your fork on the table and pushed your plate away and brought the computer to you watching the video. “Holy shit it’s him”

You watch them preform, he was so angelic to watch. The way his hands moved, the way his hair swayed along with his movements, the way he flashed his perfect teeth with a smile.

You look at the bottom of the screen and saw the title, “Greta Van Fleet - Live at the Red Rocks Amphitheater”

You then clicked onto Google straight away and typed in the bands name. You looked at the images and saw him and his band mates, you gave a smile seeing him. He’s so pretty

Josh. Josh Kiszka is his name

You looked up his name onto Google now. You press ‘ enter ‘ and look at the thousands of pictures of him that laid before you.

Wow, this is the man I’ve been dreaming of. A man who I’ve never seen till today. He’s so fuckin beautiful

But why? Why am I dreaming of him?

You shut your computer needing to clear your head

2:30 pm

Read your phone

You stood up and got your coat so you could go for a walk to clear your mind

You closed the door behind you and heard the crunches beneath your feet from the leaves. You look around in awe at the sight of the beautiful fall day. It was just so pretty.

You continued to walk for a while until you felt like getting another coffee

“Ugh should I?” You say looking at your favorite coffee shop in front of you stopping you in your tracks. “Yeah I should”

You headed inside and ordered your per usual fall coffee order.

“For Y/N!”

I looked up from my phone and grabbed my coffee and said thank you before leaving the café.

I look down at my coffee in my hand while walking as I took a small sip closing my eyes

I felt a harsh bump on my shoulder. The hot coffee then splashed out of my cup and onto my hand. “Ow, shit” I say because of the coffee being hot.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry are you okay?-“

The man says before we both look at each other and immediately stare into each other’s eyes for what seemed like forever

It was him, Josh. The man who I’ve been dreaming of

Why was he looking at me like that? Like he knew me? Could he have been dreaming of me too?

He clears his throat and began to talk again, “Please let me buy you another coffee”

He says still staring into my eyes like he’s seen me before

Wow, he’s just as beautiful in person

I nod to his response and we both headed inside the coffee shop both getting our coffees. “Um, do you mind if we sit down together?” He says holding his coffee in his hand looking at me giving me warm eyes. I nod and we both sit down looking at each other once more.

“I’m sorry for staring-“ he starts

“-No I’m sorry as well” I say as my cheeks flush a deep red looking down.

“It’s just… This is gonna sound crazy but, I think I’ve been dreaming of you. And it’s odd because I’ve never seen you before til now.. That’s why I was staring at you, I just couldn’t believe it. Apologies if I made you feel uncomfortable” He says looking down at his coffee feeling embarrassed thinking you probably thought he was crazy.

Holy shit.. He was dreaming of me too

“I’m Jo-“ He starts but I finished for him, “Josh”

He looks up and stares at me giving me a warm smile now knowing I was dreaming of him too.

“Were you dreaming of me too?” He says now leaning a bit closer. I give a warm smile and nod. Josh let’s out a huff in relief, “Holy shit this is crazy” he whisper yells getting excited showing his perfect white teeth. I get excited along with him and chuckle.

“May I add that you’re just as beautiful in person then you were in my dreams?” He says looking up at me giving me a smile showing his dimples. I chuckle and start to blush, “You as well Josh” I add.

We both then began staring into each other’s eyes

RING RING RING

Josh’s gaze now drifts at his phone that was buzzing. “Ugh it’s my brother, hold on darling”

I blush again as I take another sip from my coffee trying to hide the redness that spread across my face.

“Okay okay” He says a bit annoyed on the phone. He then ends the call and looks at me. “That was my brother, he says he needs me now for some new album ideas”

He notices your face forms a bit of a frown, “Hey, this is crazy that this happened and I think both of us are still trying to process it haha but, I think you’re absolutely beautiful and I wanna get to know you even more” He says in awe at the sight of you.

He drops his phone on counter in front of you. “Put your number in darling” He says winking at you. You then started to type your number in the new contact, putting your name as well. Once you were done he takes his phone looking at what you put, “Y/N.. That’s a beautiful name for a beautiful person” He says smiling showing his dimples that were engraved into his cheeks. “I’ll text you and we can plan something soon!”

You nod and he headed out the door giving you a cheesy smile and a wave goodbye

Wow… The man of my dreams is absolutely adorable

You then chuckle at your thoughts and took another sip of your coffee

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ prompt: "I got you breakfast. I know it's just a bowl of cereal, but it's the only thing I can't burn." / "Would it be alright if I borrowed your sweater? It smells like you."

♡ pairing: percy jackson x fem! reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / I was listening to Theme from New York, New York by Frank Sinatra and felt like it fit Percy so well. I feel like all of Percy's vibe just screams Frank Sinatra in some way.

you always found it odd that so many kids from the Aphrodite cabin had told you that they felt you and Percy were bound to be together. at the time, you found it almost offensive considering he was dating Annabeth but a few months after, you along with everyone else heard that they had broken up.

you felt like you weren't within your rights to ask why they broke up, even if he was your close friend, and just waited until he told you himself. you found it surprising. everyone in the camp felt as though Annabeth and Percy were going to make it all the way to marriage but when he told you that they had fallen out of love, you sat in shock.

it had been a few months since then and while they remained friends, you could tell Annabeth was already going on a few dates herself, to which you felt happy for her. all the while, Percy hadn't seemed interested in anyone. you knew a lot of people would fall at the knees to date him but you couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't accepted any.

"whatcha doin'?" you heard Percy ask, practically barging into your room. you looked up from your notebook, shaking your head, "not much, why?" you asked. he pulled something out of his pocket, "my mom, Paul, and I are going to watch the Yankee's game and we have a spare ticket. wanna come along?"

you smiled, immediately getting up and pushing your chair in.

"hell yeah I want to go! lets go Jackson," you said, kicking him in the back of the leg as he passed you the ticket. you saw the time and stood confused, "the tickets say seven and it's only three?" you asked. he pushed you along as the two of you walked out of the camp.

"my mom wants to catch pizza before the game. she claims we haven't spent enough time together lately."

you giggled, "please, that's so sweet. being the daughter of Ares, it's not exactly something he'd want to do....ever," Percy shoved you but didn't press it any longer. he knew your dad was an asshole and so were all your siblings and he meant that in the most respectful way possible.

the subway ride to Percy's mom's place was filled with you and Percy talking about anything and everything. you knew Percy could've told any of the boys to come along so you found it a bit endearing to know that he picked you to come along. you were also meeting his mom for the first time so you were a bit nervous on that end.

"my sister should be awake. she's usually up and trying to crawl around this time." your eyes widened realizing he was talking about Estelle. you knew she was only a few months old and meant that she was not walking yet, "oh my god, a baby!" you clapped happily as you walked up the stairs.

Sally's apartment stood at the very top of the building and you heard giggles coming from the other side of the door. Percy practically barged into the apartment, seeing Estelle on the ground as Sally tried fixing her onesie.

"hey mom!" he said bending down to grab Estelle as Sally stood up, " you must be ( your name ), nice to meet you," she said excitedly as she brought you in for a hug. you were taken back by the sudden hug but returned it, "nice to meet you as well. is that your daughter?" you asked, the itching feeling to wanting to hold her creeping up.

she nodded, grabbing Estelle and handing her over to you, "oh my god, you're precious. Percy, she's adorable!" you exclaimed, instantly making her jump in your arms. Percy gave you a smile as you looked to Sally, "is she attending the game? looks like she's ready with her little gear," you asked as you saw the Yankee's onesie on her.

Sally agreed, saying that she didn't want to separate from Estelle from too long. you helped Sally put Estelle's jacket and hat on as Percy and Paul spoke with each other, "she's so cute, I can't handle it," you tried not to squeal as Sally laughed, "fan of babies?" she asked.

you shrugged, "I wouldn't say fan but infants are just so cute," you gushed, squishing Estelle's cheeks. all of you walked out as you had her in your arms while Percy tried making her laugh.

Paul and Sally watched as they smiled to each other, "they'd make great parents," Paul murmured as Sally agreed, "not right now but in five years, I wouldn't mind seeing grandkids," you were paying no mind as you and Percy were in your own little world with his sister.

the ride to Yankee stadium was a short one as everyone was crowded around each other. all of you got quickly scanned in and sat towards the front of the crowd. you sat in between Percy and Sally as you had Estelle on your leg. you knew Paul and Percy were the bigger fans as you and Sally went along for the fun time. you knew the basics of baseball but you like Sally were confused on some parts.

the rivalry ran deep as the Yankee's were playing the Red Sox's and you could tell both of the boys were getting extremely into the game. Paul and Percy screaming to a few Sox's fans with words you were surprised that Percy even said in front of his mom. you looked over to Sally and started laughing as you heard both of the heavy New York accents coming out of them.

"I don't think I've ever seen Percy this invested in anything....ever," you murmured to Sally as she agreed, "he was a fan when he was a child but he was never like this," she replied as Percy stood up again, screaming at the top of his lungs that a player was safe.

both you and Sally remained talking amongst each other, briefly getting up to get drinks for the other two. you had offered to feed Estelle her bottle as Sally sipped on a glass of wine. you knew caring for an infant was hard but you knew that she birthed Percy, someone who was probably ten times harder to deal with as a baby.

"we should get going but the two of you should stay for the rest of the game. who knows when's the next time you'll get a chance to see a game," Paul and Sally told the two of you a bit later on. you nodded understandingly, "of course, thank you inviting me," you whispered as you gave Sally a hug.

she smiled, placing a kiss on your cheek, "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around a lot more so I'll see you later," you wondered what she meant by as she turned to tell Percy goodbye. you didn't bother to ask as you felt the New York breeze start to get colder. Percy could tell as you turned over to him, "would it be alright if I borrowed your sweater? It probably smells like you," you asked.

Percy didn't hesitate to take off his hoodie, placing it on your lap as you quickly put it on. you were drowning it as you smelled Percy's cologne right away. he had a ocean and wood smell to him. the game was in its eighth inning, the Yankee's leading the score with 10-8. you knew Chiron would want all of you back at camp before midnight and the ride back to the camp would be long.

"wanna head back, I can tell you're getting sleepy," you heard Percy whisper in your ear. you nodded, lifting your head from his shoulder as the two of walked out of the stadium. the stars littered the sky as there was no cloud in sight, "tonight was fun. your family is so cute," you told Percy.

he smiled, "I know, it took a long time to get us here," he murmured. you gave him a smile as you felt Percy slowly slip his hand in yours. you gave him a look as he tried to hide his blush, "aw, it's Theme from New York New York by Frank Sinatra," you told him as you squeezed his hand in approval.

you heard fans drunkenly singing along to the song on the subway as you and Percy laughed, "I want to be apart of it...NEW YORK, NEW YORK," both you and Percy sang, giggling with each other. Percy was holding your side as the subway was in complete shambles with everyone singing.

"If I can make it there, I'll make it practically anywhere, It's up to you, New York, New York!"

you looked up to Percy who was already staring down at you lovingly. you felt him bend down a bit, placing a kiss on your lips as you instantly returned it.

"And find that I'm number one, Top of the list, King of the hill."

the crowd continued to sing as you gave Percy a smile and snuggled closer to him. you heard the subway ding off the stop as you and Percy hopped off. you remained in Percy's side embrace as the two of you entered the camp. most of the campers were asleep as only a few scarce campers were still awake.

Percy dropped you off at the door of the Ares cabin, "thank you for today," you whispered, giving him a kiss on the cheek. he nodded, placing one back on yours as he grabbed your hand and gave it a quick squeeze, "we should do it again," he whispered back.

you agreed, opening the door and blowing him a kiss in return before shutting it. Percy stood in place for a moment before jumping in Breakfast Club style. he walked back to his cabin, a smile plastered on his face as he fell into bed, as happy as ever.

+

you woke up the next morning, all of your siblings already gone as you heard a knock on your door. you had fell asleep with Percy's sweater on and a pair of shorts as you released a yawn of sleepiness. you walked over to the door and laughed tiredly, seeing as it was Percy.

"I got you breakfast. I know it's just a bowl of cereal, but it's the only thing I can't burn," you saw the bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and laughed as you grabbed it and sat on the steps of your cabin, "I appreciate it," you said, placing a kiss on his cheek, making his blush again.

[hatchetfieldtheories]

Nightmare Time Season 2 - Trailer Release Theory Update

Finally!!! It's here! We have episode confirmations! We have dates! We have more pictures to try and piece together in some semblance of a theory - which will most likely be shot down the moment the episode synopsis is posted.

Following the puzzle's completion, I posted a theory on what it all meant, and this will be an update to that, taking into account what we have learnt from the trailer. Remember these are just my theories based on the clues we have been given and could very well be complete misinterpretations. So let me know what your theories are too!!

If you missed the NMT2 puzzle, you can see the completed puzzle breakdown here: x

If you want to read my post-puzzle theory, you can do so here: x

I am still convinced the lightning is some king of harbinger of the Lords in Black - either to signal their arrival in Hatchetfield or to symbolise when one of them begins a plan.

In the trailer description we have been informed of some key facts:

evil things grow in strange woods

secret societies worship dark masters

a song can kill

Linda Monroe, Frank Pricely, Lex Foster are returning

We will see nerdy prudes both old and new

Hannah and Tim will not appear as Kendall isn't in the cast list

Our first treat is a look at Lumber-Axe the Mad Woodsman himself. Or "the Axe-Man". I have had a go at working out the bit of the lyrics we have been given here but there a few I want to pick out.

So back in the trailer for season 1 of Nightmare Time, we were given a sort snippet of the Nightmare Time song, specifically the following lines:

"No need to runaway, you little runaway, 'cause the nightmare will get you soon... Look behind you. Hey what was that? (twig snapping) Boo! You can run but are you fast enough. You can hide but I will find you... Just run away if you want if you dare, the nightmares gonna get you...Daddy's gonna get you."

Now in the new Axe-man song we have been given these lines:

"He’s got you running for your life, He’s got you hiding out of sight."

Now, I'll mention Lumber-Axe again a little bit later on, but my initial thought is this. Is the "Nightmare" and "Daddy" one and the same. And could they be Lumber-Axe in some way?

Another interesting thing to note, @donteatthefishtacos has pointed me to the tale of Paul Bunyan which could be where the "size that humbles, hands that rumble, steps that crumble the ground" could be taken from.

In the Cryptic Clues, Honey Queen was included on the line which also featured the image of a boat, a hive (as above), and some honey. As this was the section of the puzzle that included the boat, I reckon this is where we are seeing Linda. She is for sure the queen bee of Hatchetfield, or at least sees herself as one. I mentioned in my original theory following the puzzles that the idea of a Honey queen gives me vibes of a May Day festival or harvest festival type scene where someone is crowned the Honey Queen, and we have previously been told about the Hatchetfield Honey Festival.

The title for this one is yellow, which fits with the honey imagery. But also we can link to Tinky, which makes me wonder if this is Linda’s turn to time travel and end up in the Bastard Box – maybe trying to relive former glory days as the Honey Queen or claim what should have been hers?

Now last season, we had episodes in which the two stories were very obviously interlinked. Not two parts of the same story but within the same timeline, with Forever and Always and Time Bastard.

I am wondering if Perky's Buds and Abstinence Camp could be similar, in that they both have the outdoorsy imagery. So maybe while they are two very separate stories, we see something happen in one which bears some influence on the other.

Bringing in some of the synopsis we have been given, we are told "evil things grow in strange woods" - which could be a reference to Perky's Buds, which is very likely Emma's pot farm. And we are also given "secret societies worship dark masters" which - if I'm going to take bets on a place for a secret society its an Abstinence Camp (though I will bring this up again later). Plus, Abstinence Camp is the only title which comes in two different colours - are we seeing a story featuring two Lords in Black?

Finally bringing in the puzzle, we see that the birds are related to Perky's Buds, which I personally think I am right in saying that we're going to find out these kinda dodgy birds are the "buds" in question. Note the title for this one is in green, which is interesting because though we have seen Emma a lot throughout Hatchetfield, we have not yet seen her with any real link to Wiggly.

Finally, back to Abstinence Camp, we see a woodcutting axe being used, so this may be where we see our long awaited Lumber-Axe.

Welcome to Toy Zone, its world renown. Frank Pricely, my beloved. Episode three's "Daddy" is interesting because its clearly at Toy Zone, which makes you assume the Daddy in question is a parent having a hard time getting a toy for their kid, but:

The Daddy is in red, which could be a reference to Nibbly? I honestly think he is pink, and he is described in season 1 as pink but we did see that the puzzle included a red section, albeit for the Yellow Jacket line. Although the Toy Zone colour is red and is most prominantly worn by Frank himself.

Of the Cryptic Clues, its hard to say what we can attribute to which story without knowing more as they're definitely more vague, though I think its clear the singer we can attribute to Killer Track. I do think maybe the wedding rings and the sewer might be related to Daddy, though that is just arbitrary guessing.

We determined that Frank probably wasn't influenced by Wiggly as the rest of the adults were, as his greed was just a normal part of his personality. So maybe this time a different brother is making an attempt. We also don't have Hannah, but we do have Lex, so my assumption is this is where we will see her.

For Killer Track, we can bring in the phrase "where even a song can kill". For this I have two theories. Note the title for this one is purple (Blinky!). One ridiculous and what I want, and one more likely and also great but not as silly.

The ridiculous theory: I am still on my Miss Holloway is Tiffany the 80s singer thought train, and I’m not getting off until SK tell me I am wrong. If we assume that like Forever and Always/Time Bastard there are a reason some stories are linked, then it could be that this is also related to lakeside mall. Specifically mall circuits of the 80s – and a certain song is being performed which causes – some kind of killer commotion. Especially considering the background image is a record player, which, while I know they are certainly having their comeback, were a massive staple of the culture of the 80s.

The more likely one: a Killer Track reminds me of the tape Jane was playing in the car when she died. Now I don’t think they’re the same track, but its very likely their origins are linked. I.e. what if the killer song is a recording based on yet another spell from the Black Book – not a soul transference one this time, but something a bit more… fatal.

Step into the Black and White - boxing ring? Do I have much to say on this one? No, its difficult as the title isn't giving us much. It is interesting however that this is a standalone story. As a reminder, the puzzle clues for this title included lockers (which we can now assume are lockers for boxing competitors), a test, a skating rink and fire.

The title is in white, which makes me think this is the story where we will see Webby appear, though without Hannah, I am curious as to how.

I said earlier I had an alternative option for the "secret societies worshipping dark masters" line, and it could be possible that these are related to the the high school, hence the tests, arcade, fire - and may be directly impacting a student boxer.

So what's left? Well in the Cryptic Clues we also had two further lines:

"The Monarch is now Vexed"

"Nibbly Must Eat"

As for Nibbly, I've noted where he may appear, in "Daddy" (if red) or "Abstinence Camp" (if pink). Plus, now that we know these two aren't episode titles, it is very possible the monarch in question is whoever is Honey Queen. Perhaps Linda - vexed as she didn't recieve the crown, and so becomes a prime target for Tinky.

But hey, that's just a theory...

If you got to the end - bloody hell well done. Have some water, look at something far away to avoid eye strain, then tell me your thoughts! What are your theories?

[phantomtrader19]

Phantom of the opera 1st & 3rd preview review

PART 1

Auction - I was absolutely overjoyed to see the chandelier onstage!! I personally loved the new set, it was sad to see the angel had gone but I’m so glad they put the homage to Maria bjornson in the centre where the angel was as seen below (it’s modelled after Maria I overheard)

The cloth covered piece behind the chandelier is a broken middle section of the inner proscenium that when the overture starts re-assembles and rises into place absolutely stunning addition!!

some words were changed

“Lot 666, a chandelier until recently believed to be destroyed... *normal lyrics* “Our workshops have restored it and fitted it with wiring for the new electric light so that we may get a hint of how magnificent it will look when re-assembled” so like the restaged tour lyrics.

Standard auction really not much change but haunting as always!

Overture - perhaps a new sound system? But the overture was absolutely thunderous and I was LIVING for it, lighting design is new and a lot more flashes of light which upped the dramatic feel to it! The chandelier was new and I thought it looked absolutely wonderful it certainly didn’t disappoint it’s a lot bigger than the original which was a cool change. The curtains rose like before and the inner section of the proscenium was sort of like a centre piece and as the overture gets to the middle part where the music sort of slows then dramatically picks back up again (I hope I’ve explained that okay 😂) the dust covers on everything are very swiftly removed and it looks beautiful. The audience went crazy for the overture and it was just amazing to witness!

Hannibal - Saori’s cadenza was so fierce and you could tell she was having a blast up there! Again she got an applause as she came out on stage. The ensemble was fabulous as expected costumes again all the same but fresher as they were all brand new or from the uk tour 2020. Christine doesn’t come out with the ballet girls she joins just before they all do that lovely en pointe section which Lucy does as she is a trained dancer as well! A couple ballet girls now wear their wigs in curlers and tied up in ribbons to give that extra feel of a dress rehearsal which I’m still to figure out if I liked. Yukina Hasebe one of the ballerinas wears a black wig in a plaited ponytail with a black fringe which was interesting but they all wear their regular degas wigs the rest of the show. Everything else remained relatively the same.

Think of me (Carlotta) nothing different I don’t think, Saori sounds brilliant she’s so sassy I love her! Her tantrum is brilliant as she’s so tiny and all this anger bursts out of her it’s really funny!

Lily was also absolutely divine in this part aswell gorgeous voice and good comedic timing.

Greg Castiglioni has a nice voice but not too convinced on his portrayal as piangi not my fave but not bad! (I miss Paul tabone so much!)

Think of me (Christine) My heart was pounding as the piano started I was so eager and excited to hear Lucy safe to say she doesn’t disappoint she’s so radiant and has the voice of a bell, her cadenza is the movie cadenzas but higher and it was fantastic Think of me was much the same but again the set looked so bright and new it really was gorgeous, I absolutely love the new addition of the mini proscenium inside the outer one it frames the stage just beautifully! Rhys’ part was great aswell lovely voice :)

Angel of music - much the same again, the ballerinas have a bar where they practise upstage left which was a nice touch. Lyric change to -

Meg - “your face Christine, so strange”

Christine - “I’m changing Meg”

Meg - “No one’s changing”

In the third preview the lyrics changed to

Christine - “he’s with me even now”

Meg - “Your hands are cold”

Christine - “all around me”

Meg - “Christine are you alright”

Christine - “it frightens me”

Meg - “don’t be frightened”

So reverted back to something similar to the original lyrics! Ellie is a lovely Meg and her wig is auburn and it looks lovely!

Dressing room - everything the same

The mirror - everything the same again killian has a great voice and sounded very threatening! when the phantom brings Christine through the mirror Raoul calls out angel and instead of the title song beginning the music continues into a dramatic swell no where near as long as the restaged tour though.

Title song - Raoul leaves the dressing room as the title song begins and the ballerinas walk onstage congregate round Raoul and then they all walk off as Lucy and Killian appear on the bridge so no more doubles a bit of a restaged tour moment again I’m still to figure out how I felt. There seems to be extra set pieces like flat cutouts of staircases which move with the bridge which I really enjoyed, I think it added more depth to the stage.

The first preview the candles on the candelabras were poking out of the floor as they usually did and Lucy and killian appeared on the boat and however the candelabras didn’t rise which was confusing however they did in the third preview apparently it was a technical malfunction so I was very happy to see it fixed as the lair looked really bare without them.

I Have brought you - nothing different

Music of the night - mostly the same but it was like the phantom could put Christine to sleep when he sung close your eyes her eyes closed and she seemed to kind of lose consciousness it was a really nice touch to see how much control the phantom had over Christine. The catch is gone now :(

The morning after/ I remember - again the same

Stranger than you dreamt it - Lucy’s acting in this scene was just out of this world you can tell her Christine was absolutely horrified by the sight of the deformity and killian was fantastic!

Magical lasso - same as normal

Notes/ prima Donna - exact same as before except i don’t know if it was just me but the curtain behind the manager’s desk seemed a lot larger which was nice as it filled up a bit more of the empty space. Raoul wore a brown bow tie for this scene. Saori and Lily both were fantastic in prima donna would love to see lily again and will most likely be seeing Saori anyway in my upcoming visits. Rhys was really good in this song he was very clever and lovely belt. Francesca Ellis is definitely a standout in the show her voice is so unique unlike any other I’ve ever heard her acting is also 10/10! Managers I think could work on their timing for the comedic parts but that’s the only complaint Matt and Adam are great otherwise :)

Il Muto - lovely to see Manon Taris back on stage and James Hume and I want to say Hywel Dowsell were amusing to watch aswell! Saori and Edward court as Don Atillio were great Lucy was so cute as Serafimo!

The ballet - all the ballerinas were gorgeous! And the male ballet dancer was fantastic! Andre was trembling like crazy when trying to introduce the ballet and engaged with the audience quite a bit which was fun, the ballerinas screamed a lot when they noticed the phantoms shadow on the backdrop and the music had a build up behind the actual original score which made the reveal of buquet’s body more dramatic!

The Rooftop - Lucy looked gorgeous in her rooftop costume! She seemed genuinely distressed and her acting again just shone through, Rhys at the beginning was giving me Hadley Fraser/ restaged tour vibes coming off as dismissive of Christinebut he begins to soften Lucy’s soar was sublime probably one of the best I’ve heard it just floated from her!!!

All I ask of you - Rhys and Lucy had a lot of chemistry and she was beaming from ear to ear when Rhys sung to her. Beautifully done

All I ask of you reprise - the controversial Pegasus.... would it have been nice for the phantom to appear on top of the angel? Yes, is the Pegasus statue THAT bad absolutely not it was beautiful! Killian was fab! Loved the sustained note on “when he heard you siiiiiiinggggggggg” liked a lot!!!

CHANDELIER CRASH WAS SO COOL, killian appeared in box five and shot sparks from his staff essentially shooting the chandelier down. It crashed like it did in the original and swung really fast over the audience and made an explosion noise which was changed at the third preview the music sort of rumbled instead of the explosion which worked better as the explosion was rather odd since the chandelier didn’t collapse or like the restaged tour chandelier spew fake glass.

INTERVAL The blue curtain is GORGEOUS

[dreamties]

Slashers W/ a S/O Whos Afraid of the Dark

A/n - I have BIG IRRATTIONAL FEARS and I just WANT TO BE HELD. So, I’m writing this. Hope y’all enjoy.

...and sorry for everyone new to my blog, and for how unneeded-ly long some of these are.  

I may add Daniel, Helen, or Brahms if y’all want them- just let me know if you do..

Characters: Billy/Stu, The Lost Boys, Amanda Young, Michael Myers

Billy Loomis + Stu Macher

a majority of your time spent with them is during school, or cuddled up together watching horror movies

which- as freaked out as you get about the dark- you’re a big horror fan, too. 

it just...doesn’t appear to help your nerves. at all.

and you kind of hide it from your boys at first? cause your a teen/young adult, you shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. of all things.

how they found out: they had been watching a movie, and you fell asleep. they didn’t want to wake you, you looked to sweet laying there- so they left you there. they would’ve totally stayed and snuggled with you, but they had some things to attend to.

but that leads to you, startling awake, finding yourself alone, in a pitch black room.

the boys come back to you, seeing you all shaky, a blanket and your arms wrapped around your body.

they both get kinda worried, cause they haven’t seen this side of you before. they eventually get an answer out of you.

they might tease you a bit- but after seeing how upset and genuinely freaked out you were? definitely not doing that again.

Billy doesn’t totally get your fear, he thinks it’s silly...but he loves the whole aspect of being wanted, and how only he(and Stu) can fill those needs

so he’s wrapping an arm around you anyways, and kissing the top of your head, being all sweet to you.

honestly though- they’re both very touchy-feely boys?? so like,, just the best for feeling physically protected and calming you down. 

cuddles, kisses, they’ll even leave little lights on in the house, just so it’s not too dark.

and if you’re walking outside at night with them, Billy will definitely have a protective arm around you(I mean, he does this anyways, but he’s like extra protective/possessive. if that’s even possible). 

Stu will allow you to hold his hand. don’t even bother fighting me on this. you know he would.

Billy would too though- albeit begrudgingly, eyes rolling and everything

he secretly really loves holding you’re hand though

The Lost Boys

for literal creatures of the night, this has gotta be tough

and they pretty much live in a (fancy) cave!!

however, most of the time that you’re in the cave, it’s light out(thus sleeping), or you’re with your boys. so it’s OKAY.

when you meet- it’s obviously at night, but you’re at the boardwalk, surrounded by bright, colorful lights from all directions.

and after several meetings- they finally convince you to take you home, cause they feel pretty familiarized and close with you now.

it starts with the ride back- shaky all over, but it’s hidden by the trembles and roars of the motorcycle. and you’ve got your arms  tight around David, and your eyes squeezed tight

And when you stop, you think ‘finally, we’re here.’ but when you look up, your stomach sinks at the sight. Staring back at you is an opening to a cave- a pool of darkness. certainly not what you expected. 

okay- OKAY. you’ll give it a try. you have four incredibly strong supernatural creatures with you, if anything happens, they’ll protect you. that’s what you tell yourself heading down- shrieking as something pops out of nowhere.

at first, they’re worried- and you notice that, confessing to them that you may have the teeniest, tiniest, fear of the dark.

they will tease you about it. some more so than others. that’s just them, though- they joke and mess around with each other all the time. and that extends to you...since you are, you know, part of the group now.

 all of the boys are very capable of being soft, but Marko gives the most soft(tm) vibes out of the four- so he would tease you the least.

David, as the ‘leader’ of the group, it’s sort of his job to keep everyone safe. like- everyone is fully capable of protecting themselves(yes, even you), but he helps keep things somewhat orderly. in line? enough so, to keep everyone safe and happy. 

what i’m getting at- is that David will tease you about it, but he doesn’t want you to have that “looking around every corner” feeling, so he only does it sometimes.

the other two are sort of in the middle with it. Dwayne does tease you more than Paul though. 

okay, ee-nuff with the teasing. more of a general fluff- but borrowing their jackets? so when you’re at home, away from them, it’s a constant reminder that you’re okay, and you’re safe.

they wouldn’t be able to “leave a light on”, cause they’re definitely not using electricity, and it’s definitely not a good idea to leave the light source unattended as they sleep because fucking fires are a thing

...cuddle piles will have to do.

your irrational fears of the dark get better once you’ve been turned, and are living in the cave with them!!

Amanda Young

most of her ‘job’ is at night, and you like waiting for her to return sometimes

and she gets back from her job, seeing you passed out on the couch, all the lights on in the house

gets this happy, fluttering feeling in her chest- cause she’s so happy that you were thinking of her.

but immediately gets worried- like, “babe- you need to wake up.” but really gentle, and helps you off to bed. the couch is uncomfortable, you’re going to hurt your neck like that, etc. she just wants you to feel good.

she keeps the light on in the bedroom as she cleans up a bit from work. as soon as she’s done? endless cuddles for you.

many nights: she will also talk to you, to distract you- lulling you into a sense of security as you listen to her sweet voice, chipping in with a few of your own thoughts every once in a while.

of course she knows what you’re scared of- you told her. 

but that will not stop her from reminding you the day after about how much your sleep and comfort- and your wellbeing- matters to her. and that you need to start sleeping in the bedroom. even if it means keeping the hallway light on.

she’ll understand. well, not exactly. but she understands having just one small comforting thing to yourself.

Michael Myers

I feel like Michael just really has such a subtle way of showing love and affection- 

and I feel like one of his biggest ways of showing that would be through protecting you!

because that feels so easy for him! he can just go stab stab, and poof, the problem is gone.

but then- you’re terrified when the lights go out, and you get kind of paranoid, and he doesn’t know what to do at first.

for the longest time, the best thing he could do- was just stay close to you.

y’all are already dating, so like you share a bed, right?? 

and he notices you staying up kinda late, cause you don’t want to lay in the darkness,, 

so he coaxes you back to the bed, and he’ll leave the light on- and he just sits near you. turning the light back off once you start falling asleep- and he finally heads to bed. 

kinda creepy at first ngl- but it’s his way of saying “I’m here for you” and it works.

later in your relationship- he may initiate cuddles to help calm you down.

[rat-bastard-fics]

Paul Lahote X Reader - Mine.

A/N: I haven’t written anything for a few years so please have mercy on me.

Warning: Possessiveness, PG-13 Smut, Jealousy

Description: Y/n is at the bar with Paul and after failing to get him to agree to go home, she flirts with someone else to spark his jealousy.

Word count: ~1800

Paul hadn’t had a night off in months—between work, patrols, and basic human needs, his schedule was almost constantly booked.  It was this exact reason that caused y/n to feel so guilty about wanting alone time with him.  While it was true that she constantly missed him with him being so busy, it was also true that he missed being a normal human who had spare time and could sit at the bar with a friend.  Paul and Jared had been in the pack longer than any other member—barring Sam, of course—but despite this they still rarely had a moment away from the others. The bar was loud, and they’d already been there for almost two hours.  For a homebody like y/n, it was a bit much. Feeling anxious about physically stepping into the avid conversation between Paul and Jared, y/n grabbed out her phone and decided to text Paul instead.  She felt stupid for it, but there wasn’t much that wouldn’t make her feel anxious.

Feeling anxious, could we head home soon?

She peered down the bar to watch Paul peek at his phone before setting it back down.  This was out of character for him, so y/n figured his conversation must have been one he was more invested in than normal.  She bounced her leg nervously, sipping on her water.  She gave the boys another 10 minutes—which felt like an hour—before sending another text.

Please?

Paul looked at his phone again, then looked over at his imprint waiting impatiently down the bar. He could see her nerves and nodded, responding swiftly.

I’ll finish this drink and we’ll go

y/n read the message and nodded, about to respond with an affirmative when another text came in.

Unless you really need to go now, are you okay?

To anyone else, it may not have read much, but to y/n she knew Paul really would leave without hesitation and without being upset had she pressed further.  She shot him a smile and a thumbs up and he nodded, getting the message.  While he finished his drink, y/n decided that then would be a good time to use the restroom before they hit the road.  She was sober but she’d drank quite a bit of water and, despite how grossed out using public bathrooms made her, it was the safest choice.  After commencing her business and washing her hands, y/n returned to the busy bar area where she noticed Paul taking the first sip of a new drink.  While this didn’t mean much for him—the wolves burned alcohol off at an impressive rate—it did mean waiting to leave.  Paul had probably just forgotten and, not seeing y/n where she’d been before, didn’t think twice before agreeing to one more drink with his good friend but the left y/n feeling particularly perturbed.  

As a rationally thinking mature person, y/n settled in to taking action.  Her blood was steaming, past anxiety was effectively out the window, and she quickly chose her target.  Spotting a man waiting to buy a girl a drink wasn’t difficult in such a testosterone packed bar an y/n had found her perfect match.  An innocent enough looking guy sitting well within Paul’s view.  He wasn’t too non-threatening that Paul wouldn’t notice but he also wasn’t too unsettling to make y/n nervous to approach him.

“Hi,” y/n leaned on the bar next to him and made the conscious decision—that she knew she would feel embarrassed about at any other moment—to, for lack of a better term, use her assets.  She pressed her body against the counter top in a way that shelved her boobs up just a titch higher than normal allowing her rarely seen cleavage to peak out of her casual v-neck.  The man clearly noticed as his eyes were set looking lower than her chin.

“Heeeeello, how are you doing tonight?” His greeting was drawn out in a way that gave off the vibe of him having been a douchey business-major frat guy in some former year. He wore a long-sleeved shirt that formed snug to his arms and had a slight stubble.  He seemed to be the type of man who may be a regular.

“I’m alright,” y/n bit her lip and twirled her hair idly, she could feel Paul’s attention, his eyes burning holes into her back and she could imagine his muscles tensing.  As cruel as she knew it was, y/n knew she wouldn’t have to play this game much longer, “I think I could use a drink though.”

The man jumped on the offer, immediately ordering a shot for y/n without bothering to ask what she might like.  Whiskey.  It burned y/n’s through but in a way that added to her twisted excitement.  The man began talking about something that y/n didn’t care about but she chose a moment to laugh and rest her hand in his bicep. And here it was: the final bate.  The man wasted no time in proceeding to rest his hand on y/n’s lower back and immediately a bar stool could be heard scraping on the cheap linoleum floor. She could hear his breath and feel his warmth before he got close enough to say anything.  ‘This poor man,’ for a split second y/n felt bad for the schmuck she’d chosen to smother in her game and quickly turned to her boyfriend before he had the chance to raise his fist.  It happened quickly.

Paul approached.  Y/n turned.  The man had fear in his eye that y/n barely caught as she spun and placed her hand flat on the seething shifter’s chest.  Paul looked down at her and the danger in his eye was no longer one of malice but rather one of intoxicating jealousy and possession, he dragged a tongue across his lower lip.  

“Paul,” y/n said his name low and that was all it took. He wrapped his arm around her waist, tugging her from the masculine prop and swiftly walked her to the door.  He gave a fleeting wave to his buddy that the two lovers effectively abandoned at the bar.

��What were you doing?” Paul almost hissed between his teeth as they left the bar.  It was cruel, and she knew that, but maybe y/n was a glutton for punishment. She was aroused by his reaction.

“I wanted to go.” She looked at Paul innocently as they made it to his car, as his eyes locked with hers she could see him run his tongue across his upper teeth and let out a tsking sound.

“You,” he approached her, pinning her between him and the hood of his car with a hand on either side of her body.  He leaned over her slowly, “are going to be the death of me.” He cracked a short smile, one that was smug and cocky and, dare she admit it, sexy.  His eyed flickered, leaving hers for only a moment to gaze down at her lips.  It was almost shameful how turned on she was at the sight of him.

“Oh?” It was breathy and all she could let out but it caused Paul to, at her dismay, chuckle and separate from her.  He went to the driver’s side door and she just watched him, standing there, yearning for his warmth.  He opened his door and looked at her.

“Well?” She was confused and it showed, her brain still calibrating what was happening.  She’d wanted so badly for him to do as he pleased with her that it was taking her a moment to catch up, “do you want to go home or not?” She bit her lip and shook her head, laughing as she went to her door and climbed in.  One door closed and then the other, Paul started the engine but didn’t go.

“Well?” Y/n allowed another moment of confusion at her suddenly seemingly indecisive boyfriend.  He sat there, looking at his keys, he hadn’t taken his hand away since he turned them.

“Fuck it.” He swiftly twisted his wrist, shutting the car back off before turning to y/n and grabbing the nape of her neck, passionately pressing his lips against hers. She reacted automatically.  Kissing Paul was like riding a bike, except not at all because there were no pedals and there were no wheels and instead of sitting on a bicycle there’s a longing to have a hot, and ideally horny, wolf of a man between your legs.  Y/n reached to unbuckle, forgetting that she hadn’t even gotten that far into the car ride and they both let out a gasp of a laugh, their teeth bumping.  Paul took initiative and pulled y/n from her seat, setting her on him instead, a leg on either side of him.  They were ravenous, starving for each other.  Paul slapped her ass and she jumped, moaning into the kiss and then he pulled away.  Y/n went to lean back in but a warm finger was placed over her lips instead.

“We don’t want to give Mr. Lonely a free show tonight, do we?” He was clearly as aroused as she was if the tent beneath her was any indication, but you wouldn’t be able to tell in any other way.  He was cool, collected, and composed. He gently set y/n back into her seat and turned on the engine once more as y/n tried to catch her breath. “One more thing.”  He grabbed her chin gently so she looked at him and his eyes were serious.

“Yes?” She was hoping he would change his mind again—her head was spinning this much, what’s a little more—and turn off he engine, but he seemed ready to head home.

“I love you. So fucking much.” It was almost wolfish the way he said it and he proceeded to kiss her one last brief time before putting the car in gear to drive home, “You,” He looked at her again, “are mine, doll face.”

[dynamics-of-an-asteroid]

Dont suppose you have a copy of the interview you could share?

For you, dear anon~

His Dark Materials: Andrew Scott on life after Fleabag and Sherlock

We’ve loved him as both Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Sherlock’s menacing Moriarty. Now, he’s back on our screens in the new series of His Dark Materials. Polly Vernon talks to our TV crush

Andrew Scott is mortified. The actor – formerly Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, then the Hot Priest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, imminently Colonel John Parry in the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – arrives at the photographic studio, bang on the appointed hour, in a fawn cashmere cardigan with a fine gold chain around his neck, bemoaning “this terrible, terrible eye infection, which is making me so self-conscious. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that you’ve massively upset me before we’ve even started. It’s so annoying. But anyway…”

Scott, 44, is small, vivid, wiry and garrulously Irish, with a face that is not handsome so much as mesmerising, intense, sharply boned, symmetrical, startlingly expressive. Sequences of emotions so subtle and complicated that I can’t begin to identify or keep up with them ruffle his brow from moment to moment. And, yup, the whole thing is rather disrupted by his left eye. This is no light kiss of conjunctivitis. It’s a swollen, red, perma-weeping situation that engulfs the whole socket. Scott turns his face two thirds on to me, so the infection is largely hidden, which would probably help if we weren’t sitting in a brightly lit hair and make-up room with a massive, inescapable mirror fixed to one wall. “Oh God,” Scott says every time he catches sight of his reflection.

Stress?

“Let’s be honest,” he says. “Let’s not skirt around the issue. It’s being overworked and…” Scott’s eye begins weeping. “Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Really, really very sorry.”

Wanna wear my sunglasses, I ask, holding them out to him.

“That would be a bit more weird, wouldn’t it? I actually did think about that in the taxi, but I thought that would be some sort of weird and screwed Invisible Man-type thing. I mean, it couldn’t be worse. And then we have to go and get our photograph taken. It’ll be one of those pictures where, you know, those creepy pictures… Of people crying?”

That’s what Photoshop’s for, I say.

“Anyway. Let’s just ignore it.”

I wonder if it’s particularly hard to walk around with an eye infection at a point in time where you’re not merely famous, as Scott is – a star of stage, screen and Bond film, winner of multiple awards, including, as of barely two weeks ago, a Best Actor Olivier for Present Laughter at the Old Vic – but specifically famous for being sexy.

In 2019, Andrew Scott became synonymous with, well, sex. While playing a character technically known as the Priest, whom the general public instantly renamed the Hot Priest, the spiritual support turned transgressive love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s supremely popular Fleabag, Scott became a cypher for the nation’s more exotic desires. A deliciously contentious pin-up. Ground zero on an earnest social media debate about whether the Priest’s relationship with Fleabag should be considered abusive, power imbalanced, “problematic”. And that was just for starters.

The Priest’s sexual iconography extended far beyond the limits of the show, becoming the subject of internet memes and real-life merchandise (visit online retailer Etsy for your £12 Hot Priest mug emblazoned with an illustration of Scott in priest’s robes, alongside the word “kneel”, a reference to a pivotal moment between the show’s lead characters, which takes place in a confession box, the climax of which, assuming you haven’t already seen it, you could probably take a stab at). There was an unprecedented upsurge in young worshippers, and women started bombarding social media “influencer” the Rev Chris Lee of west London with nude photographs. There was much foetid fan fiction.

To be publicly defined by so much sex, as Scott still is, a year and a half after Fleabag concluded, and then to be encumbered by something as visibly unsexy as an eye infection, I can see how that might make a chap self-conscious.

Scott isn’t here to rake up all that old Hot Priest stuff, mind. He’s here to talk about the second series of His Dark Materials, a lush, expensive fantasy drama based on the Philip Pullman books, jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule. The series was filmed through 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and had all but wrapped before lockdown. Good timing, as it turned out, because the extensive post-production processes, unlike shooting, could be completed in isolation.

Scott’s Colonel John Parry is an explorer, the missing father of the central character, 14-year-old Will Parry. He’s a man who slipped into a parallel universe some years earlier, acquired a “daemon” – an exterior animal-formed expression of his soul, a female osprey called Sayan Kötör, voiced with public-pleasing symmetry by Phoebe Waller-Bridge – and never found a way back to “our” world and his son. I speak as a fan of the books, which you might describe as a darker, existential response to Harry Potter, although honestly? They’re better than that. The show is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.

Did he jump at the part?

“I did, actually. It was definitely something I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those who slips into the third person when speaking about himself in a professional capacity.

Had he read the books?

“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant. I love the way Pullman tells children about spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary, intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to them. He talks to children’s souls.”

Given that Pullman effectively kills off God through the course of the books and Scott’s a lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share of shame on account of the church’s grip on his homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.

Presumably, he didn’t have to audition. Presumably, he never has to. Too famous for auditions?

“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”

Why?

“Because you’re able to understand, ‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice, but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”

I don’t care that you didn’t give me that part?

“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.

Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be enough to eliminate all residual overtones of Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’ Birdland, back when his deeply sinister Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d watched him become someone else entirely on stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.

I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining line from the play, as evidence.

“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”

The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s like to be the very definition of sexiness.

“You get invited to more parties.”

Better parties?

“Yeah.”

Better than during his Moriarty phase?

“Definitely.”

It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri in sexy, according to the whole nation.

“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really like being associated with scary. It’s not what I’m interested in being, in life, being intimidating to people. It’s not part of my nature, whereas being sexy to people…”

That is part of his nature?

“Well, they’re very different things.”

They’re both about having power over people.

“I suppose they are, yes.”

So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in 2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will make everyone think I’m just really, really sexy now”?

“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”

“Exactly.”

——————————

Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview. He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In between prostrating himself for the offence of his eye and apologising for not turning up the first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good time in his company. He is playful. He makes me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just… Shhhh!” he implores, placing a finger against his lips while expressing frustrations over the mindless jabber of social media, and he does it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet, breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.) He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.

Yeah. For Gucci.

“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”

And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly, melodiously Irish, which makes everything sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.

As for the actual business of being interviewed, of answering straight questions with straight answers, finishing off sentences, offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none of which translates into print? He’d rather not.

He tells me, as he’s told other journalists before, this is because he’s interested in navigating the line between “privacy and secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes “got away with secrecy under the guise and respectability of privacy”, as if signalling potential incoming slipperiness, which means I prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.

First up: amateur psychology.

Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the heart of his reluctance to speak more freely? Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean, as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came out], you know? But then, as a celebrity…”

He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks. This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t very well quote Scott on the presumptions I make about things he never quite says.

He had to have another coming out?

“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”

He has another coming out coming up?

“Yeah.”

So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?

“Tier 3, yeah.”

Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree openness in a person. He invokes the concept of shame more regularly than the average interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976 to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked at an employment agency. He has one older sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.

He was shy, so started attending a children’s drama course.

Did that help?

“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to be someone else. It’s more like, this is who I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,” he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly talented. He went from adverts to his first starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school but took a place at Trinity College Dublin to study drama instead, and ditched that six months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s been gainfully employed in the field ever since.

How Catholic was his upbringing?

“Well, there were Catholic priests in my life,” he says. “None of whom I wanted to have sex with.”

Does it amuse Scott to know he inspired a mass fetishising of priestly ranks? That in 2019, the Hot Priest would make, “Can you have sex with a Catholic priest?” one of the most googled terms of the year?

“Absolutely f***ing mental,” he says.

Homosexuality wasn’t legalised in Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16.

“I always think, if I’d had a boyfriend then, which I definitely did not…”

No?

“No.”

He knew he was gay, though?

“No. No, no, no, no!”

Was he suppressing it or not thinking about it?

“I would say suppressing. Definitely suppressing. I don’t believe people just don’t think about it.”

An upbeat, cheesy jazz remix of something or other starts playing outside the room.

“Oooh, this is the soundtrack for this bit of the interview,” says Scott. He wiggles his shoulders to the music.

I switch to strict dominatrix interviewer mode. Focus, I say. You were about to tell me something good.

“Oh, shit, was I? OK. I think what’s really insidious is that people don’t ask you about sex or… People wouldn’t say, ‘Are you gay or are you [straight]?’ And the lack of directness is very damaging. They just didn’t go there.”

Does he think his family, friends, the people closest to him knew then that he was gay?

“No,” he says. “I don’t think they did know. Or maybe they have a suspicion, but they think, I want to be respectful, so I’m not going to ask about that. Then [when you do come out], people say, ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ You know? If you do talk about it. So I suppose what I feel now is, talking about sex or sexuality is important. Really important.”

Having said that, “There’s still getting rid of the shame. In a situation like this, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been…” He fakes shock, horror. “Oh no! Polly’s just asked me about [he switches to a whisper] that.”

Scott will talk about his sex life only notionally. No specifics. For 15 years, between 2001 and 2016, he was in a relationship with the actor turned screenwriter Stephen Beresford (Scott starred in Beresford’s 2014 film Pride). Ever since, he’s refused to answer questions about his romantic life.

And he’s not going to talk about it now, I presume.

“No.”

What if we talk about it opaquely?

“OK.”

Where does he see himself, domestically, in an ideal world? Married with kids whom he’ll, I dunno, adopt or have via surrogacy?

“I like it. It’s bold. Am I going to adopt or…?”

Get a surrogate?

“I definitely think that’s something I would be open to.”

Great, I say, with blatant sarcasm. Thanks. How specific.

“Ha! I’m sorry. OK. Have I got any children at the moment? No. How can I… [explain]? OK. I was with a friend of mine in Dublin…”

His partner?

“No, no, no. Not my partner. Ah ha. I see what you were…”

Teasing. Yes.

“Ha! Yes. So, I was with a friend in Dublin and we were walking around and he was looking at apartments and I was like, ‘What about this place here?’ You know? And he said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I don’t live a heteronormative life, so I don’t want a heteronormative house.’ ”

What’s a heteronormative house?

“Two up, two down thing. He goes, ‘I can live in a loft or a weird space. I don’t need those things.’ He was so proud of it. He really owned it. I think where a lot of one’s pain comes from is when you go, ‘I should want that.’ And so, to answer your question opaquely, I have kids I adore. I love children, genuinely, and I had a very happy childhood. But I also feel, if I don’t have kids, that’s all right. I think I would’ve attached a lot of shame beforehand, with not living a particularly heteronormative life… Even with being gay, there’s a sort of way of being gay that’s acceptable. And I don’t feel that any more.”

He feels you can be unacceptably gay?

“Exactly. Exactly!”

I ask when shame shifted for him and Scott says it was when Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, which felt, he says, “like acceptance, genuinely. And I remember going out to this gay bar in Dublin and this girl came up to me, this cool Dublin girl, and she said, ‘What are you doing here? You need to go down to, I don’t know, blah, blah, this bar in some park.’ She was saying, ‘This isn’t the right gay bar for you. This is some shit gig,’ when the fact I’m in a gay bar in Ireland [at all] is a miracle to me, and then some person with a half-shaved head is telling me, ‘No, you need to go somewhere cooler.’ ”

His left eye starts weeping again.

“I’m so happy about that,” he says. “Even though I’m crying.”

I ask Scott if he has a game plan when picking roles, if he plots his course from Sherlock villain to Bond quasi-villain (he played Max Denbigh in Spectre) to sex icon, and, if so, what next? “No. Jesus, no,” he says.

We talk about the totalitarianism of social media, which he isn’t on, and share a mutual despair over it. “I thought it was something one would associate with the right, but actually, now it’s [the left] that is very ‘you’re this’ or ‘you’re that’. I find that quite frightening. It actually makes me feel ferocious.”

Is he not worried about being cancelled, of somehow saying the “wrong” thing, according to Twitter sensitivities, then having a thousand voices mobilised against him, demanding his firing, in the style of JK Rowling?

“I’m not,” he says. “I refuse to be. A very intelligent person I was talking to recently was writing a book and he said, ‘I’m going to get a sensitivity expert to have a look. I don’t want to get cancelled.’ I found that frightening.”

Is he rich? “Rich is the absence of worry about money,” he says. He can’t remember the last time he worried about money.

That must be nice.

“Of course it f***ing is. I think it’s a miracle. I really do. I was working in a French theatre in London for nothing – none of us was working for anything – and I remember the artistic director of the theatre talking about the fact we weren’t earning any money as some sort of virtue. I remember feeling really annoyed about that, like this isn’t good.”

This leads to an inevitable conversation about how the arts are suffering with Covid, including a segue down the Fatima route, the much shared government advert that depicted a young ballerina and suggested she retrain in something called cyber. “Her name’s not even Fatima,” Scott rails. “I think she’s called Desire’e. From New York.”

I mean to ask him about his experience of filming The Pursuit of Love with Lily James and Dominic West, stars of their own recent off-screen micro-scandal in Rome, just in case he lets any scurrilous insight slip, but our time’s up and it’s not as if Scott has much form on offering up scurrilous insight anyway.

Still, I feel grateful to him for meeting me halfway on the other stuff. And so I say goodbye to Andrew Scott, the UK’s foremost gay heterosexual lapsed Catholic faux-priest lust icon with a troublesome eye infection.

[iamtrebleclefstories]

I Believe in Second Chances - Part 4

Alex dies while on his way to stop Jo from reading the letter he sent. Somehow, he gets a second chance

If you haven’t read part 3 yet, you can find it here

—Part 4—

He woke up in an on-call room of all places. A part of him thought that the most recent occurrences had to have been a dream, but when he looked around and saw that he was wearing navy blue scrubs and recognized the all too familiar mattresses, he knew that it was most definitely real. Confused, Alex rubbed a hand over his face and groaned at the dull headache and extreme feelings of soreness all over his body that appeared almost immediately after he woke up.

He figured it must have been a result of his injuries from the crash… the crash that had effectively killed Izzie. Izzie. Wherever he was--better yet, whenever he was, somewhere out there Izzie Stevens had just died. He made a mental note to find out about that, to see how much had changed and if his kids made it to this alternate timeline or not.

As he got up, Alex noticed something quite significant. His wedding band was absent from his finger. Okay, that was a clue. So he wasn’t married, yet. He and Jo hadn’t gotten married yet. With about two and half years of marriage under their belt, that gave Alex some more clear parameters as to where in the timeline he’d been deposited.

As he was stretching his stiff frame, he looked down and felt a buzzing in his pocket. He reached in to find his old white pager going off, calling him to respond to a trauma in the pit. This wasn’t right. Alex hadn’t used a real pager in years. They’d stopped using the white pagers sometime after he got fired by Lebackes. The last time he’d used one, Cristina was still here.

Alex scrunched his face in confusion, trying to figure out when the hell he’d woken up. That would have to wait until later, though. The persistent buzzing of his pager was calling him to go attend to a peds trauma. Sighing, Alex straightened his clothes and ran out into the hallway. Halfway through his sprint towards the ER, Alex noticed something. The hospital logo was different. He hadn’t seen that logo in close to a decade.

Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital

Crap. He’d woken up a lot earlier than he thought. If he was right, it had to be 2012. That meant that Eli and Alexis didn’t exist and would never exist in this new timeline. And if it was 2012, that definitely meant that he and Jo were not together yet. They didn’t even really become friends until after Bailey’s Christmas themed wedding that same year.

As he finally made it down to the pit, he had to stop the look of surprise on his face when he saw Callie and Shane Ross running out to the ambulance bay. Alex reached out for one of the trauma gowns when he bumped into someone.

Not paying attention to anything but the onslaught of thoughts running through his mind he sighed, “You mind?”

“Sorry.”

He felt paralyzed. The sound of her voice made his heart speed up a little. He knew now, exactly what day it was. How could he really forget? This may have been the most important day of his entire life. Because if it weren’t for this day, he wouldn’t have been the man he is today.

Alex kept walking to the ambulance bay, noticing that she was trailing him. He thought back to the day and tried to keep what he said as close to what he’d originally told her, “Why are you following me?”

“I’m your intern for the day.”

“Hello intern. You have a name?”

“Jo Wilson.”

“Nice. I like chicks with boys' names,” Alex glanced at her and felt all the breath escape his lungs. Again. Sure, the feelings of love and coming home weren’t as intense the first time he saw, but even in his previous life, Alex knew Jo was different. She wasn’t just pretty.She wasn’t just beautiful. She was all those things and more—a fact he’d been convinced of from the moment she opened her eyes.

“Karev.” Callie interjected, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Smirking lightly at the comments he knew we’re coming, Alex looked up at Callie, “What? I do. It’s hot.”

Callie rolled her eyes, “Stop sleeping with your coworkers. It ruins them.”

“I slept with you,” Alex quipped.

“And now I longer sleep with men,” Callie raised her hands and widened her eyes in mock surprise.

Alex chuckled lightly. He turned his attention back to Jo—who looked amused by the entire scene. It felt surreal being here, reliving the life he’d already lived once. The only bright side to it all was that he could redo it, he could fix it so that he and Jo become friends quicker, so that Jo never dated Chest Peckwell, so he could get her to confide in him about her past and Paul, so that they’d never break up, he’d never almost go to jail, so he’d get the chance to marry Jo all over again and stay true to his vows.

He thought about this and all the ways he could change his life with Jo for the better. All the ways he could clean up the messes he’d created before they happened. He figured the first thing he could do was change the way he treated her from the beginning. That wouldn’t be very difficult, considering he practically worshipped the ground she walked on.

Alex knew the first thing he’d change as soon as he’d heard Jo’s excitement over the young patient’s foot that they were about to salvage. As they loaded onto the elevator, Alex turned to Jo and graced her with what he knew to be one of her favorite crooked smiles, “You coming?”

Alex heard as Jo’s breath hitched in the back of her throat. He did his best to keep the smug grin off her face, but he was glad that even though she didn’t know him, he could still have this effect on her. Jo had told him once that if it weren’t for his douche-bag attitude, she probably would’ve fallen for him a lot sooner. Even before they were truly friends, Jo had been attracted to him. It wasn’t until later, though, when he started to win her over with his charms and genuine care that she allowed herself to fall for him.

Jo’s eyebrows shot up and a bright grin spread along her face, “Yes! Thank you.”

So unlike the first time around, Jo scrubbed in on this surgery. He took this opportunity to test the waters and show her that he was different from the persona people had labeled him with. He taught and allowed Jo to assist, and he did his best to bring up things he knew about her to make conversation. About halfway through however, one of the nurses answered a page he received, “Dr. Karev, one of your post-op patients needs a drain removed.”

Alex looked over at Jo with apologetic eyes, “Can you go take care of that for me and round on my pre and post ops? You can scrub back in when you’re done. We’re going to be here for a couple more hours.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jo nodded and stepped away from the patient, walking out of the OR.

It was quiet for a few minutes before Callie spoke, “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re being all nice and charming and interested and weird. It’s starting to freak me out,” Callie replied. “I felt like I was third wheeling on the world’s weirdest first date.”

“Whatever,” Alex rolled his eyes and continued to work. Honestly, it was nice to work with Callie again. For him, it had been years since they’d even been in the same room. He almost forgot how observant she was. “I can’t be nice?”

“You, nice? Ha,” Callie chuckled. “Alex Karev, I have never known you to be nice to anyone but your patients. The last time you were nice to a woman, you married her.”

Alex looked down and did his best to keep his focus on the patient. What Callie was saying was true. Up until that point, he hadn’t been the nicest person on the planet. Still wasn’t, but if it weren’t for Jo, he’d probably still be Evil Spawn. He bit back a laugh as he thought about the whiplash he’d be giving his friends when they saw the change in his behavior.

“You like her,” Callie gasped suddenly. “You like her, like her. And not just for sex like her. I thought I was going crazy when I first felt the vibes, but no. This is a ‘love at first sight, I feel like I’ve known you all my life’ connection.”

“Dude, shut up. Keep your voice down,” Alex shushed as he looked around the room at the nosy nurses and OR staff. He saw Shane’s face twitch in amusement. “Is it so crazy that I might be interested in a woman?”

“No, it’s not,” Shane replied.

“Thank you,” Alex turned back to his work. “Suction.”

“You being interested in a woman is not crazy,” Callie continued the repair she was doing. “What’s crazy is that you are legitimately interested in this woman, who you don’t even know, who you haven’t slept with, and just so happens to be in the same class as all of those interns you screwed over the past few months.”

Damn it. He’d forgotten about that. Before he and Jo had even met, he’d already screwed all of her friends. That’s why she thought he was an ass at first, and that’s why it was going to take him a whole lot longer to win over her trust than he anticipated.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m an ass who sleeps around and doesn’t call back. I know that’s what you’re used to, but i don’t know… this feels different. So, you guys are gonna keep your mouths shut and let me figure out what the hell is going on in my brain. Not a word of this to anyone, okay?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Callie conceded and Shane nodded in compliance and kept silent as he continued to assist.

By the time Jo returned to the OR, the conversation had been tabled for another time. Instead, any time Alex and Jo would converse, Callie would send him a look from across the table, occasionally wiggling her eyebrows.

When they finally finished, Alex waited behind for Jo to scrub out. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to kiss her and say he loved her, but at this point, that would only freak her out. So instead, Alex decided to go the easy route and compliment her surgical skills.

“You did great in there, Wilson. You’ve got the potential to become a wonderful surgeon,” Alex complimented.

Jo paused her scrubbing to look at him strangely, “Thanks…”

“Since you’re on my service all week, I was thinking you could scrub in with me on my surgeries,” Alex offered.

“I’d like that,” Jo smiled shyly. She shut off the water and dried her hands. “You know, you’re not as bad as everyone says you are.”

“Thanks?” Alex laughed.

He looked into Jo’s eyes only to find a glint of what he hoped would develop into love swimming beneath the surface. God, he could stare into those golden eyes forever. It may have been one of his favorite things about her. So often, they’d been able to just look at each other and know what was going through the other’s head. They could have a conversation without any words.

This felt right. Eyes locked, no one daring to break the stare. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, despite the fact that in Jo’s mind, they had just met. No… this was right. This was home. This was exactly where he’d always belonged. Now that he had his second chance, he sure as hell wasn’t going to mess it up.

Clearing his throat, Alex decided to do the thing he hadn’t been bold enough to do the first time around, “Do you want to go get a drink with me later? You know, to celebrate that a girl didn’t lose her leg?”

“Sure,” Jo answered, sounding breathless.

“Okay,” Alex’s mouth curved up into a soft grin. “I’m going to go check on my patients, but I’ll see you in a bit. For now, keep an eye on our sailor here and page me if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

With one last longing look, Alex walked out of the scrub room onto the OR floor. He made his way to an empty on-call room and sat down on the bed. He looked up at the ceiling and the emptiness before deciding to speak, “Look, I don’t know if you can hear me, but wherever you are, Iz… thank you. I get a chance to make it alright and that’s because of you. And I’m forever in your debt.”

He didn't hear a response, but that wasn’t entirely surprising to him. He just wished there was some way to know that Izzie knew how grateful he was. Just as he was about to stand up from the bed, Alex felt the faintest sensation of a hand on his shoulder. Even though he couldn’t see anyone, Alex knew that she had heard.