#Diane probably grows more to be like this after years of them being together but she's still a LOT more dazzly and not calm at all

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

UMMM UM I'M SORRY TO DO THIS BUT UHH

HOBIE x SPIRITUAL!OC

HOBIE X BLACK!OC THAT'S LIKE ERYKAH BADU

Do you see it do you see it

Like an incense-burning super-calm natured, grounded, centered black sista

They both have natural hair she compliments him on all the time. In fact, it was one of the first things she said to him - and it stuck with Hobie. Hardly anyone compliments his hair - that like that.

To others, his hair 'interesting' or at most 'stylish'. But he's never had someone call his hair beautiful, or healthy, or inspiring.

She's like 'brotha you need to put me onto what you're on' because seeing Hobie with hair so free and thriving in the world is something so rare and valuable

And her saying that sticks with him so much.

She talks JUST as cryptically as he does.

Most of the things she says are almost phrased like poems. Always dropping little nuggets of knowledge about spirit and racism and balance

Lots of time she'll make references to poems, of quote lines of books from black female writers like Maya Angelou.

She sees him after a long day, telling him 'Look at you, giving a caged bird a reason to sing'

Their conversations sound confusing as FUCK. Hobie and her are always talking in metaphors and making jokes referencing leftist thinkers

They're very into black love.

They bond over literature written by black anti-apartheid thinkers in South Africa, she teaches him how to celebrate Kwanzaa - after Hobie spent years ignoring the holidays (bad memories)

She probably plays the guitar or the bass, but her music is the opposite of his. Hers is the 'smoke sesh' type of slow lofi. Full of hypnotic soothing cards and whisper vocals. Just a politically charged, just as socially concious

She's a lot more spiritual than him, and it's something he has to get used to.

It takes him a bit.

She's ALWAYS burning incense. She'll tuck one behind her air and forget about it, she only wears Earth and jewel tones.

Her house is stacked high with nonfiction books, and she's the only one who can make his cup of tea better than he can - she even got him into green tea. Now he knows what oolong is. What the hell

Sure she makes him take off his boats EVERYTIME he comes over - and was horrified the first time he just walked up in her place with them on - he's still over there all the time.

It's one place he knows he can find calm, or feel safe.

To be honest, she's probably not into his music too much.

She's not into the big crowds and big speakers and drinking at the venues.

She loves hearing HIM play. She doesn't need the bright lights or vocalists or drummers or any of it at all-

Instead she'll just sit on the floor of his boathouse, barefoot and criss cross as she watches him strum away.

And she ADORES when he plays accoustic - something he'll do exclusively for her

The DYNAMIC THE DYNAMIC OKAY

She's not a Spider person. She's a helper in this world too, but she'd rather be a healer than a hero.

It's how she keeps her peace. She's a lot more quiet and soft-spoken than him, but not because she's shy. She's just chilling. Fully committed to never letting no one stress her over NOTHING

Half the time Hobie will be joking or messing or playfully teasing her and she'll be like 'Boy, stop stressing me out.'

And when he's pushed to the edge, full of anger and bitterness and resent at the world, at what they're forced to, by the responsibility he carriers - she's always there to rub circles into his shoulders, putting a record on the player as she fixes them some tea.

He doesn't believe in all that mystic shit, not that much.

The first time he went to her place he raised an eyebrow, asking about her supposed 'rock collection'.

'Those are crystals.'

She explains what they are, and why she keeps them. How she uses them in her spiritual work. He thinks it's a load of bullocks.

Does he actually think this hunk of clear rock is going to 'purify' anything in a world like theirs? NO.

He won't say it, but she can read his vibes like a book.

But she explains that - regardless of all that - most of her crystals were taken from the motherland. And that she's happy having them, it's a way to reclaim a bit of the land they all were taken from.

When he asks what the hell is motherland is she's like

'Africa, Hobie.'

They have some interesting conversations. They were the world VERY VERY differently, but they always see eye-to-eye eventually.

He may not believe in it, but he believes in her.

And when he's at the end of his rope, coming to get place beat to hell and back - and she puts on that incense, the sound of her music hypnotic and sedative - he can't help but feel like he's lost in that world with her.

Hobie believes in anarchy, in all things. He'd love to think that the universe has it all figured out, that everything is in perfect balance as is - but he's not buying it.

And yet sometimes she seems so sure, and so grounded, that he can't help but fall back on her. And she's okay with it, that's what she's there for.

She's happy to exist in silence with him, quietly teaching him the difference between Frankincense and Myrrh incense, the historical uses and how to tell the difference.

She gives him small gifts if things she's made - Florida Water (the spiritual cologne not literal Florida water 😭) for him to use as protection, a cowrie shell bracelet, herbal tea blends made by hand.

She sews up holes in his vest or suit, humming quietly as he lays on the floor, soul food cooking on the stove

DO YOU FEEL THE VIBES DO YOU DO YOU

He's fire and brimstone and loud guitar solos. She's wind and earth, and meditation sessions. She's not a pacifist and she doesn't judge

Despite being two very different people, who approach life in two very different ways, they still find themselves on the same path of wanting to help people

HOBIE AND A SPIRITUAL SISTA. HOBIE AND A BLACK!HIPPIE!READER. PLEASE. I BEG OF YOU.

LET HOBIE FIND PEACE

[hellvst]

OFFSEASON – quinn hughes

featuring ; quinn hughes x fmc (sydney gray)

✮⋆˙ warning & content ; swearing

✮⋆˙ word count ; 5.4k

✮⋆˙ previous chapter – series masterlist – next chapter

a/n ; longer chapter update! let's just say...i had fun writing this one scene for the upcoming chapters lol. not proof-read but i will later. also check out the playlist i've made for this fic! happy reading! <3

CHAPTER SIX

SYDNEY

The moment my foot stepped inside the arena, a wave of nostalgia hit me so hard it nearly knocked the breath out of me.

The sharp, crisp scent of ice, the faint sound of blades cutting through the rink, the soft hum of chatter from the skaters–it was all the same.

Home. That was what this place had once been to me.

It was weird thinking of it that way, but in truth, that was the only word to describe it. 

I swallowed, trying to push down the rush of reminiscence. It’s been years, you should be used to this by now.

It wasn’t that long ago when I finally mustered up the courage to bring myself back to this arena–or to any rink really. I don’t know why I’ve pulled myself away from it. Perhaps it was feelings like this that I wanted to avoid. 

Disappointment. Sadness. Regret.

I was only avoiding the inevitable. I just needed to stop moping around and grow a pair of pants. But, how could I?

When the one thing that defined me, that thing that gave me a sense of purpose, the fire that fueled me was suddenly gone–it felt like a wave of water putting it all out. And now, I was just drowning.

For a long time, I let myself stay underwater. I ignored competitions, unfollowed my former teammates, avoiding every reminder that skating had ever been part of me. 

I tried convincing myself that I could move on, that I didn’t need it. And for a while, I almost believed it. 

But Diane never let me disappear completely. She convinced me to come by now and then, just to visit, just to watch. And somehow, those visits turned into me coming to the rink every week or so.

It wasn’t the same as being on the ice, but helping in any way I could for those kids, it felt like I was on the ice with them.

I don't remember the last time I visited, it’s been a while. More bookings and classes were piling up at the studio, I couldn’t find the time. Then Diane had told me a few days ago that the kids she trained were asking about me. They missed me, apparently. 

And that alone had been enough to convince me to come.

So, I figured I’d drop by after my session with Quinn.

I just didn’t expect Quinn to be here too as he walked beside me, looking around as if this area of the building was foreign territory to him. It probably was. 

I knew the Canucks trained at this same arena–besides the Rogers Arena–but their rink and practice times had always been separate from the figure skating academy’s. Or at least, that was how it used to be. 

Now, with the off-season schedule and the regular season over, things had shifted. Today, by some uncanny coincidence, Quinn’s practice and the academy’s session overlapped.

I had expected him to head straight to his rink, but instead, he followed me as I made my way to the side of the smaller figure skating rink.

“The Canucks’ had practices here for years and I had no idea they had a figure skating academy here.”

“I expected that,” I glanced at him while we walked. “Didn’t take you for someone who strayed from the main rink.” 

He smirked slightly. “Didn’t take you for someone who had another life as a skater.”

“Former skater.” I corrected him.

My lips pressed together as I realized how defensive I sounded. But luckily, Quinn didn’t seem to catch on to it since his focus was on the rink in front of us.

I spotted Diane gliding across the ice, effortlessly moving between her young students as she gave out directions. The kids followed her lead, some practicing jumps, their blades slicing clean lines into the pristine surface, others focused on footwork.

Diane noticed me first, her face lighting up as she waved from the center of the ice. She blew her whistle, calling out, “Alright, everyone, finish up with a few laps!”

The kids groaned but obeyed, starting their loops around the rink. I saw from my peripheral Quinn smiling at that–I was guessing he had related to the same memories as well.

Diane skated towards us against the boards, her arms already outstretched. I barely had time to prepare before she pulled me into a tight hug. 

“Hey! So glad you came–” Her words cut off as soon as her eyes landed on Quinn who stood next to me. I knew that look on her face. It was the expression she had when Channing Tatum popped up on the screen. Mid-hug, she leaned in and whispered, “–What is Quinn Hughes doing here? With you?”

“I’ll explain later.” I mumbled quickly before pulling away from her embrace. Then I turned to Quinn. “Hughes, this is my friend, Diane. She runs the figure skating academy as one of the development coaches.”

“Hey. I remember you from the cafe a few weeks ago with Sydney, right? I’m Quinn.” He held out his hand and offered Diane a handshake.

Diane shook his hand far too excitedly, like she was more happy to see him than me. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you. Congrats on a great season by the way, I’m a huge fan.”

“But you haven’t even watched the Canucks play–”

“So,” she stopped me before I could finish. “What brings you here? Isn’t the bigger rink over on the other side of the building?”

“I’m just tagging along.” Quinn said loosely, hands in his hoodie pockets. “I’ve never visited a figure skating academy before, so I figured I could check it out."

Before Diane could dig for details, the kids finished their cool-down laps and were down swarming towards the doors. 

As soon as they spotted me, their faces lit up, and in an instant, I was engulfed in their smaller arms and excited voices overlapping each other.

“Sydney! You came!”

“Miss Sydney, we missed you!”

“Took you long enough!”

I laughed, hugging them back, memories from months ago flooding in. 

During the times I've visited, I usually sat, watched, or helped whenever I could. I never overstepped, just gave them some pointers on jumps, refining their edges, and corrected their landing. Diane never minded–if anything, she encouraged it.

But, I still kept my distance at times knowing that being too close to the sport would only bring back the ache I had worked so hard to numb.

“I missed you guys too.” I said while greeting each one of them.

My eyes flickered to the one skater who didn’t join in on the chaos. Arielle.

She lingered on the ice and stood along the boards, gripping them tightly, frustration etched into every line of her face. I knew that look. I understood the weight of it.

Before I could say anything, she made a beeline past us with her head down, then disappeared to the locker rooms.

“What’s wrong with Arielle?” I asked.

“She kept falling on her jumps today. She’s mad about it.” One of the kids explained.

I let out a short exhale and exchanged glances with Diane, fully aware about it.

My gaze followed the direction Arielle had gone. I had known Arielle for a while. She wasn’t the loudest in the group, but her passion for skating burned quietly beneath the surface. She was one of the older and more advanced skaters in the academy, incredibly talented but took mistakes hard.

Before I could dwell on it, I heard an excited gasp from behind me.

“Wait a second–Quinn Hughes?”

And just like that, all hell broke loose.

The kids turned their attention to Quinn–completely abandoning me for the Canucks’ captain.

Their eyes widening in disbelief followed by shouts of excitement. Some squealed, others gasped, and a few immediately began digging through their bags for their phones or anything he could sign.

Quinn, to his credit, handled it well. He laughed while greeting them, “Hey guys, looking good out there.”

“You think so?” One of them pipped.

Quinn smiled. “Are you kidding? You all looked so cool, I don’t think I could ever do that.”

The kids practically melted in admiration for the NHL star which accompanied with a wave of voices. All of them pleading for signatures and photos. Quinn was in the center of the group, looking slightly overwhelmed.

I was quick to step in. “Alright, guys that's enough. Give him some space. He’s a really busy guy.” 

The kids frowned and sighed disappointedly at that. But Quinn glances at me, shaking his head. “I don’t mind.” 

I gave him a look. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s no trouble,” he said easily, then he turned to face the kids. “Anything for you guys.”

They all cheered and quickly lined up in front of him. So, I backed away closer to Diane as he let the kids take turns posing with him, signing skates, chatting, and entertaining them.

In contrast to what happened earlier at the studio with the reporters–this Quinn was more soft and warm towards the younger skaters. The sight of it tugged something in me. It was cute.

Meanwhile, Diane leaned in, her question from earlier resurfacing. “Are you going to tell me how you and Quinn Hughes came here together?”

I sighed, unsure whether I wanted to relive that chaotic moment. But, Diane would pry it out of me anyways. “We had our session at the studio earlier. Then when it ended, things got crazy with the media showing up and came by surprise. And I couldn’t get to my car, so he offered me a ride. I was already planning to head over, and his practice was at the other rink. It just worked out, that’s all.”

Diane’s eyes widened, looking surprised. “Sydney, that’s fucking insane. You ran into trouble with the media? How are you so calm right now? I would be freaking out.” She was clearly not buying the casualness of my explanation.

“I mean, if Quinn wasn’t there–” I paused, glancing at him with the kids. “–I would have been mobbed by the reporters. He helped me out of it.”

Just when Diane was about to fire rapid-questions at me, one of the girls, after taking a picture with Quinn, walked over to me and Diane. 

She gestured to me to lean down, whispering in my ear. “Your boyfriend’s cute. You’re so lucky to be dating him.”

Wait. What?

“What? Wait–no, Quinn’s not my–”

Before I could say anything and deny it to her, she had already ran off with a cheeky grin plastered across her face. 

I barely had the chance to process it before Quinn returned as he finished dealing with the kids. He had walked over just in time to hear the last bit and tilted his head at me. “I’m not your what?”

Shit.

“Nothing.” I stiffened. He was about to press further, but I quickly changed the subject. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for practice by now?”

“Yeah, in a bit.” He checked the wall clock sitting above us. “It’s still a few minutes early. Are you two heading out soon?”

Diane nodded. “Syd and I have big plans for the evening.”

That piqued Quinn’s interest, but I rolled my eyes at my friend’s exaggeration. “I wouldn’t call watching The Office and downing a bottle of wine ‘big’ plans, Di.”

“But you were the one most looking forward to it than–”

“That reminds me–” I butt in before my traitorous friend exposed me, earning both of their attention now. “We need to go get my car from the studio. I think the reporters should be gone by now.”

Diane nodded as she began gathering her things. “Yes. We’ll get going soon. Just give me a sec.” She picked up an average size box next to her filled with stacks of paper. “Kenneth told me to print these flyers out to tack them down on the arena’s bulletin boards.”

Kenneth was the head director of the academy. He didn’t coach either me or Diane when we skated, but I haven’t met another person who had the same passion for figure skating as I did. Always supported his skaters and never missed an opportunity to show up to competitions.

I shook the thought out when Diane handed me one of them to read. 

Quinn walked closer from behind and soon enough leaned over my shoulder to examine the paper. He towered over me, his chest was basically against my back, and his face hovering very close to mine.

He wasn’t even touching me, but his presence was enough to make my face burn up despite the rink’s chill. Get it together, Syd.

“‘The Vancouver FSA presents the Fifteenth Annual Junior Skating Challenge taking place in late September.’ That’s pretty cool.” Quinn read aloud.

Diane nodded. “It’s a big stepping stone for a lot of young skaters.” 

“Did you two ever compete in it?” He glanced between me and Diane.

My friend beamed at that. “Are you kidding? Sydney won it several times growing up! She was the best junior skater in the academy–actually, in the city if I’m being honest.” 

The expression on Quinn’s face shifted into something almost…impressed. “You were? You didn’t tell me you were such a star, Gray.”

“No, no, I wasn’t. Trust me, I wasn’t that good.” I tried denying it, but Quinn didn’t look all that convinced. Based on Diane’s reaction, he knew she wasn’t lying or exaggerating either.

“Why would you quit if you were that good?”

My stomach twisted. I couldn’t tell him, not right now. So I forced myself to say, “I just didn’t want to skate anymore.”

I felt Diane’s sympathetic gaze burn into me. Besides my brother Simon, she was the only other person who knew why I dodged around that question. She had been there and saw it all happen.

Quinn frowned at my answer. “Oh come on, no one just stops doing what they love.”

“Figure skating is a hard sport.” I argued.

“I would have loved to see you compete. You know, teach me some edge work.”

“Trust me, you don’t want that. Like I said, I wasn’t that good.”

I could tell that Quinn was slightly getting frustrated with me and my dismissive answers. I don't blame him. He knew what I was doing, he wasn’t stupid. 

But, he wasn’t satisfied yet as he scoffed. “I find that hard to believe. Not when Diane just said you were the best skater in the city. I’m sure she wouldn’t lie about that.”

“She was just exaggerating.”

“I highly doubt it–”

“I got hurt, okay!” The words escaped before I could even stop them.

Oh no.

My voice rang through the now empty rink, sharper and louder than I intended. I swallowed hard, felt my heart pounding as silence fell between us. Diane looked away, and Quinn's eyes were on me, startled, then shifted as if he realized he had pushed too far. 

Quinn reached a hand out towards me. “Sydney, I’m–”

Diane cleared her throat, ever the savior stepped in. “We should get going, Syd,” she turned over to Quinn, offering him a small smile. “It was nice meeting you, Quinn.”

He returned the smile back with his lips pressed into a thin line. “You too,” he said to Diane. Then his apologetic eyes that reeked of regret and guilt laid on mine. “I’ll see you on Monday, Gray.” 

It sounded a lot more of a question than a statement. He’s probably wondering if this conversation had cost him the one-on-one cross-training sessions, wondering if I was ever going to see or speak to him ever again. I thought of that as well. But, I chose to settle for–

“Looking forward to it, Hughes.” I gave him a nod and a weak smile.

I didn’t look back once we started walking to the exit of the arena, I felt Quinn’s eyes idle on me before we turned the corner and out of his view. 

“Wow,” Diane said once we got inside her car.

And she didn’t have to say anything more.

I didn’t know how to put it into words either.

“So, did you get up to anything fun last weekend?”

It was the last few minutes of my regular morning slots with Phoebe. While she was going on about her rant about the new events in her life–including her divorce papers being finalized–my body moved through the last half of the session like I was on autopilot.

I barely processed what she had asked before giving her a small shrug. “Not really, just the usual.”

Phoebe hummed, unconvinced as she adjusted her stretching position on the mat. “I don’t buy that one bit, Syd. You think I haven’t noticed you seem a bit checked-out today?”

Just when I thought I could keep it together. Clearly, I couldn’t.

I hesitated, not knowing what to say to her. Besides Diane, Phoebe has known me long enough to catch on with what was roaming in my mind before I did. I couldn’t tell if that was for better or for worse given that she loves to pry the drama out of me.

“It was a tough morning, I didn't get to make my coffee in time.” I didn’t necessarily lie to her, it was true. Just not the real truth I wanted to tell her.

Phoebe nodded, she seemed to buy it, letting out a laugh. “Yeah, no, I get it. I’d be a total menace without my coffee. My brain just doesn’t boot up properly without it.”

I sighed in relief as Phoebe began rambling, something about her weekend or the gossip she overheard in the hair salon. But as she was talking, my mind completely drifted off elsewhere. I couldn’t focus because my thoughts were pulled back to what happened last week.

With Quinn.

He was going to be here in a few hours for our cross-training session, and I had no idea how I was going to face him without thinking about the other day. Without thinking about the way I lashed out on him–snapped really, and held back from telling him everything.

Why didn’t I just tell him?

Because the truth was, I wanted to.

I wanted to tell him about the accident, about the way my entire world had shattered in the space of a few seconds. But there was a part of me that kept pulling back from doing so, something warned me against opening up.

And yet, I couldn’t avoid it forever. If we were going to be working all summer. There was no doubt that I’d have to tell him sooner or later–or he’d figure it out for himself.

If the conversation we had at the arena was any indication of that, Quinn wasn’t the type to let things fly past him. Not when he wanted answers. He had already pushed me to the point of breaking right then and there. I wasn’t so sure if I’d be able to hold it in next time. 

Hoping there won’t be a next time.

“Syd?”

Phoebe’s voice brought me back to the present. She raised her brows at me, noticing I haven’t been paying attention to her. “Sorry,” I said, shaking the rest of my thoughts out. “I, uh–What were you saying?”

Phoebe smiled as she began packing her things. She knew better than to force her way to make me tell her what was really bugging me. So she didn’t push. “I was just saying that I should get going now. See you later in the week?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, forcing a smile. “See you then, Phoebe.”

As soon as she left the room, I let out a slow breath. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved that Phoebe wasn’t her usual pestering-self that I didn’t need to tell her what was going through my head. Or even more unsettled knowing that in moments from now, I would have to face Quinn. Alone.

The moment he stepped into the studio, I knew it was going to be awkward. I felt it in the way he hesitated by the door before he walked in, the sound of his footsteps echoing lightly against the hardwood floor.

“Hey,” he said as he set his duffle down.

“Hi,” I said in return, keeping my voice neutral. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” He nodded as he walked over to the mats–while pulling over his hoodie–and started stretching. “So,” he paused, nudging back to the foyer. “What’s with the security guard in the front?”

Oh right. That.

I guess he couldn’t have missed it considering how out of place it was. A security guard for a Pilates studio? What an odd combo. 

But after the fiasco last week, Grace had talked with Rick to implement tighter security if the media were to come back again. They were lucky to keep any of the pictures or articles out of wraps before they were posted anywhere. What a disaster that would’ve been.

“Oh yeah,” I started. “Grace, Rick, and the Canuck’s management hired them after the surprise attack the other day. They couldn’t risk that happening again, so this was their solution.”

Quinn hummed in agreement, then scoffed lightly. “Gotta love the press, right?’

I shook my head before I turned to face him. Our eyes accidentally locking on each other, and for a second we stayed like that, before I blinked and moved over to the reformer. “Funny…let’s get started.”

The awkwardness between us was almost unbearable. We went through more initial stretches and the first half of the session in near perfect silence. I only spoke when I guided him through each exercise, and the sound coming from the music playing through the speakers. 

It was so fucking obvious that the tension between us wasn’t going away.

Just a matter of who was going to talk about the elephant in the room first.

Though, it was Quinn who finally cracked, surprisingly enough. 

“Listen, Gray,” he said, breaking the silence. “About last week–” I tensed, already knowing where this was going. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. I really had no business asking you those questions that weren’t mine to ask.” 

I fixed my eyes on him and sighed. “I’m sorry too. I overreacted and shouldn’t have snapped at you the way I did.”

“No,” Quinn said firmly. “It was my fault. I never should’ve asked if you didn’t want to answer.” 

“It’s not that I didn’t want to answer.” I paused and there was a beat of silence. “It’s just…hard.”

I knew what I had to do. If we were going to be stuck doing the cross-training program together, I might as well tell him. There was no avoiding it anymore, especially now that he knew about my skating past.

It was one thing to keep it from people I knew such as my coworkers, Phoebe, and other friends. But it was another trying to hide it from a professional athlete who also grew up skating on a rink their whole life. 

I exhaled slowly. “I got into an accident and it happened seven years ago, I was only seventeen during a junior competition to qualify for nationals.” Quinn didn’t interrupt and stopped his movements on the reformer. He just listened. “I attempted a jump I had landed a hundred times before. Then during the short program, everything was going well until I landed wrong on my right leg. My knee–” I stopped, swallowing down the lump in my throat, looking down at where the scar was. “It gave out and I severely tore a ligament. And just like that, my career was over and now the start of this one.” 

I hadn’t told or talked about it since. It had happened so long ago that I doubt anyone remembered. Although, people were there to witness my fall. I remembered looking at them, they stared at me with pitiful eyes and told me that they felt bad for me. I hated that.

The weight of my confession hung between us. Quinn’s expression shifted, his features softening with steady sympathetic eyes. No, don’t do this. Don’t feel sorry for me.

“Sydney…” he said, voice low. “I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t like it when people felt bad for me. It made it worse, somehow. Made me feel like I was being pitied rather than understood. 

But with Quinn, it felt different. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have someone care—not out of obligation or pity, but simply because they wanted to.

I gave him a faint smile. “Thanks Hughes, I appreciate that, really.” The air between us grew thick again. I cleared my throat, trying to shake off the heavy emotions tempting to break. “Alright, enough talking. Let’s get back to work, you still haven’t finished this set yet.”

Quinn returned the smile and got back to his original position on the reformer. “Yes, Ma’am.” 

We worked through the rest of the session in silence, but this time, it wasn’t as heavy. The tension from earlier had shifted into something else. Something lighter.

To break the mood and pick up the intensity, I gave him a difficult variant of the lunge exercise–using the carriage and free-weights. And as predicted, he struggled with it. I tried not to smirk at the sight of it. I had to keep his ego in check somehow.

To his credit, he tried. He really did. But as each rep passed, I could see him falter in his form. His balance wavered, his muscles trembling from the effort.

“Need some help over there?” I asked, tilting my head at him.

“No, I got it,” he said immediately. Stubborn as ever.

I sighed and went over to him anyway to correct his form, adjusting his stance. But his body was reluctant to move. “You’re going to tip over if you don’t–”

Before I could finish or react, Quinn lost his balance mid-lunge, and not a second later, he was falling straight to the floor.

And I came down with him.

He hit the hardwood first with an audible groan. I shook my head, that fall basically gave me whiplash as my head ran in circles. Neither of us moved for a moment. The impact sent a shock through my body, but that wasn’t what made my breath catch.

It was the realization of the current position we were in.

I don’t know how, but I landed on top of him–straddling–as my hands were braced against his chest. And his hands–large, warm, and firm, free of the weights he was holding seconds ago–were gripping my waist, like he’d instinctively tried to steady me on the way down.

I felt my face start to heat up with my face so close to his, but I couldn’t look away. His chest rose and fell beneath my palms. And the way they felt underneath–solid, grounded, safe.

Safe? No, no, no.

I needed to get up now. But for some reason, I couldn’t. Couldn’t? Or didn’t want to?

We were underneath the cooling vent from the ceiling above, and the blast of air sent shivers up and down my arms. Quinn’s body was the only source of warmth. 

My eyes drifted down for a second. A soft dark grey shirt was molded to shoulders and chest, not too tight but enough to see the hint of his muscles through it. Most likely ridden up because of the fall, revealing a strip of his skin above the waistband of his shorts. And unlike the usual sharpness of his green eyes, they seemed to soften as his gaze flickered down. To my lips.

My heart thundered as if it was going to leap out my chest. Was he going to–

And then, of course– because fate had a cruel sense of humor–the door flung open. 

Fuck.

“Hey Syd. I forgot my water bottle. Oh–” The familiar voice that belonged to Phoebe cut through the moment like a knife. Quinn and I both snapped our heads toward her. She blinked, unsure as to what she was seeing. Then she began smirking, which wasn’t a good sign. “Oh my, who’s this? Are you two–”

“Phoebe!” 

I tried my best to scramble off Quinn, accidentally putting all my weight on him, earning a slight groan. I was quick to find Phoebe’s water bottle on the floor where she had left it, and practically shoving it into her hands. 

“Sorry, this is a private studio session,” I whispered to her. “How did you even get in here?”

“I told the security guard I forgot something and he let me in,” she said amused, like she made the right decision to retrieve her bottle at the perfect timing. Her eyes flicked between me and Quinn, her smile even more evident than before. “So…what exactly did I just walk into, hm?” 

“Nothing,” I answered too quickly for comfort.

“Mmhmm. Sure.”

Yep, there was no way out of this one. She was not going to let this go.

I groaned, ushering her back into the hallway. “I’ll fill you in on it next time. Now please, go.” 

“You sure you don’t want to introduce me to–”

“Next session, Phoebe. Please?”

"Okay, okay. Fine." She chuckled but finally left with a teasing wave. 

I exhaled, turning back to the room, and directing my attention to Quinn. He was still on the floor, staring off into space like he was still processing what happened a few seconds ago.

“Are you just gonna sit there all day?” I said with a soft smile, walking over to my bag on the floor.

Then he sat upright, holding himself up, and leaned back on his palms when he heard me. “Maybe. The floor’s kind of nice. Thinking of making it my new workout mat.”

I scoffed, crossing my arms at that. “Try not to fall next time then.”

“Try not to use me as a landing mat, Gray.” His lips twitched like he was trying not to laugh. “You basically manhandled me mid-lunge.”

“Manhandled? Don’t be dramatic, Hughes.” I spat like that had really offended me. “And besides, if you had better balance, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

He raised his brows, and was suddenly on his feet, inching closer to me. “Weren’t you the one who said touching a client while moving on the carriage was a safety hazard?” He smirked once he saw the growing realization in my face. “What? Surprised that I actually listened?”

He–well, okay, he had a point. “No–” I faltered, giving him a look. “–but, I’m flattered that you actually listen during my sessions, and taking it seriously. I don’t think my brother would have lasted the entire summer.”

Quinn shook his head, going after his belongings on the floor. I hadn’t noticed it was the end of our session already. Time really did fly whenever I was with him for training. 

“I doubt that he would,” he said before sipping water from his bottle. “Do you think he planned the birth of his baby to avoid doing all of this?

I let out a laugh, “Maybe not, but wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.”

We both made our way to the studio’s entrance, greeting the security guard, and stood in awkward silence for a moment until Quinn spoke.

“Sorry about earlier, I’ll try not to fall next time,” he started, but then took a slow exhale, probably wanting to talk about what I had told him earlier. “Also, thanks for sharing about your accident. I know you didn’t want to and you don’t really trust me yet, but I’m glad that you did.” 

I didn’t make a habit of trusting anyone besides my family and Diane, but at that moment, it was hard to remember why I kept Quinn at arms length.

I nodded and smiled, “Thanks for listening, Quinn.” 

There was something about the way his eyes lit up and a growing grin after hearing his name roll off my tongue so effortlessly–like I was meant to say it. I hadn’t realized until now that I never called him by his name, at least not directly. 

I probably got it from Simon whenever he went off about Quinn. That was the only appropriate name he had for the Canucks captain other than–actually, it’s best to not mention them. 

He said ‘bye’ before walking out–no reporters this time thankfully–leaving me standing there with a racing heart and mind of thoughts I didn’t know how to deal with.

Quinn wasn’t my brother’s enemy as everyone kind of perceives him to be or my trainee–he was the person that listened to me, and didn’t make me feel like an object of pity when I had told him about my accident.

I caught myself smiling at the thought, but easily wiped it off. What was wrong with me, honestly?

That alone was enough for me to realize–that Quinn Hughes could matter in ways I wasn’t ready for.

Which made him all the more dangerous. 

all rights reserved © 2025 hellvst. please do not copy, translate, or modify my works in any platform.

[vanlegion]

Would I be able to ask about the future big mouth stuff you have on your page, like what’s going on, what’s the story line, is there a tag where I can find it all?

Oh sure! So basically it's like my own idea of a future for all our favs. Honestly I probably should have a tag for all of it. May go back and do that.

Anywho, so the future images takes place across multiple years. Late Highschool, early college and "mid adult" are the spanse of what I've drawn.

In this storyline I see Andrew eventually moving out of his parents house at 18 to then live with the Birch family. Nick has moved out of his house due to getting a scholarship at a school in California.

Elliot and Diane are able to foster a better environment for Andrew, who is able to coup a whole lot healthier now. Elliot also helps get him some therapy (in anger management and general purpose).

At about the same time, Jay is kicked out of his house by his father and Elliot and Diane pretty much adopt him (legally too since Guy gives up his rights after being told it'll save him money). Jay lives in the Birch's attic while Andrew took Nicks old room.

Jessi has been struggling with depression, getting help sometime in early college. While she still connects with Lulu, she eventually realized she can't spend all her life stoned... just maybe keep it to like once every one or two weeks.

She throws herself into Humanities and other studies to help fight for rights and freedoms. She rekindled her friendship with Ali, and during a moment let's it slip she had once had a crush on Ali, but didn't want to be creepy in a time of Ali's need. This results in Ali suggesting they give dating a try.

Missy ends up getting homeschooling throughout highschool but manages to have days she can study at the library and arrange study times with her friends. At some point she begins to sneak away and join her friends at the highschool during their lunch periods. She never gets caught by staff but eventual does by her dad. Missy goes into how she misses her friends even though the idea of going to school once terrified her. Together they make a plan to let her join her friends during lunch without needing to be sneaky.

She eventually goes to the same college everyone else (not including Nick or Jay) go to.

Matthew thrives during highschool but does get burned out a little too quickly at first. And while he's 'found his people', he's still having a tough time fitting in with the group. Like he's trying too hard to come off as the 'perfect gay guy'. Ocean eventually figures this out and tells Matthew to relax and that things will fall into place.

At the same time, oddly enough, Matthew and Andrew start connecting over shared interests. Without Nick around, Andrew begins to flourish a bit in his own way, and this intrigues Matthew. As their friendship strengthens, they have this 'I can be my full self around you and not fear any judgement' chemistry. They do not realize they're beginning to fall for each other, and end up acting like a couple before being one.

Jay has been living his best life with the vocations class at school and is finally in a stable house where he knows how much he is loved. The discipline is rough at first but he eventually understands this is how most adjusted people grow up. They do give him a bit more leeway though. Also Judd turns out to be a great role model hilarious enough.

Jay dates around, embracing his Bi and Poly life. There's a point when he and Matthew get stuck after school for a play (Jay's working on pyrotechnics for the plays) and after having a heart to heart, Jay's on board with being with Matthew again when Matthew says he's not dating anyone (much to his minor annoyance since at this point people think he's dating Andrew).

However this leads to an almost blowup because Matthew starts to realize he does actually have real feelings for Andrew, when Andrew confronts the two of them.

At first, Matthew declares (making this a trifecta in joke) "I love you both, I really do, but just in different ways." and says he shouldn't choose either of them because of it.

Jay on the other hand suggest Matthew date them both because he's down with it due to being Poly. Matthew and Andrew aren't sure, but decide to try it. There of course is some obstacles and frustration, but ultimately they all discover they really can make it work.

In later years, Matthew and Jay become handfasted while Matthew and Andrew are legally married. Jessi and Ali get married.

Nick starts becoming a Hollywood star. Missy becomes a popular Adult Erotica novelist. Jay gets jobs doing magic shows but also construction/car mechanics and eventually goes on a trip around the US. Jessi is an environmental activist/journalist living with Ali who does the same. Ali also cleans up the beach they live on and makes bank using said scrap for crafts. Matthew is starting to become a rising Broadway star, and Andrew works at The New York Times as a columist doing various opinion pieces and interviews.

If you have anymore questions feel free to ask! I you wanna read some of my fics, lemme know and I'll link them as well.

While this is my main overall Canon future I ascribe to, I have so many other AUs and ideas too so I'll try to tag all my BM stuff with universe tags going forward (and retro add them to others too).

[petalsmooth]

I keep hearing no one cares about Penelope and Colin despite the numbers racking up over 2 very brief clips, one is like 2-3 seconds. They keep claiming it will flop. Next breathe they keep whining about everything Polin are getting and how unfair it is.

Now I thought Polin's friends to lovers/boy next door/crush on best friend's brother trope was boring. So why are you all fuming about such a staid uninteresting sl and all the things you claim should have gone to your favorites? Including apparently Colin's vests which makes NO sense since his vests incorporate he is a traveler and he is the ONLY one who is. lol

To be honest I never understood why there was any talk of their trope being boring to begin with. You know why friends to lovers is timeless? Because you get to see the characters grow together and the actors become comfortable with each other. So when it does turn romantic you don't have to rely on snappy dialogue every second, you have (if lucky) year's to draw on of memories to give a scene more depth. Hence Pen's line about kindness. Because outside of one drunk moment, There are so many others where he is nothing but kind to her and the audience can go....oh.

I remember when he rescued her from Cressida spilling a drink on a favorite dress she was so excited to wear, or when he started writing to her after her4 father was killed. Or when he noticed she was a bit melancholy at her house and asked if ok, or said how highly he esteemed her and her family and that is why he would want to invest. Or how protective he became over the idea of Lord Featherington bringing harm to them (to pen) and basically staged an entire investigation into it on his own and danced with someone he hated (cressida) to confirm by taking the fake jewels.

And then you think ok...I understand. She doesn't love him for the reason everyone else in the ton loves a Bridgerton. Power, money, looks...although sure she likes the latter. She loves him because he is the one person who was kind to her. This is what makes HIM different from others in the ton and HIM special to her. And you just don't have that kind of emotional resonance in a conversation without the history of friendship coming first.

And for his part the audience has watched people flirt with him with no care to what he really says or thinks. One Bridgerton is the same as any other except one has a title. They (the audience) even heard him say the reason he was with Marina was because she took him seriously, even if he was fooled on that point. So if Pen comes out with some lame superficial compliment he'd have brushed it off. If she'd stopped at the blue eyes being remarkable probably would be immune. But no she notes his kindness...a character trait and that strikes his heart. She saw HIM.

Anyway, I like various tropes and there is a place for them. I was a huge Diane/Sam fan back day and they always flirted between love and hate. But my favorite is this one. This trope. It's not boring, it's actually quite the opposite. I mean...tv series used to THRIVE on this back in the day before streaming. It would keep their shows running for years wondering when they would finally have the two get together. Perfectly silly to think this device would not work now.

[remakethestars]

CABIN 10 — APHRODITE

Headcanons.

❝I want to apologize to all the women I have called pretty before I’ve called them intelligent or brave. I am sorry I made it sound as though something as simple as what you’re born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains. From now on, I will say things like, ‘You are resilient,’ or, ‘You are extraordinary.’ Not because I don’t think you’re pretty. But because you are so much more than that.❞ 

— Rupi Kaur

Headcanon masterlist.

They’re the camp hairdressers. You need a trim? You want it cut? You want it died? You want to shave it all off? Hit ‘em up.

The type of people that will straight-up chop their hair if it doesn't match their outfit. Somehow, it always works out? I'm looking at Micarah Tewers.

They also run a secret ear piercing — or anything else you need to pierce — parlor.

Okay, but consider: children of Aphrodite that grow up to be models.

They can charm speak the photographers into letting them pick their own poses & not make them do seductive ones if they’re not comfortable with them.

Some create clothing lines that represent sustainable fashion & have big names but small carbon footprints.

Some are spies.

Think about it! They know how to switch subtle bits of their personality to fit in with everyone they come across, when & when not to use their charm.

The hide outfits under other outfits & can slip one off in public to reveal the other & lose a tail.

And they'd probably be great at disguise makeup. Add a prosthetic chin, contour their nose differently, pull off their wig, & they're a completely different person.

Plus, their combat training at C.H.B. makes them the perfect agent.

The floor next to their bunk is scattered with fabric cuttings, pins, needles, their sewing machine, serger, & measuring tape.

The number of times someone's gotten a needle or pin in their foot's a tad concerning.

Will absolutely not wear a top with an overstitched collar. Fast fashion is so tacky! Understitch is the way to go, the staple of a quality garment.

Vintage is better. Not because it's in style (that's a plus, though), but because the seams are big enough for you to let out, & it's made to last.

Experts at thrifting. Not just 'cause it's trendy or whatever, but because they're excellent at upcycling & far too many perfectly good clothes go into the land fill each year.

Make stunning dresses out of Good Will table cloths & curtains.

Or stitch two items together into one better whole.

They iron their clothes; they're not animals.

Really good at getting stains out?

Totally in on the corset bustier top trend, but they're using spiral steel boning in place of zip-ties. Because, again, they want things to last & they're not tacky.

Pass each other tips. Like to tuck your top into your tights to avoid the bulge under your skirt.

Some found big-name, organic makeup companies that don't test on animals. They use packaging that can be recycled or that's biodegradable.

Borrow their clothes, sure, whatever, but double-dip in their makeup & die. The bacteria will give them acne. (Or is it the oils? Either way, you'll perish.)

Happy to drop their skincare routine, though.

You need to cover up that tattoo you got from C7? They got you.

Flawless makeup on a budget. Expensive doesn't always mean better.

They're taking you to the pool for a first date? Take a seat, C10 knows just the stuff. They use what Disney Princesses use.

Can guess the right shade of foundation/lipstick for you on the first couple tries.

A lot of them invest in magnetic lashes because glue's a b¡tch.

Reusable makeup wipes.

Rick says C10 kids just sit around the lake & check their reflection, but consider: working out gets them their dream bod. So, yes, they do, in fact, train.

They just do it with intricate braids/hair gel & stylish sportwear.

And if a potential partner finds it unattractive that they’re “too muscly,” they’re no longer a potential partner.

Weapons disguised as jewelry or chapstick/lipstick.

Thalia had a mace canister that turned into a spear, & I gotta say, I.D.K. how she planned to get that through security. Imagine, alternatively, a tube that appears to be full of bright red lipstick when the T.S.A. agent opens it, but actually turns into a spear when opened by a half-blood.

(I have a headcanon that Riptide would just be a pen in the hands of a mortal. Bounced around for years as random objects until Poseidon nabbed it & took it to Chiron — recall that pen you lost?)

A pink, velvet choker that turns into a kopis with a dove embossed in the handle.

Many choose to train in heels. Might as well wear in training what they’ll be wearing when attacked in the street.

They’ve got no time for internalized misogyny. 

“C10′s weak ‘cause they like being pretty!” Good way to lose a kneecap, Annabeth. You’ve grown up in this camp, you knew Selina, & you should know better.

They confront Piper’s misogyny pretty early on after The Lost Hero, but Piper still takes some time to get over her bias toward pink.

Are we not gonna talk about Rick’s fashion choices for Piper throughout the series? “She looks so fashionable.” To whom, Rick? To whom?

You couldn’t’ve done a little internet surfing just to see what was in style? I never leave the house in anything but jeans, Converse, & a graphic t-shirt from Walmart, & even I know she’s dressed like a middle-schooler! Probably because that’s how I dressed in middle-school… That’s not the point.

The point is just because a character likes makeup or fashion or the color pink, doesn’t mean they can’t/won’t fight for their lives & the lives of their friends if/when the time comes. And it doesn’t mean that they’re stupid or judgmental.

I don’t know a lot about makeup. Hades, I don’t even wear makeup — you can’t rub your eyes or scratch your face; it would drive me crazy. I don’t know a lot about fashion either. I don’t understand it, but I can respect it.

❝‘Jesus,’ Sara says as Branley walks past us. ‘Too cold to show off cleavage, so instead she goes for jeans so tight I can see her thong.’ ‘She looks nice,’ I say, and she does. Branley always looks put together in a way that tells me she spends hours in front of a mirror before going outside. And while I don’t understand that, I can respect it.❞

— Alex Craft, Mindy McGinnis’s The Female of the Species

According to The Lost Hero, all children of Aphrodite intuitively speak French. Cool, cool, cool — but consider, all of them also intuitively speak the language of flowers. 

They see a red rose, and they just know it symbolizes love & passion. They see an orange lily, to contrast, & they know it symbolizes hatred. 

There’s a copy of The Language of Flowers in their cabin, and it’s full of annotations, like, So-and-so gave these to so-and-so for Valentines Day! And, So-and-so gave these to so-and-so after their kiss on the Fourth of July; they obviously didn’t do their research! 

They work together with C4 (Demeter) to provide flowers for funerals & the like.

C10 bookshelves also contain a lot of romance novels. 

Beaten up copies of Pride & Prejudice & The Fault in Our Stars with faded highlighter over the beautiful lines & annotations in the margins.

The outside walls are a dusty pink, & the wood’s stained a dark brown that goes surprisingly well with the pink.

Inside, the walls are covered in faded wallpaper.

The southwest wall has a bay window with extra storage in the seat. (There’s not a body in there; they swear.)

(That’s an Arsenic & Old Lace reference, for you youngsters.)

The curtains have one chiffon layer closer to the window & a thicker floral fabric for inside. The thick curtains are replaced based on the season & whether or not someone’s decided to make a romper out of them.

They have a real bell jar with a real rose in front of the window. Legend has it it’s from Aphrodite herself.

Said window is a stained glass image of a dove.

The chaise lounge was probably beautiful when it was brought it, but it’s got fingernail polish & makeup stains on it now. Honestly, someone should really have that thing cleaned.

As you might have noticed, I placed a gif of swans at the top instead of a fancast for Aphrodite. This is because I think, as I believe most Percy Jackson fans do, multiple people should play her. I'd cast Arden Cho, Camila Mendes, Candice Patton, Diane Kruger, & Gal Gadot to start with.

Visit my Aphrodite cabin Pinterest board or my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ I know I got a tad political with this one, but I didn’t & don’t intend to offend anyone. ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

[honeysorwell]

(a very unprofessional) game changer

Pairing: Audrey Tidall x fem!Reader x Diane Sherman

Summary: Audrey Tidall ends up conquering the role of the protagonist in the expected film that marks the great director and screenwriter Diane Sherman return to the film market, Run, that the blonde one desired really much. The filmmaker has only managed to return now since she left her job almost twenty years ago to take care of her daughter. She has no real plans other than finishing the film that will mark her return, but her nonpeaceful coexistence with Audrey during the filming, along with the loneliness that consumes her personal life ends up instigating an unexpected affection - and that grows every day - for Y/N, the costume designer for Run.

What Diane did not expect, when giving Y/N anonymously flowers during the recording months, is that the costume designer has been in a secret relationship for more than months with Audrey. However, the feeling of indifference and disdain that the director feels for the actress gradually dies after a heated argument between the two, leaving an unnamed tension in the air, while Y/N searches for her secret admirer with her girlfriend.

[gif by @sapphiclesbian​ ]

[gif by @cherry-jimin] 

A/N: I was extremely surprised when I posted You rush into my life, stay a little while (I know that we can have it all), and in less than a month I got +50likes (after all I barely know how to use tumblr and I discovered these days how and where to look at the followers that I have lol). And thanks to that, I will use (a very unprofessional) game changer as a social experiment, to see if you guys really like what I write, and if the answer is also positive, I will open requests to write things in my free time. And yes, my first language is not English so maybe something might sound strange.

I had this idea as soon as Run was released, thanks to Diane's passion for films... And since Audrey is an actress, I thought it would be good to combine these two...

I can say that this is a big AU because Diane is a lovely mother, and no one from Roanoke dies (because I don't have time to develop any of this shit).

Hope you all like it!

Synopsis of the story + Chapter 1 ,  Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 , Chapter 6 , Chapter 7 , Chapter 8 , Chapter 9 , Chapter 10 (final one)

Chapter 1

Chapter’s summary: Audrey and Y/N get to know each other thanks to Diane, and even though they are about to start recording Run, they decide that it is worthwhile to continue with their relationship. Even if secretly.

Warnings: In this chapter at least, none. Just implicit mentions of smut, it's not really something!  

Word Count: 1,2k

In theory, when someone wins an award as important as The Saturn, their career between movies becomes more likely to invitations to productions. Films, miniseries, or even theatrical productions. But that didn't happen with Audrey.

There was a voice in her head that said it was thanks to her age. But since none of the actors in Roanoke's cast, especially women, were so different in this aspect, Audrey continued to ignore that voice.

Everything was relatively ready for the British woman to participate in Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell, however after her breakup with Rory, the blonde one preferred to focus on something new. She quickly fell in love with him, but when the red-haired man asked about marriage, everything was clear to Audrey. Their paths and thoughts were so different, even with the significant feeling between them, that it was better to break their love relationship before their friendship was affected. And this was what she did.

It was audacious. Refuse a proposal for the same program that gave her fame and awards, to audition for a new film that she barely knew would happen. Some people would call her crazy, but the email she received from her agent was enough to give her courage.

Or rather, four words from that email. Directed by Diane Sherman was what caught her attention and prompted her to try to venture out to take the test.

She can still remember. Years ago, while she was still fighting for a minor role in any theatrical production in England, Diane Sherman was already acclaimed worldwide for the grandiose films with unexpected endings that she produced, even at a young age.

All the films of the woman with a reddish tone between her brunette hair strands became hits. But in the midst of it all, Diane decided to take a break from her career, and less than five months later, a pregnancy was announced.

After that, twenty years passed and no film was released, no interview, no magazine cover. Such a gloriously famous woman disappeared from everyone's view with her baby. But only up to now.

That test was probably the one that tired Audrey the most in her entire career. To portray in a few minutes the pain of the life of a woman who is obsessed with her daughter to the point of making her sick was difficult. But she did, and so, while her former co-stars were locking themselves up in a seemingly haunted mansion, she was getting a call from her agent saying that she got the lead role.

Everything worked well when the blonde received her script and started working with Diane on how they would like this character to be seen by the audience, but as the conversations flowed, Audrey understood why all of the woman's films were such a success. She was a perfectionist and her authority was clear.

Everything needed to be perfect. Including the costume.

And so Audrey met Y/N. A beautiful costume designer with so much talent to spare to the world.

The first time they saw each other, Diane was not present, after all, it was just a date to take Audrey's body measurements. As the story was about a housewife, movable and comfortable clothes had to be designed, which did not force Audrey to strip naked to have her measurements known by Y/N, even if an unprofessional part of her wanted to.

Quick encounters followed, some with Diane briefly present, just to define new color palettes or to approve and disapprove something. The director never stayed more than twenty minutes with the two women, but thanks to Y/N's perseverance, in producing everything exactly as Diane wished, and Audrey's free time, due to her mind being ease in memorizing lines and just a few friendships outside England, the two woman became relatively close.

When the costumes were all designed and in the final process of being made, Diane decided that she would like Audrey's hair to be longer. Some wig tests took place, but a joint decision was made.

The film would be postponed in five months from there, so that the blonde's hair would grow.

It was frustrating, to say the least, and maybe that was the trigger for Audrey's disapproval with Diane, but one thing was good. The time now acquired has started to be spent on Y/N.

Always at discreet lunches or afternoon teas in their homes...

Y/N thinks it might be extremely inappropriate and absolutely unprofessional to get personally involved with a co-worker, even outside the set, and even though their work on Diane's film was relatively distant. But, after many glasses of wine and random conversations, nothing made more sense to Y/N than Audrey's lips against hers.

A one-night stand. That was what they thought they were born to be. But the skin on Audrey's stomach was so smooth that Y/N didn't know if she wanted to kiss her until she moaned or laughed, confused as she tried to understand which one of the sounds was the actual responsible for her heart beating faster.

A one-night stand. Because Audrey didn't feel ready to start a relationship after such a recent breakup. But there was nothing more beautiful than Y/N's face full of pleasure while she was being touched, or her face concentrated on redoing a crooked seam, even if she was the only one that noticed the defect in the piece.

A one-night stand. That turned into two, three, ten, thirty... and when they noticed, Audrey's hair was long enough for the film to start recording and their mind was unconsciously bought each other's favorite foods at the supermarket.

And on one of those nights, when they were both lying on Y/N's bed and Audrey was drawing imaginary flowers on the bare skin of her right hip, a whisper escaped the actresses lips:

"I don't want this to end because we are going to work together... Does that make me unprofessional?", The moment the question escapes her lips, she raises her face towards Y/N and looks deeply into her eyes.

"Well ...", the costume designer starts and stops, distracted by the beauty of Audrey's brown eyes and a lock of her hair - now longer - that is hindering the Y/N view of the blonde's cheeks, but that soon puts the hair strands behind her ear and continues - "Count me in because I don't want this to end either..."

It is a smile so beautiful that it takes hold of Audrey's lips, that the courage to take possession of Y / N's body and one more phrase escapes her lips.

"I think I'm in love with you."

The word think sounds so low, it's like it's not even there. Because Y/N's mind knows that she is sure, even scared and that is why Y/N's eyes focus on the whole room, except the face in front of her. Until delicate fingers touch her chin and direct her to see brown eyes bathed in tears, amid the same glorious smile of seconds ago.

"And I don't know how you didn't notice that I fell in love with you too."

And so they come to an agreement. Nothing will be explicit while they are on set. At work, they will be just friends, close friends if the distance wraps their stomachs, but still, just friends.

For the sake of their reputations, their jobs, and the Diane Sherman film they will be just friends.

[nooneelsecomesclose17]

Am I a fool to think that there's a little hope - Part 4

This fic is growing yet I feel like I'm only writing a tiny bit at a time. Anyway I'm playing fast and loose with prison visiting here because Victoria has feelings and her brother needs to hear what an idiot he's been...Aaron's had his turn.

Robert's surprised but also he's not when the guard tells him he has a visitor the following afternoon. The rule is one visit a fortnight and he's got two in two days. He knows it's Vic even before he goes into the visiting room. He dreads to think what she's done to wangle another visit and decides he's probably better off not knowing.

Since Aaron left the day before he's done nothing but worry about what he'd said, about Liv, about the business and cursing himself for thinking Aaron would be better off. It sounded like it was anything but. He'd wanted to ask, wanted to know everything but Aaron couldn't get out of there fast enough.

He'd barely had chance to think about his case, if there was one, too focussed on Aaron, and he knew Victoria would be wanting answers, answers he just didn't have. He needed to talk to his solicitor. He'd asked for her to be contacted but nothing moved that fast in here, it'd take time for her to visit he knew that.

"Robert!" He smiles as she hugs him, gently pushing her away when one of the guards glares at him.

"Hi Vic. Are you alright? Aaron said you weren't up to much."

"Oh no, I'm fine now. Speaking of Aaron, what did you say to him, he was in a foul mood all night long."

"Never mind that." He can't stop smiling, her mood is infectious like that and he realises just how much he's missed her. "Just how did you manage to get another visit?"

"Oh...well I tried explaining that I'd been ill and when that didn't work I got on to your solicitor and...well she might've implied that it was a family emergency."

"Vic! You can’t do things like that."

"You would." He opens his mouth, then shuts it because she's not exactly wrong. "Anyway, it is. You could get out Rob! That's massive."

"Hold on, Aaron said it was a tiny chance, and besides, are you alright? Must've been a shock, Luke coming out like that and all this." He's stalling, he knows she wants him to jump for joy but he just doesn't have it in him.

"Oh I'm fine, I'm better off. You need to talk to your solicitor, and then we can get started on an appeal."

"Vic, slow down. I pleaded guilty, I took responsibility. Are you sure anyone's going to care?"

"I will, your nephew will." She paused. "Seb will."

"Don't." There wasn't a day went by without him thinking of his little boy, wondering what he'd be doing, if he was still cheeky, if he even knew who he was anymore. In his darker moments he imagined him calling Ross 'Daddy' and the three of them being the perfect happy family. "How is he?"

"I don't know. Rebecca's pretty much cut us all off. Diane managed to get to see him a few months back but she's heard nothing since. You know she stopped Aaron seeing him, not long after Christmas last year, right after the divorce papers arrived." He stares at her, wished she'd say it was a joke. He knew they hadn't had any kind of formal agreement but he'd never expected Rebecca to do that. She knew how much Seb loved Aaron. He was beginning to realise just how much he'd messed up, and Aaron had every reason to be mad at him.

"I've made such a mess. Is he...he said the business isn't good and Liv's in a mess." He reaches for her hand. "How is he really Vic?"

"Things are...difficult right now. We've not really been close the last few months, he had issues with Luke and Wendy and everything, and now I realise how much of an idiot I've been."

"It's not your fault, Vic."

"He's lonely. Even with..." She trails off and he knows she was going to mention a bloke, he's not stupid. He'd wanted this after all, he just hadn't realised just how much it would hurt.

"He's with someone?"

"Sort of, I think. Ben. He's alright, and they're...I don't think it's anything official, they're just hanging out, and Ben's helping with Liv. You can't be mad about it Rob."

"No I know. Hurts all the same."

"You might be my big brother but you're a proper idiot. Cutting him off like that, and me! What were you thinking?"

"I've been through all this with him, don't you start."

"I will start. You'll say it was for the best and that, but it wasn't. Not for me, and definitely not for Aaron. Neither of us care that it'd be a pain making the journey down here, or that it's for years. We love you, but you won't let us!"

He shakes his head, he knows she's right. He knows why, it's always been the same. Ever since he was sent away all those years ago, he just never feels as though people will stay with him, that they'll get fed up, that he's not worth it. So he gets in first, pushes them away, cheats, anything rather than be hurt.

"Vic, stop, please."

"No. You're my brother and I lost you before. Andy's gone, you're stuck here and it's just been me. I needed you, even if it was just a phone call or a letter. You've been all alone because you're stubborn."

"It was for the best. All of you should just get on with your lives and forget about me."

"Well tough, it doesn't work like that! You know, Aaron wasn't going to come with me, even though I asked, but he did because he wanted to see you despite everything. Left Ben to do it, what does that tell you?"

"That he's a good mate."

"No, that he misses you. First mention of you and he goes all Aaron, storming off and hiding away. He still loves you, you idiot." He shakes his head, doesn't want to believe it. He's managed to push all those thoughts aside and he doesn't want them coming back up again and torturing him.

"Didn't feel like that yesterday."

"Of course it doesn't. He thinks you don't want him. Honestly the two of you drive me mad. Look, say you do get out of here, wouldn't you want him back?"

"Of course I would, but he's with this Ben now."

"Pfft." He laughs a little and her face. "He'd take you back the second you walked in the village and you know it."

"Maybe once."

"You're so infuriating."

"So are you. I don't want to talk about Aaron anymore. Tell me what's been going on in the village." He let her chatter wash over him, too much going on in his head to even start to sort out. If he was lucky enough to get out, would he want to go back to the village where most of the residents didn't like him. He wasn't stupid he knew they tolerated him for Aaron. No doubt the Dingles hated his guts, and then there was Wendy. Maybe it'd be better all round if he just started afresh, or stayed where he was. He just didn't know what to do for the best. He needed time.

--------

Aaron throws his keys on the table, glad the house is quiet. He's exhausted. Vic had tried talking about Robert all the way home, so much so he'd contemplated getting the train home. Trying to tell him he still loved him, knew he'd been an idiot. He didn't care, no that was a lie, of course he did, but he was afraid to believe it. Besides what good would it do unless Robert changed his mind and let him back in.

He should call Ben, try and explain, try and make it up to him, except he really wasn't sure he wanted to anymore.

He's half asleep when his phone rings and he doesn't recognise the number.

"Hello?"

"Hi." The gasp sounds loud in the quiet room, the voice so familiar and so unexpected. "So, you married an idiot."

He can't help it, he starts laughing, hears Robert joining in and that's all there is for a good few minutes.

"I missed you." He doesn't say anything. "I know it's my fault, all of it and it shouldn't have taken my little sister pecking my head about it all afternoon, but...I'm sorry."

"I know. I missed you too." He feels the tension leave him, Robert always managed to do that.

"If I'm...Vic said, about Ben. If I'm...if you want me to go that's fine, I will, I just...I...wanted you to know."

"Yeah. Ben's...he's a mate." Not strictly true, but deep down he'd known it'd never be more than that, no matter how hard he tried. "I'm still mad at you."

"Yeah. Kinda mad at myself too. Listen, Vic said...about Rebecca stopping Seb visiting. I'm so sorry Aaron, I never thought she'd do that."

"Yeah well, I think she was just waiting for the chance. You know she never really liked me all that much." It hadn't mattered when Robert was there, he'd put up with it because as long as Seb was happy he didn't care.

"Still...if things go the right way, that's the first thing I'm changing."

"You're going to appeal then?"

"You have met Vic, right? As if she'd let me do anything else." He sighs and Aaron can hear a commotion in the background. "I've nothing to lose have I? If I lose I'm still in here the same amount of time. If I win then I get my life back, at least some of it."

"All of it." Robert pauses, and Aaron knows he's thinking he's misheard.

"Yeah?" His voice sounds just like it had so many times, when he couldn't quite believe what was happening.

"Yeah. I'm still mad as hell at you and we will be talking about you making stupid decisions all by yourself, but yeah...throughout our lives together, remember?"

"And if it takes a while? Or...if it doesn't work?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

They talk a bit longer, about nothing at all, just chatting like they used to and he realises just how much he's missed it. When they finally have to hang up he's smiling. He knew there was one more thing he had to do.

"Ben? It's me. Can you come over? We need to talk."

--------

It'd taken months, of legal wrangling, of trying to find Luke, months of visits to the Isle of Wight, of expecting every time to be turned away because Robert had changed his mind, but now it was the last time.

"Quit your pacing, you're making me dizzy."

"I can't help it. What if..."

"What if nothing. You heard the judge. He's free. He'd be here now if he'd been in court." He nodded, he knew that, but the restrictions still meant video appearances, so here they were waiting for all the paperwork to be finished before they could see Robert.

Vic had wanted to come with him, only Harry having a raging temperature had stopped her, so he'd asked Cain, the only member of his family who hadn't tried to talk him out of it all.

"Daddy coming?" He turned to see Seb poking his head out of the car window. Robert had somehow managed to convince Rebecca to restart their visits and he and Seb had been slowly getting to know each other again.

"Soon mate, promise."

"I'm hungry."

"I know. We'll get something as soon as he's here." Satisfied the little boy goes back to the game on Aaron's phone. "Do you think...is it wrong that I don't want to go back?"

"To Emmerdale? Why."

"You've seen what it's like. Mum, Paddy, everyone telling me what they think, how bad he is for me."

"Do you care what they think? You know the truth, they'll come round. If they don't, you've got your family Aaron. Your Mum's the one who'll lose out."

"I know. I just wish she'd try."

"Yeah well, she's stubborn. Just like him." Aaron follows his gaze, sees Robert standing outside the entrance to the prison, looking around, as if he can't quite believe he's out. "Go on then, go get your husband back."

He doesn't need telling twice, runs across the road, probably startling Robert as he throws his arms around him.

Everything would be alright now. He had Robert back.

[lia-jones]

OCTober - Day 1 - Journey

Author's note: So this actually is an adaptation in Victor's POV of the Chapter 9 of Growing Stronger, from my series Growing Pains. I hope it's ok, it seemed fitting. Thank you to@oc-growth-and-development for the challenge, I think this will be pretty interesting, as it got my creative juices already stirring (you can find their amazing blog and challenge here).

All my stories for this challenge will feature my OC Andrea Jones and Victor Li, from the MLQC fandom.

Music that inspired me: Open Arms - Journey

Journey

Andrea’s prompt refusal to have Victor drive her to Loveland felt like a stab in his chest, wounding both his heart and his ego. Her stubbornness was the tuning of the blade, widening the wound, and his insistence only made it bleed more. It had been a while since he had to push someone that hard to get his way.

It wasn’t lost on him why she had refused, after all, she was a practical woman, and she surely wanted to avoid an awkward situation at her best friend’s wedding. There were probably very few things more awkward than going on a car ride with an ex-boyfriend, it was smart of her to want to keep things simple and civil. Although Victor considered himself a smart and practical man, he still insisted on being in that car with her, convincing himself that he was the chivalrous thing to do, not let his exhausted friend drive alone for two hours.

It was not like Victor was attempting reconciliation, he knew it was over. He had given up on having her back, satisfied with simply watching over her from a distance, keeping her safe and well as much as he could, even without her knowing. However, being around her became a guilty pleasure of his: he missed the scent of her curls, the softness of her touch, and the sound of her voice. So he did it as much as he could, even risking awkwardness.

They started their trip in silence, yet an ocean of words hung between them, all the things he wanted to say and couldn’t. They eventually engaged in conversation, discussing the music that was playing on the radio, and for a moment, it felt just like the old times. Victor missed talking to Andrea, and although it was evident they viewed the world in different colors, he always found how she painted her world fascinating.

With her, the journey was always pleasant. Only she could turn boring things like an impromptu trip to fetch an item into a memorable experience. Andrea herself was an exceptional journey, filled with stories of hope and despair, solitude and companionship, hope and… love. She was a love story where everything was lost and gained. Victor would never be the same again, not after her.

This last thought made his heart tighten in anguish. Victor gave up on the conversation.

He tried to ignore the feeling, push it away, refocusing his attention on the road. He reminded himself of the task at hand: to retrieve the wedding tiara and return it to Goldman’s future wife. He couldn’t allow himself to entertain all those thoughts in his head, making him feel things he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hide from her when she was right beside him. He had to keep his focus, keep his face expressionless, hide his feelings away from the daylight. He was an expert at that, after all, he had done it all his life. She was the only one to ever see what was trying to come out.

She wouldn’t be able to see anything at that moment. Andrea had lost her fight with exhaustion and was sleeping soundly next to him. He allowed himself to smile fondly at her, remembering the times when he would hold her and bury his nose on those curls, feel the softness of her skin and hear her content sighs as she slept. That was what he missed the most.

All the same, he would have to come to terms that the journey led them into a fork in the road, forcing them to go separate ways. Maybe if they had chosen a different path Andrea would be awake by his side, joking about how Diane was such a bridezilla. And while she was busy with her duties as maid of honor, leaving him to his own devices, he would kidnap her for a moment so he could steal a kiss. He could imagine the number of people that would tell him that he was too old to be single and should waste no time popping the question, which he would ignore. Still, he would watch her from a distance and feel that he wanted it more than anything. He would casually mention it during the reception, just to see her reaction, maybe hint that might be in the cards, just to see her eyes sparkle. A year later, they would start a brand new journey together, the kind that lasts a lifetime and is sealed with heartfelt promises of undying love and a kiss.

That was the journey he wanted to go on. A journey different from his greyish lonely one, filled with vibrant landscapes, and engaging conversation, and hands being held.

Victor reemerged from his thoughts as he parked the car in front of Diane’s building. He looked at sleeping Andrea one last time, basking in her peaceful expression, and gave her shoulder a soft squeeze. Andrea turned to him, trying to rub the sleep off her eyes.

“We arrived?” Her sleepy voice made him chuckle.

“Yes, Miss Jones.” He smiled. “We have reached our destination.”

It felt like a lie. They were nowhere near where they were supposed to be, Victor knew that very well. So, at that moment, he swore he wouldn’t relent. He would fight for her, lead them to the right destination: the one that began and ended with them together. That would be his goal and his journey.

[luminescencefics]

the light inside

Natasha Reynolds is trying to figure her life out. She’s newly single, behind her deadline for her newest book release, and currently stuck in her best friend’s house while her home office is being renovated.

Harry Styles is just trying to complete this project. He’s in the midst of his own home renovation, but when he steps foot into Natasha’s townhouse, he finds that there’s more to life than just trying to rebuild.

A oneshot about starting over, learning how to cope, blonde haired toddlers, and finding the light that shines inside of you.

written for @majorharry​‘s 20k fic celebration

prompt #27: “your hands are soft,” prompt #29: “stop looking at me like that,” prompt #33: :”I--I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

harry/ofc, 8k

Natasha Reynolds is losing it.

She’s currently sitting in the half-finished nursery of her best friend’s unborn child. It's the only room in Ellory’s home that has some semblance of quiet, and that is exactly what Natasha needs considering she’s about three weeks behind her workload. Her inbox chimes with a notification of a new email, and Natasha sighs, ignoring it as the red number on her laptop screen grows from forty-six to forty-seven. No doubt they’re all from her editor. And, no doubt that if she doesn’t respond in the next hour, her phone will start to ring incessantly.

Natasha’s life never falls out of order. She has always been a woman with a plan, ever since uni, and that mindset has paved a road of success for her that she never thought she would achieve at this early an age.

Right after uni, she drafted about twenty query letters and sent them out to various publishing agencies throughout the Greater London area. She had been penning her mystery novel series her entire last year of university, and with a stroke of luck her first book was being edited and published before Natasha could turn twenty-five.

The first book was a success. It became an even bigger hit overseas, and not long after was her agent proclaiming that she must develop a second book. Three more books and three and a half years later, the Midnight series was finished. It allowed her to travel the world, meet fans of the book, and earn enough money to own property in Mayfair.

But now that her series was complete, her editor and agent were begging for Natasha to release a new book. Natasha wanted to branch away from the mystery genre and come up with a brand new book, one that would not be developed into a four-part series.

And, considering her newly single status, it made sense to venture into romance.

As of lately, Natasha feels like she has bitten off more than she can chew. Sure, she loves writing. And sure, her relationship imploding definitely gave her the push she needed to start writing again. But she’s suddenly at a standstill—battling a difficult case of writer’s block.

On top of all of that, she’s been sequestered at her best friend’s townhouse because her home office was currently under construction. Natasha usually plans for these things, and she definitely would not have decided for her writing space to be completely transformed while she’s trying to reach her deadlines. But her ex-fiancé ended things abruptly and that office was the only space in her home that he had called his, so it only made sense to completely tear it down and start fresh.

If only the timing was appropriate.

Just as Natasha began writing the eighteenth chapter of her unnamed novel, she starts to hear high-pitched giggles get louder and louder down the hallway. She can hear the gentle thud of feet, and not long after is the door to the nursery thrown open.

“Tasha! Come play!” Maude calls from the doorway of the room.

Her hair is in wild curls and her cheeks have a gentle flush to them, no doubt from running away from Ellory and trying to find Natasha’s hiding spot. Yesterday, Natasha was hiding in the guest bathroom to get work done and it only took a few hours before Maude heard the toilet flush and suddenly found her.

Today, it only took an hour and a half.

“Hi Maude,” Natasha says with a small smile.

“Why are you in sissy’s room?” Maude asks, hobbling towards Natasha’s spot on the enormous bean bag chair in the corner of the room.

“Trying to get some work done. Where’s mummy? I thought you guys were supposed to be baking shortbread?” Natasha asks, tearing her eyes away from her computer screen and looking at Maude who has now become eye level due to the bean bag’s relativity to the carpeted floor.

“We did! Come see!” Maude’s sticky hands reach out towards the screen of Natasha’s laptop, and before her fingers can make a mess of it, Natasha slams it down with a gentle click. Maude starts giggling, reaching for Natasha until her forearms are sticky from flour and egg.

Sighing, Natasha follows after the three year old. There’s no way she’ll be getting any more work finished today.

Ellory looks up from the oven when she sees her daughter dragging her best friend into the kitchen. She gives Natasha a look, laced with an apology and a bit of pity. Ellory knows that Natasha is struggling. Her personal life has been shit the entire year, her workload is only increasing, and now her home is in a state of disarray.

“Maude, love, what did I tell you about bothering Auntie Tasha?” Ellory asks, her ivory hands resting on her cocked hip. She’s giving her daughter a pointed glare, but Natasha knows that it’s no use. Maude always finds a way of getting out of trouble.

“Sorry mummy. I just wanted to show Tasha what we made!” Maude says, holding her arms up so she can be placed on her chair by the kitchen island. Natasha just shakes her head a little, wordlessly telling Ellory that it’s okay. She wasn’t really being productive anyways, to be fair. Baking with her best friend and her daughter sounded better anyways.

“Any progress on the book?” Maude asks, pouring Natasha a cup of tea from the still-hot kettle on the stovetop.

Natasha just shrugs before slumping down on the chair next to Maude. “I’m still stuck on chapter eighteen. Diane’s going to ring my neck.”

Natasha’s editor Diane was nothing but a terrifying presence in her professional life. Granted, she was phenomenal at her job, and without her guidance the Midnight series would probably never have become the success it had, but Diane struggled with understanding how Natasha worked.

She knew about the break up. She knew that her life was in shambles. But Diane pushed through all of that. She was a career-woman first, and didn’t believe in distractions. Therefore, she continuously pushed Natasha to write.

Sometimes, Natasha just needed to breathe.

“You’ll get there, Nat. You just need to find some inspiration,” Ellory offered kindly, resting her hand on her baby bump.

Ellory was always ten steps ahead of Natasha. Starting in secondary school back in Hammersmith, Ellory was already thinking about where she wanted to apply for uni. Although they went to different schools, they still kept in touch. And while Natasha was struggling to finish her final exams and finish writing book one of her series, Ellory was falling in love with Isaac and already planning her wedding.

That happened four months after graduation. Isaac was in finance and came from a wealthy family, and not even a year later, Maude was born. Natasha was still living in her tiny flat in the center of the city, far too cramped for her liking. She was in the middle of writing book two, so her royalties from the first installment hadn’t come in yet. Ellory was already planning Maude’s first birthday when she encouraged Natasha to stop being a reclusive author and start dating, and that’s when she met Will.

Will was smart and posh and worked at the same office as Isaac. He was a career-focused, well-mannered, completely tailored gentleman, and for some reason he took a liking to Natasha’s abnormal life. They were the same age but he felt eons ahead of her. His flat was in a luxury building with a doorman, he owned more suits than he did casual clothes, he drank bourbon like her father did, and he never tried to understand why Natasha wanted to become an author.

He never pushed it though, and he never really tried to understand Natasha either. After she meets his family and they announce that their cousins are to be married, things began to change. Will’s family was very traditional, and when they found out that Natasha and Will had been together for two years and were still living in their own separate flats, Will hired a realtor and they started looking at homes in Knightsbridge and Belgravia, and they all felt too regal for Natasha’s taste. One afternoon when she’s visiting Ellory and newborn Maude at their home in Mayfair, Natasha comes across a dated townhouse that was for sale. It had crown molding and exposed brick, a dated fireplace and exposed beams that showed the true character of the place. With book three finished and her bank account expanding, Natasha puts a deposit down and they move in a week later.

Not even a year later, Will proposed. At the time, Natasha thought it was everything. She finally felt ready, and she thought that her and Will would be happy together. But then after that he started getting colder, and their relationship started feeling more rushed than ever before. She couldn’t even remember what she loved about him in the first place, and whenever she would ask him why he wanted to marry her, his response was always, “Because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Natasha was unhappy. And when they sat down a week after they had already mailed their wedding invitations to their guests, she told him that they shouldn’t get married. She expected Will to put up a fight and beg her to reconsider, but instead he gave out a deep sigh of relief.

A week later he moved out.

And three months after that he was engaged to another woman.

The ringing of the timer rips Natasha out of her thoughts and she laughs quietly when Maude starts jumping up and down in her chair, clapping her sticky hands when Ellory announces that the shortbread is finished.

“Tasha! Will you help us decorate?” Maude asks, grinning up at her mum’s best friend with wide shiny eyes.

“Of course,” Natasha responds, placing her arms under Maude’s armpits and lifting her off the chair and sits her on the granite countertop near the shortbread that’s resting on the cooling rack. Ellory lays out different colored icing, yellows and pinks and blues, and Maude greedily sticks a finger in the pink bowl and brings it up to her mouth when Ellory isn’t looking.

Maude starts to giggle when Natasha raises her eyebrows comically, before copying the three year old and digging a pointer finger into the blue bowl. Maude’s giggles grow louder when Ellory grows suspicious, but Natasha stays quiet, smiling at Maude as if they were sharing a secret.

Midway through icing the shortbread cakes, Natasha’s mobile begins to ring from the island. She groans, knowing that it’s probably Diane asking for an update, but when she gets closer she notices that the number isn’t one she has saved into her contacts, so she brings the phone up to her ear and offers up a quick hello.

“Hi, is this Ms. Reynolds?” a deep voice asks. It’s low and guttural and Natasha instantly recognizes it as the voice of the contractor currently redoing her home office a few streets away.

“Yes, this is she,” she says professionally.

“Right, this is Harry, we’ve spoken a few times before about your renovation. I just thought I’d keep you updated. The desk was delivered later than expected so we’re running a bit behind schedule,” Harry says.

Natasha groans because of course things were running behind schedule. It seemed to be the theme of her life these days.

“Sorry?” the voice asks, and Natasha slaps a hand to her mouth, realizing that her groan came out much louder than expected.

“Nothing. That’s fine, you can stay as late as you can in order to have everything back on schedule. I really would hate to push the completion date any further,” Natasha explains, ignoring the look Ellory gives her from the other side of the kitchen.

“No problem Ms. Reynolds,” Harry responds kindly.

“Thanks for the update,” Natasha says, saying a quick goodbye before ending the call and placing her mobile face down on the countertop.

Things really weren’t going her way.

***

Normally, Natasha leaves Ellory’s house by four o’clock the latest, and by four oh five, her house is void of contractors and construction workers and painters. Ellory offers for Natasha to stay for dinner, but after Maude throws a temper tantrum and Ellory grows increasingly tired from her pregnancy, Natasha decides to just head home. She could avoid the noise of the downstairs office by hiding away in her bedroom on the floor above, and she probably should respond to the growing number of emails in her inbox.

When Natasha arrives at her townhouse, she can already hear the erratic hum of the numerous power tools from inside the office. A large white van with Styles & Co. is parked right outside her front door, with a black pick up truck parked behind her parking spot across the street. Natasha unlocks her front door and is immediately hit with the smell of sawdust.

She closes the door a bit softer than usual so her presence would stay undetected. But while she slips off her flats and discards her jacket in the foyer, she hears the heavy sound of boots come closer and her head snaps up.

In front of her is a tall man with broad shoulders. His brown hair curls over the tips of his ear and stands taller in different areas around his head, most likely from pulling on the strands out of frustration. He has a thin layer of stubble surrounding his mouth and chin, and his green eyes are wide, searching her face the same way she was searching his.

“Ms. Reynolds?” he asks, and his voice has the same timbre as the one she was speaking to on the phone a few hours prior. She cocks her head to the side in surprise, taking in his long jean-clad legs, brown toolbelt, and white henley rolled up at the sleeves, revealing black ink etched onto his tan skin.

“Uh, yeah,” she responds, her mind growing a bit foggy.

He smiles in front of her, revealing a straight set of white teeth. “Hi, I’m Harry,” he says, wiping his hands on the tops of his thighs and extending a long toned forearm.

Natasha is a bit dumbfounded for once, because she figured the Harry she was speaking to on the phone for the past week and a half was someone much older. His deep voice reminded her of her father’s, and she had never come across a contractor so handsome in her entire life.

“Hi,” she responds after she realizes his hand has been extended a bit longer than normal. His eyes stay on hers as they shake once, twice, before her hands retreat back to her sides.

“Your hands are soft,” he says offhandedly, and she’s not entirely sure if he meant to say it outloud. His calloused hands are rough from his work, and when she looks into his eyes with a smile, she can’t see any ounce of regret or embarrassment.

“Thanks,” she says, shouldering her tote bag a little higher on her body.

“We’re almost done for the day, Ms. Reynolds,” Harry explains.

“Natasha’s just fine,” she responds, and she feels even warmer when she hears his Northern accent echo her first name to her.

She likes the way it sounds coming out of his mouth.

“D’ya want to see the progress so far?” Harry offers, hoping she’ll say yes.

Against her plans of retreating in her room to stare blankly at the whiteness of her screen, Natasha nods and follows Harry out of the foyer. The hallway splits in two and he takes a left, bypassing the staircase and entering the back part of the house where Will’s office used to be.

The room is much brighter due to the lighting fixture only having light bulbs without the lampshades. Natasha explained to Harry on the phone that she wanted the room to not be as cold and uninviting, and when he recommended painting the chandelier, she agreed instantly. White tarps were placed over the original hardwood flooring with paint buckets and rollers placed haphazardly around the room. Two other burly men were on the far side of the room near the big bay window, sanding down the large wooden desk and attaching different pieces to the furniture to make it the focal point of the room.

“Wow,” Natasha announces breathlessly, stopping in the middle of the room and looking around with wide eyes. It was such a contrast from what the room was before, and she could feel the weight on her shoulders growing lighter and lighter.

“It’s not nearly finished,” Harry says from behind her. Natasha just shakes her head, realizing that he probably doesn’t understand how much this room transformation actually means to her.

“Oi! ‘Arry! Where’s the cabinet?” One of the voices calls out. He’s older than Harry and has a few wrinkles surrounding his face, but he has kind eyes. His accent makes Natasha smile, and when he looks up he gives her a grin in return.

“Got distracted by the pretty lady, I reckon?” He repeats, and the man to his left cackles. Natasha looks over her shoulder just in time to see the flush creep up Harry’s neck, and she giggles a bit to herself.

“Enough of that, you two. Finish up and I’ll go grab it from the garden,” Harry says, his voice thinning as he retreats towards the back entrance of Natasha’s home where most of the furniture and supplies were situated.

“It looks great, guys. Thank you for your hard work,” Natasha says to the two men, watching as they stop their previous tasks and give her matching grins.

“No problem, lass. Reckon you’ll write another bestseller in this room, aye?” The darker haired man says. His accent is much deeper than the previous man and Harry combined, and Natasha laughs a bit when he mentions her writing.

Before she could respond, Harry is back heaving a large cabinet in front of his chest. Natasha jumps to the side, shocked at how strong he actually is. His long arms were wrapped completely around the piece of furniture, with his large hands fanned out over the doors in order to keep them from opening. He grunts as he places it on the floor in front of the two other men, standing up and wiping his brow with sweat.

Natasha really needed to stop staring.

She coughs to herself, averting her eyes even though she can feel the two other men’s gazes from across the room. She’s sure if she looked over they would have amused looks covering their faces.

“Right. Anybody need water or anything? Tea?” Natasha asks kindly, praying deep down that nobody actually needed anything and she could make herself a brew and hide away in her bedroom for the rest of the evening.

“We’re good lass, thank you,” the older men say, before grabbing a power drill and getting back to work.

“I’m all set, thanks though, Natasha,” Harry says, standing right in front of her. She really wished she didn’t love the way her name sounded leaving his mouth.

“No problem. I’ll leave you boys to it,” she announces, nodding her head before turning on her heel.

Before she enters the kitchen, she chances one last look over her shoulder, and she’s met with bright green eyes and a boyish grin.

She skips making her tea and runs straight upstairs, closing her bedroom door with a loud thud.

***

The next morning, Natasha wakes up much later than expected. After Harry and his crew had left, she went downstairs and made herself a late dinner. After an explosive phone call with Diane, Natasha managed to write two chapters that definitely were not up to her standards. It took her much longer than usual to write, and after a cup of black coffee that she only saves for emergencies only, she couldn’t fall asleep.

She wakes up to the sound of power drills and the smell of paint.

Ellory has called her twice already and texted her enough times to earn an eye roll from Natasha. She knew she was expected over there two hours earlier, but she needed rest. She responds as she’s traipsing down the stairwell in boy shorts, a tank top, and an old flannel button down. Her hair is in a bun and she hasn’t bothered putting her contacts in, and it’s only once she reaches the bottom of the stairs when she realizes that she isn’t wearing a bra.

Harry’s standing before her, green eyes blown wide. Natasha isn’t sure if it’s from her thin tank top and lack of appropriate undergarments, or if he’s just shocked to see her in general.

“Natasha—uh, hi.” He sounds breathless and she just gives him a tired grin, noticing the same two guys from yesterday hauling in different materials from the back garden. The door is open and the chill November air settles into the ground floor, and Natasha crosses her arms over her chest subconsciously.

She hopes Harry doesn’t notice, but she watches his pupils dart down for a millisecond before shooting back up, and her cheeks start to flush.

“Morning Harry,” she replies. “Want some tea? Coffee?”

She starts walking towards the kitchen without waiting for a response. Natasha can hear the heavy clunking of his boots, so she can only assume that he’s taken her up on her offer. He only responds once she’s filled up the kettle and turned the burner on.

“Uh, coffee, black. If you have it,” he asks cautiously. He’s leaning on the doorframe of her open kitchen, unsure if he should step further into the room. Natasha just nods before turning the coffeemaker on, adding grounds to the appropriate compartment and waiting for it to heat up.

She turns around then, resting her tailbone on the lower cabinets of the kitchen. Harry saunters forward, before sitting down on the barstool across from her, resting his arms on the countertop. She waits for him to say something.

“Figured you’d be at work or something,” Harry says after a beat.

“Slept in, I suppose.” Natasha shrugs, pivoting on her heel and grabbing two porcelain mugs from above and placing them on the granite.

“Sorry if we woke you,” Harry says, watching as she pours his coffee before grabbing her tea bag and pouring the hot water from the steaming kettle into her matching mug. He thanks her quietly when she places his mug in front of him.

“Nonsense. I should have been up hours ago,” Natasha responds as she’s steeping her tea.

She watches him idly as he wraps his long fingers around the mug. Without thinking, her eyes drift down to his left hand, second spot in from his pinky finger. It’s bare, and she squints under her glasses to try and see a tan line in the place where a wedding band should be. Maybe he doesn’t wear it while he’s working, she thinks to herself.

Harry of course is watching her, and he doesn’t need to mimic her inquiries in order to make an educated guess that she is in fact single. The foyer is filled with women’s jackets and high heeled boots, and in the two weeks he’s been working on her office, there’s been no trace of a man coming and going.

He doesn’t say anything, though. Just continues to let her stare.

“Will you be here all day?” He asks finally, watching as her brown eyes dart up to his face. She doesn’t seem embarrassed that she’s been caught.

“Probably. The glory of my profession—I can permanently work from home,” she offers with a hint of amusement, and Harry laughs softly to fill the space.

“Well, I’ll make sure we stay out of your hair,” he says, taking a large gulp of his coffee and standing up from the chair.

Natasha just smiles. “Don’t worry about me.”

Harry smiles back. “Cheers for the coffee,” he says, grasping the white mug in his hands and exiting the kitchen before taking a right and following the hallway down into the office.

Natasha goes back upstairs and writes three more chapters. When she checks the time and realizes that it’s a little past noon, she goes downstairs and hears silence. She enters her kitchen and prepares a small salad, and when she finishes to clean her plate, she notices the white mug resting on the drying rack.

She smiles for what feels like the fifteenth time that day.

***

Natasha and Harry have fallen into the habit of having tea and coffee together each morning. She starts staying home to finish her book, ignoring Ellory’s questions on what suddenly has changed for her.

“Inspiration,” Natasha would respond, offering nothing else.

They don’t really talk about much, her and Harry. She tells him about her book and he tells her about his house that he’s almost finished renovating in Chiswick. He tells her that he grew up in Cheshire and she tells him that her family home is about a thirty minute drive away. They don’t talk about the reason why she’s remodeling the office or why Harry is the only thirty-two year old Natasha knows who isn’t engaged or married.

Harry estimates that the remodel should be finished in about a week’s time, and Natasha somehow feels a bit sad about that. At one point she schemes of a way to delay the remodel, to ensure that Harry will be around for a bit longer than seven days. But she knows she’s ridiculous. She knows he probably has way better things to do than hang around her house in Mayfair.

One afternoon after she’s finished writing chapter twenty-nine, she hears a loud bang from the room below her. Immediately she flies down the stairs, takes a sharp right, and enters the office with wide eyes. In front of her, the coffee table that was supposed to be where the seating area would be is in shambles. The glass covering has cracked, and she checks the white tarp for spots of blood.

Rory and Gareth, Harry’s workers, are swearing at each other. They obviously figured that the glass would stay intact from the shipment center they ordered it from, but when they opened the box, they found that it was in twelve different pieces. She notices Harry in the corner, frustratedly pulling at his hair.

“Everyone okay?” Natasha asks, mainly directing the question at Harry. She can sense his annoyance from the other side of the room.

“We’re alrigh’, Natasha. The fuckin’ idiots who packaged the table clearly did a terrible job at it! It’s fuckin’ fallin’ apart!” Rory says loudly, his voice getting louder with each curse that passes his lips.

“It’s fine, I’ll reorder another one. Just please be careful when removing the glass from the house, I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” Natasha orders, watching as Rory and Gareth reach into their back pockets to retrieve gloves. They start picking up the glass shards slowly, before placing them into the cardboard box.

Harry just watches her, feeling the frustradness leaving his body. She’s very gentle, and watches the guys like a hawk, ensuring that they don’t get injured. Before they’ve finished, Harry announces that they can go and take their lunch break. Rory and Gareth thank him repeatedly, announcing that they need a smoke after the table debacle.

“I made too much stir fry, if you’re hungry,” Natasha says once the boys have driven off to eat their lunch in the park.

“Starved,” Harry replies with a grin. He follows her down the hallway and into the kitchen, admiring her long legs under her leggings. The jumper she’s wearing is big and warm, and his eyes latch onto her right shoulder, watching as the fabric hangs revealing smooth white skin.

Natasha fills up two bowls and they sit at the breakfast nook on the far side of the kitchen near four windows. He watches as she slides her glasses up her forehead, resting them like a headband in her dark hair. He thinks she’s the prettiest girl he’s seen in a long time.

“How’s the book coming along?” He asks after a few bites.

“Surprisingly, not as terrible as I thought. I’m actually right on target to finish it on the deadline,” Natasha replies. And it’s true—she’s gotten more writing done in her busy townhouse than she ever did in Ellory’s home, hiding away from Maude in closets and unused bedrooms.

“That’s great. You didn’t want to wait until your office was finished?” Harry asks, and Natasha can almost feel the follow up question coming.

“Didn’t want to fall behind schedule,” she replies quietly, waiting for him to just say it.

“Why did you decide to do a full renovation right before your deadline, then?”

And there it is.

It’s not like she still cares for Will. Because those feelings for him have been left in the past. Although it took her a little while to fix her messy heart, the sudden news of his brand new proposal practically catapulted Natasha into officially feeling nothing for him. But, whenever she tells the story to somebody, she’s always hit with a pitiful look. Everyone always tells her the same things: I’m so sorry, and, I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel, and, you’ll find someone much better than him.

She didn’t want Harry to look at her that way. She didn’t want to hear her name fall from his lips at the end of one of those sentences.

“You’re asking a lot of questions,” Natasha says, deflecting.

Harry pauses, knowing.

“Didn’t mean to overstep,” Harry says, holding up his hands in surrender.

Natasha just shakes her head, takes another bite, and racks her brain for anything else to say to take the attention away from herself and her failing relationship.

“So, what about you? Where are you hiding the ring?” She asks, noticing the way Harry practically chokes on his chicken and rice.

“Sorry?” He’s completely confused.

“Your wedding ring. I assumed you didn’t work with it, which is smart, because it’ll practically get ruined with all the hammering and sawing you do. Plus, you’re always on the phone in hushed conversations, and Rory and Gareth are always talking about the pretty girl you never shut up about, so I assumed…” Natasha’s voice trails off as she notices the pained look fall across Harry’s face.

For the first time in a long time, she’s said too much.

“Why do you assume I’m married?” Is what Harry chooses to ask her.

She’s grown quiet, unsure of how to respond. “Well, you’re in your thirties. And you’ve recently renovated a home in Chiswick. Most people who live in Chiswick plan on having children to fill those rooms up.” Natasha suddenly starts wondering if her logic is flawed.

The pained expression on his face grows bigger, and she watches as he gently places his fork against the glass bowl, seemingly finished with his lunch.

“I was in a relationship. We were together for awhile, and I was planning on surprising her with the house in Chiswick because I was ready for the next step. She wasn’t. She left and I spent a year renovating a house that had three bedrooms next to a school by myself.” He stands up, walking halfway towards the door before turning around and looking at Natasha.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” He says, anger radiating off of him.

Natasha isn’t sure how to respond.

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Harry says sadly, shaking his head and looking down at the tiled flooring. “You never bothered to ask.”

And with that, he walks out the front door and she can hear the tires of his car skid away.

Natasha spends the rest of the night holed up in her room, typing and retyping chapter thirty. It stays unfinished.

***

Three days goes by and Natasha feels absolutely horrible. She tries to avoid going downstairs as much as she can, because she knows the second she sees Harry’s face she’ll start feeling even worse. She sneaks out the front door when she knows they’re working in the back part of her house. Instead of going to Ellory’s, she walks and walks around London. She ignores her emails, ignores her book, and starts analyzing why she’s so messed up.

It was horrible of her to assume that Harry was married. He’s spent the past few weeks drinking coffee and chatting with her, and he was the closest thing she had to a friend in a long time. All of her other friends were Will’s friends, sans Ellory, so when they broke up and he left, they stopped inviting her around.

Harry was the first person who actually tried to get to know her. And Natasha kept continuously keeping him at arm’s length. She didn’t want him to ask the questions that everybody else asks, but thinking about it all now, she knows that Harry would never look at her the same way the rest of them did.

She was forced into a world she didn’t fit into. She was simply Natasha, a girl who loves to write, can sometimes forget to make her bed, and always puts too much sugar in her tea. She ignores her scary editor and she can only make stir fry and scrambled eggs, and she spent the last few years of her life feeling vastly insignificant compared to Will and his elitist friends. She shouldn’t have made assumptions about Harry, because that’s what people have been doing about her for the better part of her twenties.

There’s a reason why her writing increased tenfold when things were going well with Harry. He was kind and beautiful and inspired her, and now that things are shit, her writing has been horrible. She’s having trouble connecting words into sentences and she knows that’s because she needs to set things straight with Harry.

When she gets to her front door, she doesn’t even stop to pull it shut completely. She’s on a mission, her legs dragging her down the hallway before she can even peel her trainers off her feet. She enters the room without saying hello to Rory and Gareth—instead she eyes the curly headed boy in the corner, leveling shelves before she calls out his name.

She watches his body turn rigid. Rory and Gareth look between the two of them as if they know too much. They try and get back to work, but Natasha can feel their eyes on her. Harry lowers the leveler and looks at her with a blank look on his face.

“Can I talk to you, please?” She asks, and she’s pretty sure he only agrees because he can hear the desperation in her voice.

He follows her out into the back garden, past the tools and materials and into the verandah. Most of the time she sits here with a book and a warm mug of tea and forgets about the world for awhile. But now, she’s hyper aware of Harry’s eyes on her frame, and suddenly she feels much smaller than usual.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, brown eyes meeting green.

“Natasha—”

“No let me finish.” Harry’s lips shut tight and he nods slowly, watching Natasha take a deep breath in and out.

“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have assumed anything about you. The reason I asked you to renovate my office was because it used to be my fiancé’s. It didn’t work out, it was all too much, and then a few months later he was engaged to someone else.” She pauses, waiting for the look of pity, the awkward apology, the acknowledgement of her sadness.

Instead, his eyes are focused on hers. And she continues.

“I wasted too much time with him. He made me out to be this person I wasn’t, and whenever I was with him, I felt inferior. It felt like I had to dim my shine so he could glow the brightest for the both of us. I was so stupid, ya know?”

Harry doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t expect him to.

“I chose this house. Our agreement was that he got the office. But when he left, it took me a while to figure myself out. And then when I heard he was getting married, I changed everything back to the way I wanted. I got new linens. I bought new mugs. The last thing was the office.” Her eyes are downcast, staring at her Nike’s. She knows that Harry probably wasn’t expecting her to unload all of this on her, but she needed to do it.

Suddenly, she sees the toes of his leather work boots touching her black trainers. Her eyes shoot up and Harry is standing right in front of her, closer than ever before, and he’s looking at her so intensely and she feels warm all over.

“Thank you for telling me that,” he says so softly that Natasha has to lean in to hear him.

“I, uh—you’re welcome. I should’ve told you that a few days ago, to be fair,” Natasha replies, her cheeks feeling flushed.

Before he can say another word, or possibly step a few inches closer so their lips are touching, Gareth calls out Harry’s name and she can almost hear the whine lodged in his throat. He looks as if he doesn’t want to leave, as if he’s anchored down to the flooring of the verandah, but Gareth calls out again and Natasha just tells him that he should go, and their warm bubble is suddenly popped.

That night, Natasha writes three more chapters and has the best sleep of her life.

***

Before Natasha can even comprehend, it’s the last day of the remodel. When she wakes up, Harry is waiting for her by the foyer like usual. She makes him his black coffee and she drinks her tea, and just before they part ways until the afternoon for lunch, Harry asks her if she could step out for the day until they were completely finished.

“Are you hiding something from me?” Natasha asks, cocking her head to the side and trying to persuade Harry into telling her. She hates surprises, and was never fond of them growing up. So whatever Harry had up his sleeve, she wanted to know.

He just gives her that grin of hers she’s grown to love. “No more questions. I’ll see you at five.” And with that, he places his hand on her lower back and shoves her gently towards the stairs.

“You’re infuriating,” Natasha says, lying through her teeth.

“And no peeking on your way out!” Harry shouts from the back of her house.

Natasha begrudgingly obliges, deciding to spend the rest of her day at Ellory’s house with Maude. For the first time in a while, she goes over without her laptop. Instead, she brings a children’s book for Maude, and the three of them spend the afternoon playing games and running around. When Maude goes down for a nap and it’s just Ellory and Natasha lounging on the sofa, Ellory finally acknowledges her good mood.

“What’s got your spirits so high? Or should I dare say, who?” Natasha just laughs, shaking her head to try and distract from the growing redness creeping up her neck and settling on her cheeks.

“It’s nothing, El. For once, I’m just letting things happen without planning beforehand,” Natasha explains, this time actually believing herself.

“Well, I for one am excited,” Ellory says, grabbing her best friend’s hand and giving it a tight squeeze. No matter what happens in Natasha’s life, she’s always been grateful for Ellory’s love and support. And sometimes, that’s all you can ask for.

With four creeping up, Natasha starts getting anxious. Maude overheard Ellory and Natasha talking about the renovation, and she can sense her mother’s excitement in the air. She starts begging Natasha to let them come see it with her.

“Of course, Maude. You’re always welcome at my house.” Maude grins and wraps her arms around Natasha’s neck, and just like that, she feels her anxiousness settle.

Ellory wraps Maude up in a trench coat, and the three of them tread over towards Natasha’s townhouse. Natasha keeps clicking the lock screen on to check the time every thirty seconds, and Ellory just stays quiet, eyeing her best friend suspiciously. Maude is positioned between the two, her small hands grasping one of Ellory’s and Natasha’s.

When they reach the front door, Rory and Gareth are settling into the white Styles & Co. van on the street. Natasha walks up to the window, knocks gently, and waits for Rory to push the button to lower it.

“Miss Natasha,” Rory says with a smile. Natasha grins back, and there’s no denying that she’s grown fond of these two men the past two weeks.

“I guess this is it, boys,” she says sadly, watching as Gareth gives her a knowing look.

“I’m sure you’ll see us around, lass.” Natasha just rolls her eyes, because of course they know that she’s grown extra fond of their boss. They have been watching them for weeks now, laughing to themselves and saying more with just looks between the two of them than words ever could.

“Thanks again for everything,” Natasha says sincerely.

Rory just grins, reaching out and giving her forearm a squeeze. Words aren’t needed.

“Auntie Tasha, come on! Let’s go see!” Maude calls out impatiently from the front steps. Ellory is still holding onto her hand, but her eyes are on Natasha with an amused look.

Natasha walks by them and reaches for the door, feeling Maude wrap her tiny arms around her left leg. She grins down at the toddler before grabbing her hand and dragging her into the foyer, discarding her coat and boots at the door.

“Five on the dot,” Natasha hears from down the hallway. She starts to smile immediately, hearing Maude ask Ellory in the background who that voice was. Ellory looks just as confused as her daughter, and suddenly, Harry is in front of them.

He’s wearing dark jeans and a light patterned button down shirt, opened enough so that Natasha can see his thin white tank top underneath. For the first time since knowing him, he’s wearing Chelsea boots instead of his work boots. He looks even more handsome dressed up, and Natasha can’t help but blush when looking at him.

“Who’s this?” Ellory asks, although she can already tell that this is the boy who’s made her best friend unequivocally happy these past few weeks. Harry extends a hand in greeting, and Ellory looks at Natasha with a smirk on her face.

Maude is hiding behind Natasha’s leg, hand still wrapped around her kneecap.

“Maude, do you want to say hello to my friend?” Natasha whispers, watching as Maude’s big blue eyes look up at her, then over to Harry, then back to her.

She nods before walking in front of Natasha. Harry crouches down so he’s eye level with Maude, and Natasha can’t help but feel the swell in her heart.

“Hi there, I’m Harry,” he says, gently sticking his hand out to shake.

Maude wraps two of her hands around one of his, shaking it up and down a few times until she giggles quietly. “Hi Hawwy. I’m Maude.”

“That’s a pretty name. How old are you?” he asks, grinning when her personality starts to shine through in front of him.

“Fwee! Auntie Tasha says I’m the best fwee year old she’s met,” Maude announces, and Natasha grins down as Harry’s green eyes meet hers.

“I’m sure your Auntie Tasha is right.”

Maude begins to babble and Ellory reaches out to grab her hand, shushing her so that Harry can show them the office. He leads the way, and Natasha starts feeling butterflies flutter in the pits of her stomach. She’s not sure if it’s from Harry or the office or both, but she can practically hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Just before the office comes into view, Harry stops short and Natasha almost runs right into his back.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Harry starts, “but I found some boxes in the storage room and I figured an author should have a library so, I sort of took the liberty of making you your own bookshelf.” He looked bashful, but curiosity was eating her alive, because she knows exactly what boxes Harry’s talking about.

They were the culmination of her favorite books since she was a child. Collecting books was what made her want to write her own, and her tiny flat in the middle of London was filled to the brim with them. But when she moved into the Mayfair house with Will, he only offered her the bookshelf near the kitchen nook that only held about fifteen novels. She had kept the rest stowed away in the storage room, allowing them to fill with dust, unused.

When Natasha steps around Harry and the office comes into light, she’s floored. Her hand shoots up to her mouth in awe, and she can practically hear her heart beating out of her chest.

The original brick flooring that Will had covered up in favor of a more traditional hardwood look was finally given the light of day. Surrounding the wooden door on each side was an archway of bookshelves, curving around the door. It had seven shelves on each side with an eighth over top in the middle, each filled to the brim with all of Natasha’s books.

“Harry…” Natasha is not one for stunned silence, so this is a first for her.

Harry looks sheepish as Maude ogles at the sheer amount of books. “Mummy, is this every book in the world?”

“In Natasha’s world, my love,” Ellory responds quietly, watching her best friend in awe.

Natasha walks through the door and the room is lighter than anywhere else in the house. It reminds her of the verandah in the back garden that she’s grown to love, filled with white wood and green plants. The coffee table has new glass, the love seat and matching chairs are tan and pale yellow respectively. Her actual office desk is white and vast and exceptional. Her laptop and desktop are placed up top, with her best selling books framed on the side. A giant blush pink office chair sits on wheels with her favorite bay window behind her.

She’s absolutely floored. Maude being the toddler that she is runs straight into the room, gasping at everything in awe. She tries to climb on the desk chair and Natasha can see Ellory begin to scold her daughter, but all she can think about is Harry.

Harry.

She turns around and he’s right where she’s left him. His bashfulness has grown to sheepish, and with one enormous grin, she runs towards him and engulfs him in the biggest hug she could muster.

He leans back, surprised at the gesture, but then his strong arms snake around her back and settle on her tailbone. Her arms are locked around his neck, and she can feel him bend down and breathe into the crook of her neck.

“I don’t know what to say other than thank you,” she whispers, her lips falling over the swallows tattooed under his collarbone due to their height difference.

“You’re welcome, Natasha.” There’s her name again, falling beautifully past his lips. She removes her hands from his neck and leans back so she can look into his deep green eyes. They’re standing close to each other again, just like they were in the verandah, but this time they both have no desire to let go.

“The bookshelf—I just. It means so much to me. I don’t know how to repay you,” Natasha says breathlessly.

Harry just smiles softly. “You deserve it, Natasha. You don’t have to repay me. I wanted to do this for you.”

Before she could react, Maude suddenly appears below them, her tiny fist tugging at the bottom of Harry’s jeans.

“Do you think you could make me a bookshelf, Hawwy?” Maude asks shyly.

Natasha looks at Ellory, and for the first time in five years she actually feels something. She feels excited, she feels hopeful, she feels as if everything is starting to make sense to her. And Ellory knows this, and she looks at her best friend with the warmest smile she could muster.

Harry is crouched down in front of Maude. “Of course I can. Whatever you want.”

Harry looks up and Natasha is giving her a look that he hasn’t seen before. He can feel Maude giggle excitedly in front of him, her little hands leaning on his thighs, but all he can think about is Natasha and her brown eyes.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he jokes, standing up and wrapping his arms around her body again.

“I can’t help it, I’m just really happy,” Natasha replies, feeling the light inside of her burn brighter than ever before.

And for the first time in a long time, Harry can feel it too, and together they shine brighter than the sun.

[salmonthestoryteller]

Shannara Chronicles

So I finished both seasons of the Shannara Chronicles. Love season 1, mixed feelings on season 2.  Spoilers ahead!

I did grow up reading the books, but it’s been forever since I read them. So overall that didn’t affect most of my opinions on the show.  My one exception is I love Flick, and was unhappy about his lack of screen time or mention in season 1. I was super salty about Eventine not being the one to tell Wil that Flick fought in the war.

I was watching the episode going:  “Wow, Eventine, you hear the name Ohmsford and don’t even ask about the man who went behind enemy lines to save your sorry ass during the war?? Wth, dude. Not cool.”

So I actually did appreciate getting more Flick in season 2, and Wil finally learning his uncle had fought in the war. The scenes between Bandon and Flick were well done, and even his death worked for me.  Because Flick fought a war to stop the Warlock Lord, watched his beloved brother lose his mind after that war, and there was no way he wasn’t going to do everything in his power to prevent his return.

I will also say, I do feel that Bandon should have said “Flick was right”, not “Allanon was right” in his final scene. Not just because I’m a Flick fangirl, either. Flick was the last person to try to reach out to Bandon emotionally. I also would have accepted “Wil was right.”  Because Wil was his friend in season one, so if he’s going to think about who he should have listened to in the end, it should have been the people who did try their best to help him and show they cared.  And the facts are, Allanon never showed Bandon he truly cared.  He admitted himself that this situation existed because he pushed Bandon too hard and didn’t think of what was best for him.  Because he treated him like a tool to use and not a person.  So I’m not fond of them giving Allanon that moment. It’s understandable Bandon wouldn’t want to listen to Allanon. But he should have listened to Wil and/or Flick.  And that’s what he should have said when facing the truth.

I actually ended up liking Eretia/Wil/Amberle in season one. It starts out and you're like - oh, god another love triangle. And by the time they’re reaching Safehold, you're like - holy shit. Not a love triangle. This is totally poly, and I’m down for it. Of course, then Amberle becomes a tree, so… But I felt like it was still addressed in season 2.  Wil is jealous that Amberle talked to Eretia and didn’t talk to him, Eretia calls out Mareth on her feelings for Wil while admitting she knows what it’s like to love him.  The year apart has led Wil and Eretia on different paths and to different people, but they don’t write off their history, or their shared love of Amberle.

Okay, just insert all the squeeing about the Eretria/Lyria romance in season 2 here. Because it’s gorgeous.  Their fights are understandable, but not for a moment do you not think they aren’t in love through every moment of it. I just wish they’d let Eretia keep Lyria’s ring.  It’s made more than obvious she will return to her, so why have her return the ring?  I am so disappointed in that choice.

On the flipside, what the heck was with the Ander/Catania romance in season 2?  It made no sense.  It did nothing for the plot. Let’s be serious here. Given that Catania was with Bandon in season 1 - is the very reason he is on the loose - and is probably a little traumatized over her boyfriend turning evil, and the love of Ander’s life - Diane, the woman he pined over for ten years, remember her? - just died last year, the idea that they suddenly fell so madly in love Ander would consider giving up a marriage of alliance for Catania is ridiculous.

Not to mention that Catania is killed so quickly it barely matters that they’re together anyway.  On that note, why did we have to kill Catania exactly?  It felt so pointless to murder her. I really hate deaths that are just for drama and not for plot.  And before anyone says “they had to stop her from giving Eretia’s message to Ander”: So Edian had the chance to kidnap the woman the King of the Elves is supposed to be in love with to use as a hostage against him - which would make way more tactical sense - but chose to just kill her and offer a lame excuse even Ander didn’t believe?  With geniuses like this as spies and leaders, it’s a wonder The Crimson is succeeding at anything.

Sorry, but the whole Ander/Catania thing felt like it was there because

“Women and Men can’t be friends”

“We can’t have the only couple kissing in season 2 be w/w”

And nobody is ever gonna convince me those aren’t the backwards opinions that made the writers put them together in season 2, as opposed to just having her be a friend and advisor.  Ander could have hesitated over the marriage cuz he still isn’t over Diane’s death and Catania could have been like, “She’d understand.  She’d want you to put our people first.” And they could have kidnapped her instead of killing her and then that would explain her presence in the Crimson stronghold when Bandon took over, rather than having the Warlock Lord raise her from the dead.  Edian could still have given the excuse, “Catania left cuz she disapproved of the marriage.”  And Ander could still have frozen and been like, “Wait, what?  She encouraged me to accept the marriage.”  Almost nothing would have changed by them not being a romance and not killing Catania. (Twice at that.)

(They could also have also just… not killed Diane in season one.  Just saying…)

On the note of deaths that make no sense.  Let’s talk about having Ander survive the battle against Dagda Mor, witness the death of pretty much his entire family and the woman he loved, only to have him killed in season two by an antagonist who dies an episode later.  Purely for drama and audience pain. Not because it makes one spit of sense for the story.

Remember how Slanter only agrees to the alliance in season one because of Ander?  Because Ander was willing to let him out of the prison he’d been kept in.  To make the choice as a king that, despite Slanter killing the brother he loved so much, if he wanted this alliance - then he needed Slanter.  He also was willing to respect Slanter’s culture when they found the dead gnomes.  If Eventine had still been in charge, Slanter would have told him to go eff himself for asking for their help, but Ander had shown Slanter he had more depth and understanding and Slanter was willing to risk his people on him being the man he hoped he was.  The evolution of their alliance and tentative friendship was a great story.  And then they threw it away for what?

If they killed Ander so Eretia and Lyria could be together, first Ander already knew Lyria loved Eretia and this was strictly a political marriage so he wasn’t in the way in the first place. Second, they still didn’t end the season with them together, so what was the point?

The elven-gnome alliance exists for exactly two reasons and their names are Slanter and Ander.  It is not going to hold with Ander dead.  For that matter, the alliance with Leah will probably not hold with him dead either.  Lyria is the daughter of the woman responsible for the death of the last known (Cuz nobody knows about Mareth) member of the elven royal family. (Queen Tamlin is a fascinating and complex character, but the truth remains Ander is dead because of her machinations). In a world that has been set up as misogynistic from episode one (Amberle wasn’t supposed to run the Gauntlet because she was a girl ringing any bells?) there is no way Lyria would be able to keep the peace under these circumstances.  Not because she wouldn’t be a good queen, but because she was just handed a political nightmare.

That’s before considering that part of Ander’s story both in season one and the struggle with the Crimson in season 2 is because he had spent the last ten years avoiding his duties. He wasn’t taken seriously as king because of that. Um… Lyria has the same issue.  She literally was “missing” for the last year and has a history of running away. She’s going to have the same struggles Ander had in getting her people to put their faith in her, let alone other kingdom’s people.  Realistically, someone would rise up, seize the throne in Arborlon - probably go for Leah first before attacking the gnomes. Or possibly vice versa.  Even if Ander had lived, he and Lyria would have still had a giant mess on their hands - killing him only makes this “Yay, party, everyone’s going to stick to the alliance this time” ending feel super unrealistic.  Sigh.

In a lot of ways it would have made more sense to have the Crimson’s defeat be the end of season 2 and Bandon resurrect the Warlock Lord in the finale.  Not bring the Warlock Lord back for - what? 2 episodes and defeat him?  It made him look really weak by comparison to Dagda Mor, and that was a bit of a disappointment for me.  He’s the Warlock Lord. His defeat should have taken a whole season.  I guess considering we won’t get a season 3, I get why they made sure to wrap it up in season 2. At the same time though it feels rushed after the build up.

All and all, I still enjoyed the show a lot. And I would have come back for a third season if we’d gotten one.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 11/24/21 - ENCANTO, HOUSE OF GUCCI, RESIDENT EVIL, SUMMIT OF THE GODS, LICORICE PIZZA, THE HUMANS, HAWKEYE, and More!

Well, this is gonna be fun. With Thursday being Thanksgiving, that means I need to try to get this column done before then, and that’s even bearing in mind how tough it’s been to get this column done by Thursdays. You should be reading this on Wednesday unless something has gone horribly, horribly wrong, which could be the case. (Or on Tuesday, cause I took Monday night off to work on this. Huzzah!)

In case you haven’t been reading my Weekend Warrior columns for 20 years, you probably won’t understand why I hate Thanksgiving so much, particularly when it comes to the box office. In the pre-COVID times, it was a fairly hearty time for movie business, but it was also hard to predict which movies would be released Wednesday and then be dead by the weekend. Then, other movies would actually do huge business on the Black Friday after Thanksgiving since most people are off, a lot of them are doing their early holiday shopping, and families end up going to the movies together, which gives Friday a huge bump for the weekend. This generally helps family and holiday films the most, which is why Walt Disney continues to be the Thanksgiving weekend champ. Last year was obviously an exception.

First up, we have the latest from Walt Disney Pictures. In fact, ENCANTO (Disney Animation) is Walt Disney Pictures Animation’s 60th animated feature with, presumably, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves being the first. Set in the rural Colombian village of Encanto, this is about a young girl named Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz from In the Heights) whose family is well-known for their “gifts” or powers that help them aid and defend their community. For instance, Mirabel’s sister Luisa (voiced by Jessica Darrow) has great strength, while her other sister, Isabela (Diane Gurrero) can make plant life and flowers grow anywhere. So essentially, it’s like a LatinX Fantastic Four but actually a much, bigger family all with powers… except Mirabel, who was never given a gift.

Encanto is directed by Byron Howard and co-directed and co-written by Jared Bush both from Zootopia, a pretty big Disney animated hit, and co-directed and co-written by Charise Castro Smith, the first Latina filmmaker to helm a Disney animated movie. Actually, a lot of attention is being put on Ms. Castro Smith and rightfully so, and having a very LatinX-targeted film like this will definitely help bring in LatinX families, since that’s a demographic that makes up a very large part of the moviegoing demographic.

More importantly, this is an animated movie with songs and music with the majority of the former penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who seriously is so close to adding an Oscar to his EGOT, he can probably taste it. I mean, besides this movie and the songs he wrote for Netflix’s Vivo (formerly Sony Pictures Animation), he also finally got his adaptation of In the Heights out there, and maybe there’s an original song in there, too? Who knows? Oh, yeah, there’s also Tick Tick… BOOM! On Netflix, Miranda’s directorial debut. But Miranda certainly is very popular with Hamilton back on Broadway and his music being everywhere. I’ll be curious if any of the songs from Encanto breakout and hit ala “Let It Go” from Frozen. (See my review below for more on that.)

One key thing about the movie is that it’s also Disney’s first non-Fox animated theatrical release since the Pixar movie, Onward, because Pixar’s last two movies, Soul and Luca were thrown onto the Disney+ streamer. This may not be a big deal to some who were perfectly happy to get those movies as part of their Disney+ subscription, but it’s a big deal to theaters and with kids getting vaccinated very quickly, there’s a chance that families will pick this as their weekend moviegoing choice. The fact that the movie is getting positively GLOWING reviews doesn’t hurt either.

The big question is how the opening week box office for Encanto will be split between Weds (including Tuesday previews), Thanksgiving and the three-day weekend. I expect that Weds and Friday will be two big days for the movie with maybe $12 or 13 million made through Thanksgiving and then another $28 to 35 million being made over the weekend, which isn’t a lot compared to Disney’s Thanksgiving records, but it’s pretty damn good for the pandemic

Mini-Review: I feel like I should preface this review by admitting that I have gotten fairly cynical about animated movies, and particularly those from Disney and its subsidiaries, because they no longer seem to be about fun entertainment and more about one message or another. While I fully get behind these animated features being used to introduce young viewers to other cultures, like the Colombian traditions of Encanto, there is a certain point where it’s hard not to think that the creators are losing sight of that audience in favor of pushing an agenda.

My biggest issue with the movie is that it took me quite a long time to warm up to the character of Mirabel, because I found Beatriz’s performance to be quite strident, not just from her voice performance but also her singing in some ways, which I didn’t find to be a problem with In the Heights. (I guess a lot of that comes from the directors and sound team>) in general, the voice performances aren’t that great, but I did enjoy the film’s humor and how the various family members’ gifts are used in that sense.

Where the movie really picks up is where John Leguizamo shows up to voice Bruno, the black sheep of the Madrigal family who vanished mysteriously many years earlier, and that’s really where the movie started winning me over. The filmmakers also have a good sense of pacing and being able to mix the music in with the action and comedy and drama.

Overall, Encanto may not be the best Disney animated movie, but I ultimately enjoyed it more than expected, and definitely more than Pixar’s Luca and Netflix’s Vivo, the other movie for which Lin-Manuel Miranda did the music. Encanto should sufficiently entertain any and all members of the family, making it a solid holiday film choice.

Rating: 8/10

Next up, we have the second movie of the year from director Sir Ridley Scott, HOUSE OF GUCCI (MGM), which takes a look at the fashion empire of the Gucci family in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as it was infiltrated by Patrizia Reggiani (as played by Lady Gaga), who charms and then seduces Adam Driver’s Maurizio Gucci, the heir to that empire. The movie also stars Jeremy Irons as Maurizio’s father Rodolfo Gucci, Al Pacino as his uncle Aldo, and an unrecognizable Jared Leto as his cousin Paolo, all of whom are involved in fashion or design in some way. And I’m going to take it all as truth cause I know nothing about “Gucci” other than its a name and a brand and something to do with fashion.

There’s a lot of interest in the movie due to Lady Gaga and her fanbase, as well as interest in Scott’s telling of the Gucci story, which involved family squabbles and eventually murder. Since I’m not into fashion at all, I kind of get this story confused with that of Gianni Versace, which told as part of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story on FX a few years back. (I didn’t see that.) The movie’s male cast is certainly respectable, although I feel it’s been a while since we’ve seen anything starring Irons or Pacino really break out, although Leto at least has his breakthrough role as the Joker in Suicide Squad as a box office hit that can be at least partially attributed to him, maybe? Either way, Leto has been making movies longer than Driver and appearing in films like David Fincher’s Panic Room, Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, and even American Psycho opposite Christian Bale.

It’s hard to imagine any of them men have even half the draw of Gaga, who starring role in Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born in 2018 helped take that movie to a domestic gross of $215 million, and either Oscar nominations, two for Gaga, of which she won one for the song “Shallow” which she co-wrote. Other than that, I really don’t know what else could possibly get people into theaters.

Reviews were held until this past Monday, which is not a good sign of confidence from MGM, a studio one expects is pushing Gucci for awards, but maybe it’s just for Gaga or maybe Leto or some of the crafts like makeup and costumes. As expected, reviews are generally MIXED at best with some people actively hating the movie and others just gushing over Lady Gaga.

The thing is that those who are really interested in seeing the movie might go out on Weds (or Tuesday night) to see it and maybe it’ll still have some business on the weekend, but House of Gucci is not exactly the kind of movie you want to take your family to see, even though Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, also about a squabbling family, did quite well over the Thanksgiving weekend, though that was pre-pandemic, of course. If people rush out and help House of Gucci bring in $4 to 5 million in its first two days (i.e. more than The Last Duel made in its opening weekend), then it should be good for another $13 to 14 million over the three-day weekend. That would add up to under $20 million in its first five days, though, and then we’ll have to see if it can make more than $50 million total, which would require getting some early awards love in early December.

Incidentally, I spoke briefly with frequent Ridley Scott collaborators, Composer Harry Gregson-Williams and Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (for both Gucci and The Last Duel), and both those interviews will run on Below the Line, probably sometime in the next month.

Maxi-Review: As a long-time Ridley Scott fan and/or apologist, it excites me to no end that the master filmmaker has a second movie out this year, even if House of Gucci deals with a subject matter that I literally cannot give two shits for. I’ve heard the name “Gucci.” I know it’s involved with the kind of high fashion that I have less than zero interest in, so for me, the movie is more about the crafts and performances and whether they can keep me interested enough in a movie that’s over 2 and a half hours long. (Seriously?!)

The story is relatively simple despite all its intricacies. Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, the daughter of a man who runs a trucking company, but at a party, she meets Adam Driver’s Maurizio Gucci, and the dollar signs go KACHING in her eyes, because if she can seduce this rich but bashful bachelor, she’ll have it made. Of course, Maurizio’s father Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons) disapproves of Patrizia and actually disowns his son, who goes off to live a life with his hot new wife. Maurizio’s uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) connects more with Patrizia and he treats Mauricio like the son he never had, which doesn’t go over well with Jared Leto’s Paolo, Aldo’s eccentric actual son who is following his father into the design business.

So yeah, a lot of the movie is about these family dynamics, but it’s set amidst a backdrop of the high-class and luxurious lifestyle of what it’s about to be a Gucci. Even so, the movie is fairly episodic as it covers a number of decades and the familial relationships bend and sway, get better then get worse. Aldo ends up in jail, Rodolfo eventually dies, and amidst it all, Patrizia is still scheming and leveraging the family so that she can get a big chunk of the family fortune, despite being constantly reminded by everyone named “Gucci” that “she’s not really a Gucci.”

Everyone loves Lady Gaga. I’m just not a fan and while I thought she was very good in A Star is Born, here she’s given way too much to try to handle without really having the support of her co-stars. Driver gives such a low-key emotionless performance so she can’t get much help there, and Salma Hayak, who plays Patrizia’s spiritual advisor, just seems to be travelling the same path of over-emoting, although at least her bad accent is her own.

Going back to my status as a Ridley Scott apologist, he works with a lot of the same team he’s done so on many of his other recent movies, and while things like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were probably more my bag, this one is probably more in line with All in the Money in the World, maybe because it also involves wealth and crime and things like that. I generally like the characters and performances in this one better, particularly Leto and Pacino, who are particularly hilarious, especially in the scenes they share. Some critics have taken issue with the bad Italian accents, and I semi-agree with some of them, but that may actually keep the movie from seeming too grimly serious, which may have hurt All the Money in the World.

What I especially like about the beginning of the movie is how it allows Scott to play further into classic Italian cinema like the movies of Fellini and such, and it also allows his music supervisor to throw in lots of great ‘70s and ‘80s disco tracks. So yeah, I’m definitely a fan of that aspect of the movie, but still, part of me feels that this could have been better with a stronger script or performances.

House of Gucci is about half a good movie and with proper editing, it definitely would have been better. I just couldn’t get past Lady Gaga’s hackneyed and erratic performance, which is so over the top and so all over the place, that it detracted from my enjoyment. This isn’t awful, but there’s just no way around the fact that this would have been a much better movie in the hands of Martin Scorsese.

Rating: 7/10

In some ways, this week’s third wide release, RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (Sony/Screen Gems), probably meets my own personal interests more than the other two, since I have played some of the video games on which this is based. As you might expect from the title, this installment of the series is a prequel and a bit of a reboot from 45 Meters Down and 45 Meters Down Uncaged director Johannes Roberts. Those movies were surprise hits in the States with the first movie opening with $11.2 million in June 2017 and making $44 million in North America and $18 million overseas. That really isn’t bad when you consider its price tag of $5.3 million to make. It sequel opened two years later with $8.4 million and made only $22.3 million domestically, and it had a much bigger production budget of $12 million, still not terrible.

One has to have a little sympathy for Roberts since Resident Evil was already made into a six-picture franchise by Paul WS Anderson (vs. Paul W. Anderson, who we discuss below), starring Milla Jovovich. Those six movies cost $292.5 million under the Clive Culpepper era of Screen Gems, but they grossed $1.2 million worldwide, so that’s a million in profits? Oddly, the first movie only opened with $17.7 million on a $35 million budget, but international helped it to be profitable with a worldwide gross of $104 million. That was in March 2002, but by the time Anderson’s final film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, was released in 2017 after a five-year gap, it only opened with $13.6 million in North America … and, well, $314 million worldwide, so can we say it altogether? FUCK AMERICA!

Still, it was time for a change and a reboot and joining Roberts on this journey are actors Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) and Robbie Amell (Arrow) as Claire and Chris Redfield, and Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Jill Valentine, all three very popular characters from the games. But that right there is some heavy-duty genre casting, especially Amell, considering the popularity and fanbase of the CW’s “Arrowverse.” The movie also stars Neil McDonough, Avan Jogia, Donal Logue, Tom Hopper, and my absolute favorite, Marina Mazepa, who was the amazing physical creature performer in James Wan’s Malignant! She plays Lisa Trevor, one of the popular characters from the game we have yet to see in the movies.

And yet, this is the problem with opening a movie like this over Thanksgiving weekend, and it’s something we’ve seen so many times before over the holiday. A movie like Resident Evil will primarily be targeting guys of a certain age, because it’s genre/horror but also because it’s based on a video game. We can look at something like the Hitman movie, which opened over Thanksgiving in 2007. It made $4.4 million its opening day, had a slight bump up on Friday and Saturday and ended up with $21 million in its first five days. It barely made twice that in its entire domestic theatrical run. Oddly, 2009’s Ninja Assassin performed similarly for Warner Bros, making almost the exact same amount. Other genre films have performed better over Thanksgiving, such as M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable ($46 million five-day) and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s End of Days ($31.8 million), but those were much earlier. Jason Statham’s Transporter 3 ended up with $18 million over the five-days and $31.7 million total. The point is that these movies ended up being fairly frontloaded and true fans will likely go out to see them on Tuesday might or Weds. rather than on the weekend.

Unlike some of Paul Anderson’s Resident Evil movies, Sony did screen this one for critics I think, and I’ll be curious to see how it fares once the embargo is up on Monday night. I myself saw it but ended up not reviewing just ‘cause I’ve had way too much on my mind, but I did like it and thought Roberts did a great job taking stuff from the video game and incorporating it into a spooky and cool action-horror hybrid, which leans more on the horror side of things.

Something even more curious is that Sony is only releasing the movie into roughly 2,600 theaters, which is much less than the other wide releases. As mentioned, due to the nature of the movie, fans are more likely to rush out early, especially since this is having screenings on Monday night as well as starting fairly early with screenings on Tuesday. This is although its official release date is on Wednesday, but the numbers from earlier screenings will be dumped into the Weds number, making it even MORE frontloaded. I think it could make as much as $4 million but then it will drop on Thursday, and I’ll be shocked if it makes more than $10 million over the three-day weekend. With Ghostbusters: Afterlife holding strong, that puts it in fourth place, at very best.

You can read my interview with Roberts over at Below the Line. (It’ll be live after noon Eastern on Tuesday.)

Also opening in roughly 600 theaters is the Leslie Small-directed FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY (Freestyle Releasing), which I know very little about, actually almost nothing, but it stars Keri Hilson, Katt Williams, and Jason Mitchell, and it seems to involve a single mother who returns to a life of crime in order to protect her daughter. In fact, I’m just gonna link you to the movie’s IMDb page, because that will give you more of an idea what the movie is about than anything I can tell you. Despite this being released fairly wide, I don’t think anyone really knows of its existence, and I’ll be fairly shocked if this makes more than a million this weekend

A couple other movies expanding wide or wider this week include Focus Features’ Belfast, which should be in 1,000 or more theaters starting today, and Sony Pictures Classics’ doc Julia, my “Chosen One” from a few weeks back, which probably will be in 500 to 600 theaters. I’m not sure either of these will get into the top 10 or back into it, as is the case with Belfast.

These are all just for the three-day portion of the weekend, just cause I don’t feel like doing the whole 3-day/5-day breakdown I normally would do:

1. Encanto (Walt Disney Animation - $33.5 million N/A

2. Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Sony) - $28.5 million -35%

3. House of Gucci (MGM) - $13.5 million N/A

4. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (Sony/Screen Gems) - $9 million N/A

5. Eternals (Marvel/Disney) - $8.3 million -25%

6. Clifford The Big Red Dog (Paramount) - $5.5 million -32%

7. King Richard (Warner Bros.) - $4.3 million -20%

8. Dune (Warner Bros.) - $2.2 million -32%

9. No Time to Die (MGM) - $2.1 million -24%

10. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $1.9 million -35%

This week’s “Chosen One” is THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS (Netflix), Patrick Imbert’s amazing animated film about a Japanese journalist named Fukamachi Makoto, who becomes fascinaetd with the stories of George Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine being the first men to scale Everest in 1924, something that can only be proven by developing the film in a small Kodak camera found nearly 70 years later by an outcast climber named Habu Joji, who has been believed missing for years. This was actually adapted from a manga series by Jiro Taniguchi, based on the novel by Baku Yumemakura.

If you remember my review of The Alpinist earlier this year or Free Solo a few years back, you’ll know that I generally love mountain climbing movies, and it doesn’t matter that this one is animated and partially based on a fictionalized Japanese manga, it’s still about mountain climbing. In fact, this is storytelling at its finest, as director Patrick Imbert, who won France’s César for his animated feature, The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, finds a good way to tell this story of two men on a search for truth and also redemption.

Fukamachi is obsessed with learning the truth about whether George Mallory reached the summit before he died or died on his way there, while Habu Joji is trying to recover from a horrible incident that killed a friend and assistant and eventually drove Joji into seclusion. The two men decide to go on a journey to make the dangerous climb of Everest in order to get the answers they so desperately need.

It’s a wonderful story told in such a distinct way that you quickly will forget you’re watching animation (or a foreign film) as you just get absorbed into the story Imbert is telling. Sure, it was a little bothersome (vs. “problematic”) that this film mostly involving Japanese characters and set in Asia had everyone talking in French (with English subtitles) but you quickly get over that.

The animation is great mixing classic anime with photo-realistic settings, and it’s all enhanced by a gorgeous score from Amine Bouhafa, which really is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard this year in a particularly great year for film scores.

Netflix will release The Summit of the Gods into select U.S. theaters TODAY, and then in the UK on Friday, but it will then hit Netflix next Tuesday, Nov. 30. Honestly, if you have a chance to see it on the big screen, then make the effort, especially if you enjoy animated pseudo-docs like Waltz with Bashir or next week’s Flea. Summit of the Gods is right up there with both of them in terms of the beauty of the animation and storytelling.

I’m not quite sure if I’ll have my interview with the director up on Below the Line this week but definitely by next week.

Also opening this week is Paul Thomas Anderson’s LICORICE PIZZA (UA Releasing), which gets a limited release on Friday, and then will slowly expand over the course of November before its wide release over Christmas. This is a semi-old-fashioned way of releasing a movie, but it’s something that tends to work, because it allows the movie to build up an audience and buzz in the big movie cities and create even more anticipation elsewhere. (Incidentally, this is what A24 did with Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon last weekend, and that fared pretty well.) This is actually one of Anderson’s most L.A. movies, if you don’t count Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

This one is set in the ‘70s Valley, and it stars Cooper Hoffman, the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman (a frequent PTA collaborator), as Gary Valentine, an overly-confident 15-year-old child actor who tries to get the older Alana (Alana Haim from the rock group Haim) to go to dinner with him, but she’s not having any of it. Still, they become friends and business partners as Gary decides to invest in the waterbed craze of the early ‘70s, and we get a movie full of will-they or won’t-they moments. The movie also stars Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper (in a very hilarious role), Tom Waits, and more.

I’ll definitely be curious to see how this one fares as it rolls out across the country, because if you remember, Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (def. One of my favorites of his) did great in a platform release but then expanded wide and barely did much of anything. Without a known name like Adam Sandler, how can a weird-titled movie like Licorice Pizza do better?

This one I already reviewed for Below the Line, and I thought it was pretty decent -- most critics seem to agree with me.

Stephen Karam adapted his own Tony-winning play THE HUMANS (A24) for the screen, this one involving a family having a Thanksgiving dinner in a downtown Manhattan duplex that’s falling apart, and may be haunted? Okay, maybe I just made the last part up, but it’s kind of funny how much Karam relies on jump scares in a movie that’s essentially a drama. The movie stars Beanie Feldstein and Steve Yuen as a fairly young married couple, whose parents (played by Richard Jenkins and Jayne Houdyshell) come over for the holiday, along with her old sister (Amy Schumer) and her dementia-stricken grandmother (played by June Squibb). It’s a pretty decent ensemble, and while I’m’ not really I’m the best person to review this, having little to no concept of the Broadway hit play (other than the fact that Houdyshell reprises her role, and she’s the only one), I thought this was a pretty decent drama, maybe not quite on par with August Osage County in terms of filmmaking, but this is only Karam’s first film, and he does a decent job with the single location and the set that was built on which to tell this movie about a squabbling family, which I guess has become the theme for Thanksgiving releases between this and House of Gucci.

A movie that I haven’t seen yet, although it’s opening in select cities is THE UNFORGIVABLE (Netflix), starring Sandra Bullock as Ruth Slater, a woman who is just getting out of prison for a violent crime who tries to reenter society even though few are ready to forgive her past. Her only redemption is by finding the estranged younger sister she left behind when put in jail. I’d like to see this. I have no idea when I’ll see it but the way things are going with me and Netflix, I imagine I won’t be seeing it until it’s streaming on December 10 unless I want to pay to see it at one of the NYC theaters where it’s playing. Eh, probably not.

One of the big prize-winning hits from this year’s Cannes is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR (Janus Films/Sideshow), which will open at the Film Forum in New York City, and unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to see this yet, but that’s also because it’s three hours long. I guess in Japan, House of Gucci would seem “kinda short,” huh? It stars Hidetoshi Nishijima as stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku, whose wife died two years earlier unexpectedly. He’s invited to Hiroshima to stage a production of “Uncle Vanay” where he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a young woman assigned to be his chauffeur, driving him in his red Saab 900. Based on Haruki Murakami’s short story, there’s a lot more to the story in this film and maybe after I watch it, I’ll read up more on it, but for now, I’m just going to say that this will be out at New York’s Film Forum as well as uptown at Film at Lincoln Center, actually today, and as Japan’s Oscar selection, I fully expect it to make it into the Oscar nominations in the International Feature category, and that’s without even seeing it!

Disney+ has some great stuff to watch over the extended Thanksgiving break, including the first two episodes of Marvel Studios’ new HAWKEYE (Disney+) series, starring Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld, which I had the fortune to see already, and I like what I’ve seen. Sure, this isn’t as flashy as some of the previous Disney+ Marvel shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but it’s definitely in the vein of the comics in terms of being a gritty and funny crime-based story (actually more like the Netflix Marvel shows maybe?) with Renner and Steinfeld having some great “buddy comedy” chemistry. It’s also set in New York City during the holidays, so it has a nice connection to how Thanksgiving kicks off the holidays for real, and it should be a fun show to watch with the family this weekend.

Also, a docuseries I’m looking forward to is Peter Jackson’s GET BACK (Disney+), a six-hour series in three parts that cuts together footage of the Beatles recording their final album together in January 1969. I have gotten screeners of this but being six hours long, I doubt I’ll have a chance to watch the whole thing before it debuts on the streamer this Thursday, but I’ve watched a little bit of it… and unfortunately, I’m under embargo until Thursday, so maybe I’ll have more to say about the series next week.

Movies that I just wasn’t able to get to this week ...

WRITING WITH FIRE (Music Box Films) THE SHUROO PROCESS (Gravitas Ventures) AYAR

Next week, the only wide release is an indie called Wolf, being released by Focus Features, and while I have no confidence it will make much of an impact or money, I’ll still have a column to talk about that and the other movies, because there’s a lot of good stuff.

[crosbytoews]

april reading wrap up

i read 10 books this month! i feel like i did a mid month check in but i cannot find my post so i will just write new reviews :-)

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

i really liked my year of rest and relaxation so i was looking forward to reading this but sadly it was terrible. the main character was just a little too edgy. she worked in a boy’s prison and i just hated that setting too much to continue. DNF at 100 pages.

Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

a memoir on a woman’s experience being sexually assaulted at her elite new england boarding school and the lengths the administration went to cover it up for decades. i thought this book was so powerful. also the setting of a new england boarding school in the early 90s was very atmospheric. i highly recommend. 5/5

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

after the death of their father, 2 daughters learn about their emotionally distant mother’s past, including the extreme challenges she faced in russia during world war 2. the first half was only okay, but we get deep into the world war 2 setting in the second half. on par with the nightingale levels of traumatizing. i just finished this last night but i think it’s probably a 4.5/5 because the second half was so strong. it made me cry so much.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

ummm this book is perfection. it’s a travel romance and estranged best friends to lovers. two former best friends travel to palm springs together. beach read by emily henry was one of my favorite books from last year and this was even better. so so good. 5/5

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

this is the fourth book i’ve read by the author this year. this one follows a man and his family in the aftermath of one of their brother’s mysterious death in the australian outback. very atmospheric and some good discussions on the cycle of abuse. tw child abuse. 4/5

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

the third book in the bromance book club series. this one is friends to lovers about a cat cafe owner and a former hacktivist. there are some unexpected discussions about the war in iraq? as with all the books in this series i really liked it and i cannot wait for the fourth one to come out this summer. 4/5

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

this KILLED me. it’s a historical fiction about forced sterilization in north carolina in the 1960s. we follow a brand new social worker and one of the families she’s assigned to. one of the girls in the family has already been sterilized without her consent and now the social worker is being pressured to sterilize the 15 year old sister. this book was pretty heavy and very informative. i listened to the audiobook which i would recommend because the narrator’s southern accent is great. 5/5

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

this book gets the unfortunate honorific of the only backman book i didn’t love. we follow britt-marie, a recently divorced woman in her early 60s as she movies to a small town where she reluctantly befriends the residents and becomes the soccer coach of a youth team. this book was good but i didn’t love it. we get some good character growth and some funny parts, but it was nowhere near as good as his other books (all of which were 5/5 for me). this one is a 3/5

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

i’m mad at this one lol. we follow the main character, a teenager who finds out she is in the will of an eccentric billionaire and he has left her billions while snubbing his relatives. she has never met this man and doesn’t know why this stranger left her his inheritance. she works with the four grandsons who were snubbed to solve riddles and discover why she was left the money. this was YA and read pretty young. for example there were discussions about losing your virginity and when the characters spoke they didn’t swear, they said things like “motherforker.” i was like i am 26 (turning 27 this month!) i am too old for this. howmever i stuck it out because i wanted to figure out why this girl inherited all that money. the gag is this is apparently the first book in the series and although i didn’t really like it i will definitely be reading the second book because it ended on a hang!!! 3/5 because of the intrigue 

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner 

this is a memoir about a woman’s experiences growing up on a mormon polygamist colony in mexico. her father, who was murdered when she was a baby, had over 40 children. her mother remarried and that man had four wives despite having no way to support them. everything this poor girl experienced was absolutely fucked up. i read this in a little over a day. i feel bad saying i loved it because these real experiences were extremely heavy but it was excellent. it made me cry a lot. 5/5

Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro

this book follows a robot (or artifical friend) Klara, as she is purchased by a sickly young girl. this book was pretty weird. it takes place in a dystopian setting but not a lot of details are given about what is going on in that world. it’s up to us as the reader to figure it out. this was an engaging and quick read, but i wish the author was a little more explicit about the commentary he was trying to make. 3/5

[wildest-dreams-at-midnight]

SDS High School AU Chapter 1

Meliodas yawned and Zeldris snickered in response. “School hasn’t even started yet,” Zeldris reminded. “How are you already tired?”

“This year’s going to fucking suck,” Meliodas complained. “Dad’s more insane than usual and I’m a junior.”  

“You have the Sins, I’m sure you’ll get into plenty of trouble,” Zeldris said. “And besides, it’s not like you can really get punished.”

“You’re surprisingly optimistic this morning Zel,” Meliodas pointed out. “You’re usually a nightmare this early.” He was slightly annoyed his younger brother was in such a good mood at eight AM. It should be illegal.

“I’m excited,” Zeldris defended.  

“About seeing your girlfriend again?” The two brothers laughed as they walked through the wrought iron gates of the school grounds.  

“You too, you haven’t seen Elizabeth all summer, you must miss her like hell.” Meliodas huffed and bumping into his brother so he stumbled slightly to the side. Zeldris simply smiled.

A plaza paved in red bricks was dominated by a copper fountain, the water catching the light of the rising sun. Manicured green lawns sloped up to red brick and marble buildings. Students were milling around and stretching out on steps, avoiding the grass so as to not stain their uniforms. Flowers hugged the diameter of the trees scattered across the grounds. Meliodas noticed the rest of the Sins were sitting on the lip of the fountain.  

“Do you know where the rest of the cousins are?” Meliodas asked Zeldris.  

“Yeah they’re sitting on the steps of the science building,” Zel pointed to the building that was farthest away where a small group of other students were all lounging around, looking completely unenergized. Nobody was going near them either.

“Are you going to look for Gelda?” Meliodas stretched out the syllables of the name, taking enjoyment in how Zeldris’s face lit up red.

“Shut up! You’re just jealous you haven’t worked up the nerve to make a move with Elizabeth,” Zeldris argued.  

“Gelda was the one who asked you out,” Meliodas reminded as he turned towards the fountain. It amused him to no end that the rest of the student body was keeping as far away from the Sins as possible. “I’ll see you later.”  

“Meliodas!” a tall girl with brown pigtails and purple eyes yelled and waved furiously.  

“Yo Diane!” He waved at his brother again before heading to his friends.  

“Were the last two weeks good for you Captain?” Before Meliodas could answer a very loud “captain!” was yelled out.  

“Ban!” They ran up to each other and gave rapid high-fives before slamming their arms down on the fountain edge. “King, referee.” He rolled his eyes but complied.  

“Go,” he said unenthusiastically. The arm-wrestling match was over quickly, with Meliodas forcing Ban’s arm down.  

“I win for the tenth time in a row,” Meliodas boasted with a grin. “Better luck next time, bastard.” Ban snorted in response.  

“Will you two ever grow up?” King asked.  

“Why would they do that?” a soft, sweet voice asked.  

“Hey Elaine,” Meliodas waved at King’s younger sister and Ban’s girlfriend. Elaine gave Meliodas a hug before she sat next to Ban.  

“Besides, you’re all juniors,” she said. “What else are you supposed to do this year?”

“Exactly, this is the year for having fun,” Ban argued. “Besides, Cap’n can get us out of any trouble, right?” Meliodas huffed but didn’t disagree.

“Did you have a good summer Captain?” Diane repeated, not at all pleased that her question was ignored.  

“It was ok. Zel and I had to go to some conference for private schools in the area because of Dad and it was boring as fuck.”  

“Did you meet Arthur while you were there?” Merlin asked.  

“He didn’t want to get into any trouble with the two of us, but he was nice enough,” Meliodas answered. “He talked about you a lot actually, Merlin.”

“What did he say?” Gowther asked. Merlin simply raised an eyebrow and smiled a secret smile. It didn’t escape Meliodas’s notice that Escanor looked slightly hurt at that. The group of seven continued reminiscing about their summer escapades but fell silent as the group they referred to as ‘the Archangels’ walked by. Meliodas grinned and waved at them, smirking when he was given a twisted expression full of disdain. Meliodas’s face fell when he noticed Elizabeth was sandwiched between them.  

“Elizabeth!” Diane cried and barreled through two of them to wrap her friend in a giant hug.  

“Hi Diane,” she choked out. Diane heard the strain in her voice and pulled back. “Did you all have a good summer?”

“We did, why weren’t you able to come with us this year?”  

“Elizabeth.” Ludociel’s voice was severe. “You’re not allowed to talk to them.”  

“What the fuck?” Ban demanded. “She’s been with us for ten goddamn years, why the sudden change, Goddess?”  

“That’s none of your concern,” Mael snapped.  

“It actually is.” Meliodas broke his silence and walked forward to stand next to Diane. “You’ve acted like she didn’t exist for years. Why the sudden possessiveness?”  

“It’s not being possessive!”

“I didn’t know you were so desperate for attention Mael,” Meliodas sneered. “You’re holding people hostage now?” Meliodas could feel all the blood rushing to his head. His temples were throbbing with anger and breaking Mael’s neck was sounding like a better idea each second.  

“I’m not going to waste my time responding to you.” Apparently Mael was trying to take the high road but Meliodas wasn’t willing to let that happen.  

“You just did.” Mael spluttered and Tarmiel cleared his throat.  

“Come along Elizabeth,” Ludociel ordered.  

“You can’t tell her—” Elizabeth interrupted King.  

“It’s ok. Really. I don’t want a fight breaking out.” She gave Meliodas a glance and he could see the pain in her eyes. If she had been in tears, he would have gone on a rampage. When the Archangels were out of earshot Meliodas snickered.  

“What’s so funny Captain?” Escanor asked.  

“Elizabeth and I may or may not have all the same classes,” Meliodas explained.  

“Your Dad wants the two of you to get together almost more than you do,” Merlin commented.  

“it does seem that way,” Gowther agreed.  

“But the archangels are also in your year,” Elaine said. “Couldn’t you have classes with them?”  

“Dad made sure to keep them separated from Elizabeth. They’re all in the same classes, and I’m sure some of you can’t avoid them, but there’s only one class we have with them and it’s with a teacher who does seating charts religiously.”  

“Denzel?” they all asked in unison, which Meliodas nodded at.

“Your Dad’s keeping us separated?” Diane pouted, changing the subject.

“Not without good reason,” Merlin pointed out. “I’m sure he doesn’t want any more teachers complaining. Especially after freshman year.” The group laughed at that. Meliodas kept an eye out in case they approached the science building, which was likely since Elizabeth’s first class was physics, like his. Thankfully, they hadn’t reached the Commandments, a group of people who answered to his father which consisted of Zeldris and their nine cousins, either by blood or in name. On cue, bells rang through the air and the groans from all the students were audible.  

“I have Dreyfus first,” Diane said. “What about all of you?”

“I do too,” Meliodas added. “I think Ban and King do also.”  

“How do you know that?” King demanded.  

“Also Elaine, you’ll probably have some classes with Zel, keep an eye on him?”  

“Of course Meliodas,” she agreed.  

“Hey answer me,” King demanded.

“I looked up what your schedules were before school started,” he replied as the group started to walk to the cluster of structures.  

“Seriously?”  

“No. You were holding your schedule and I saw it when I went to arm-wrestle Ban.” King groaned and went to follow the other three. “See you all later!” Everyone parted to make way for them, not wanting to be on their bad side. Rumors had swept through the school about what happened to people who had been bullying those that weren’t defendable and Meliodas’s wrath was legendary. Everyone knew what had happened to the people who had dared to make fun of Zeldris. Naturally Meliodas had gotten away with it. His father could be a pain in the ass, but at least he turned a blind eye to the trouble they got into. Being the son of the school’s headmaster had its perks, he supposed.  

He slowed his gait as they approached the science building where Elizabeth was shooing her new bodyguards away. When they had left Meliodas approached with a wave.  

“Elizabeth!” Her face lit up, the happiest he had seen from her so far and they all hurried inside. After making sure the hallway was empty, Elizabeth flung herself at the blond with a tight hug. Meliodas heard her heartbeat and the rhythm soothed his fire from earlier.  

“What’s your schedule?” she asked after pulling away and hugging Ban and King.  

“We have all the same classes,” Meliodas said with a wide grin. “And better yet, we only have math with the Archangels.”  

“Really? That’s amazing!”

“You can thank Dad, I had nothing to do with it.” As they made their way through the building, it was easy to see that classes had already started. Through windows of some doors, teachers were lecturing, in others students were working at lab stations. Meliodas noted with some amusement that one of the flasks already looked like it was smoking.  

“Wonder how long it’ll be before the first fire alarm goes off this year,” Diane said as they passed by a lab room. “I think it’ll be two weeks.”

“I give it a week at most,” Ban said.  

“I’m saying a week and a half,” King countered.  

“I’ll bet three days,” Meliodas called behind him.  

“You’re not planning on starting another fire are you Captain?” King asked. Meliodas rolled his eyes but a grin present on his face.  

“That was Ban’s fault.” Ban spluttered in protest but Meliodas just laughed and ignored him. The bell rang as soon as they slipped into their classroom. All the light in the room came from the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the right wall of the room. Nobody was outside, everyone already in their first class of the year. Meliodas was pleased to see that the seats in the back of the room were empty and the other students had given them a wide berth. Melascula and Galand were already there, looking as bored as ever. Meliodas waved to his cousins. Melascula jumped up and gave Elizabeth a hug.  

“We missed you this summer, Lizzie,” Melascula said. “Without you, there were only six girls. And no one could keep this one,” she jabbed her thumb at Meliodas, “in line.”  

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth apologized. “I really wanted to, but I moved in with my mother and she, well, to say she dislikes everyone is putting it lightly.”  

“You mean you live in that stuffy old mansion now?” Galand asked, perking up now that there was some form of drama. Elizabeth nodded and Galand let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Remember when we were younger, and we got into that huge pillow fight there?” In a rare display of mischievousness, King high-fived Ban enthusiastically.  

“And then we slashed the rest of the pillows open,” Meliodas finished.  

“Everyone, settle down,” Dreyfus said as he came into the room. “I hope all of you had a good summer.” He took attendance and had everyone go around the room and introduce themselves and say what they did over the summer. Ban was called first from their group. He didn’t bother standing up instead raised a hand in greeting. “Name’s Ban. This summer we,” he gestured to the people around him, “spent a month at the Captain’s beach house.”  

“Where you almost set the palm trees on fire,” King reminded.  

“It’s not like we didn’t have the water to put it out with,” Ban argued.  

“We also went snorkeling,” Diane added.  

“And ziplining,” King continued.  

“Lots of bonfires,” was all Meliodas said.  

“Galand tried to surf and ended up wiping out for a solid half hour,” Melascula said with a dry smile.  

“You got stung by a jellyfish,” Galand retorted. Then it was Elizabeth’s turn.  

“I’m Elizabeth, and I moved in with my mother this summer since I grew up at my uncle’s house.”  

Then Dreyfus started talking about what physics for the year was going to be like. “We will be doing physics experiments with things that can’t be blown up,” he informed with a pointed look at Meliodas and Ban. The two boys grinned and high-fived each other “Challenge accepted,” they said in unison. Dreyfus just sighed and continued through the rest of class. When the bell rang the group of five wandered outside and Elizabeth looked down at her schedule.  

“It says we have math next.” A chorus of groans immediately followed.  

“Denzel is the worst,” King complained. “Remember that time he docked points on an exam because I forgot to turn the study guide for it in?” Meliodas bumped Elizabeth’s shoulder in reassurance.  

“Elizabeth, you should walk ahead of us,” Merlin called with Escanor and Gowther in tow. “So the four righteous do-gooders will give you a break and not bother you.”

“Do the seven of us all have math together?” Escanor asked.  

“I believe so,” Gowther replied. Ban and Meliodas gave wicked grins.  

“You going to get us out of trouble Captain?” Ban teased.  

“We’re probably going to be seated away with each other,” Diane mentioned.  

“So we’ll just use our phones,” Merlin answered smoothly.

“Sounds like a plan,” Meliodas agreed.  

“Did you stay away from them?” Ludociel demanded of Elizabeth as the group of four stopped her in the middle of the path.

“It was difficult since we had the same class,” Elizabeth responded. “And the only seats were in the back. Where they sat.”

Sariel exhaled through clenched teeth. “Try to stay away from them in the next class please.”

“But we all have math together,” King said.  “With Denzel who, if you’ve forgotten, religiously follows his seating charts. So it’s not really up to her.”  

“Did your father plan this?” Mael pressed.  

“You’ll have to ask him,” Meliodas deadpanned. “He doesn’t tell me this shit.” Meliodas and the rest of the Sins swept by the four of them before Gowther stopped and turned around.  

“There is also a good chance that some of the Commandments are in the class as well. Ta-ta.” Ludociel’s face was burning red as they moved to the math building.  

“Captain, can we bring her on the camping trip this weekend?” Diane whispered. After the first week of school, all of the Commandments, the Sins, and Meliodas’s father would go camping on private ground the Blade family owned. It was something they did every semester. Not to mention the copious amounts of alcohol they all drank over the course of two nights. Elizabeth would only have a few small sips but she enjoyed it nonetheless.  

“I think we can sneak her out with Gil’s help,” Meliodas replied. Gilthunder was one of the people who was over at Elizabeth’s mother’s mansion a lot and was a year younger than them. He had idolized Meliodas when he was younger, and he still respected him. He also cared deeply for Elizabeth since his girlfriend was her cousin. Meliodas knew he could count on him for help.  

“Oh, good thinking,” Diane said. They stopped in front of a building that had a brick path leading up to another brick building. Honeybees were lazing above the blue and purple morning glories that grew along the white metal archway at the beginning of the path.

“If I remember correctly Tarmiel and Sariel, your next class is history,” Meliodas pointed out when they were still hovering around Elizabeth. “I wouldn’t want you to be late on the first day of class.” Of course, everyone saw through that in a second.  

“Just because you’re the Headmaster’s son doesn’t mean you’re above everyone else,” Ludociel snapped. Meliodas raised his hands in response.  

“I just stated a fact, you’re the one who read into it.” Meliodas heard grumbling but ignored it as he pushed open the front door to the building. The windows of the classroom were thrown open, allowing fresh air to make the room feel more relaxing. The seating chart was up on the whiteboard. Meliodas resisted the urge to cheer when he saw he and Elizabeth were sitting next to each other. The rest of the Sins were spread out around the room, so texting, as Merlin suggested, would have to be used. Meliodas’s mouth twisted when he saw Mael was sitting behind Elizabeth. Ludociel was sitting next to Meliodas, which he could deal with. Melascula and Galand were seated next to each other, close to Diane and Escanor. Gloxinia and Drole were seated at opposite sides of the room, not close to any of their friends.

Once again, they had to go around the room and say what they did over the summer. The Sins happily repeated what they had said in physics, with Merlin adding “shooting off fireworks.”  

“And then watching Monspeet trying to keep the house from setting on fire,” Escanor continued.  

“Derieri helped,” Gowther piped up.  

“Of course she did,” King muttered. The Sins all snickered at that knowing the two were inseparable. Gloxinia had said that he had almost gotten a concussion diving into their pool while Drole talked about jumping off of rocks into the ocean. When it was Mael’s turn, Meliodas tuned out, not at all caring about what they had to say. The others would be making fun of it anyway. A quick glance at his phone screen showed that the two of them only took classes and “got to know Elizabeth better” since she was living with them now. Despite the jealousy, he fought past it and when Ludociel cast a triumphant look at him, Meliodas remained blank-faced.  

The class passed agonizingly slow. Math was difficult to make fun and Denzel had the most monotone voice Meliodas had ever heard. He only used black whiteboard markers and the few times he asked questions only a handful of people ever answered. Meliodas could see Ban crumpling small balls of paper and threw them at Mael’s head, while King was drifting in and out of sleep. Elizabeth was taking notes but her eyes seemed slightly glazed. Meliodas ripped off a piece of notebook paper asking if she was ok and passed it to her when Mael was looking at his notebook. Elizabeth slipped the note back and he saw that she had written she was ok, just bored and zoning out. Mael hissed but the two ignored him, happily passing notes throughout the rest of the class.  

When it was time for lunch, Meliodas lead the Sins and Elizabeth to one of his favorite spots on campus: the roof of the social studies building. They went up a staircase that was designated as ‘Roof Access: Employees Only’ but Meliodas picked the lock with ease. The staircase ended in a cramped concrete room full with maintenance and janitorial equipment. He shoved the door open and reflexively blinked in the bright sunlight. Stone railing lined the perimeter of the roof with stone planters overflowing with pink and purple flowers. They all sat down on sun-warmed, smooth stone.  

“So Elizabeth,” Diane began as she sat down and pulled some food from her backpack. “What did happen this summer?”  

“Do we have to talk about this now?” she pleaded. “I haven’t seen my best friends all summer and I just want to spend time with you now.”  

“Sure thing,” Meliodas agreed before anyone could say anything. “You can tell us, all of us, about it this weekend.”

“How are you going to get her out of that prison?” Ban asked.  

“Gilthunder and Griamore. Right Captain?” Merlin answered.  

“Exactly. We’ve all been over there often enough to know the place like the back of our hand, breaking her out will be easy. Especially if we have the Commandments there too.”  

“Will they want to help though?” Escanor asked.  

“Estarossa definitely will to get back at his brother,” Gowther replied. “He seems to enjoy antagonizing him.”  

“Melascula will too,” Diane added. “She kept going on and on about how she missed having you around.”  

“Zel will too. We can pull it off,” Meliodas stated and pulled out his phone. He set up a group chat with the Commandments, the Sins, Elizabeth, and the two sophomores. By the time lunch was over a pretty good plan was in place for this weekend. It was much less elaborate than what Meliodas had originally thought of, but it was just as effective if not more due to its simplicity.  

“I think this will work,” Diane cheered and Elizabeth threw herself at Meliodas.  

“Thank you so much Meliodas!” Meliodas held her just as tightly.  

“Anything for you, Princess.”

@zorria @gsunny6

[kattahj]

Review quotes of Booboo Stewart’s performance in Let Him Go

Okay, yeah, so I totally checked over 100 reviews of Let Him Go just to see what they had to say about Booboo Stewart. Relevant quotes under the cut, but let’s just summarize first:

Apparently the film starts out as a slow drama and ends up as a bloody revenge flick, which means that there are some reviewers who go “it takes forever to get started, but once it does it’s great!” and other reviewers who go “it started out really nice, but wtf was that ending?”

Likewise, Booboo has a small role, and there are some reviewers who go “what was even the point of that character?” and others who go “I wanted the whole movie to be about that character!” Also plenty who don’t mention him at all.

The important bit: while I have seen some criticism of the writing of his character, I have not seen a single reviewer criticize his acting. Everyone who mentions his acting is praising it.

And here are the quotes (spoilers!):

"For the stunner of the film, Booboo Stewart plays Peter" (Military Press)

"The supporting cast is strong, with impressive performances from Booboo Stewart [...]  " (We Live Entertainment)

"The supporting cast presents a solid ensemble, most notably Booboo Stewart of Twilight and X-Men who plays the only ally of the Blackledge’s, the tragic and heroic Peter Dragswolf." (Republic Times)

"But it’s lesser-known actors like Kayli Carter and Booboo Stewart who really shine, making the most of smaller, quieter roles." (AZ Central)

"Booboo Stewart (from Walt Disney’s Descendants films) offers a rich turn as a young ingenious [sic!] man who ran away from a brutal “Indian School” and to whom Lane’s mourning mother implicitly looks at as a second chance."   (Forbes)

"With strong supporting roles from the likes of Booboo Stewart [...]  " (KGun9)

"We also get some strong supporting work from Booboo Stewart as a Native American loner who befriends Margaret and George." (Flickreel)

"The list of great performances in Let Him Go only grows once Margaret and George hit the road, including a nice turn from Booboo Stewart as a skittish residential school runaway who reluctantly helps the couple on their journey. " (The Gate)

"Booboo Stewart, in a sensitive and winning performance" (Chicago Sun Times)

"The Blackledges are never fleshed out beyond what they represent, but there’s another character worth caring about — a young Native American runaway (Booboo Stewart) called Peter by the people who stole him away to the Indian Residential School from which he’s just escaped. Stripped of his name, forced to forget his language, and alone in a country taken from his people, “Peter” is a poignant emblem of what people like George and Margaret are only learning in their twilight years: America has always been a country that takes without asking, and we’d sooner burn it to the ground than stop living all over each other. It’s only with Peter’s help that “Let Him Go” is able to find something worth saving in the ashes." (Indiewire)

"Booboo Stewart brings real emotion and empathy to a handful of scenes as a fugitive indigenous man who ran away from a brutal “Indian school” and provides some backup for Margaret and George." (The Wrap)

" Booboo Stewart (the Twilight saga) as a horse riding loner the couple encounter along the way is terrific, serving in a key capacity late in the film." (Deadline)

" A Native American drifter (Booboo Stewart) who befriends them and briefly recounts his traumatizing experience at a culture-crushing boarding school offers a wistful glimpse at the kind of character-driven storyline that the film deserts halfway down the road." (Slant - which hated the rest of the film)

"With powerful supporting characters such as Booboo Stewart[...]" (Eminetra)

"And then along the way the story does introduce us to some characters that have stories of their own that unfortunately aren't explored as much, and one of those characters was probably one of the more interesting parts of the story for me. It's a character played by actor Booboo Stewart, and he's really good! I don't know, there's not another word I can say without spoiling anything, but he's very, I don't know, you can tell he's carrying a lot of his past with him, and I wanted the story to almost explore more of his character, rather than anyone else's. Unfortunately, that's not the case." (Reel James - youtube video)

And the cast is rounded out with a new generation of promising performers in Brittain, the excellent Carter, and Booboo Stewart as Peter, a young Native American man who the Blackledges encounter. His personal story of being taken as a child to an abusive “Indian school” is part history lesson, part a look into Jimmy’s potential future should he stay with the sadistic Weboys. (LA Times) 

"The only time Let Him Go really comes to life is when it puts the main story aside so Margaret and George can spend time with Peter Dragswolf (Booboo Stewart), a young Indigenous horseman they meet on their journey—and who, because this is really just a pulp Western, becomes an invaluable ally in the back half of the story.

(cont.) "Bezucha treats Peter as a source of exposition and white-knighting—a chance for us to understand that George and Margaret are more evolved than the other white folk Peter has encountered in his life—but Lane and Costner don’t condescend to the material the way their director does, and they bring out a wounded, cautious quality in Stewart he doesn’t often get to show.

(cont.) "I don’t think I’ll spend much more time thinking about Let Him Go, which is ultimately just a junky revenge movie that wastes a lot of very talented actors’ time and will probably also waste yours if you let it, but I expect that from time to time I’ll think about Stewart and Lane and Costner, just sitting out in the badlands together talking about horses, and wish someone had made a whole movie about that." (Straight)

Bezucha seems compelled to accentuate more compassionate moments, such as the Blackledges’ fairly contrived but still welcome relationship with a young Native American man played by Booboo Stewart. Best known for playing Seth Clearwater in The Twilight Saga, Stewart shows nice depth here as a peaceful drifter who helps George and Margaret pull off a hard-fought family reunion. (Collider)

They also meet others along the way, including Peter (a nice turn from Booboo Stewart) (Blu-ray.com)

Among the latter: an incongruously placed but engaging young Lakota man named Peter (Booboo Stewart) (Original cin)

I definitely want to give props to Booboo Stewart, who played Peter. If I'm being honest, I would have loved to have seen a movie just based on his upbringing. I thought that that young man, Booboo Stewart as Peter in this film, kind of this outcast in a sense, hearing his story was so tragic, and again, I would have loved to dug deeper into that, but man, this guy did a really good job in the little bit of scenes that we spent with him, and the scenes that he shared with Diane Lane I thought had a lot of emotional impact, and I thought he did a really good job in this movie as well. (Movie Files - youtube video)

Booboo Stewart does a solid enough job at offering a sympathetic new take on typically well-worn character tropes. (comingsoon.net)

In the supporting cast, Carter is fine, but Stewart invests greater poignancy into Peter, a young man robbed of his birthright but retaining the nobility it confers on him. (One Guy's Opinion)

Booboo Stewart also has a nice role as a local Native American escapee of a residential school, who helps the older couple in their quest, but has enough agency to know the two are pushing things way too far with the Weboy clan. (Joblo)

 I do have to call special attention to the amazing Booboo Stewart who plays a Native American lad who helps the couple, this being his second great role/performance of the year after The Grizzlies. (The weekend warrior blog)

Booboo Stewart of “Twilight” fame has a small part but elevates a handful of scenes as an ousted Native American looking for purpose. (Galveston Daily News)

Another standout is the very quiet Booboo Stewart, who plays Peter. He's a self-sufficient loner who is really kind, despite all the terrible crap that has happened to him. (Movies and Munchies - youtube video)

Plus, there is an actor by the name of Booboo Stewart, and he plays an American Indian in the film, Peter, who befriends the couple, and he is just outstanding in this film. I really enjoyed his performance. (Jackie K Cooper - youtube video)

And the supporting work from Donovan, Stewart, and Carter are all equally excellent. (CJ at the movies)

Another character worth mentioning was Booboo Stewart as Peter Dragswolf. He didn’t have a ton of screen time but the scenes he was in were filled with so much emotion. My heart went out to his character. (Funtastic life)

 [...]Even so with Booboo Stewart's character, they're great on screen, I don't have any qualms to their performances, but because you do... especially with Booboo's character, I got really invested in his story, but there's nothing else that's really done to, like, explore his character, almost to the point where his character wasn't needed. I wanted to actually see more of that character. (Pay or Wait - youtube video) 

1: I did also want to mention Booboo Stewart [...] as this young Native American they encounter who has run away from what they used to call Indian schools, where they basically, like, force you to learn English, and you know, it's the same kind of anti-Indigenous stuff that the British used to do in Australia, and we have our own sad, awful history of that in the United States, and so, his character I think is there obviously as a plot function, but I think he brings a real humanity to the role.

2: I was going to say, I wish there was more to him, though, because he does feel like an idea, like a device, and he does very conveniently show up when he is needed to, to help make things happen, and that feels a little contrived and I wish there was more to him.

1: But not the actor's fault!

2: No no no, it's in the script! (Breakfast All Day)

Booboo Stewart of “Twilight” fame has a small part but elevates a handful of scenes as an ousted Native American looking for purpose. (The Daily News)

A side-story involving an Indigenous man, Peter Dragswolf (Booboo Stewart), is as poignant and, in certain ways, historically urgent as it is extraneous to the main thrust of the story.  (Rolling Stone)

    The hardest thing for me to deal with was that it had some slow moments that I didn’t think needed to be there.  But on the other side of that, if they weren’t there, we wouldn’t have seen the nice performance of Booboo Stewart, who ends up becoming an important fixture.  (Power 98.3)

Another underused character with a strong part is Booboo Stewart as Peter - he has some of the best lines in just three scenes.  (Oakville News)

   While their roles were smaller, both Carter and Stewart left strong impressions as Lorna and Peter, each wounded and abused in their own way. (Rick's Texan Reviews)

   Booboo Stewart is even more heartbreaking as a young man who ran away from an Indian boarding school and runs into our questing couple. While I’m not sure what his larger purpose is in the movie, he brings a healthy dose of warmth and heart every second he’s onscreen.  (Vail Daily)

 One of my favorite characters was Peter Drags wolf (Stewart) a young Native American man living out on his own. (Portsmouth Daily Times)

Delivering a poignant counterpoint to the high stakes is Booboo Stewart (the Twilight series) who plays a young Native American nomad on the plains who forges a connection with the Blackledges. (I can't unsee that movie) 

A revenge thriller that leaves no easy answers “Let Him Go” stars Kevin Costner and Diane Lane with some meaty supporting performances by Lesley Manville as a powerful matriarch and Booboo Stewart who helps navigate the Dakota landscape. (testset) 

Even cast members in smaller roles, like that of cast-out Peter Dragswolf (Booboo Stewart), are solid and make an impression. (Gallup sun) 

Other good performances include Carter, who holds the viewer’s sympathies for the entire film as a victim of domestic abuse, and Booboo Stewart, who delivers a powerful performance as Peter Dragswolf, a Native American who helps the Blackledges on their quest. (Northern star) 

[...] and Booboo Stewart are also well-cast in their respective supporting roles. (Seongyong's private place)   

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Movie night with a bunch of oranges

Today was a busy day consisting of harvesting oranges and bringing out equipment for tomorrow. We've got a pretty good haul - and probably way too many oranges than we can handle. Thankfully I still have room in my inventory for other fish/bugs/shells or else I'd be kinda screwed, but I should try to make more room just in case.

Then again, there's still the possibility that I end up slacking off and spend the last day trying to collect as many oranges as possible before the deadline. I don't know why, but when it comes to collecting fruit I almost always find myself rushing at the end. I hate having to use up fertilizer in batches but sometimes you have no choice.

At least for this event I have some help so here's to hoping I don't have to break out the fertilizer at all. Probably wishful thinking, though it doesn't hurt to hope. With five extra hands helping out, why wouldn't we be able to get a lot done?

It's good to see Lotte, Mitch, and Gene again along with Willow, Frank, and Paisley. I haven't seen the latter three in forever since they've been super busy so imagine my excitement when I found out that Gene's working with them on a new movie.

The new movie's another adaptation of Paisley's short stories, Flower in the Wind, which will be directed by Willow and starring Cheyenne Ruthie in her film debut with Gene and Frank as part of the supporting cast. Cheyenne used to live in the neighborhood near me and Daisy Jane and we reconnected a while back after running into each other on social media.

In fact, she's planning to drop by the camp sometime in the near future as she's going through some pretty big life changes and could use a bit of a breather when things settle down a bit. Along with the upcoming movie, she's also in the process of moving and making up for lost time with her dad. I'm happy that things are going well for her and knowing Willow and Paisley, Flower in the Wind is sure to mark the start of something greater for her.

Willow, Frank, and Paisley are all former members of Jamie's entourage. Willow Chasen's a writer and director known for classics like Crossfire, Fighting Stance, Paper Dreams, Train Whistle Blowing, and many others. She's been named one of the greatest directors of the decade and she rightfully deserves that honor. I'm a huge fan of her work so I'll admit that I have high expectations for the new movie.

Frank Dunston and Paisley Kusuma are bloggers who used to run Behind the Spotlight, which chronicled the behind the scenes of the entourage members. Before coming to the island, they made the news when they were abducted and held hostage by a former detective who used to work for Frank's aunt Diane. His uncle, Eldred Dunston, is a well known actor who got Frank and Paisley interested in acting.

The two have been best friends for a long time, they have a sweet relationship. We joke that they're like an old married couple but it's all strictly platonic. They share an apartment and raise Paisley's daughter Lizzie together. Lizzie's named after Diane as she figuratively and literally saved Paisley and Frank's lives. The whole ordeal with the abduction brought them closer together and also wound up kicking off their careers.

While they have been doing a lot more solo projects since leaving the entourage and ending the blog, Frank and Paisley are still a duo. Flower in the Wind happens to be their first movie together in over a year, something they said they've been enjoying as they missed working alongside each other.

Paisley's a writer and author who runs a blog called The Flower Writes which she updates sporadically with life stuff and her creative process on her latest projects. She does some acting in supporting roles though she prefers to be behind the scenes, having established herself as a writer and producer over the years. She's also one of the writers for Robert's upcoming show Mount Barley, RFD so that's another reason to be hyped about it. Maybe someday she'll be sitting on the director's chair but she says that for now she's happy where she is.

Frank has been acting on stage and screen, starting out on small roles alongside his uncle until he got comfortable with the spotlight before making a name for himself on his own. He also dabbles in photography, having once run a blog for that before becoming a freelancer. Speaking of that, Daisy Jane's his next client as she's in need of professional pics for her upcoming shop update. Since he doesn't live too far from here, he's offered to make the commute to help Daisy Jane out for future shop updates, which is great as she finds taking product photos is one of her least favorite aspects of running a shop.

Lotte's been busy with the bakery while Mitch is working hard at the orchard. Gene's been making time in between acting gigs and his day job to visit home often, getting back in touch with old friends he hasn't seen or heard or spoken to in years. It's good to hear that things between Gene and his dad have improved since I last saw them. Lotte and Mitch can finally rest easy now that their family's back together. Although I haven't known Gene for long, it feels like I've known him forever and can't imagine him not being here.

Interesting how one's presence (or absence) can leave such an impression.

It's a good thing Mitch's here for a harvesting event as he's got a vast knowledge on a variety of plants and produce. Thanks to him, we were able to venture outside the camp to find more oranges. Who knew that Starsnatch Grove has a bunch of different varieties of oranges? Perfect oranges, starburst oranges, rainberry oranges - there's so many more that I've never seen or heard of before!

Turns out that Starsnatch's soil is ideal for citrus and that around this time of year is the peak of their season. Mitch really did his research about the camp and its surrounding areas. He also showed me other places for fruits and veggies, which will be useful for future reference.

So we've been wandering around Starsnatch, collecting all kinds of oranges and exploring the area. Rainberry oranges look like rainbow berries, hence the name, and the taste kinda reminds me of an orange spice tea. Cinnaorange is a new variety I've never seen before as they're rare and according to Lotte, they make a good marmalade. Sunkiss splash is an unusual orange with a sunburst pattern on its skin. The tree is kinda hard to care for, which is why there's not a lot of them and the orchard where Mitch works is one of the few that grows them.

With all these oranges, there's a lot we can do with them. I don't even know where to start as there's so many possibilities. Good thing we have Mitch and Lotte here to help us out!

After a busy day of collecting oranges, catching up, hiking, and coming up with ideas for tomorrow, it felt fitting to end the day with a movie marathon. So we watched three Sound Stories movies while enjoying sweet and tangy oranges.

Firefly Garden is one of my absolute favorite movies ever. Pretty much everyone I know considers this one of their favorites, including my mom. From the stunning animation to the gorgeous soundtrack and heartwarming story, it's no wonder it's a classic. Noelle and Sophie are hands down some of my favorite characters of all time.

The second movie we watched was Neighbors, a cute movie where nothing much happens yet it's so soothing and entertaining to watch. The art is breathtaking and expressive and it really adds to the story. It's a bit of an offbeat, unconventional kind of film, one I initially thought I wouldn't get into but ended up enjoying a lot.

Bee and the Quill is the latest Sound Stories movie and I loved it. The story's a bit hard to follow, but that's the point. As usual, the visuals are stunning and the whole dragon fight sequence was amazing to watch. Viola's journey to find her sister's ghost is one of those stories where you don't know exactly what's going on so you just roll with it and open your mind to the unknown.

Tomorrow we're gonna take a break from harvesting oranges to have some fun in the kitchen with our new discoveries. I'm looking forward to trying a bunch of new teas, especially with the rainberry oranges. We'll be making orange tea cake, orange juice, salads, and all kinds of other recipes we may stumble across. Then at night will be another marathon of Sound Stories movies where we'll be watching Snowflakes and Floating on Clouds, both which I've somehow never got a chance to watch yet.

[letterboxd]

Horse Power.

The Nest’s writer-director Sean Durkin talks about creating atmosphere, watching films without judgment, and the best movies of 1986.

Downfalls in Hollywood movies tend to be chaotic, dramatic and a lot of fun along the way. From Citizen Kane to The Wolf of Wall Street, outsized ambitions are realized on screen in castles, exotic holidays, wild parties, sweeping us up in the extravagance of it all, before the inevitable crash. The Nest takes a slower, far more British view of ambition and its effects on family—or, as Charlie writes, “this movie is a reminder that people who call themselves entrepreneurs should instead be stay-at-home dads”.

The new film from writer-director Sean Durkin, the brain behind cult-survivor slow-burn Martha Marcy May Marlene, is less “strap in and enjoy the ride”, more “slow disintegration of all sense of sanity”—a tense psychological drama focused on the person who usually gets hurt the most: the wife. And that horse-lovin’ dream wife Allison, as played by Carrie Coon, is a character to behold (and the subject of many obsessive The Nest reviews on Letterboxd).

Just as Durkin takes time to carefully explore Martha’s vulnerability in his earlier film, in The Nest, he closes in on Allison, as she and their children adjust to 1980s life in an English manor, far from the comfort of Allison’s American home, while wheeler-dealer husband Rory (Jude Law) chases a new opportunity.

There are thematic similarities in both films; a case to be made that ambitious men wreak a comparable mental destruction on their families as cult leaders do on their followers, breaking them down with charm, persuasion, false promises. There’s also something about the juxtaposition of periods in the film—the fifteenth-century manor vs the ’80s bangers on the soundtrack—that adds to The Nest’s unnerving atmosphere (other parts of the soundtrack are composed by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry in his first film-score credit).

Keen to understand more about Durkin’s influences and memories, Jack Moulton put him through the Letterboxd Life in Film interrogation.

Carrie Coon as Allison O’Hara in ‘The Nest’.

The Nest feels like a very personal film. In what ways are the emotions of the premise personal to you? When I was making Southcliffe in 2012, I was back in England where I spent my childhood and I hadn’t been back in close to twenty years. It really struck me how London and New York felt very similar now but they didn’t when I was a kid. I thought maybe I wanted to make a film about a family that moves in that time and how a move can affect a family. As I wrote the script, I became a parent, so it became as much a reflection of modern adulthood as it did about my childhood in the ’80s. Although it’s a period piece, I wanted to make it feel very close to today to look at the celebrated values of the time and how those are still very relevant.

The mansion the family moves into is the titular ‘nest’, and the use of space and atmosphere contribute so much to the film’s subtext. What were you looking for when location scouting for the house? Was it an easy or difficult process? Yeah, it was difficult. It was like doing an open casting call. I had a very specific idea in my head but [my production designer] was able to put it into actual architectural terms so we were able to find a house that a successful commodities broker would live and commute from in Surrey. We needed something beyond that, but if you go too far, you get small castles. Once we located the right exterior, there were a bunch of [houses] that would’ve been great, but when we got inside, there were no open spaces. I wanted to have long hallways to be able to see through multiple rooms to create that isolation—the opposite of the cozy American house that they were living in before, to really highlight the good life they left behind.

Carrie Coon and Jude Law in ‘The Nest’.

We love the soundtrack; not just the choice of songs but the way that they’re mixed. Can you give us some insight into the song selection? When writing, I build a playlist that I write to. This one was a mix of personal memories from childhood—like Simply Red, which takes me back to falling asleep in the back of my dad’s car—so there’s a way into writing there on a sensory level, and then I build upon it with songs that I love from the time. I was listening to Richard Reed Parry’s Music for Heart and Breath album a lot and he ended up being the composer of the film, so his music was always part of the heart of the movie as I was writing it.

I would spend my drives to set with my assistant talking about music and he would turn me onto some stuff that would make it into the movie. It was a mix of a long-running preparation and things that I pick up in the moment then making that all work at the right level so it feels of the world. Like with The Cure, we actually played that off a tape cassette when Allison walks into the room.

Since your debut feature in 2011, you’ve had a prolific career in television and as a film producer; you’re a founding member of Borderline Films with fellow directors Antonio Campos and Josh Mond. Do you see yourself more as a producer who only occasionally directs films yourself? No, I don’t really consider myself a producer. I’ve produced movies for filmmakers and friends and I help people where I can. I’m not someone who’s out getting properties and thinking about how to put together a film, I’m only thinking about my own work as a writer and a director. Between finishing Southcliffe in 2013 and The Nest in 2018, I had a five-year gap where I was developing lots of projects one after the other—two features and a television show—that were both so close to [being greenlit] but something fell through, which was really bad luck.

What film made you want to become a filmmaker? The Goonies and Back to the Future were those movies as a kid that first made me want to make movies and tell stories, but the moment where I realized what filmmaking is was seeing The Shining. I saw it for the first time when I was eleven or twelve and a friend showed it to me because his older brother had the VHS. It was my first time understanding atmosphere and direction and I just had a sense that I could do it too. It was a really crucial moment, and I kept that thought to myself for a very long time.

Cinematographer Mátyás Erdély shoots Carrie Coon in Soho.

What’s your scariest film that is not technically horror? AKA, your area of expertise. Oh man, scariest? Something I’ve watched recently is The Vanishing and it’s probably one of the most unsettling films I’ve ever seen. It was incredible to rewatch it because I’d last seen it when I was in college—I watched everything back then—and I’d also seen the American remake, so when I watched it this time, I was trying to remember things [that were different] from the remake. I was like “he’s gonna get out, right?—oh no, that’s in the American version!” I find it an astonishing movie. There’s a real human element to the pain of the killer.

Let’s nerd out: what’s your top film of 1986, the year that The Nest is set? [Laughs] I’ve no idea what came out in 1986. Can I look up a list and I’ll tell you? Let’s see, films of 1986… This is fun! Alright, “popular films of 1986” I’m seeing: Blue Velvet, Short Circuit, Stand by Me, Platoon, The Color of Money, what else have we got here? River’s Edge… Pretty in Pink… Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—Ferris Bueller’s gotta be up there. Big Trouble in Little China! That’s it! I’m sure there’s other things, but from my quick search, I’d say Big Trouble in Little China. That was a movie that was always on in my house because it was one of my dad’s all-time favorites.

Which is Jude Law’s best performance? I love The Talented Mr. Ripley so much. I constantly rewatch that movie—it’s perfect. I also loved him in Vox Lux recently.

Sean Durkin and Jude Law on the set of ‘The Nest’.

What is the best film about marriage and why does it resonate with you? Shoot the Moon was really influential for me. I’d say it’s a bit more about divorce and family than it is about marriage but [it depends on] if you take the ending to mean that they’re going to stay together—I kind of do. You could say a separation is part of a marriage. I love that movie for how it finds light in humor. Albert Finney is struggling with his masculinity where, even though he’s the one who left, he still thinks he owns it all, and Diane Keaton is quite liberated by this scenario. It’s like their journey to find language again. I find it very beautiful.

Which film was your entry-point into international cinema? I’m trying to think back to what I would’ve seen, there certainly wasn’t a lot growing up. In college I really discovered Michael Haneke and Michelangelo Antonioni. L’Avventura made a huge impact on me. I think [because of the way] the mystery kind of dissolves and it’s about the journey, not the solution.

What film do you wish you’d made? I don’t. Filmmaking is personal and it’s so much an expression of perspective when done with care and love—though obviously, there’s stuff that’s just churned out. I never see something and say “I wish I made that”. One of the things I find hard is when people critique films and say they would’ve done this differently. I’ve become very sensitive to that over time because every choice you make as a filmmaker is so specific and thought out. I try to consume movies without knowing anything about them or making any kind of judgment. I just let them be what they are and wash over me.

Which newcomer director should we all keep our eyes on? I don’t think I’m looking out for new stuff necessarily. Once I get to see something, everyone else already knows about it. One person I would say is Dave Franco, who I just worked with on The Rental. I was an executive producer and I was a creative bounce-board for Dave through the process. It’s his first film and it’s astonishingly directed. We were getting dailies from the first week and we were like, “This is his first movie? This is insane!” I think he will do some exciting things.

Finally, what’s your favorite film of 2020 so far? I was absolutely blown away by Eliza Hittman’s film Never Rarely Sometimes Always. I miss having retrospectives at local theaters, which I’m always keyed into no matter the city I’m living in. I’ve started watching a lot of Criterion Channel and I watched a movie recently that’s taken over my brain: Variety, by Bette Gordon, from 1983. It’s set in New York City around Times Square, and it’s this incredible journey that this woman goes on that captured my mind.

Related content

Sean Durkin’s Life in Film list

Sean Durkin’s Sight & Sound Top 10

Clarissa’s list of films that burn slowly

Everything Carrie Coon watched during quarantine (and the best of that huge list)

Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon’s 24-Hour Movie Marathon

Follow Jack on Letterboxd