#gabrielle montgomery (off screen)

[amc-minx]

Minx family mood board. 🥰

[hoedamn-eron]

baby, please - part 17

It's your first Christmas without your family, but Santiago makes it up to you.

Warnings: Mega heavy on Christmas talk. Mentions of pregnancy complications from the previous chapter. Mentions of shitty in-laws. Gabrielle isn't actually in it, but she's being a bit distant but you know. It's fine. Lot's of dialogue, again. Not proofread whatsoever. Santi and Frankie have an argument we're not privvy to. Word count: 4,724 F!Reader, no use of Y/N.

Apologies this is late, but here is Christmas with Santi! I did mention it in a post, but I'll mention it again here: please be aware that part 18 won't be posted until 11/01 (11th January) due to a busy Christmas period. I need to catch up with myself, and I start a new job in the New Year, so I won't be to write as much as I was able to before.

Edited because Gabs isn't married to Andy, she's married to Matthew 😂 it's Courtney who is married to Andy! Now I'm going to have to double check all of my chapters to see if everyone is married to the correct person 😂

Part 16 ● Series Masterlist ● Part 18

You’d been taking it easy since your stay at the hospital a few weeks ago.

You took less responsibilities at work (your friends wanted you to cut down on your hours, but you just couldn’t do that), and you begrudgingly accepted the help of others to help you pack for your move next month. Speaking of your friends, they’d been checking in on you multiple times a week, and every time, you tell them you’re fine. Really.

The twins were fine. You were fine. Everyone was fine.

“You have a case of placenta previa.”

You look at Dr Montgomery, confused, from your place on the ultrasound table. “What’s that?”

“Your placenta is low, and covering the cervix,” she replied, looking at the screen as she pressed a few keys on the keyboard, then moving the wand over your bump. “Usually, it’s detected at your 20-week ultrasound, but it must have been missed, especially since you’re having twins.”

“Is it...is everyone okay, is it dangerous?”

“It can be risky, but we’ll keep an eye on you,” Dr Montgomery said. “The bleeding was caused by this, and stress. You’ll need to come back for another ultrasound at 32 to 33 weeks. It may have moved on its own by then, but otherwise, we may have to look at a caesarean birth at 37 weeks.”

“What? No! I wanted to go as natural as possible,” you say, your eyes widening. You had a plan! “I can’t be out of commission for 6 weeks with twins!”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted, but I strongly advise you look into it,” she replies, giving you a sympathetic look before turning off the machine. “I also recommend you take it easy if you can. I’m not saying strict bed rest, but just...relax a bit more.”

So that’s what you’ve done...you’ve relaxed. You’ve downloaded a kick counting app, something you should have done a while ago, so you could count the kicks from the babies, just in case. So far, they’d been back to normal – and by ‘normal’, you mean they were using your bladder as a soccer ball, with a shot to the kidneys every now and then.

Santi had arrived in the hospital just as Dr Montgomery had given you the okay to go home. Beth had left just after the results of your ultrasound (at your insistence), so you were packing your bag as Santi ran into your room, breathless and eyes wide. You’d looked at him with equally as wide eyes, before you hurriedly caught him up, telling him everything was okay, that you just needed to take it easy.

You introduced him to Dr Montgomery, who explained the situation a little better. It calmed Santi down a little, but you still noticed him tapping his foot as he nodded along, his hands resting on his hips as he listened intently. He kept glancing at you, as if you would collapse or suddenly disappear.

He gave you a lift home (in his truck) and insisted he stay for dinner. He cooked some food for the both of you, and you both ate on your couch, Santi wanting to know every detail to what happened. He apologised again and again for not being there, but you told him it was Thanksgiving weekend, you don’t blame him for not being there. No-one could predict what would have happened.

Dr Montgomery had booked you in for another scan a few days before Christmas. Santi insisted on going with you, which you were grateful for, of course. Unfortunately, your placenta hadn’t moved much, and you were booked in for a c-section for the end of January.

You sulked as you walked out of the hospital, pouting.

Santi gave you a small nudge, walking beside you. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”

“I wanted to give birth naturally,” you mumble, as you both approach the truck.

Santi grabs your arm gently, stopping you as you stop at the bed of the truck. “I know it’s not what you wanted, and that does suck for you. I’m sorry. But Dr Montgomery said it was the safest option for you and them.”

You sighed. “I feel like it’s...it’s like I’m not...like I’ve already failed as a mother, by bringing them into the world that way.”

Santi looks at you, his eyes filled with empathy. He places a comforting hand on your shoulder. "Listen to me," he says, his voice soft but firm. "Having a c-section doesn't make you any less of a mother. What matters is that you and the babies are safe. That's the priority."

You lean against the truck, staring at the ground as a mix of emotions wash over you. "I just wanted everything to be perfect, you know? A beautiful, natural birth story to tell them when they're older."

Santi gently lifts your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze. "Life never goes according to plan, especially when it comes to something as unpredictable as having kids. We should know.” he grins at you, wiggling his eyebrows a little.

You give a small laugh at his quip.

He continues. “But that doesn't lessen the love you have for them or the strength it takes to do what's best for their well-being." He pauses, before giving you a reassuring smile. "You're not failing as a mom. If anything, you're making the tough decisions now because you love them so much."

You take a deep breath, absorbing his words, before nodding. “Okay.”

Santi studies you for a moment. “C’mere.” He pulls you into a comforting hug, and you melt into him, allowing the warmth of his embrace to provide a momentary escape from the overwhelming emotions of your appointment with Dr Montgomery. "We'll get through this together.”

You nod against him, just holding him a little longer than necessary before pulling away. “Thank you.”

He gives another laugh. “Don’t thank me for speaking the truth, querida.”

You wipe away at the few stray tears in your eyes before turning to him. “Come on, I gotta get home. Help me get in this junk heap.”

“Hey, don’t insult my truck,” Santi says in mock offence, before he smirks and opens the door for you, and helps you climb in.

He drives you in silence as you talk to him about work, how you’ve taken a step back and you hate it but you’re willing to do it for less stress. Harriet was a little apprehensive when you told her, that she needed you on board for this newest client, that the product was about to launch but you didn’t back down. You told her that you weren’t backing away, but just taking on less of the load. Emily and Kelsie were happy to take some of the tasks; Hell, Kelsie was practically frothing at the mouth for the opportunity to add on some more responsibility than she already had. She told you herself she wanted most of the glory since this was her first big client.

“Bit of a shitty thing for Harriet to do, guilt trip you like that.”

You shrug. “That’s just Harriet. I’ve grown used to it,” you say. “Been there long enough.”

“Since graduation, right?”

You nod. “Yup.”

“Ever thought about leaving?”

Your eyes widened as you turn to look at him. “Why would I do that? I’ve built myself up, I have a relationship and reputation with clients.”

Santi shrugged nonchalantly, keeping his eyes on the road. “I dunno. Seems like you’re underappreciated and overworked, from what you’ve told me. Is there no other marketing firm in Florida?”

“There is - “

“Shop around,” Santi said, as if he wasn’t asking you to consider leaving the only current stability you had in your life right now. “See if anyone is hiring, for a better position or just to be treated a little better.”

“I think it’ll be the same everywhere,” you say, laughing a little.

Santi shrugged. “Just putting it out there.”

You nod. “I mean...I’ll think about it. Maybe after Christmas. Or after I’m back from maternity leave.”

It goes quiet again for a few minutes before Santi asks, “What are you doing for Christmas?”

You shrug. “I have no plans. Beth offered to have me over again, but I feel like I can’t keep intruding on their time.”

“If they’ve asked you to join them, I don’t think you’ll be intruding.”

Your family had still not contacted you. You had messaged the group chat again, accepting that there would probably be no reply still (and there wasn’t). You had another episode, alone this time, sitting on your couch late at night, stereotypically sobbing into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream as you watched Home Alone. It had been your favourite as a child, and something you had watched together with your family, after you’d put the decorations up. This year, you had no tree, no decorations, and you watched it alone.

It had been a sad night.

“You could always...” Santi said a little awkwardly, before clearing his throat. “You could always spend it with me. If you wanted. You don’t have to.”

You look at him with wide eyes, but Santi keeps his gaze on the road, an air of nervousness surrounding him. “You...want to spend Christmas with me?”

“I would have asked you to Thanksgiving but I didn’t...my sisters...”

“I wasn’t expecting you to invite me,” you said, sensing his anxiousness. “Please don’t think over on that.”

“I should have invited you - “

“Santiago,” you say, firmly, causing him to give a quick glance at you before looking back at the road, turning to your apartment’s street. “I am okay. We are okay. You were visiting your family for the first time in years. I didn’t need to be there.”

He goes silent, his jaw tensing like he wants to say something else, but he just sighs through his nose and gives a tight nod.

You reach over to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I would love to spend Christmas with you.”

“Have you spoken to Gabs recently?”

You look at Courtney with a confused look on your face as you reach for your water. “I mean, I spoke to her last week about the kids’ Christmas presents. Why?”

You and Courtney had met up for some last-minute Christmas shopping, and you stopped for some dinner before heading home. You had to admit, Gabrielle had been a little off when you spoke to her last week and you had asked if everything was okay, but she had just told you it was Christmas stress. It wasn’t so farfetched, Gabrielle hosted every year for her and Matthew’s families, so of course there was no reason to not believe her.

“Hm,” said Courtney, her brow furrowing. “She’s been a little…weird.”

You shrug. “I mean…she seemed off when I spoke to her, and I asked her about it but she said it was Christmas stress.”

Courtney shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just…bugging me.”

“We could talk to her about it,” you say. “But you know Gabs, she’ll come to us eventually when she’s ready to let us know what’s going on.”

Courtney shook her head for a moment before giving you a look. “You’re right. You’re right! I’m just worried about her.”

“She’ll be fine,” you say. “You know what she gets like at Christmas, she’s hosting for everyone. And you know Matthew’s family.” You give Courtney a pointed look.

Courtney pulled a face. “Yeah. They’re assholes to her. But she keeps hosting!”

“Look, we tell her this every year and you know what she says – “

“’It’s only once a year’,” you both say in unison.

“Exactly,” you say. “So she’ll probably be back to normal after Christmas.”

“Fine. Fine,” said Courtney. “Let’s talk about something else. Like how you’re spending Christmas with Santiago!”

“I am,” you say, feeling your cheeks warming slightly.

“I think that’s nice,” Courtney says. “You’re like...starting your family. Getting the traditions in.”

You nod. “Yeah, I think so too. If this is something we do every year, then best start now, right?”

“You going to his place?” Courtney asked, before thanking the waitress for bringing your food over.

You nod, also thanking the waitress. “It’ll be easier since most of my stuff is packed up now. Thanks again for that, by the way.”

“No problem,” Courtney said, digging into her food. She gives you a grin. “It’s exciting, but also a little sad. It’s the end of an era, but the start of a new one.”

“In a month’s time, I’m going to be a mom,” you say, your eyes wide as if you don’t quite believe it yourself. “How weird is that?”

“Stop it,” said Courtney. “Who knew you would be the next one to have a kid?”

You snort, tucking into your own food. “I don’t think anyone thought I would have a kid, full stop.”

“No,” said Courtney, shaking her head. “I think you would have. Just in ten years.”

“Well, life didn’t work out how I’d planned,” you said, laughing. “But it’s good. Life is good.”

“And you’re happy?” Courtney asked.

Were you? Happy? You go quiet as you think. Obviously, you hadn’t planned to get pregnant, and with twins for that matter, in your tiny one-bedroom apartment, or not be speaking to your parents, or be questioning your job. But here you were, about to finish the year with a new house, amazing friends, new babies, and Santi.

Oh, Santi.

You never thought you would have met someone like Santi, even though you both weren’t together-together. You were lucky to have him; most men after one-night-stands would have left by now, but not Santi. He was sticking around, and in it for the long run. And honestly, you know he wouldn’t feel the same way about you than you felt about him, but he loved you as a friend and the mother of his kids, and you adored that he wanted to help you raise these babies together.

You slowly smile and look at Courtney. “Yeah…yeah, I’m happy.”

You pull up outside Santi’s apartment, taking a deep breath before climbing out of the car. You'd been simultaneously looking forward to Christmas with Santi, and dreading Christmas with Santi. He told you that it was his first year spending it in Florida since returning from Colombia and warned you that his Christmas dinner would probably be something he could quickly rustle up and wasn’t too much hassle - ‘very non-traditional’ was what he said. You didn’t mind; the year had been incredibly ‘non-traditional’ for you anyway.

You make your way up to his apartment, a large bag of presents in your hand. You knock, biting your lip nervously as you waited for Santi to open the door. You look up as the door opens, and you give a laugh at Santi. He was wearing an obnoxiously bright red jumper with a Santa knitted into it, and a Santa hat, and was wearing his usual jeans. He had a bottle of beer in his hand.

He holds his arms out wide as he grins at you. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” you say as you step inside, still laughing at his outfit.

Santi closes the door behind you before he brings you into a quick hug. “I don’t have much of an itinerary today, but Frankie and Sarah might stop by later with Sofía.”

You nod, pulling back from him. “That works out, actually, because I got something for Sofía,” you say, motioning to your bag.

Santi gives you a small, closed-lipped smile. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I didn’t,” you say. “I wanted to. They’re a big part of your life, therefore, they’ll be a big part of our kids’ lives.”

Santiago doesn’t say anything as you make your way into his living room, where he had a small Christmas tree in the corner, overly decorated. You hear Santi make his way into the kitchen as you took the presents out of bag and placed them underneath, smiling as the pile grew. You look up as Santi makes his way into the living room. “Some of these from your sisters?”

He nodded, handing you a can of Diet Coke. “Yeah. I saw them last week, dropped off gifts then. I just got off the phone with them, since my nieces had just opened their Barbie dolls, with their cars, and pets, and accessories...”

You giggled, opening the can. “There’s an awful lot of girls in your family.”

He nodded, grinning. “I have a few cousins who are guys, who had a few boys. I'm not totally overruled.”

You give a small laugh as you sip at your drink. “So, do you want to do presents now? Or later? We could eat first, if you wanted.”

“The empanadas are resting in the fridge, and I have mac and cheese in the slow cooker,” said Santi, taking a gulp at his almost forgotten beer. “Got all sorts of vegetables and potatoes roasting in my oven too.”

“Sounds like a feast,” you say. You could feel your mouth watering. “Maybe we could eat soon?” you give Santi a big smile.

He chuckles at you before nodding. “I’ll put the empanadas in.”

You nod as Santi disappeared back through the kitchen. You look at the presents, and the small tree, and the fact that his living room was bare of any other decorations. Your mind wandered to the fact that this was his first Christmas since settling down, that he was in an actual home and not in a shack or seedy motel somewhere in South America. You really appreciated that he offered you his place for the day, that he’d gone out of his way – and his comfort zone – to bring you into his space again.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

You look up at him, blinking in confusion before you realise you were crying. You give a small laugh of slight embarrassment. “I didn’t realise I was crying, I'm sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, cariño,” he said, taking a seat next to you on the floor, giving you a concerned look as he rested his hand in the middle of your back. “Is there anything I can do for you? I knew today would be difficult, I don’t want you to be here if you don’t want to be - “

“No, Santi, really, I'm fine,” you say, cutting him off. “I’m just hormonal. I cry at everything.”

He hesitated for a moment before asking, “I don’t want you to feel obligated to be here, just because I asked - “

“I want to be here, Santi,” you say, reaching over and squeezing his hand that was still wrapped around a beer. “Really, I’m fine. I just...I like that I'm here, you know? I like that you want me here.”

Santi paused for a moment, looking at you before he gives a grin. “Of course, I want you here.”

You give another weak laugh. “Okay then.”

You help him in the kitchen with the food, and of course as soon as you sit down to eat, Frankie and Sarah make their way through with Sofía, profusely apologising for interrupting for not texting beforehand. Santi told them it was fine, and after a few hugs and a quick catch up between you and the Morales’, you all sit to have something to eat.

You get to know the Morales’ a little more intimately than you did on Halloween; you were in a smaller setting with fewer people, and Sarah wasn’t so distracted by the other guests. She was fun, and loud, and someone you could see getting along with for a long time. Frankie was the opposite; quiet, and observant, but you could see how much he opened up to Santi. He wasn’t rude to you at all, including you in the conversation when he could, and you could see why Santi loved him so much.

And then there was Sofía, who giggled at everything you said, and kept trying to steal the mac and cheese on your plate, even though Sarah kept adding more to her plate. You didn’t mind, but Sarah insisted she stop doing it (“It’s becoming a whole thing, we’re trying to nip it in the bud now, while we can!”). When you all finished dinner, you offered to do the dishes, but you were rebuffed when you were lead into the living room, Santi quickly clearing up the plates, saying he’d ‘deal with them later’.

Sarah plonks you down in the armchair by the tree before she hands you an envelope. “This is more for when the babies are here than right now, but it’s valid for three years.”

You look at her in confusion before you open the envelope, mouth falling open as you take a look at the expensive gift voucher. “Sarah, I can’t accept this!”

“Oh sure you can,” she says, waving you off.

You thank her profusely, before you lean down and grab a few boxes from under the tree. “I got some things for Sofía – “

“You didn’t have to do that!” cried Sarah.

“Don’t be silly, here,” you say, handing the toddler the boxes, who took more interest in the wrapping paper than the actual present.

As you and Sarah sit, you look up for Santi and Frankie, who were strangely quiet. You’re taken aback to find them stood close together, quietly arguing with one another. Frankie was pointing at Santi’s chest and saying something too quiet for you to hear, but it was filled with anger, nonetheless. Santi merely argued back.

You look away, putting a mental note in it. You’ll ask Santi about it later.

As Sofía played with the wooden doctor’s set, and the baby doll that you’d gotten along with it, you chatted to Sarah before Frankie finally made his way over. “I think we oughta go.”

Sarah nodded. “Shoot, you’re right, we promised we’d see your mom like, an hour ago.”

As they gather their things and say their goodbyes (Santi and Frankie were still tense), you and Santi were left alone. You look around and sigh, before looking back at him. “What was that about?”

“What?” Santi asked, going around the living room and collecting wrapping paper, avoiding eye contact.

“You and Frankie, what were you arguing about?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Santi, shaking his head. “Something stupid with Benny, you know how it is.”

You don’t feel like he’s telling you the truth, but you know if you pry, Santi is more likely to close up. You slowly nod at him. “Okay. Sure, yeah.”

He finally looks at you and gives you a tight smile. “Everything is okay, hermosa.”

You hesitate before nodding then glancing at the presents under the tree. “I think we should do our gifts now.”

“Okay,” Santi said, before patting you on the back as he passed you to go back into the kitchen, tossing the papers away.

You settle on the floor by the tree, and lean over and grab a few gifts, placing them by Santi as he joined you moments later. “I didn’t go overboard - “

“I don’t believe that,” Santi said from his own place under the tree before he pulled out a small box, wrapped somewhat neatly, and placing it in front of you. “Now, this doesn’t look like a lot but - “

“Stop, Santi, it’s fine,” you say. “It’s about the sentiment.”

Santi nodded, before going quiet, glancing at you at the present. You grin and nod to him. “You go first.”

He gives a small laugh before nodding at the boxes in front of him. “Any particular order?”

“Nope,” you reply.

Like a child, Santi didn’t have to be told twice. He immediately tore into the gifts, smiling widely at the new shirts you’d bought him, and a nice watch. He immediately put it on, before admiring it.

“This is nice,” he said, still admiring it.

“I know you like swimming, so it’s waterproof too,” you say. “And it tracks your exercise. Since you refuse to get an Apple Watch, I went for the next best thing.”

“Thank you, hermosa,” he says, before opening his last gift. He pauses as he looks down at the strap for a guitar.

“I know you’ve been trying to get back into it, and I know your current strap is falling apart,” you say, smiling. “I thought you could do with an upgrade. And look!” you pull the strap from the wrapping before finding the end and pointing. “I have it engraved with your initials.”

“This is…this is great, cariño. Thank you,” he said, before he stands quickly and leaves the room. He comes back a few moments later, guitar in hand as he settles back on the floor with you, practically ripping off the old strap. He puts on the new one, and why he was fiddling with it, he pushed the small box towards you. “Like I said, it’s not a lot…”

“Santi, please,” you say as you open the gift. You pause at the sight of the Tiffany box, glancing up at Santi who was now looking at your nervously.

You open the Tiffany box, to find a silver chain-link bracelet, with a charm of a Christmas tree hanging off it. You gingerly take it out the box, looking at it more closely.

“I have more charms, but I can’t give them to you yet,” he said. “I got the tree because it’s…it’s our first Christmas together.”

Oh my God, you might burst into tears.

No, actually, you’re already crying.

“Santiago,” you say, in a high-pitched cry, looking at the bracelet, at the delicate green charm of the Christmas tree.

“Oh, no,” he said, scootching over to you and bringing you into his arms, where you sobbed into shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry. If you don’t like it – “

“Don’t like it!?” you cry, pushing away from him, looking between him and the bracelet. “I love it. Put it on me!” you shove it at him before presenting your wrist to him.

Santi chuckled as he shook his head in disbelief, carefully fastening the bracelet around your wrist before he gave a soft kiss to the warmth of your skin. Your heartbeat loudly in your ears as Santi gave your wrist a squeeze and he looked at you with a warm smile on his face. You look at the bracelet, the charm sitting pretty. You smiled widely at it, tears still falling down your cheeks.

“Please, stop crying,” laughed Santi, reaching up to wipe your years away.

“I can’t,” you say, laughing back as you look at him. “I’m pregnant, and hormonal, and you got me a really nice, sappy gift. I love it.”

“Good. I’m glad.” He goes quiet for a moment before he swallows nervously. “I…”

You look at him as he goes quiet. “Yeah?”

The two of you just staring at each other. Eyes locked onto his, you search for the words that seem to linger unspoken on his lips. There's a certain vulnerability in his silence, a hesitance that hangs in the air like the delicate balance before a confession.

"What is it?" you prompt again gently, your heart quickening in anticipation.

His eyes flicker nervously, and you can almost sense the internal struggle within him. It's as if he's wavering on the edge of an abyss, grappling with emotions that have finally found their way to the surface. Could he…could he be trying to say what you think he…

He takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling in tandem with the weight of his unspoken words. You can feel the gravity of the moment, the tension building between you two, as if the universe itself is holding its breath in anticipation of what he's about to say.

“The next charm you’ll get is in a few weeks, at the baby shower,” Santi finally said, after a long pause.

Oh. That wasn’t what you expected at all. You were –

Wait.

You pause, your brow furrowing as you look at him, tears finally stilling. “The what?”

Santi freezes, his face falling as he looks at you. “Oh, shit.”

Tagged - @khonsulockley, @bluenredndeath, @superficialfeelings, @othersideoftheparadise, @beezusvreeland, @itsmytimetoodream

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( source : twitter.com )

PALOMA VIDAL , FROM THE VILLAGE , IS ONE TO WATCH — REFINERY29 search result for: paloma vidal + scad

     senior year , vidal was accepted to the savannah college of art and design ( scad ) , following a LONG stretch of career uncertainty. it was her starring role in her high school’s production of little shop of horrors which pushed her to follow in her parents’ footsteps.

     vidal notes that , prior to scad , she’d remained relatively far away from the spotlight which shone on her parents , unsure that a career in the arts or a life of fame were really for her. “ compared to several of my cast mates , i feel like i grew up as a sheltered loner ! ” she jokes. but , she doesn’t strike me as aloof or untouchable at all. she is as much of an OPEN BOOK as one can be in an interview with a journalist. she never second-guesses or backtracks her answers. she never minimizes her success in the humble-brag way most of us have come to hate.

( source : refinery29.com )

MEET THE 2017 ROOKIE CLASS — SURFER search result for: paloma vidal + surfer

     a few years ago , a young paloma vidal told her local newspaper , “ i feel like i’ve got what it takes to be a world champion , and i just want to get to that level already. ” after taking that positive affirmation to the next level , vidal has officially cemented her name in the class of WORLD-TOUR surfers , and she’s technically one step closer to achieving that goal of hers. we got to see a lot of her this year , as she competed for the majority of the season , and made the finals at the roxy pro event in oahu , proving she’s more than comfortable competing on the big stage.

( source : surfer.com )

PALOMA VIDAL STARTED PHOTOGRAPHY AFTER AN INJURY — NEW YORK TIMES search result for: paloma vidal + photography

     but she also has an instagram on the side where she posts her photography , which has grown an audience of its own. for a while , vidal even considered a career in photojournalism. “ i picked up photography during a random summer in high school. it’s a funny story , actually , ” vidal says. “ i fell pretty badly while surfing , and was out of commission for a couple of weeks , but KEPT going back to the beach to watch my friends. and then i thought i should probably document everything i was seeing. the rest of the story’s pretty obvious. ” 

( source : nytimes.com )

PALOMA VIDAL ( @PALOMA ) • INSTAGRAM PHOTOS AND VIDEOS search result for: paloma vidal + instagram

     PALOMA VIDAL ( @paloma ) • instagram photos and videos

( source : instagram.com )

PALOMA VIDAL : BIO , HEIGHT , AGE , MEASUREMENTS ... — CELEBFACTS search result for: paloma vidal + eye color

     paloma vidal is an AMERICAN ACTRESS. she is best known for playing the character of valentina romero in netflix’s original series the village. born on september 15 , 1999 in los angeles , california , she became interested in acting after performing in her high school’s rendition of little shop of horrors. she was in a relationship with ty sheridan. their relationship lasted until october 2019.

paloma vidal personal details :

date of birth : september 15 , 1999 birth place : los angeles , california birth name : paloma vidal zodiac sign : virgo occupation : actress nationality : american race / ethnicity : white religion : unknown hair color : blonde eye color : hazel

( source : celebfacts.com )

[winchesterprincessbride]

The Contest-Part 36

To celebrate Supernatural’s 15th season, the producers have decided to hold a contest to cast an unknown in a recurring role as Sam’s rumored love interest.  They are doing open casting calls all over the country.  Your best friend Nikki wants to go and she drags you along. Much to your surprise, you land the role and your life changes forever when you fall in love with one of the show’s leads, Jared Padalecki

A/N:  I am actually telling two stories here, Jared and Readers, and Sam and Gemini’s.  It flips back and forth, so try and keep up! : *Note: My vision for the show is different from what has actually happened, and some characters and plotlines may differ.

Part 1                   My Masterlist

Characters: Jared Padalecki, Reader, Best friend Nikki(OC) Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins,  Rory Montgomery (OC), PA Emily (OC) Cliff, Other Supernatural cast and crew

Gemini’s POV

My head popped up from the table, startling Sam and Dean, who were quietly eating their breakfast so as not to wake me. “Pancakes?” I said groggily as I sat up quickly. “Why do I smell pancakes?”

“Hey sleepyhead,” Sam said with a smile. “You must be beat, Gem. You fell asleep right at the table!”

Dean pushed a foil-wrapped plate in my direction. “Saved you some.”

I shook my head to clear it. “No guys, listen! My BFF Kelly Kline paid me another visit in my dreams. She told me where Jack is!” I pushed away from the table and stood up. Sam opened his mouth to say something, but I waved a hand at him.

“And before you say anything, I HAVE to go. Jack will only come to me. Don’t ask me why, but Kelly said it had to be me. So I am going! Get Cas, get Mary, but I am going and you can’t stop me.” I was starting to get really worked up.

Sam held out a placating hand. “If Kelly says it has to be you, then it has to be you. I don’t like it but I won’t stop you. I just want you and the baby to be safe.”

I jumped out of my seat and grabbed a piece of scrap paper and I pet from the junk drawer. I quickly scrawled down an address and handed it to Sam, “This is where Kelly says Jack is.”

Readers POV

When  I entered Jared’s trailer, he was face-timing the kids. The turned when I entered.  “Perfect timing, babe. They were just asking for you.”

I looked over Jared’s shoulder at the screen. “Hey, Sheppy! How’s it goin’ bud?”

Shep proceeded to laugh into a long story about some cool bug he had found before Tom apparently had enough of waiting and pushed him out of the way. “Lemme talk!” he demanded.

“Hi, Tom-Tom! I promise I will talk to everyone. How’s school?”

Tom’s face filled the small screen. “I can add now!” he said proudly

I grinned at him. Damn Jared’s kids were adorable.”Good for you! Keep up the good work. Where’s Odette?”

“She’s nappin”.  But Mamma wants to talk to you. Bye Daddy, bye, Y/N.” Without another word, Tom zoomed off, and the screen was blank.  The Gen appeared, looking like she had everything under control, as usual.

I don’t know how the woman did it. Yeah, she had help, but she had two very high energy boys, a girl that was into everything and still managed to find time to run a blog. “Hey Y/N! How is your mom? We missed you at the wedding,” Gen said with a smile.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. She’s much better, thanks for asking.” I replied

Jared cleared his throat. “Uh, Gen, we have something to tell you, well two things actually. I asked Y/N to marry me, and she’s pregnant.”

I leaned over his shoulder, “just to clarify, he asked me to marry him before I told him I was pregnant.” I said with a smirk.

“Oh my god! That’s wonderful news! I am so happy for you two! I can’t wait to tell David! When’s the wedding going to be?” she asked curiously.

Jared and I looked at each other. “We haven’t really talked about that yet.”

Gemini’s POV

Sam looked up from the paper I had handed him.”Jack’s in Biloxi, Missippi?”

“That’s what Kelly said,” I told him as he grabbed his laptop and entered the address into a site to get a satellite view. He turned the computer towards us.

Dean peered down at the screen. “It looks like a farm in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m sure it will be crawling with demons,” Cas commented as he stared at the screen.

“Lucifer wouldn’t have it any other way. He knows we are going to take another crack at him, he’s just biding his time.” Sam said as he glanced at me with worry in his eyes.

“Gabriel was the only thing that kept us from getting our asses handed to us last time we tried to take on Lucifer! What’s gonna be different this time?” Dean demanded.  “If anyone has an idea I’d like to hear it.”

“Rowena,” I whispered.  “She hates Lucifer. He destroyed her body. He’s the reason she transferred her soul into me. Maybe we can strike a deal with her. Give her something she wants in exchange for her helping us.”

“I don’t trust her,” Dean snapped. “She always finds a way to screw us.”

“Do you have a better idea?” I said impatiently.

Dean looked over at Sam and they had one of those silent conversations that drove me nuts. I rolled my eyes in annoyance, would it kill you two to talk out loud lie normal people once in a while?”

Sam smiled sheepishly at me. “Sorry. Dean thinks we should call Crowley. He hates Lucifer with a passion. We can probably get him to help us. But I know how you feel about him.”

“Desperate times, Sam,” I said with a sigh. “He’s not my favorite person, but whatever we have to do to get to Jack and make it out alive, then I say we do it.”

“Fine then. You do your dream talking thing and see if Rowena will bite, and I’ll reach out to Crowley.” Dean decided.

“"What makes you think Crawley will listen to you?” I said with a smirk.

“Crowley and Dean were very close at one time. I think Dean will be able to get him to agree.,” Cas told me, and I looked at Dean with surprise.

“You and Crowley were close? Why on earth would you and the king of hell be BFFs?”

“Back when Dean was a demon, they were very close,” Cas said matter-of-factly.

“You were a damn demon? Seriously? Is there anything you two haven’t done?” I muttered with a shake of my head.

Dean glared at Cas. Thanks a lot, bigmouth!”

Cas looked completely confused as to why Dean was annoyed. “But you WERE a demon,” he repeated as if this explained everything.

I smiled at Cas. “Just ignore him. He’s just mad because he didn’t want me to know. If he can use his past with Crowley to get him to help us, then great!”

“So what kind of deal can you make with Rowena?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. But she hates Lucifer enough that maybe she’ll help us just to see him suffer.,” I said hopefully.

Reader’s POV

Now that I was pregnant, the long days of filming were starting to take a toll on me.  When I was not needed for a scene, I could usually be found napping in Jared’s trailer. When I was late to shoot a scene because I fell asleep, the immature assholes I work with made sure to tease me about it.

“It’s about time, Sleeping Beauty. We have work to do.” Jensen said with a smirk.

“It can’t be easy carrying Gigantor junior in there. It must be sucking the life from you like a parasite,” Misha interjected.

“Guys…” Jared said warningly.

“For your information, children, you get to have all the fun, but we women are the ones who do the heavy lifting. So until you are ready to carry a baby, shut the fuck up!” you practically snarled.

Jensen and Misha held their hands up in mock surrender.  “We were just messing with ya, Y/N,” Jensen said consolingly.

“Well knock it off, or I’ll rat you out to both your wives.”

Misha’s eyes widened, “you wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me!” you said with a grin.

Gemini’s POV

I struggled that night to fall asleep. I didn’t like sharing my head with Rowena.  Every time she hijacked my body and I lost chunks of time, I resented her for it.  But eventually, exhaustion won out and I drifted off to sleep.

Just like before I was back in the dark, cave-like space, and I could barely make out Rowena’s figure in the shadows. “Hello, Rowena,” I whispered, not sure who else was listening.

“So, here for my help, are you?” she said with a cold smile.

“How do you.....I began, but she cut me off.

“I am always in the background listening, dearie. So if you want to count on my help to fight Lucifer and fetch his wee son, it’s going to cost you.”

“Cost me what?” I demanded impatiently. “Name your terms!”

“Normally I have healing spells in place so I can’t be killed, but after the last time, I took precautions. That is why I transferred my soul into you. Lucifer destroyed my body so thoroughly there was no way I could come back from it this time.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” I snapped in annoyance.

“What’s left of me is sitting in an evidence box in a forensic lab in Chicago. An unsolved murder no one cares about.” I could tell Rowena was furious just by her tone of voice.

“What can I do?”

I need you to get one of my bones, there is a spell in the black grimoire that I can use to regenerate my body.  That is my price for helping you.”

@skybinx-blog  @percywinchester27 @a-sea-of-fandoms @dorky-and-i-know-it @waiting-4-the-doctor @ladylachesis @chelseypaigeake @tiffanycaruso @allinhishands @theoriginalvicki @elliewinchesterr @nothin-after-79 @oriona75 @kitchenwitchsuperwhovian @faegal04 @padackles2010 @yoursmilemakesmeloveyou  @mannagryn1 @munlis   @phoenixiaxia @pinknerdpanda @vh1015   @ally-miller16  @hellokittenface  @traceyaudette @theartofbeingmilla  @jaleeniexweenie   @magpiegirl80   @silver-and-green  @atc74 @sams-little-toy @pretty-fortune @luciisthebest @tmccarney @jayankles @bookshido @supersecretspnfanfiction @notnaturalanahi @multifandomlove2002 @ivebeenwinchesterd @kreborn17 @dekahg @mariahoedt @mizzezm  @jazzzybee @scrumptiousarcadebear @winchestergirl-love @moonstar86 @magickal-angel @duckieburns @imaginesofdreams @gecko9596 @joyfulinfluencermoon @everlastingcas @gemini75eeyore @hartman1967 @the-supernatural-yogii @essie1876 @squirrellover1967 @multifandom-slytherin@beachy2014@dixonsvixon2017 @cloudyaries @smoothdogsgirl@m00sesquirre1 @idratherhaveyou-cursed-ornot@captainradicalpassion@keelzy2 @disneymarina@mrswhozeewhatsis@deniewinkle @scrumptiouswinnie @nikkilafox @sammy-salamander @internationalmusicteacher @ellen-reincarnated1967 @i-like-it-heavy-so-i-can-panic @daughterleftbehind @iamnotsaneatall @crispycurly @tjforston @shamelesslydean @goldenolaf25 @my-squirrel-and-moose @eleven-eleven-make-your-wish@sadnessabuse @laurenisnot @maddieburcham1  @canadianjelly@muliermalefici @brewsthespirit-blog @ilsawasanacrobat @nanie5@weasleywinchester @samisimportant @fatalcrossbow  @soab1967 @bagiab @spnbaby67 @plaid-lover-bay25 @feelmyroarrrr @nessy-bearxb @mandylove1000 @kay18115 @carryonmyswansong  @spn-ficfanatic @akhuna01 @mirandaaustin93 @kissofvenom922 @super-fan-of-all-things @superlightalternateuniverse88   @tokyoghoulyz  @midnightjazzmine @moonlitskinwalker  @ronnie248-blog @bohowitch @just-another-busyfangirl @jotink78 @kittenofdoomage  @frankiea1998 @akshi8278 @stylinson531 @valynsia @dr-dean@theoutlinez  @imweirdandobsessed @growningupgeek      @laurenisnot  @canadianjelly@muliermalefici @brewsthespirit-blog @ilsawasanacrobat @nanie5 @weasleywinchester @samisimportant-blog @fatalcrossbow  @violetsamalamb @letmusicguideu @grantsgorgeousgirl  @feelmyroarrrr @milkymilky-cocopuff @mikimausiii @the-greatest-temptation @superpanicromancesummer @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @emoryhemsworth @squirrel-moose-winchester@jennifromtheblock1013  @mogaruke @sweetmisseddreams2002@negan–is–god @spnwoman @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @maximumkillshot @sweetpeamoose @mrs-meghan-winchester @woodworthti666  @herbologystudent252 @sandlee44 @blackcherrywhiskey @themes87 @some-random-stranger-007@topthis808 @justballoonfishthings @masha-meow01 @mannls @michelleraethings @awkwardnesshabitat @mountaingirlforever @thelittlestwinchestersister

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘Context is for Kings’ Review

By Mark Greig 

"We are creating a new way to fly."

After last week's extended prologue, this was our first glimpse of what an actual episode of Star Trek: Discovery will look like.

Welcome aboard the USS Discovery, a mysterious ship full of mysterious people doing mysterious things mysteriously. Thrown into this, under suitably mysterious circumstances, is Michael Burnham, six months into her life sentence for mutiny and sporting a new curly prison hairdo. Now something of a Ro Laren/Tom Paris-ish figure, Michael's not interested in getting involved in whatever mysterious shit the crew of Discovery are up to. She just wants to keep her head down, go back to prison and serve her time. That's what she says, but that isn't what she does. She wasn't even on Discovery a day before she decided to break into the secret labs and have a nose around, which was exactly what Captain Lucius Malfoy expected her to do.

It is clear from these first three episodes that Discovery is not going to strictly adhere to the pure Utopian view of the future that Gene Roddenberry envisioned and nothing seems to encapsulate that more than the character of Captain Gabriel Lorca (played by the always wonderful Jason Isaacs). In previous Star Trek shows the captain was always a reassuring presence, the emotional and moral centre of the show, and the one person we could always rely on to do the right thing (or in Sisko's case the wrong thing for the right reason). But in Lorca we have a captain who is untrustworthy, manipulative, militaristic, probably a dark wizard, maybe has his own personal torture chamber, and could potentially end up being the real villain of this entire series. In short, he is everything that Roddenberry would not want a Starfleet captain to be. And that is by no means a bad thing. 

One of the many reasons Star Trek shriveled and died as a television franchise more than a decade ago is because the people making it became unwilling to embrace change or innovation, allowing the franchise to slip into stagnation. To add insult to injury, much of the former talent went away and made the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, which made Star Trek: Enterprise look practically archaic. It also didn't help that the idiots in charge (Rick Berman and Brannon Braga) thought the only way to keep people interested was to treat their female characters as nothing more than scantily clad figures of lust for horny fanboys. Under Berman and Braga's odious leadership, Star Trek went from being groundbreaking and thought provoking to lazy and embarrassing. It is fair to say that no one misses them. 

Which brings us to Discovery, our latest hope for the second coming of Star Trek. We thought it would be the new movies but they really do not stand up well to repeated viewing and after the muted critical and box office reaction to Beyond I doubt we'll be seeing another Star Trek movie anytime soon. Which I really think is for the best because, for me at least, Star Trek has already worked better on the small screen. Television allows for more scope, more variety, and more chances for the secondary characters to shine. Can anyone think of anything memorable Geordi or Crusher did in any of the Next Gen movies? 

When Discovery was first announced I hoped that it would be a show that combined the character drama and strong storytelling of DS9 with the clever sci-fi ideas of TOS and TNG. I wanted a show that would be faithful to Roddenberry's vision in spirit, but at the same time unafraid to question or even outright challenge it. I wanted a show that understood that Star Trek needs to change and evolve if it is to survive and thrive in the current TV landscape. 'Context is for Kings' is an episode that does exactly that. I'm not saying it is up there with the very best of those shows, but this is exactly what I was looking for from a modern Star Trek series.

One thing I really liked about this episode is how it explored the inherent contradiction of Starfleet itself. This is a military organisation with a military hierarchy that's stated mission is one of peace and exploration. Starfleet officers are meant to be explorers first and soldiers only when necessary, but we see how quickly that gets switched around when the existence of the Federation is threatened. In peace time the Discovery (and its late sister ship) would've been a ship of pure research, but in war time it becomes a mobile Manhattan Project, pushing scientific boundaries to give the Federation the edge in the war with the Klingons.

One thing I didn't like was how quickly they rushed through the mission on the Glenn. They could've done a whole episode about Michael, Stamets, Tilly, Commander Cylon and the red shirt Mulder and Scullying their way around the dark, blood splattered corridors of Discovery's sister ship. Instead, the whole thing was over and done with in barely 10 minutes. Because of this, the entire mission felt shoehorned in just so Michael could have a selfless hero moment and slip in some Fringe style body horror. Mind you, I did find that shushing Klingon a lot funnier than I should've. 

Where Were They Then

Seeing as Discovery is set ten years before 'Where No Man has Gone Before' I decided to skim through Memory Alpha and put together this handy little guide of what all the major Star Trek characters alive at the time were up to.

— James T. Kirk was 23 and an ensign in his last year of a five-year officer training program at Starfleet Academy. After graduating Lt. Kirk would be assigned to the phaser station aboard the USS Farragut.

— Spock was 26 and serving as science officer aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike.

— Dr. Leonard McCoy was 29 and had recently ended his relationship with Nancy Carter ('The Man Trap').

— Montgomery Scott was 34 and serving as an engineer in Starfleet.

— Pavel Chekov was 11 and no doubt learning about how everything ever made was Russian.

— It is unknown how old Hikaru Sulu and Nyota Uhura are during this period or what they were doing, but it is likely they were both in high school.

— The Dax symbiont's current host was either Emony or Audrid.

— I haven't got the foggiest idea how old Guinan was or what she was doing, but I imagine it involved the buying of lots and lots of really big hats.

— And Q was no doubt off annoying some species somewhere.

Notes and Quotes

— The design of the Discovery has been tweaked since the first teaser trailer was released. The ship's look was based on Ralph McQuarrie's redesign for the Enterprise for the unmade Star Trek: Planet of the Titans.

— For those of you interested, the Discovery is a Crossfield class ship. — Amanda's fondness for Lewis Carroll comes from the animated series episode 'Once Upon a Planet.' — As well as Captain Lorca, this episode introduced us to two other members of the main cast: Paul Stamets, an astromycologist and your typical asshole genius who is not at all happy about being press ganged into the Federation's war effort, and cadet Sylvia Tilly, the offspring of a rainbow and sunshine. Because she's so adorable, and her friendship with Michael shows a lot of promise, I'm willing to overlook the fact she is a walking collection of nerd cliches. — Loved Saru showing Michael around while munching blueberries. — One of the things that has always bugged me about every Star Trekseries is how the crew always beamed into hazardous situations in their regular uniforms. I am happy to see that this show is dispensing with that. — Tilly with her hair down made me think of T'Pau and I don't mean the Vulcan. — I'm assuming the reason the ship isn't swarming with them is because Lorca had his Tribble neutered. — The uniforms have pockets. Pockets!!! Now that truly is revolutionary. — I don't trust Commander Cylon. — Anyone else think the black badge dudes are connected to the ones from Wynonna Earp? I know they are probably Section 31, but what if black badge and Section 31 are one and the same? Then when can we have a crossover and see if even the universal translator can make sense of what Doc Holliday is saying. Lorca: "No matter how deep in space you are, always feels like you can see home. Don't you think? Maybe it's just me. Forgive the lighting. The lack thereof. A recent battle injury. There's nothing they can do if I want to keep my own eyes, and I do. I have to suffer light change slowly. I like to think it makes me mysterious. No?" Tilly: "Wow, is that a book?" — Somewhere the ghost of Rupert Giles is weeping. Three out of four Beatles' cover bands.

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

War of Attrition: Chapter 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Reader Summary: Best friends with Steve Rogers, renowned Howling Commando, and married to one James Buchanan Barnes, your life wasn’t perfect, but it was as close as it could possibly be in the middle of World War II. Then you fell from a train in the Alps, and everything changed. You spent nearly 70 years as a tool of Hydra alongside your beloved, though your past with him was more often than not forgotten. Steve wakes up the 21st Century. He tries his best to adjust. Warnings: Swearing (always), talk of death Word Count: ~4,312 A/N: English is back to normal quotes. Russian and other languages (when they eventually show up again) will be in quotes and italics.

Masterlist // Book One // Book Two

Next Chapter

Steve’s POV

2012 - New York, New York. United States of America

Steve supposed he should be happy. He was alive, after all. He’d survived an alien invasion... and seventy years on ice.

By all accounts, he was lucky.

Fortunate, even.

But the more he walked around New York, the less he recognized it. The neighborhood he’d grown up in was almost unrecognizable. The building he technically owned thanks to (Y/N) and Bucky’s gift all those years ago- the building he’d lived in for years- had been torn down and replaced decades ago in an attempt to fix the structural unsoundness of the growing cityscape. It was a hideous design Steve had learned to recognize as being from the 70′s.

As a show of good will, Tony (he couldn’t call him “Stark,” not in his head. Howard would always be “Stark.”) had hired some lawyers and gotten the current owners of the building to settle and give Steve a check that had his eyes widening so much Tony actually seemed concerned they’d pop out of his head. Steve had wordlessly handed the check back to him and told him to donate it to charity or something.

Tony had deposited half into Steve’s bank account and given the other half to various charities, all approved of by Steve first.

Steve didn’t check his bank account. Between that disgustingly huge check and the back pay from technically never leaving the army, Steve had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Considering he grew up the poor son of a single mother (and an immigrant, at that), Steve had no idea what to do with all of the money he suddenly found in his possession. He probably couldn’t spend it all if he tried. Inflation still messed with his head, though. He still picked pennies up out of habit, constantly forgetting they were essentially worthless now.

The technology was the worst, though. They’d tried to give him a “cell phone” but he’d given up on trying to use it beyond pressing the green button when someone called him and plugging it into the outlet on the wall to charge at night. He hadn’t had a telephone back in the 40′s. His building didn’t even have one, old as it was. He’d had to go to the lobby of the building next to his to make a call, not that he usually needed to. The only people he really talked to back then were his ma and Bucky and he was inside so often due to his health that his mother was never far and Bucky had no trouble finding him.

Computers were a different beast altogether but he’d grudgingly forced himself to learn how to use one. This, at least, had a keyboard that reminded him of a typewriter. With a little help from Natasha (he refused to ask Tony for help. The man’s techno-babble just confused Steve more) he learned how to “surf the internet”. He spent more time on Wikipedia than any other sight, but found himself on Youtube fairly often, too. The internet, at least, was helpful in learning just about anything Steve had questions about.

A video played on the screen; old propaganda videos of Steve running around the battlefield, searching bombed-out towns, and talking to important people that he remembered really disliking. It was stupid. All of it was stupid.

It was war. It wasn’t anything like this narrator made it sound. He was scared a lot. Sometimes for other people, sometimes for himself. He saw an innumerable measure of people get hurt.

Hurt his fair share himself.

He clicked the laptop off and stared at his own reflection off the screen in the dim morning light. The sudden silence did little to calm his thoughts, though the sounds of the city waking up outside was familiar, at least.

He finally looked at the file on the table, trepidation gathering low in his gut. He hadn’t looked at it yet, too afraid of what he might find. He flicked it open before he could stop himself again, heart immediately clenching painfully at the first page on the small pile.

James Morita. Deceased.

It only got worse.

James Montgomery Falsworth. Deceased.

Gabriel Jones. Deceased.

Jacques Dernier. Deceased.

Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader Dugan. Deceased.

Steve swallowed past the lump in his throat. He’d expected as much. He’d gotten a few letters from Dum Dum and Gabe’s family, but none from the people themselves. He was sure they’d have contacted him by now if they knew he was alive.

And everyone knew he was alive.

He was all over the news with the other “Avengers” (as people had started calling them). Not a single soul around the world didn’t know he was back.

He knew they were dead, but seeing it written plain as day on paper in bright red ink was something else entirely.

He wanted to stop and shove the papers back into the folder, but the next sheet below Dum Dum’s caught his eye.

Margaret Carter.

Steve hardly dared to breathe as he took in the next words.

Retired.

He scanned the page quickly.

Alive. Living in the UK. Safe.

A telephone number was listed, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to dial it. He stared at the phone despondently. It blinked back at him mockingly. She had a whole life without him. What right did he have to come bumbling into it now? He never got that dance but he was sure he still had two left feet anyway, new body be damned.

He wondered if she might have (Y/N) and Bucky’s things. He couldn’t imagine her letting anyone take them. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d kept (Y/N)’s designs hidden from anyone and everyone.

He set her paper down and picked up the next one on the pile, heart dropping again.

Howard Stark. Deceased.

Steve added Stark’s to the pile and was surprised to see another beneath it. It was on glossy new paper, obviously unlike the others even at a glance.

Anthony Stark. Alive. Active- Adviser.

Steve set the page back down away from the rest and stared at it, his recent adventure flashing through his mind.

The world may not see the man underneath the stars and stripes anymore (if they ever did to begin with), but it seemed like they still needed the hero. He bickered with Tony and the others, but they also fought tooth and nail and put their lives on the line to save the world. They were odd enough in their own ways that Steve didn’t feel completely out of place.

Peggy was still here, too. He’d talk to her soon, just... not today.

He had to find a way to live in this new world.

The crush of people on the busy streets was familiar, even if all the technology and lack of politeness wasn’t.

Then again, maybe that wasn’t so different, either.

But the stalls sold things Steve couldn’t recognize. There were lots of wires and stacks of phones that Steve was fairly sure were at least partially illegal in some way. People had their noses buried in phones instead of newspapers and magazines. Cars inside buildings looked even more futuristic than the flying car Howard had shown off at the Stark Expo back in ‘41. He’d been inside a few by now and had to admit they were nice, but he’d still stick to his old motorcycle, thank you very much. Apparently a museum had Patriot on display, so he settled for a nice “old” Harley.

Still didn’t ride as nice as Patriot did, though.

Eventually he found his way to a coffee shop. This had been a cafe, too, back in the day, but it had obviously changed hands a few times over since he saw it last. He pulled his notebook and pen out of his pocket and began sketching, trying to capture the new, unfamiliar skyline of the city he grew up in.

“Waiting on the big guy?”

Steve glanced up from his sketch at the waitress, squinting a little bit against the sun. “Ma’am?” he asked, confused. Did she mean the president? Was she an agent? Was he supposed to meet someone here?

“Iron Man. Lotta people eat here just to see ‘im fly by,” she said, gesturing to the skyline behind her.

Steve stared at the building behind her, his gaze turning flat. “Right.” It took him a second to realize she was smiling at him and he leaned forward and grabbed his wallet out of his pocket. “Maybe another time.” He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten and he didn’t know if he could handle talking to someone right now, especially a pretty da- lovely woman.

“Table’s yours as long as you like. Nobody’s waiting on it,” she said with a conspiratory wink as she refilled his coffee. “Plus we’ve got free wireless,” she said as she walked away.

Steve frowned. “Radio?”

She smiled at him over her shoulder as though he’d told a funny joke and returned to tending the other customers.

“Ask for her number, you moron,” said one of the older men sitting at the table next to his. It was startling to think Steve was probably older than him.

Oh. Wireless. The internet. Right.

Steve got up a few minutes later. He didn’t ask for her number.

The train ride back to his place was quiet. The more he looked at people the more he realized he still didn’t dress quite right for the time. He looked out the window, but that didn’t help much, either. All he saw was the strange skyline and cars and signs that he didn’t recognize.

Loki may have been a calculating, evil megalomaniac, but he had one thing right: Steve was a man out of time.

2014 - Washington DC, United States of America

Steve walked slowly through the Smithsonian exhibit. It was weird seeing his face stretched ten feet high on the wall. Hell, it was weird that there was an exhibit for him at all. The bonds tour back in ‘41-’43 had been one thing, but this was something else entirely. His entire life as Captain America was on display for the world to see.

Steve Rogers wasn’t who all these people came to see. Not really. For the last seventy years he was a character on the screen or in a comic book, not a flesh and blood person. Steve didn’t regret joining the army or participating in Erskine’s experiment, but ever since he got his new body, all people saw was the hero Captain America, not the man Steve Rogers.

Although Steve thought he was pretty dang heroic before the serum, even if Bucky did have to fish him out of fights on occasion.

Bucky.

Steve bit back a sigh and focused back on the present, though that was difficult when memorabilia of the past surrounded him almost to the point of being suffocating.

“A symbol to the nation. A hero to the world. The story of Captain America is one of honor, bravery, and sacrifice.”

The voice came out of speakers in the ceiling, dramatic and inspiring, even as Steve rolled his eyes at the words.

He could imagine (Y/N) teasing him. “Brave? As if. You’re just too dumb not to run away from a fight, huh, Buck?”

Their faces were plastered on the wall next to his and the other Howling Commandos. “You got that right, Doll. Did I tell you about the one time he picked a fight with the Ghulie brothers two doors down? He was eight and they were eleven! Got the snot kicked out of him. Had to patch him up before his ma came home and chewed us both out.”

He frowned and pulled the baseball cap lower over his eyes. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea.

“Denied enlistment due to poor health, Steven Rogers was chosen for a program unique in the annals of American warfare. One that would transform him into the world’s first super soldier.”

There were long display screens showing the physical difference between him before and after the serum, including some pretty embarrassing photos of him at camp Lehigh. Just next to those were pictures of the science team that worked on project Rebirth, Howard, Abraham, and (Y/N) beaming proudly in the front row. It was taken the morning of the experiment. It only felt like a few years ago, but nearly everyone in that photo was dead now. 

He’d watched Abraham and (Y/N) die himself.

No, he’d let them die.

The crowd pushed him along. Mothers with yelling children didn’t have time for his brooding. Life marched on.

He walked past Patriot, Moxie, and Valor all side by side in glass cases. Apparently Moxie’s engine had been removed and replaced with a lookalike; it was years ahead of other electric engines so Stark and Peggy had removed it and kept it hidden away for safekeeping. Patriot was as large and imposing as ever, dwarfing Moxie by comparison. Valor looked as graceful and dangerous as he remembered, all classic curves and streamlined upgrades.

The huge mural with him and the Commandos drew his attention, though, and he found himself walking towards it even though he hadn’t told his feet to move.

Their gear was placed carefully on manikins and Steve wondered briefly if they shouldn’t be behind glass or something. His eyes drifted to (Y/N) and Bucky’s gear of their own accord. It wasn’t her original suit, obviously. Chances were that was Bucky’s spare coat, but the suit on the manikin representing her was guaranteed to be a fake. She trashed all her earlier prototypes and she’d fallen in the real one. Still, it was pretty convincing even to Steve’s trained eye. Howard probably helped make it before he died; he knew the design the best out of everyone besides (Y/N).

Dum Dum’s ridiculous bowler hat and Falsworth’s bright red beret nearly made Steve smile, his lips twitching up in a weird aborted motion before falling back down into a grimace.

He turned away from the haunting faceless manikins and perused the small side room full of (Y/N)’s inventions, smiling when he remembered a specific incident surrounding a gizmo or gadget.

More than once he thought about the way Coulson would fawn over the gadgets and the stories behind them if he were here. While he’d been mighty proud of his vintage card collection (”I just obtained a mint of Lady Liberty! They only printed a few hundred of her, you know!”), Steve knew the man would do just about anything to get his hands on (Y/N)’s inventions. She’d created nearly all of the Commando’s gear, after all. It was easy to sometimes take her genius for granted back then. Even though it was war, Steve never actually thought she’d die. She always seemed so indomitable, like Peggy.

Like Bucky.

Steve was moping again. He knew it. He’d been staring at the same wristwatch walky-talky for at least ten minutes, lost in his own head.

“-They earned their stripes, taking down Hydra: The Nazi rogue science division.”

The narrator’s voice floated through the door as more people came in the smaller room and Steve made a hasty retreat, not wanting to chance being spotted because he was in such tight quarters.

He felt a little more at ease in the large room...

Until his eyes fell on the memorials.

He walked towards it with a sense of determination he wasn’t sure he really felt.

“Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) met Steven Rogers when working on the program that would turn Rogers into the super soldier we know him as today and stayed friends with him ever since.

After being rescued by Steven Rogers, (Y/L/N) and Barnes fell in love and married one another while in Europe fighting Hydra, though their union was short-lived.

The Barneses were the only Howling Commandos to give their lives in service of their country.”

It seemed wrong to have their entire lives summarized in two paragraphs on a piece of etched glass. Their faces looked noble and so, so human and familiar that Steve couldn’t do anything but stare for a few long minutes.

“The Fallen Comrades” it read in huge script at the top. The left side was (Y/N)’s short biography, the right reserved for Bucky’s. The center was an etched carving of the two of them as they were on their wedding day, dressed as nicely as they could be, considering they were in the middle of war-torn Europe.

“James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes and (Y/N) (Y/M/N) “Lady Liberty” Barnes”

“When Bucky Barnes first met Steve Rogers on the playgrounds of Brooklyn, little did he know that he was forging a bond that would take him to the battlefields of Europe and beyond.”

Steve stared at that little snippet for much too long, mind flashing back to 1920′s Brooklyn, skinned elbows, bullies twice Steve’s size, and a knobby-kneed Bucky that hadn’t yet managed to grow into his big feet.

His gaze flicked to her side of the memorial, flashes of Camp Lehigh dancing behind his eyes.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N) met Steve Rogers while he was being evaluated for the super soldier program. She supported him from day one, not knowing that he’d one day save her life and lead her to her future husband, one James Buchanan Barnes.”

His eyes trailed back to Bucky’s side, his heart numb with loss at this point. He couldn’t stop reading if he tried.

“Born in 1917, James Barnes grew up the oldest child of four. An excellent athlete who also excelled in the classroom, Barnes enlisted in the Army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, Barnes and the rest of the 107th shipped out to the Italian front. Captured by Hydra troops later that fall, Barnes endured long periods of isolation, deprivation, and torture. But his will was strong. It was also during this time that he met his future wife (Y/N) (Y/L/N), and often protected her from the horrors their Hydra captors inflicted upon them. In an ironic twist of fate, his prison camp was liberated by none other than his childhood friend Steve Rogers, now Captain America. Reunited, Barnes and Rogers led Captain America’s newly formed unit, the Howling Commandos. Barnes’ marksmanship was invaluable as Rogers and his team destroyed Hydra bases and disrupted Nazi troop movements throughout the European Theater. -Bucky Barnes- 1917-1944″

He turned back to her side, his heart heavy and his mind sluggish.

“Born in 1916, (Y/N) (Y/L/N) was orphaned at a young age. What would have broken lesser people, though, only fueled (Y/N)’s determination to succeed. It was through sheer force of will that she became one of the brightest minds of her time. She’s now recognized widely to have been a key factor to the Super Soldier Program and equal to Howard Stark in technological advancement. She worked closely with Doctor Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark to bring Erskine’s work to life in the form of one Steven Rogers, Captain America. The universe has a strange sense of humor, though. She was kidnapped along with the men of the 107th. In nothing short of a miracle, she met her future husband, Bucky Barnes, while imprisoned. With both of his friends in enemy clutches, it was no surprise that Steve Rogers liberated the base, saving them both. She joined Barnes and Rogers and the other Howling Commandos on the front, often providing technical support, weaponry, and combat advice for the team. She was the only female member of the Howling Commandos and was never officially a member of the American Army, though she received full honors regardless. -(Y/N) Barnes- 1916-1944“

It was more than most people got, he supposed.

You had empty graves, though. Steve wondered if Peggy had (Y/N)’s flag, or if it had gone home to the Barnes household. Steve liked the thought of that. Of (Y/N) having a family that loved her even though they never met her. Knowing Bucky’s Ma Winifred, it wouldn’t surprise him at all if the Barnes Matriarch had demanded her daughter-in-law’s flag and kept it next to her son’s at all times.

Steve had visited the graves once, and only once. There weren’t bodies there, but the sight of your names engraved on bleak marble had made him sick so he hadn’t gone back again.

He still visited Dum Dum, Gabe, and Jim though when he got a chance. People still left flowers on their graves even though some of the guys had been dead for years now.

He told himself it was all worth it. Hydra had been stopped. The rest of the Commandos (and the rest of the world, for that matter) got to live their lives without the oppressive tyranny of Hydra and the Nazis.

He tore his gaze from the memorials and walked towards the small theater. He sat in the back, not wanting to give anyone a reason to look at him longer than they should.

When Peggy showed up on the screen, he had to bite back a small pained noise. She looked so young like this, even though it was almost 10 years after he’d flown the plane into the ice.

“That was a difficult winter. A blizzard had trapped half our battalion behind the German lines. Steve- Captain Rogers- he fought his way through a Hydra blockade that had pinned our allies down for months. He saved over a thousand men, including the man who would, uh- who would become my husband, as it turned out. Even after he died he was still changing my life.”

Steve stared at the screen long after Peggy had stopped talking. He sat through the old propaganda short movies without really seeing them. It was only when he heard (Y/N)’s voice that he refocused on the present, eyes fixated on the shaky, fuzzy video projected in front of him.

“Is it rolling?” she asked, staring at the person behind the camera.

“I dunno, you built the darn thing,” said a slightly annoyed voice. It wasn’t until he’d heard Bucky speak that he realized he’d almost forgotten what he really sounded like.

(Y/N) smiled cheekily and Steve nearly smiled with her. It was that mischievous smile that meant she was about to crack a joke, often at Bucky’s expense.

Bucky headed that idea off at the pass, though. “Don’t you dare, Doll. You’re on camera and wastin’ time,” said Bucky, still out of frame.

“It’s my machine and my film, I’ll do what I please,” she said somewhat petulantly, holding her hand out to Bucky. There was a small noise that could almost be mistaken for static or wind, but Steve recognized it as a huff of laughter. He came into view a second later and sat down on the couch beside her, grinning broadly despite their almost-bickering. “Say hi,” she ordered good-naturedly.

“Hi Ma, Pa,” Bucky said, ducking his head a bit. He was such a Mama’s boy. “This is my wife, (Y/N).” There was a pause where Bucky obviously didn’t quite know what to say yet and looked to her for support.

She smiled and threaded her fingers in his and Steve was reminded how stupidly in-love they were. “I know this isn’t exactly a normal way of sayin’ hello, but I know you only have pictures of me and I don’t know how long it’ll be ‘til we get back. I wanted to give you something you could watch. I also thought you might like seein’ your son alive and kickin’,” she said, nudging Bucky’s shoulder playfully with hers.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but the effect was slightly ruined by the puppy-love look in his gaze. “And I keep tellin’ her she’s a worrywart. Things are goin’ great out here, promise. Between my girl and Steve, we’ll be home before next Christmas.”

“Steve, Buck, and the rest of the guys just finished clearing out a Hydra base nearby. I know you probably hear it all the time back in the States, but they really are amazin’. They liberated seventy-six prisoners. Wrecked half my gear doin’ it, though,” she said giving Bucky a look that would have been angry if it weren’t for the affection lining her every feature.

Bucky just smiled and kissed the side of her head loudly. “Ah, you don’t mind, Doll. It means you have something to do!” he said cheekily.

She tried and failed to look anything but pleased and turned her attention back to the camera. “I hear you make a delicious Christmas ham, Mrs. Barnes-”

“She told you to call her Mom,” Bucky reminded her gently, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of her hand.

She looked a little embarrassed and glanced away from the screen before sitting up a little straighter, that look of determination Steve knew so well glinting in her eyes. “I hear you make a delicious Christmas ham, Mom. I can’t wait to try it.”

Bucky grinned down at her, threw an arm over her shoulder, and reeled her into his side. “You gotta make enough for Steve now too, though. He eats his weight in food every day. It’s ridiculous.”

“What are you two doing?” He heard his own voice off screen.

She scrambled off the couch and practically vaulted to the recording machine. “GottagoloveyouMomandDadBuckyandIwillseeyousooncan’twaittobehomebye!”

And just like that the video ended. The screen turned black and the next video played, back to the clips of war propaganda, Captain America cartoons, and the occasional recording of Peggy, Howard Stark or Colonel Phillips.

Steve got up wordlessly from his seat in the back, his poor pamphlet crushed to a pulp in his hand.

Next Chapter

If you’d like to be tagged in this series, like this post! Sorry, but responses to this post asking to be tagged will be ignored, so send me an ask or like one of the taglist posts!

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[hooveralabama]

Best attractions in Hoover, AL

Hoover is an attractive city situated in the north-central part of the State of Alabama. The name of the city is based on a local insurance company owner, William H. Hoover. The city has a population of 100,000 people.  There are some popular attractions in Hoover that attract people from different parts of the world to visit this place.

Enjoy a day shopping at Riverchase Galleria

Riverchase Galleria is the main source of income for the government of the city and it was opened in 1986. It is the 46th largest shopping center in the US. The shopping center has about 218 stores and restaurants.  You can spend a full day with your family and friends by visiting from one store to another and enjoying a delicious meal at the restaurant. If you have small kids you can visit the first-ever Lego store when you visit this place.

Enjoy a game at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

The Hoover Metropolitan Stadium for formerly called Regions Park. It is a baseball stadium and it hosts the SEC baseball tournament every year. In the tournament, the 12 best teams take part and more than 100,000 spectators enjoy the game.  There is a wonderful environment at the stadium and you can visit here to enjoy a game.  If no games are hosted in the stadium, it hosts music events showing the talent of the local people.

Take your dog to Loch Haven Dog Park

If you want to give a nice treat to your dog, you should take it to the Lock Haven Dog Park. It is a beautiful place and spreads over 17 acres of land. The park is fenced all around and you can leave your dog off the leash to allow it freely roam there.  The park has a canine obstacle course for dogs and a walking track that covers half a mile. You can visit here with your entire family to enjoy a picnic in the covered pavilion.

Gabriel’s Sports Café

If there is too much heat outside, you can visit the most popular cold café in the city. The café offers screens for showing the live ball games and pool tables. This is a popular place among the local people and there is a huge rush on weekends. You can also enjoy live music and alcoholic shots while watching your favorite game. It is a perfect place to have fun with friends.  

Contact us

Inspire Pest Control

1678 Montgomery Hwy suite 104-330, Birmingham, AL 35216

[ravenmountbookworms]

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Well, it’s been a while since I posted an updated one of these. I still have 49 left to read off this list, but by the end of this year I’ll be much closer to done with it.

(I copied and pasted the list post into a fresh post screen, & then crossed out the titles I am done with.) Reblogging is faster but I like crossing the books off. :)

[amc-minx]

Bianca and Marissa partying it up with the kids. 🎂🎉

[nemolian]

Val Kilmer's 14 Greatest Genre Movie Roles

Kilmer finds he’s no fan of Mars in Red Planet.

Image: Warner Bros.

Val Kilmer has made all kinds of movies throughout his long career, and many of his most high-profile performances (think Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and his groovy debut in Top Secret!) can be found in drama and action films. But when the Juilliard-trained actor—who’s had some health problems of late—goes genre, he makes some intriguing choices. Here are our 14 favorite Kilmer sci-fi and fantasy projects.

Kilmer as Bluntman.

Image: Saban Films

14) Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

The erstwhile Batman plays silent stoner superhero Bluntman in Bluntman V Chronic, the reboot-within-a-reboot that drives the plot of the 2019 Kevin Smith meta-comedy. In a movie stuffed with cameos, Kilmer’s is one of the funniest, just because it’s one of the most unexpected.

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Kilmer’s version of KITT enjoys a day at the beach.

Image: NBC

13) Knight Rider

We’re mostly focusing on Kilmer’s movie roles here, but how could we leave this truly random entry off the list? The iconic 1980s TV series about the talking car has been brought back a few times, including an NBC reboot that ran for one season starting in 2008. Kilmer supplied the voice of KITT, probably the only notable thing about this short-lived series.

12) Planes

Disney’s spin-off of Pixar’s popular Cars franchise is mostly about a crop duster voiced by unfunny comedian Dane Cook, but Kilmer and his Top Gun co-star Anthony Edwards do pop up to voice a pair of U.S. Navy fighter jets. No doubt that’s a little in-joke for adult viewers, since Planes’ target audience likely would not get the reference.

“I like you, Clarence. Always have, always will.”

Image: Warner Bros.

11) True Romance

True Romance, directed by Top Gun’s Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, is not a genre film; you’ll find it categorized under “crime” or “drama” or “extreme 1990s kitsch overload.” But it does have one fantasy element besides Patricia Arquette’s improbably hot n’ nerdy call girl with a heart of gold, and it’s Kilmer’s barely glimpsed yet still totally memorable appearance as the “Mentor” to Clarence (Christian Slater)—a guy who requires guidance and confidence-boosting from time to time and conveniently receives it in the form of a guardian angel who looks and sounds an awful lot like Elvis.

10) Twixt

Though he more or less retreated from Hollywood in the late 1990s, legendary writer-director Francis Ford Coppola made a rare big-screen return in 2011 with this ghostly tale starring Kilmer as once-successful horror author Hall Baltimore. His latest book tour takes him to a small town with a serial killer problem; a good portion of the movie takes place in a monochrome dream world populated by maybe-vampires (Elle Fanning, Alden Ehrenreich), Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin), and other gothic types. Eventually, Baltimore’s dreams become entangled with his waking life, much in the way that the events of the movie become entangled with the comeback novel Baltimore’s in the process of crafting. Twixt is, sadly, nowhere near as good as the sorta similar In the Mouth of Madness, but Kilmer’s performance as a writer wrestling with reality is not among its weaker points.

9) The Saint

Kilmer dons a series of questionable wigs and an array of accents to play iconic character Simon Templar, the benevolent but slippery master thief who can claim any prize for the right price. Really, seeing Kilmer adopt all those different corny identities (the sultry Spaniard! The leather pants-clad South African! The German with the pouffy mullet! The dowdy Russian housekeeper! The tweedy, spectacled man with the Doc Holliday twang!) is the main attraction here. Even with the character’s pedigree driving the story, without all the disguises and Kilmer’s charisma, The Saint would be just a middling mid-‘90s thriller with the Sneaker Pimps on the soundtrack, involving a formula for cold fusion that Simon seduces out of a gullible scientist (Elisabeth Shue) on behalf of some politically ambitious Russian mobsters.

Special Agent Kilmer of the FBI’s time-travel unit.

Image: Touchstone Pictures

8) Déjà Vu

Kilmer has a small role in this 2006 thriller that once again reunited him with director Tony Scott. Déjà Vu is mostly all about Denzel Washington’s character, ATF agent Doug Carlin, who’s among the first on the scene after a terrorist bombing in post-Katrina New Orleans. Kilmer plays the affable FBI agent who invites him to be part of a cutting-edge new task force that’s using some very timey-wimey high tech to solve the case. Though Kilmer—who played a very different sort of New Orleans law enforcement type opposite Nicolas Cage in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a non-genre movie that’s still chock-full of excellent weirdness—doesn’t get to do a lot, his presence adds dramatic heft to the supporting cast. Also, his character is the kind of cool boss who looks the other way when Carlin decides the only way to save the day is to risk his own life by testing the human limits of time travel.

7) Red Planet

I can’t be the only person who consistently confuses Red Planet with Mission to Mars, which both came out in 2000, but for the record: Mission to Mars is the one directed by Brian De Palma where Gary Sinise gets to hang out with aliens; and Red Planet is the one where Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss inexplicably bring a robot with an easily-triggered “kill mode” on the first manned journey to Mars. Red Planet is not a very good movie, but Kilmer gets to play a wild-man engineering genius (for some fashion flair on the long trip, he dons what very may well be his True Romance Elvis sunglasses), a character that exactly plays to his strengths—he’s almost like an older version of Chris Knight from Real Genius.

6) The Prince of Egypt

Kilmer plays Moses and God in DreamWorks’ 1998 animated musical retelling of the Book of Exodus, bringing appropriate levels of wonder, gravitas, and grief to his performances. The Prince of Egypt manages to infuse actual drama into the familiar story—with its burning bush, “let my people go,” plagues, parting of the Red Sea, Ten Commandments, etc.—by emphasizing Moses’ clash with his adoptive brother Rameses II (Ralph Fiennes), and even though it’s, you know, Bible stuff, The Prince of Egypt never gets too preachy. However, the movie also shows that even the great Kilmer has his limits; like several of the movie stars in the cast (and despite his totally serviceable crooning in Top Secret!), he doesn’t do his own singing.

5) Batman Forever

Kilmer plays the first post-Michael Keaton Batman opposite villains Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), as well as Nicole Kidman as Bruce Wayne’s love interest and Chris O’Donnell as Batman’s new sidekick, Robin. Batman Forever, released in 1995 and directed by the great Joel Schumacher, is a sort of a midline Batman flick with forgettable details (remember Drew Barrymore was in Batman Forever? No? Neither did we, until a recent re-watch) that has been pushed to the back of all Batman-centric discussions. But you know... Kilmer’s fondness for bringing little eccentricities into his performances made him kind of perfect to play a reclusive billionaire crime-fighter with a bat fetish. (He also had the best Batman lips.) Too bad he only put on the cowl once, and then Batman & Robin happened.

4) The Island of Doctor Moreau

John Frankenheimer’s famously troubled 1996 H.G. Wells adaptation has a lot going on—a wild cast that includes Marlon Brando as Wells’ mad scientist, and Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman, and Temuera Morrison, among others, as his human-animal hybrid creations—but somehow Kilmer still makes an impression as Montgomery, Moreau’s right-hand man. He’s soft-spoken and only vaguely menacing at first, but like everyone in the movie, he grows way more unhinged as the plot progresses. After Moreau dies, Montgomery attempts to ascend to his former overlord’s white-wardrobed place of dominance, but even the former “brilliant neurosurgeon” can’t survive the island’s rapid spiral into furry, toothy, claws-out lawless mayhem.

3) The Fourth Dimension

This three-part anthology film, which you can watch in its entirety above, opens with Lotus Community Workshop, a segment directed by Harmony Korine featuring Kilmer as “Val Kilmer”—an alternate-reality version of the famous actor who’s turned to new-age motivational speaking. You can’t not love this performance, which sees Kilmer devoid of any vanity whatsoever (just behold his wardrobe choices: beret, polo shirt with an oversized bolo tie, old-man shorts, and a fanny pack) prowl a roller rink that’s been turned into a meeting room, bellowing into a headset mic about the “awesome secrets” he’s going to share with those assembled. His wackadoo monologue is great fun, but for my money the real prize is seeing Kilmer pedal along on a BMX bike, bursting with the sort of joy one can only discover, presumably, within the utopian fourth dimension, a place “Val Kilmer” himself describes as “a kind of world like cotton candy, almost.”

This 1985 comedy, Kilmer’s second big-screen outing, made it very clear that Top Secret! was no fluke. He plays Chris Knight, a college senior whose science smarts have taken a back seat to chasing girls and other campus shenanigans—at least until he meets his awkward new roommate, Mitch (Gabriel Jarret). Mitch desperately needs a cool mentor to help him break out of his shell, while Chris needs an ally to help him take down the jerky professor who’s been exploiting students to create what the kids don’t realize is dangerous, futuristic military tech. Chris is the ultimate blend of party-guy slacker and nerdy supergenius, but Kilmer brings actual dimension to a character who easily could’ve just been there for comic relief.

1) Willow

Obviously, Kilmer’s turn as the charming rogue Madmartigan, who lends a hand (and his sword) to Warwick Davis’ unlikely hero Willow, had to top this list. Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy comedy has become a classic, and even if Madmartigan isn’t part of the long-discussed future Disney+ TV series, he’ll always be one of our favorite characters in a movie filled with brownies, trolls, fairies, sorcerers, and evil queens. Plus, there’s the added bonus of getting to see Kilmer and future spouse Joanne Whalley fall for each other in real life as their characters are falling in love onscreen.

For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom. 

via:Gizmodo, June 24, 2020 at 12:27PM

[unfair-sports]

The OSG Fantasy Report Week 13

The OSG Fantasy Report Week 13

Thursday Slate

Here we go with what is always one of the most exciting slates of the year.  Most fans are off of work, and some will have time to plug in some lineups.  Some versus friends, family, and versus the masses.  On a 3-game slate, you have to try to make some lineups a little different to avoid the chalk, and get ahead of the field.  However, do not ignore the best plays.  Sometimes, you just play the best plays. On short slates, raw points matter.  You are not going to love your lineup from top to bottom and will be forced to roster players that on a full Sunday slate would not even be in your player pool.  If they hit, you may have a new favorite NFL player.  (I’m now the biggest Derrick Henry and Calvin Ridley fan in America!).  Regardless, the Week 13 Thursday OSG Report!!!!!!!!

Chicago Bears -4 @ Detroit Lions (39)

Buffalo Bills @ Dallas Cowboys -7 (45)

New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons (49)

 Quarterback

Drew Brees- On paper this is an excellent matchup for Brees on the road in the dome in Atlanta.  He’s an easy play because of the ability to stack with Michael Thomas, Jared Cook, or Alvin Kamara.  They have one of the narrowest target trees in the NFL.  The only issue here with Brees is price.  He has by far the best matchup, the highest total vs a reeling defense who for two weeks showed signs of life.  If Atlanta can keep the game somewhat close and force Brees to pass for 4 quarters vs allowing the Saints to kill the clock for the 4th quarter, then Brees can meet or beat value.

Mitch Trubisky – Purely a price play here if you have seen him play lately.  He’s gets a friendly environment at the Lions dome, along with a soft matchup who handed Dwayne Haskins his first win.  I’m willing to succeed that Mitch is a hair higher on the rankings than Haskins.  He offers some rushing ability here and can make rostering some studs a little easier depending on lineup construction.

Matt Ryan- Vs this Saints defense, Ryan is a tough sell.  Early season he was a lock for 300 yards and multi TDs every game.  With his dome and weapons, it SHOULD still be there and it’s not.  And with Julio Jones very questionable Wednesday evening, he’s a tougher sell depending on how many lineups you are building. 

Josh Allen- At the time of writing this, Allen is my favorite QB.  The thing here is I am considering NOT stacking him in the traditional sense.  Allen to Brown etc.  (we will get to that at WRs).  The likes of Sam Darnold and Jeff Driskel have played very comfortable vs Dallas, and in the dome, could be easy fantasy points picking for Allen.  The same knock on Dallas applies to Buffalo, no wins vs quality playoff bound opponents.  So, I even think the 7-point line in Dallas is way too generous and could lead to Buffalo feeling a little disrespected and coming to play.  Regardless, Allen provides a solid rushing floor and leads his team in rushing TDs on the season.  An easy plug and play

Dak Prescott- As of now, Dak is my least favorite QB and draws the toughest matchups of any QBs on the Thursday slate.  10 of 11 of QBs facing Buffalo have finished 13th or worse in QB fantasy points each week.  The running game here should be the target vs Buffalo.

Running Back

Tarik Cohen/David Montgomery- The Bears get the best matchup vs RBs this week and this is purely a play to be different.  The masses loaded up on Montgomery vs Detroit a few weeks ago and it DID NOT WORK OUT!  So, the common sense move would be to avoid him, but on a 3-game slate he has to be considered.  I prefer Tarik Cohen due to his pass game involvement as of late.  I do wish he secured a few more rushing attempts, but on a 3 game slate beggars cannot be choosy.  He’s a sneaky stack mate with Trubisky depending on how many lineups you do get to.

Alvin Kamara/Latavius Murray- Pass catching backs vs Atlanta are a “thing” and in comes Kamara.  The very definition of a pass catching back and can be stacked alongside Drew Brees for that reason.  While the 20 touches are always there, it’s a mix of pass and run that gets him there.  Last week, Murray somewhat started off the game in the backfield, and even punched in the beloved red zone TD.  Vs Atlanta either back is in play.  For his price, I would prefer Kamara to have access to the goal line and red zone carries.  From the eyeball test, it seems that the Saints are managing his rushing load, which for his price has been making him an extremely tough sell.  If you fade Kamara for these reasons, then Murray is the direct beneficiary of Kamara’s missed snaps.

Devin Singletary- He topped 100 yards last week, but no TDs.  The positive regression should come soon.  He’s in a great dome environment and has the speed and athleticism to take a screen pass from Allen the distance.  Frank Gore is always scary due to his goal line work, but not enough to roster, though we can do stranger things on a short game slate.  Gore and the likes of David Montgomery could easy go for minimum yards and a few goal line carries for 2 TDs.

Ezekiel Elliott- Once again, Zeek is one of my favorite RBs of the slate.  While the “explosiveness” may not be like his rookie year, the work however is.  He dominates his backfield touches and gets plays drawn up for him in the passing game.  With so much pressure on Dallas, the head coach, and facing a very tough defense with a shutdown corner, the commonsense play is to “feed him on Thanksgiving” (clever right?)  Regardless, we targeted Phillip Lindsay vs Buffalo because the Bills never put 7-8 in the box which allows them to clamp down on the passing game.  So that means Zeek vs a weak front, with very little LB presence around the line against a defense allowing 4.62 yards per carry, sign me up Zeek!!

Devonta Freeman- Mentioned here because of the slate.  He’s returning from injury and was the clear lead back for an Atlanta team that doesn’t like to use their lead backs in heavy loads.  His pass game involvement was there, and Julio may miss.  It’s the worst matchup on the slate for RBs but all must be considered. 

Wide Receiver

Atlanta Falcons- With the Saints being so stout up front on the run, all production shifts to WRs against them.  We need the news about Juilo, but on a short week in a lost season, why rush him back with a shoulder injury here?  I could be wrong but I fully expect Jones to sit which leaves Russell Gage, and Calvin Ridley as their main WRs.  I love them both here despite not loving the QB.  Gage was heavily involved last week, and though in trash time Ridley once again hit value with a late TD.  He is going to be one of my favorite WRs on the day.  In 3 career games vs the Saints he has gone for 3/28/0, 8/93/1TD, and 7/146/3TDs a few weeks ago.  We cannot expect 3 TDs, but with Hooper already out, and Julio very questionable without practicing all week, Ridley is a candidate to finish with the best WR box score Thursday.  The Falcons/Saints will more than likely be where most if not all my WRs come from (A Rob, Beasley maybe) while attacking the rushing elsewhere outside of some Kamara stacks.  So, pay attention to news regarding Jones despite being the latest game of the day.

Michael Thomas- Do we even have to tout Michael Thomas.  He’s steady floor is running back-ish at his point.  He’s gone over 100 yards in all but 4 games and scored in one of those games.  He has absolutely dominated the Falcons during his career, and this once again sets up as a can’t miss.  The smaller your field or number of opponents, makes it very hard not to roster Thomas here paired with one of the most accurate passers in league history.

Allen Robinson and company- The Bears are always a tough sell, but we saw last week as well as several times during the season that when Tribusky shows any amount of competence, Allen Robinson has very good fantasy and real-life games.  They face the woeful Lions defense who is a mecca for shootouts, and just laid 6/86/0TDs vs them on November.  Taylor Gabriel is out with another concussion which places Anthony Miller in line for extra targets coming off of 9 and 11 target games the last two weeks, as well as bottom priced Javon Wims.  Again, it’s the Bears, so you have to only really like 1 guy and hope for the yards and the TD.

John Brown/Cole Beasley- Dallas plays a stingy zone defense which is designed to prevent the big plays which by design should suppress John Brown’s recent production and big play ability.  Of course, on such a short slate, anybody is in play, but I may look to the slot receiver who had some choice words for the Dallas offense in Cole Beasley.  It’s a great revenge spot on Thanksgiving for Beasley.  Aside from revenge, it’s a great spot here.  Dallas has yet to give up over 75 yards to a WR, and the slots have led in yards the last two games vs Dallas.

Amari Cooper/Michael Gallup- Assuming Cooper will see Tre’Davious White who hasn’t given up a TD since Week 14 of last season!!!  Gallup on the other hand should see Levi Wallace who runs a 4.63 and has allowed catches on 69 percent of his targets for 495 yards, and 4 TDs. 

Tight End

Dawson Knox- Purely a price, and matchup-based play in hopes of a TD here.  They get the matchup on Sunday vs a stingy zone defense designed to suppress WR production.  With Allen’s scrambling ability, and Dallas forcing production to screens and the middle of the field, I could see 3 catches, 34 yards, 1 TD.  For his price, that is completely acceptable on a slate where any TE not named Jared Cook is highly questionable.

Chicago Bears- They are literally down their 3rd and 4th string TEs which means they really signed them as opposed to be on the roster as a 3rd or 4th.  Avoid this situation at all costs.

Jared Cook- Easily the best TE of the day, but everybody will play him as well.Outside of Dawson Knox punt lineups, Cook will bless each lineup.He has the highest upside and comes in with 70 or more yards and or a TD in five straight games.He’s been on a tear lately and will be a targeted receiver from one of the leagues best with the highest game total.

Defense

Any defense on a short slate is in play, and you may love a lineup and be forced to have a defense vs an offensive player.  For instance, I love Zeek, but also the ability of Buffalo to catch a INT or two vs Dallas or garner some sacks. 

I do like the Bears vs the 3rd string QB in Detroit easily.

 I do like the Saints vs the struggling Falcons.

The Bills more for their price fit, and you could punt with Atlanta in hopes of a semi repeat vs the Saints.

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Supernatural Thriller OFF SEASON Lands John Hamm

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/mad-men-star-goes-mad-off-season/

Supernatural Thriller OFF SEASON Lands John Hamm

From advertising, to surviving. Up to this point, the scariest thing Jon Hamm has gone up against is Will Forte’s alarmingly friendly Jeff Montgomery in a Halloween-themed Saturday Night Live sketch. Now, according to Deadline, the actor is preparing for an altogether different sort of horror in upcoming supernatural thriller, Off Season. Based on the 2009 short of the same name, the film will follow Hamm’s character on a journey to locate his missing father. Obviously, the trek is going to involve greater dangers than freezing weather.

Hamm is wrapping up a strong year that includes a recurring role in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix as well as the spot of the archangel Gabriel in the small-screen adaptation of Good Omens scheduled for next year. This will be his first time as the headliner of a horror outing.

The team and the talent

Off Season is the first feature effort by Jonathan van Tulleken, the writer/director who delivered the original short. No stranger to genre fans, Nira Park (Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block) will be producing. Park’s most recent producer credit is 2017’s Baby Driver, her fifth film collaboration with director Edgar Wright. It’s also one of Hamm’s more recent starring roles. As for the director, van Tulleken couldn’t help but marvel at his luck in a recent statement:

I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to do this with such a highly esteemed team around me. Nira Park and Miles Dale are two of the most gifted and respected producers working in film, and on top of that, to have Jon Hamm in the lead role is the kind of good fortune few first time filmmakers are afforded. I cannot wait to see him bring his immense talent to the role of Tenn.

Off Season does not have a release date at this time. Only recently announced, the film is currently in pre-production. Principal photography is set to start on location in Canada sometime early in 2018. If the feature-length story is anything like its inspiration, it’ll be well worth the wait.

[ravenmountbookworms]

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and strikethrough the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I still need to read 31 of these.

(I copied and pasted the list post into a fresh post screen, & then crossed out the titles I am done with.) Reblogging is faster but I like crossing the books off. :)

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Supernatural Thriller OFF SEASON Lands Jon Hamm

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/mad-men-star-goes-mad-off-season/

Supernatural Thriller OFF SEASON Lands Jon Hamm

From advertising, to surviving. Up to this point, the scariest thing Jon Hamm has gone up against is Will Forte’s alarmingly friendly Jeff Montgomery in a Halloween-themed Saturday Night Live sketch. Now, according to Deadline, the actor is preparing for an altogether different sort of horror in upcoming supernatural thriller, Off Season. Based on the 2009 short of the same name, the film will follow Hamm’s character on a journey to locate his missing father. Obviously, the trek is going to involve greater dangers than freezing weather.

Hamm is wrapping up a strong year that includes a recurring role in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix as well as the spot of the archangel Gabriel in the small-screen adaptation of Good Omens scheduled for next year. This will be his first time as the headliner of a horror outing.

The team and the talent

Off Season is the first feature effort by Jonathan van Tulleken, the writer/director who delivered the original short. No stranger to genre fans, Nira Park (Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block) will be producing. Park’s most recent producer credit is 2017’s Baby Driver, her fifth film collaboration with director Edgar Wright. It’s also one of Hamm’s more recent starring roles. As for the director, van Tulleken couldn’t help but marvel at his luck in a recent statement:

I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to do this with such a highly esteemed team around me. Nira Park and Miles Dale are two of the most gifted and respected producers working in film, and on top of that, to have Jon Hamm in the lead role is the kind of good fortune few first time filmmakers are afforded. I cannot wait to see him bring his immense talent to the role of Tenn.

Off Season does not have a release date at this time. Only recently announced, the film is currently in pre-production. Principal photography is set to start on location in Canada sometime early in 2018. If the feature-length story is anything like its inspiration, it’ll be well worth the wait.